Beef by-product values surge higher

Derrell S. Peel, Oklahoma State University Extension Livestock Marketing Specialist

By-product values for cattle have increased dramatically in the past few months.  Hide and offal values, which have generally declined in recent years, bottomed during the early stages of the pandemic in 2020 to the lowest levels since 2009.  In the past 13 months, steer hide and offal values have risen from $6.93/cwt. on a live fed steer basis in July 2020 to an August, 2021 value of $14.99, an increase of 116 percent.  The current by-product value is the highest since January of 2015.  Figure 1 shows the monthly average steer hide and offal values for the past decade.

Source:  Compiled by the Livestock Marketing Information Center (LMIC) from USDA-AMS reports

The sharp jump in by-product values is due to increases in hide values along with several other products included in the by-product totals.  The largest component of by-product values is the hides.  The August steer hide values is up 115 percent year over year. In recent years, hides have dropped from roughly half of total by-product values to about 30 percent of the total.  Despite the doubling of hide values in the past year, hides still only represent 31.7 percent of current by-product value.  This is because numerous other by-product values have likewise increased sharply in the past year.

Edible and inedible tallow values are also up sharply in recent months.  Inedible tallow values are up 177 percent year over year while edible tallow values have increased 85 percent.  Edible and inedible tallow combined represent 25.4 percent of August total by-product values. Tongue prices are up 111 percent year over year in August and account for 19.5 percent of total by-product values.  Livers (1.2 percent of the total value); heart (1.4 percent); cheeks (3.7 percent); tripe (4.1 percent) and meat scraps (4.2 percent) combine to account for an additional 14.6 percent of total August by-product value.  Cheek, meat scrap and tripe values are all up 30 to 90 percent since last year.  Finally, a number of minor items adds another 9.3 percent to total by-product values.

The majority of hides and offals are exported.  Over the past decade, exports of hides, variety meat, and tallow have added an average of $2.42 billion to total beef industry exports.  In 2020, the value of hide, variety meat and tallow exports was $1.7 billion.

Management Practices for Cows at Weaning (Part 1)

Mark Z. Johnson, Oklahoma State University Extension Beef Cattle Breeding Specialist

In spring calving herds weaning season is upon us.  At this time it’s not only important to focus time and management on ways to eliminate stress, maintain health and maximize the value of weaned calves, but also a critical time to manage the cow herd.  Cows are basically the “production factory” in cow-calf production.  They take raw material (grass and supplemental feed) and turn it into a weaned calf to be sold as a return on the cost of production.  There is a cost of maintaining a cow each day we own her.  Cows should sustain themselves primarily on the resource of forage, get bred and wean off a healthy calf each calendar year.  A defined breeding season (optimally 45 – 90 days) is an important part of managing a herd for profitability and makes the “best management practices” discussed this week possible.  For example, if bulls are turned out on April 1st and pulled June 15^th, the calving season that follows should start about January 8^th and end by March 22^nd.  When we wean those calves at 6 – 8 months of age, it is a good time to run cows through the chute and take a look at the following:

• Pregnancy Status.  Are cows open or bred, and how heavy bred are the cows?  This not only helps to make potential culling decisions on the opens, but also indicates if cows are staying on schedule.  Cows that calve later year after year indicate we may need to take corrective action in our breeding, feeding or herd health program.
• Mature Weights.  At this time of year mature cow size is informative in planning for winter hay/supplemental feed needs.  All herds have variation in mature cow size.  That being so, if you  have 80 dry cows to take through the winter, it helps with planning to know if the average mature cow size is 1200 lbs. or 1450 lbs.
• Body Condition Scores (BCS).  One of the major constraints in improving reproductive efficiency is the duration of the post-calving anestrous period.  If cows are to maintain a calving interval of one year, they must conceive within 80 – 85 days after calving.  Body condition score at the time of calving determines subsequent rebreeding performance to a great extent.  A BCS of 5.5 or better at calving is recommended for cows.  It is normal to expect cows to be milked down and at their thinnest BCS at weaning time.  If body condition needs to be regained prior to calving, the most efficient time to put flesh back on cows is while they are dry.
• Herd Health (vaccinations and deworming).  In modern animal agriculture, the focus is on optimizing herd health, efficient production and maximizing net return to the business unit. Working with a veterinarian will allow you to develop a health program meeting your specific needs.
• Evaluate cows on an individual basis for soundness of: udder, eyes, mouths, feet, legs, joints and disposition.
• Individual Identification, calving records and records of birth dates are helpful.  This is a good time to replace ear tags as needed.  Cow age is an important factor to take into account along with other information collected to make the best management decisions.

Management decisions based on sound information increase the profit potential of cow-calf operations.  Information collected on your cow herd can be used in several ways to improve breeding programs, forage budgeting, marketing and other judgement calls you need to make to improve your operations bottomline.  Over the next few weeks we will continue to take a closer look at what some basic information collected on cows at weaning can tell us.

References

Beef Cattle Manual. Eight Edition. E-913. Oklahoma Cooperative Extension. Chapters 20 and 36.

Supplementing Beef Cows Grazing Dormant Native Range

Mark Z. Johnson, Oklahoma State University Extension Beef Cattle Breeding Specialist

A ranching operation is a sustainable forage production and utilization enterprise. With good management, forage is an extremely valuable renewable resource and represents the most cost effective feed resource to maintain health and productivity in cow-calf operations.  A combination of excellent forage production and grazing management practices, cattle genetics that match the forage resources, and a well-timed calving season results in minimum reliance on purchased and harvested feeds. Nevertheless, specific nutrients must be supplemented at times.

Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) contracts will expire on about 3 million acres in the United States on September 30, 2021.  One option for land that has been sitting idle under CRP contract for many years is to graze the stockpiled Native grasses established when the land went into a CRP contract.  If this is the option of choice, or if you have stockpiled native range grown this year to use for fall and winter grazing after it has went dormant, supplementation of cows will be necessary.

Identifying a Supplemental Need

The first step in implementing and maintaining an efficient supplementation program for grazing cows is to identify specific supplementation needs.  The producer must identify specific nutrients not provided in adequate quantity from the grazed forage to meet the animal’s nutrient requirements. For grazing cattle, this is a difficult task because forage quality is constantly changing and so are the animal’s nutrient requirements. Knowledge of these two factors is the basis for effective and efficient supplementation.  Years of research and current technology provides guidance in developing an effective supplement development and evaluation plan. The following steps provide a logical approach in identifying a supplemental need and evaluating supplement alternatives.

1. Determine the nutrient requirements of cows for the appropriate stage of production.
2. Estimate the amount of nutrients cows will receive from forage.
3. Subtract item No. 1 from item No. 2 to determine if a nutrient deficiency or excess exists.
4. Evaluate supplement alternatives.

It should be noted that all possible combinations of the above factors are difficult to determine because there are infinite possibilities. Computer software, such as OSU Cowculator, can better pinpoint an animal’s nutrient requirement at a specific time and in a specific stage of production. These and other useful tools can be found at beefextension.com.

Anticipating nutrients supplied by the forage base is the most difficult task in grazing cattle nutrition. The formula for nutrient intake is simple: forage intake multiplied by concentration of available nutrients such as Crude Protein (CP) and Total Digestible Nutrients (TDN) in the forage.

Beware, many factors influence both components in this formula. For example, the CP and TDN values of dormant native range plants in pastures that have been in the CRP program would be lower than for native grass grown this summer.  Forage intake is dramatically influenced by forage quality as well as forage availability, and both of these factors can vary dramatically from year to year and month to month.

Once nutrient requirements have been established and a reasonable estimate of the nutrient contribution of the forage has been made, determining supplemental needs is simply a comparison of the two. Again, this comparison is easily and perhaps more accurately made using computer software, such as OSU Cowculator.

Supplementation Priorities

If supplementation is the goal for cattle grazing low quality forage, priority should first be placed on meeting the protein requirement to maximize forage intake and digestion. Many years of research have consistently shown that protein supplementation is extremely effective for cattle grazing protein-deficient forage. In fact, energy supplementation will not be effective if dietary protein is deficient.

Once the producer ensures that the supplementation program will meet the protein requirement, energy intake should be evaluated. The decision must be made whether the cattle need to maintain body weight and condition, gain weight and condition or can be allowed to lose some weight and condition. This decision will dictate how much supplemental energy should be provided.

Finally, vitamin and mineral requirements should be compared to expected intake and have potential deficiencies identified.  Vitamins and minerals are important but priority should be given to protein and energy nutrition first.  Protein and energy are needed in much greater quantities and have the potential for greater impact on animal performance and efficiency of forage utilization.

References

Lalman, D.L. (2018) Supplementing Beef Cows, Oklahoma Cooperative Extension. Fact Sheet ANSI-3010.