What is in this article?:
- Reduce Cow Costs, Increase Revenue
- Reproduction matters
What makes a big difference, and what doesn’t?
More About:
Property taxes don’t mind if your cows are black or white or red. Ranches must have fences, pickups and equipment, regardless of what the calves weigh at weaning.
“Fixed cost doesn’t care whether you’ve got 400 cows, 200 cows, 60 cows or 2 cows. It’s going to be the same,” says Stan Bevers, Texas A & M University beef economist. “The only way to drive down the impact is to get more cows.”
As the industry anxiously awaits a drought reversal and herd rebuilding, many experts say now is the time to analyze overall carrying expenses.
McGrann implemented the management program know as Standardized Performance Analysis (SPA) in the 1990s, to help producers benchmark their herd against others. Bevers now manages that program, which shows an average annual cost of $590.85 for a cow in 2012.
“I started in 1989. Then, the average cost was about a dollar per day, so we haven’t quite doubled, but it’s getting close,” he says.
Each year, he adds, the largest components are labor, management, depreciation and feed.
It’s important to keep vehicle and equipment cots in check, McGrann says. “But everything else is more of a question of execution of a good plan and watching how they spend their money.”
