Feed Lot Magazine Online, Retaining Ownership at Decatur County Feed Yard Pays

Volume VII Number 5

September/October 1999

Retaining Ownership at Decatur County Feed Yard Pays

by Jeff K. Stenberg

Profit centers remain untapped because some people do not take advantage of available opportunities. Why? Maybe it's the fear of change or the unknown, and the fact that those opportunities are not in line with popular thinking.

The double-lane setup at Decatur County Feed Yard uses multiple objective measurements, video imaging and ultrasound monitoring for sorting and marketing by the individual animal optimum endpoint.

This is true both in and out of the cattle industry. Tracking how cattle perform and making genetic selections based on performance data is a definite opportunity for ranchers. One aspect of this involves retaining ownership, and it's working at a Kansas feed yard.

As the cattle industry changes and becomes more interrelated, producers need to be more aware of the possibilities beyond the ranch. Decatur County Feed Yard near Oberlin, Kan., offers producers a unique program capable of maximizing their retained ownership profits.

Both sets of chutes are built over trenches, which are continually flushed during processing.

"We have been using the full blown Accu-Trac Electronic Cattle Management System from Micro Chemical, Inc. for five years," said Chad Davis, projects coordinator for Decatur County Feed Yard. "The electronic cattle management system (ECM) has proven effective throughout the time we've been using it." Decatur County Feed Yard has one of only two fully functioning ECM systems.

Decatur County Feed Yard expanded from 24,000 to 38,000 head in 1999. A new processing barn was built to hold the Accu-Trac system with two processing lanes and sorting pens. Prior to building the new barn, the processing was handled at a facility with a single lane Accu-Trac system. Currently, they are expanding the mill to handle the increased carrying capacity of the yard.

The final phase of the ECM system is the sorting into groups of similar cattle using computer-controlled gates.

The ECM system tracks cattle from the cow/calf stage through the packer. Using the data that ECM provides, Decatur County has consistently observed an average closeout difference from the best animal to the worst animal of $300 over the last five years within each herd.

The close outs provided by the ECM system provide a great deal of information about individual animals. The captured data lets the producers know if performance differences involve feedlot performance or carcass traits. According to Davis, the cattle are one-owner calves that have the benefit of previous genetic information.

Chad Davis is the Projects Coordinator for Decatur County Feed Yard, LLC.

The system has drastically reduced waste or discounts because of excess backfat. A set incremental cost of gain is used to judge the progress of the animal. Once an animal reaches that preset cost of gain, it is sold. This practice helps to reduce the accumulation of backfat and undesirable yield grades. There is no benefit to feeding beyond the optimum end-point marketing objectives.

Davis said the bottom 20% of each lot represents 80% of the loss in each pen. By eliminating those cattle from their herd, producers can dramatically increase their profits. The closeout information also shows the treatment costs associated with each animal and indicates a correlation between treatment costs and net return. As the cost of treating a sick animal increases, the net return for that animal goes down.

Expansion of the mill was necessary to handle the increased capacity. The new double loadout facility, in the foreground, is also part of the expanded yard facilities.

"If you don't know what you're producing and what its doing after it leaves the ranch, you are going to have a pretty hard time making decisions on what is best for the final consumer and what's best to keep you in business," explains Davis.

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