What We Do

We custom feed cattle but in the process we do a whole lot more. If you are new to cattle feeding, we can take you from the beginning to the end, from finding calves for purchase, getting them ready for transport to ensure good health on arrival, transporting them to our facilities, feeding and watering them, providing the services of a nutritionist and a veterinarian, arranging financing of their purchase price and the cost of their feed, assistance in hedging, and arranging marketing and final transportation upon sale.

We have up to 30,000 head of cattle at any one time, in multiple locations throughout Cuming County, Nebraska. Located in Eastern Nebraska, the great grasslands of our country start in the Western part of our state, while we sit in the heartland of the grain producing area in the Eastern part. This makes for ideal logistics.  We can source calves from the west and keep our delivery costs for feed to a minimum.

At a capacity of 30,000 head, we are at the upper end of the industry. Cattle feeding enjoys economies of scale. Over 95% of all cattle feeding operations have fewer than 1,000 head¹. Our larger investment in fixtures and equipment provides economies of scale from two sources.   First, like all construction costs, the planning, permitting, and breaking ground, equipment and labor are fixed costs that are spread around a much larger capacity. In addition, the marginal costs per unit (per square foot, hour, per bushel) fall with larger sized projects.  Second, the fixed costs of our facilities and equipment are spread across more animals due to lower idle time.  All of these factors lower our marginal costs and make us more efficient.

Unlike many feedlots, we also own our own farmland and produce a significant part of our feed. This lowers transportation costs and allows us to have better quality control than our competitors that use third party vendors for all of their feed.

To get started, you might want to review some of the terms used in our industry at Knowledge Base and the fundamentals of the industry at Basics of Cattle Production, then move on to Investing in Feeder Cattle.

If you are an institutional investor, or just have an affinity for high finance, please see our section Institutional Investors. We offer institutional investors a way to diversify their portfolio and increase their return relative to risk. Returns on feeder cattle have been shown to be uncorrelated or negatively correlated with the stock market, yet offer comparable returns.

Since we custom feed cattle, we buy everything needed in the supply chain. If you are a cow-calf operator, we can buy your calves or feed them for you.  For more, see our section for Cow-Calf Operators. If you are producing grain or hay in our economic region, see our section for Feed Producers. We’d like to hear from you.

1. Feeding Beef Cattle, John W. Cornerford, Lynn F. Kime, Penn State Extension Feeding Beef Cattle