From the Barns: Shelter from the storm

I always try to spend more time focusing on the positive things going on within our cattle operation, but sometimes we need to share the negatives, as well. Right now our feed truck is down as we wait on one of the main mixing augers to be shipped here as the old one finally wore out. In July, the bed was rusting out badly so we had to put in new liners. Some bearings replaced recently, as well.

I guess on the bright side, after spending several thousands of dollars on this machine, we should be in pretty good shape with it for a number of years to come. This, to me, is maybe the most frustrating side of running a farming or livestock operation — breakdowns that cost us much time and money. Even when we are making a profit on our enterprises, seems like it leaves quickly because of problems like this.

Speaking of problems, it is hard to believe that a southern Illinois farm was impacted seriously by the Aug. 10 derecho storm, but that was the case for us. We had a load of fats on the way to Iowa Premium Beef to the slaughter plant at Tama, when I received a call that afternoon that they couldn’t take our cattle because power at the plant had been knocked out. At this time, no one knew of the severity of the storm. The cattle were on the road and already halfway there, so I went into crisis mode trying to figure out what to do, as it was extremely hot and humid down here, and I didn’t think bringing them home was a good option.

I got on the phone and started calling some of my old friends in western and northwestern Illinois to see if they could help me find a home for this load of steers until we could get them OK’d to go the kill plant. Thankfully, we were able to find a feedlot up that direction that had a pen available to hold them temporarily. A week later, it was clear to send the steers on to Tama and they finally reached their destination. I want to thank all those guys I talked to for advising me and helping find a place to take care of those cattle.

We shipped another load of fats, as well, and will be shipping another load out this coming week. In addition, we sent two loads of 800-pound steers to Kansas to be fed, which will ultimately be sold on the U.S. Premium Beef grid sometime early next year. These are more of the Gardiner Angus genetics that we use, as well as some other good, locally raised black calves. Out of that same Kansas feedyard, last week we sold our pen of steers that we sent out there in April. We just got the data back and the results were good: 31% Prime; 96 % Choice or higher, and the cattle netted a premium of $85 per head because of their good quality and yield grading.

We did start putting in some new feeder cattle. Over the last three weeks, we have added more than 350 head. I have been pleasantly surprised with the quick start for the cattle to go on feed, and they are aggressively coming to the bunk with good intakes. That has helped keep the treatments and death loss down to low levels so far. I anticipate we will keep adding some each week as long as it looks like there will be a profit to be taken down the road.

Three of our fall calving cows and heifers have calves on the ground and over the next 45 days we should be having quite a few more. The spring calving pairs are doing well, and I would expect a month from now we will be talking about weaning them. Recently preg-checked the heifers we bred this summer. We’re somewhat disappointed with the number of open heifers. Not sure what caused that. Those opens we have started on feed, and adding them to some other good yearling heifers we had on hand, should give us a load of good black heifers to sell after the first of the year. There seems to be good demand for bred heifers, and I think we will market some of those commercials while keeping our registered heifers to maintain in our own herd.

Weather for the most part is allowing us to get some pen work done, and we will keep hammering on that as we move into fall. Hopefully, we can make a big dent over the next month as we continue to place more cattle and hopefully beat winter weather setting in. Looking forward to seeing farmers get into the fields shortly as harvest begins and hoping everyone has a safe and successful season.

Creal Springs, Ill.