“Every producer has different ammunition to work with,” says Dale Blasi, a Kansas State University stocker specialist. “The key is inputs and knowing your costs. It's just a function of what's available and what price you can lock in.”

Blasi recently helped a stocker operator devise a supplement based on cottonseed burrs to make do with available dry native grass — 1.76 ADG for a feed COG of 50¢.

For producers considering using feed beyond supplementation levels for the first time, Sawyer offers some considerations:

• Can you handle bulk commodity ingredients? If the answer is no, the cost of premixed feed will make it difficult for you to make a full-feed stocker ration work.

• Can you consistently source feed ingredients and substitutes for a ration that is consistently cost competitive? Over the past two years the relative prices among various ingredients have changed a lot week to week. Sawyer points out that if you can access substitute ingredients and build rations with them, you have the opportunity to always be competitive with gain cost.

• Do you have the labor this type of program requires? It's one thing to figure you can grind the hay, mix the rations and feed the cattle every day; it's another to accomplish that consistently, Sawyer says.

As in most areas of business, Sawyer says, the innovators are the ones most successful at full-feeding stocker cattle. In this case, he explains, “When they lose, it's often because they remained too tied to their last innovation rather than look for the next one that is even more advantageous.”