Better Alabama Beef

Auburn, May 23, 2003 --- If you want to make more money in a beef cattle operation, you have to prove to buyers the quality of your product. It’s a concept that Wesley Stroud, owner of Stroud Farms, understands better than many beef cattle producers.

The Stroud family has been raising beef cattle in eastern Limestone County for more than 40 years. Currently, the operation maintains a herd of around 200 animals.

Stroud has been a member of the Alabama Beef Cattle Improvement Association (BCIA) for more than 10 years. His operation was recently named Alabama BCIA’s Outstanding Commercial Producer.

Alabama BCIA, a cooperative effort between the Alabama Cooperative Extension System and the Alabama Beef Cattle Improvement Association, Inc., provides farmers a comprehensive method for improving herd quality.

“Alabama BCIA promotes the use of performance records to improve herd production, efficiency and quality,” said Michelle Field, Extension beef cattle specialist. “It also provides a total herd performance evaluation program and emphasizes that economically important traits in beef cattle can be improved through selection and culling decisions based on records. Alabama BCIA also emphasizes good management practices in breeding, feeding, health and marketing programs.”

More than 500 producers in 66 of Alabama’s 67 counties are Alabama BCIA members as of early 2003. This is up 35 percent from spring 2002. Working in conjunction with their county Extension agents and Extension animal scientists, these beef cattle producers are implementing and using improved management practices as well as keeping performance records on their cattle.

This data can help producers identify unproductive animals for culling while determining productive and profitable females whose heifer calves should be retained. Basic production costs can also be tracked with this data.

“Adopting BCIA-approved practices is helping members improve their bottom lines,” said Field. “Alabama BCIA producers are seeing an increased return on their livestock when it goes to sale.”

Stroud Farms is a good example. For the last several years, the operation has been able to produce enough uniform calves to send truckload lots to a feedyard.

“This marketing option has increased our net profit per calf by 50 percent over traditional marketing methods,” said Stroud. “But it would not have been possible if we had not been using the good management practices fostered by BCIA.”

Mike Blake, who manages the 1,800-head herd of cattle at Autauga Farming Co. in Autaugaville, agrees with Stroud about the marketing value of BCIA.

“It’s a tremendous marketing advantage,” said Blake. “You can use your data to educate buyers that steers are going to grow well or that replacement heifers are going to produce quality calves.”

Alabama BCIA sponsors several fall replacement heifer sales annually.

Producers who hold over heifers and sell them in one of these sales will incur extra costs. These include feed, sale preparation, trucking costs and sales commission.

But, Field said, consider the premiums the producers reaped by being able to sell in a BCIA replacement heifer sale.

“Last year, in spite of additional costs, farmers earned more than $120 more per heifer sold at a BCIA heifer sale for replacement quality than one sold by the pound,” said Field.

While harder to quantify, Alabama BCIA producer members also feel they are receiving higher prices for their purebred bulls when they go to sale because buyers have access to complete performance data on the animals.

Dr. Lisa Kriese-Anderson, an Extension animal scientist and the supervisor of the Auburn University Bull Test, agrees that performance data can enhance the selling price of bulls.

“Buyers are willing to pay more for bulls with performance data,” said Kriese-Anderson. “That data helps them fine-tune their selections. It allows them to make educated, wise decisions about which bull will best work in their operations, instead of hoping a bull will perform well because he appears sound and has good confirmation.”

Several Alabama producers now conduct their own purebred bull sales as a result of the knowledge gained through BCIA. More than 1,000 bulls pass through the auction ring each fall in sales sponsored by BCIA producers. As in BCIA-sponsored bull sales, these producer sales feature quality bulls that have performance data putting them near the top of their breeds.

Dr. Mike Wells is a BCIA member from Selma. He consigns a number of his bulls to the annual Sunshine Farms Bull Sale, held each January in Clanton.

“I thought I was not getting what the bulls were really worth by selling them individually,” said Wells. “But being part of a sale that emphasizes performance data has been a tremendous advantage. Buyers can see the quality of the animal reflected in that data, and that’s generating better selling prices.”

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