Cow-Calf Operators

If you sell your calves after weaning or backgrounding, we would like to know you.

If you want to feed your calves out but have never retained ownership of your calves after weaning, you may be unsure of what your next steps are. We can help.

Financial Considerations

The first question to ask is if you can defer the income from the sale of the calves and incur the cost of feeding that can’t be financed. In general, plan on contributing 30% of the total investment. We would suggest working with your operating lender to ensure you that your cash flows will be acceptable to you and your lender. Financing can be arranged through either your operating lender or ours.

Take into consideration the operating risks, including market pricing and mortality due to illness or weather. Risk management tools include futures contracts and options. We can help you chose and contract for risk protection.

Preconditioning

Among the very first things to do are giving your calves their pre-weaning vaccinations, and then weaning them prior to delivery to the feedyard. You will also need to schedule a delivery date to the feedyard. The preconditioning is well worth the cost and the performance gains exceed the costs by limiting illness.

Costs

Please see Investing in Cattle

If you have calves for sale, write to Doug at doug@ritterfeedyards.com