Feedyards are constructed to house large groups of cattle. While group size varies by pen, record keeping and management are the same. The average performance of a group is generally reported as average daily gain. Averages are also given for feed efficiency and cost of gain. Differences will exist within each group. The magnitude of the differences can vary greatly. Roughly, half of the group will be above the average and half below the average. It may be difficult to determine which cattle are which. A few cattle in each pen may perform so poorly that they “remove” the profit from many cattle in the upper end of the performance curve. Again, which cattle are which may not be readily apparent.

Another problem with managing cattle in groups is that cattle are no longer sold in a take-one-take-all manner. A high percentage of cattle are sold on a grid system that evaluates each steer/heifer individually. On the grid, excellence is rewarded, while penalties are given for failing to meet standards. As is true in performance, a few misses takes away the profit from many cattle that successfully hit the target. The few poor performing cattle are not cattle that require the feedyard manager to write a check; rather they simply reduce the size of the check received from the packer. Since poor performing cattle are not direct expenses, it is easy for management to overlook the financial impact of poor performers.

Feedlot Management Problem
Pen size is an issue that affects the ability of a feedyard to use individual animal management. Since cattle need to start on feed at the same time, it is necessary to receive enough cattle into a feedyard in a short period of time to create feeding groups and get them started. If a feedyard has 200-head pens and they receive 200 steers from a ranch for custom feeding, they have little opportunity to sort them into groups that will hit specifications more accurately. If the feedyard is buying company owned cattle and they wish to sort incoming cattle so as to minimize variation at slaughter, they must have several multiples of 200 of similar weights and sex reach the feedyard at the same time in order to be able to sort the cattle into outcome groups. This is not always possible given the supply of feeder cattle available.

Solution Identified
The use of individual animal management can solve some of the problems created by the size and design of current feedyards. Through the use of electronic identification tags, panel readers, scales under chutes, and software available today, feedyards can begin to manage cattle on a more individualized basis. In the first scenario where a ranch has sent 200 steers to the feedyard to be fed in one pen, the very fact that the calves all come from one ranch means they were probably born in a 90-day calving season which will create a 300 lb weight range in the calves before genetic differences come into play.

If these calves are all marketed for slaughter on the same day, the weight range will approach 500 lb. It is very difficult not to suffer discounts with these ranges. If calves are individually weighed and tagged upon arrival, the feedyard will know ahead of time what kind of ranges they are facing and can begin to make marketing plans. At reimplanting, cattle can be weighed to obtain average daily gain (shown on the scale head or software). At this time, cattle can be given a colored tag (one of three colors) assigning them to an early marketing, middle marketing, or late marketing date. This designation can be modified by visually looking at the animal to determine if frame size or amount of fat would alter the group assignment. When the early marketing date arrives, feedyard crews can simply remove all cattle with the color designating the early group. The feedyard manager will have known since reimplanting how many cattle were in this group. The remaining two groups can be marketed as their dates occur. Why is this better than just using eyeball appraisal at marketing time? It probably is not much better than a real top-notch expert looking at the cattle and deciding on a yes or no for sorting. However, it does lend itself to using people with less expertise to simply pull out ear tag colors on a daily basis. It also has a marketing advantage of knowing ahead of time how many cattle are going to be available and on what days.

For the feedyard buying company cattle, individual weighing and tagging of cattle as they are received allows them to initially sort cattle into fairly narrow weight groups, which should take care of most of the problems associated with missing grid targets. Some adjustments may need to be made when reimplanting if some of the calves have fallen behind their peers as determined by average daily gain.

The removal of cattle with substandard performance can only be accomplished by individually weighing calves when initially processed and again when reimplanted. Those cattle on the bottom end of the bell shaped curve can be removed from the group at reimplanting. The first question that feedyard managers ask is, “Then what am I going to do with them?” In normal times, these cattle are usually perfect for the Mexican market. They usually weigh 700 to 800 lb, are cleared of medicine, and fit the specification for slaughter in Mexico. This doesn’t help a feedyard in the Northern Plains states because of the cost of freight. If cattle such as these that have not gained well were grouped together and sold as soon as their carcass weights approached 550 lb, it would still be an early exit from the system and less of a detriment to the rest of the pen. Many times these cattle are timid and when placed with other like them, they are able to achieve near normal performance. A 900 lb pound steer at a dressing percent of 61% hits the target.

Summary
Individual animal management can be used in feedyards today without decreasing occupancy rates. This higher order of management will return greater profit to the feedyard and the feedyard customer. Part of the profit will be in increased feed efficiency and cost of gain and the remainder will be in a decreased level of discounts at marketing time.