Progress is business as usual

I'm attempting to lower my cow cost and improve my income; that doesn't matter whether input costs are up or down,” says Art Brownlee, who owns and manages JHL Ranch at Ashby, NE, with his wife Merry.

Art explains each of their cows is held accountable for what she returns to the ranch bottom line. That means they manage cattle individually, including the use of DNA to match calves to specific bulls in multi-sire pastures.

Moreover, the Brownlees focus most on performance and economic gauges that are rare in the industry. For instance, Art explains, “The primary thing we look at is the age of an animal from the time of birth to the time of harvest.” The Brownlees retain ownership in all their calves through the feedlot, gathering feeding and carcass information along the way. When all is said and done, concentrating on age at harvest means they can measure and manage calf value per day of age.

“We've gone from our cattle quality grading an average of 40% Choice to grading 80%, while maintaining yield and improving cow efficiency,” Art says. “You can change the genetics to meet market demand and fit your environment, but to do that you've got to know how animals perform individually… I've got to work with what I can control, and that's genetics.”

Moreover, Art and Merry believe it's the quality and consistency of production that offer them and the industry the opportunity to differentiate and earn more value per acre with the same range resources.

“Looking at history, if you owned cows 100 years ago you made money. I think margin has crept out of the business since then. As an industry we've got to figure out how to build margin back into it,” Art believes.

So, whatever the industry economics happen to be at the time, the goal and mission at JHL remain the same as they adjust tactics along the way. “What has served us well is learning more about our cattle and the beef they produce, and that's what we'll continue to do,” Art says.