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300: Bigger Isn’t Always Better —The Economics Behind Cow Size · CattleUSA Daily

• 0:03
  Welcome to the Cattle USA Daily podcast.
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  Your go to source for. The latest livestock markets,
• 0:08
  industry insights and the update shaping agriculture today.
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  I'm your host Lauren Moylan, a passionate advocate for
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  agriculture. Here to keep you informed.
• 0:17
  And connected. Now let's dive into today's
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  episode. There is a question almost every
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  ranch needs to ask at some point, and most avoid it because
• 0:31
  it feels like a personal attack sometimes.
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  Are we running too big of a cow? Not because big cows look bad,
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  not because big cows don't raise great calves, and not because
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  they can't work, but because feed is your largest variable
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  cost and cow size directly drives feed requirements.
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  So today we are going to break down the biology, the math, and
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  the economics behind cow size and how it impacts your feed
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  bill, your stocking rate, your drought resilience, and
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  ultimately your margin. Let's start with the science.
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  Maintenance energy requirement increases with body weight.
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  In simple terms, a bigger cow eats more every day, every
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  season, every year. Maintenance requirements are
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  based on metabolic body weight, roughly body weight raised to
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  the .75 power. But practically, we see clear
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  linear increases in dry matter intake as size increases.
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  Let's look at typical dry matter intake.
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  If you have a 1200 LB cow, she's going to eat about 24 to 26 lbs
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  a day, which is 2% of her body weight.
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  A 1600 LB cow needs to eat about £32 per day, which is 2% of her
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  body weight. That is a 6 to 8 LB difference
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  daily over 365 days. That's 2190 to 2920 additional
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  pounds of forage per cow per year.
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  Multiply that across 100 cows, maybe 500 cows.
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  If you're multiplying it across 100 cows, you are talking over
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  200,000 extra pounds of forage annually.
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  That is not trivial. That is acreage.
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  Now let's talk about winter feed because it is the loudest with
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  winter feed because pasture hides inefficiency, but winter
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  exposes it. Let's say that hay costs around
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  $140 per ton. An extra £2500 per cow per year
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  equals 1 1/4 tons. 1.25 tons times 140 dollars is $175 per
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  cow annually. Across 150 cows that is $26,250.
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  And that's just maintenance difference, not lactation.
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  If you feed 120 days, 1200 LB cow at £26 a day, day consumes
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  around 3120 lbs. A 1600 LB cow at £32.00 a day
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  consumes around 3840 LB. That is a 720 LB difference per
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  winter. And that equates to real money.
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  And when hay prices spike, that gap just continues to widen.
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  Now let's balance it. Yes, bigger cows often wean
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  heavier calves, but the key metric is not weaning weight
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  alone. It is pounds weaned relative to
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  cow weight and forage consume. If a 1600 LB cow weans a 650 LB
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  calf, if a OK, we've got that one.
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  Now let's talk about the 1200 and 50 LB cow weaning.
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  A 575 LB calf. Which is more efficient?
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  Well, we need to look at weaning weight as a percentage of cow
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  weight. So if we take that 650 LB calf
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  divided by its Mama cows size of 1600 lbs, you get 40.6%.
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  If we take the lower 1500 and 75 lbs / 1250, you're going to get
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  a 46%. The moderate cow is converting
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  forage into calf weight more efficiently because efficiency
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  is not about absolute pounds, it is about proportional output.
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  One thing we need to remember is that forage limits herd size.
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  If your pasture supports 100 moderate cows or 80 large cows,
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  and both have similar reproduction rates, total pounds
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  weaned per acre may favor the moderate cows because bigger
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  cows are going to increase grazing pressure.
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  Reduce drought flexibility or in recovery windows and increase
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  supplemental needs. Route years magnify maintenance
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  costs and the bigger the cow, the harder the drought hits.
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  Now let's talk about reproduction.
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  Because reproduction is energy dependent, larger cows
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  inherently have higher maintenance needs.
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  They require higher energy intake to maintain their body
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  condition score. They also lose condition faster
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  under forage stress. So when body condition slips
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  below of five at caving, rebreed rates are going to suffer.
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  Open cows erase any scale advantage, but moderate cows
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  often maintain body condition scores easier, they rebound
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  faster postpartum and they breed earlier under moderate input
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  systems. Long term fertility matters more
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  than frame when we're looking at replacement heifers.
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  Cow size compounds through our replacement strategy because
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  bigger cows produce bigger heifers which have a higher
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  development cost, which have higher maintenance trajectory
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  heifer development. Therefore, our heifer
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  development feed cost is going to increase with the frame size
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  price, but over time the herd drifts larger instead of
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  intentionally managed. So if you don't monitor frame,
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  you may be unintentionally increasing your feed bill every
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  generation slowly as it continues to trickle in.
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  And then all of a sudden in a few years you're going to look
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  out and you're going to be like how did we go from a 1200 LB cow
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  to a 1600 LB cow? And it was because of our
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  replacement strategy. Now one other thing we
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  definitely need to take into consideration, especially as so
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  many of us are dealing with it right now in the Midwest, across
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  the West, is drought resilience. Because big cows are going to
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  reduce flexibility and in drought their intake stays high.
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  Destocking must be aggressive for those cows and winter feed
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  demand automatically spikes. Whereas moderate cows in a
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  drought condition are going to allow you to have a higher
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  stocking density. You're going to have to have
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  earlier destocking without panic.
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  You can lower your winter risk and there's easier adaptation
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  because volatility punishes inflexible systems and cow size
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  is a flexibility variable. Now this is not anti big cow by
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  any means because there are environments where large cows
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  will absolutely thrive if you have high rainfall, if you have
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  irrigated forage, abundant winter feed and high input
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  systems. But many commercial ranches
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  operate in moderate input forage limited systems.
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  In those systems, cow size must match the forage capacity.
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  This is not about preference, this is about alignment for you
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  and your operation. So I need you to be asking
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  yourself, what is my average mature cow weight?
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  What is my winter feed cost per cow?
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  What percentage of cow weight do calves wean?
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  How does body condition score look at calving?
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  What happens in drought? Could I run more moderate cows
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  per acre if feed cost is your largest cost cow, cow size is
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  not cosmetic, it is economic. Because here's the thing, cow
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  size is not about pride, it is about math.
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  Every additional pound of cow weight has a maintenance cost
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  attached to it. The question isn't whether big
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  cows can work. We all know they absolutely do
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  in the right environment. But the question is whether they
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  fit your forage, your labor and your margin.
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  This is the Cattle USA Daily podcast.
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  I'm your host, Lauren Moylan. Thank you for listening to
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  another episode. We will see you all next time.