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Aug 16, 2023

Sexten: Compromising Precision Management for Logistics

Precision animal management is an oft used term with a view toward the future state of livestock management. The challenge with precision management systems is they often lack simplicity in technology

Precision animal management is an oft used term with a view toward the future state of livestock management. The challenge with precision management systems is they often lack simplicity in technology application.

Unfortunately, logistics often present the greatest barrier to advancing precision animal management. Visiting with cattlemen across the country, few will argue with cutting edge science and practices with high return on investment. The pushback almost always resides around the inability to incorporate the technology easily into the operation.

I recall an example from my youth where a high ROI pasture pinkeye treatment went awry due to logistics. One party (un-named to protect guilty) was to bring the treatment delivery device while the other person was responsible for the treatment product. Neither remembered to bring their “assigned” product meaning the only thing we were not lacking was blame. A high value solution lost to timely execution.

Alternatively, consider easy to implement technologies with marginal ROI. Solutions that make life easier may not always be high ROI or even precise but frictionless logistics enable adoption. Several supplemental feed delivery methods are the highest cost per unit of nutrient delivered yet producers are willing customers since the feed delivery challenge has been solved.

Somewhere in the middle lies a precision tradeoff. The row crop industry provides a timely example where enterprises continue to increase precision, moving from field level, to acre, to feet and now even inch level accuracy. As I watch aerial applicators (don’t call them crop dusters) applying fungicide this summer (with amazing skill BTW) the level of precision is certainly less than that of the land-bound applicators, but the payoff in simplicity and timing makes the tradeoff a worthwhile choice.

The beef industry makes several precision tradeoffs in the name of logistics. A feedlot makes the tradeoff where feed mixing and delivery logistics trump precision nutrition. While the diet we offer is precisely mixed, the composition and volume ensure the entire range of genetic potential can be achieved at average intakes. Not unlike how entire corn fields received the same fertilizer rate or seed population years ago. Grid sampling and variable rate planters enabled an entirely new production system. I’m curious what logistic challenge needs solved to transition to precision feedlot nutrition? Ability to sort cattle potential at arrival? Smaller pens? Advanced feed delivery technology?

Increased transaction costs of dealing with small groups offers another precision tradeoff in cattle marketing. There are multiple technology solutions capable of identifying optimum endpoints for cattle, yet a 50,000-pound fed-cattle load remains the smallest unit of management. Pen size may have a greater impact on marketing trade-offs as partially full pens represent real occupancy costs that end-point sorting may not overcome.

One technology trade-off repeatedly made by commercial cattlemen continues to perplex me: retention or purchase of replacement females with limited regard for their genetic potential. In the next 6 months replacement females have the potential to trade at record prices like those observed in finished and feeder calves this spring and summer. These female prices may be accompanied by interest costs 2-3 times the last cattle cycle, setting up those replacement females with the prospect of being some of the most expensive cows in history.

These replacement prospects will be traded on traits like breeder reputation, health programs, hide color, condition, weight, service sire and calving date. I’d suggest most of these traits are marginally important because they can be modified or are short term. Most replacement heifers, especially bred heifers, are not marketed like feeder calves thus minimizing health risks. Baseline health programs are needed but are relatively equal across the offering this fall. Body condition needs to be adequate but can (and should) be modified and managed through nutrition.

Most heifers will be bred to calving ease sires, accomplishing the prospect of a live calf unassisted and then plan for herd level genetic improvement by using a different more maternal or growth-oriented sire the next year. Relying on breeder reputation, breed composition or even service sire to describe the genetic potential of the replacement female is one of the greatest precision compromises within the beef system.

Quantifying the genetic potential of the most expensive replacements in history can be accomplished by genetic testing. The logistics of precision replacement selection are a simple trait sort based on your operational goals.

Imagine spending record money to purchase a group of replacement females in the bottom 10% of the industry for growth, milk, or fertility whose genetic potential cannot be improved and impacts her and her calves’ performance every day. Not knowing how poor a replacement female’s genetic potential is will not make the ROI any better.