Four groups of long yearling steers were used to evaluate the effect of sorting by feedlot initial body weight on performance and feedlot economic variables during the feeding period. Steers were sorted into the lightest 25%, middle 50%, and heaviest 25%, along with a nonsorted control. Steers were marketed by sort treatment: heavy two weeks prior, middle one week after, and light three weeks after the unsorted control steers. Sorting did not affect dry matter intake, average daily gain, marbling, 12th rib fat thickness, USDA yield and quality grades, or economic analysis; however, sorting did increase days on feed, feedlot final BW, and hot carcass weight

Erickson, Galen E.

Folmer, Jeffrey D.

Klopfenstein, Terry J.

Macken, Casey N.

English

DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska

University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Nebraska Beef Cattle Reports Animal Science Department January 2005 Performance and Economics of Sorting Yearling Steers by Feedlot Initial Body Weight Jeffrey D. Folmer University of Nebraska-Lincoln Casey N. Macken University of Nebraska-Lincoln Galen E. Erickson University of Nebraska-Lincoln, gerickson4@unl.edu Terry J. Klopfenstein University of Nebraska-Lincoln, tklopfenstein1@unl.edu Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/animalscinbcr  Part of the Animal Sciences Commons Folmer, Jeffrey D.; Macken, Casey N.; Erickson, Galen E.; and Klopfenstein, Terry J., "Performance and Economics of Sorting Yearling Steers by Feedlot Initial Body Weight" (2005). Nebraska Beef Cattle Reports. 164. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/animalscinbcr/164 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Animal Science Department at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Nebraska Beef Cattle Reports by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. 2005 Nebraska Beef Report — Page 66Performance and Economics of SortingYearling Steers by Feedlot Initial Body WeightReport, pp. 57-59) found re-implantBW to be a good indicator of car-cass weight for long-fed steers. Inaddition, Cooper et al. (2000Nebraska Beef Report, pp. 43-45) ana-lyzed data from individually fedanimals. Ranking these animalsfrom leanest to fattest at slaughter,they found leaner animals to belighter but gaining well at the timeof slaughter, which suggests lightanimals may benefit from addi-tional days on feed.In terms of carcass finish,Brethour (2000 Journal of Animal Sci-ence, 78:2005) utilized serial ultra-sound measurements to estimatedevelopment of 12th rib back-fatthickness. Results indicated 25% ofcattle were fed too long and another25% were not fed long enough.Objectives of this research wereto compare the performance andfeedlot economics of sorting steersby feedlot initial BW to an unsortedcontrol in a long yearling produc-tion system.ProceduresYearling Steer DevelopmentTwo experiments were con-ducted over a two-year period. Inthe fall of each year 200 steer calveswere purchased. One hundredsteers each were placed into one oftwo different long yearling steerproduction systems. The systemsare described in another article(Folmer et al., 2005 Nebraska BeefReport, pp. 68-72).SortingIn both systems, after their re-spective summer grazing periods,steers were weighed and stratifiedinto two BW groups of 50 steers,with equal average initial BW,variation, and standard deviation.Then steers in the sorting treatmentwere assigned to a group by divid-ing the steers into one of two repli-cations. Steers were then put intoone of three sort groups: heavy sorttreatment contained 12 steers or 6steers per replication, middle sorttreatment contained 26 steers or 13steers per replication, light sorttreatment contained 12 steers or 6steers per replication, and the un-sorted control contained 50 steersor 25 steers per replication. Steers inthe unsorted control were fed for anaverage of 91 days. Steers in theheavy sort group were fed for an av-erage of 77 days and were marketedtwo weeks prior to the unsortedcontrol steers. Because the heavieststeers were removed, the middlesort group were fed an average of98 days and marketed one week af-ter unsorted controls. Steers in thelight sort group were fed for an av-erage 112 days and were marketedthree weeks later than the unsortedcontrols.Economic AnalysisFeedlot finishing economicswere based on a finishing diet costof $115.38/ton (DM; using 10-yearaverage prices for ingredients) anddays on feed. Feedlot in price was$76.21/cwt for 900-1000 lb steersand was calculated from 7-yearaverage prices for July to September(Feuz and Burgener, 2004 Univer-sity of Nebraska Cooperative ExtensionBulletin, PHREC 04-21). Live saleprice ($70.08/cwt) was calculatedfrom 7-year averages for the monthsof September through December(Feuz and Burgener, 2004 Univer-sity of Nebraska Cooperative ExtensionBulletin, PHREC 04-21). Feedlotbreak-even was calculated by divid-ing total cost by the final live BW.Live profit or loss was calculated bysubtracting the live break-even fromJeffrey D. FolmerCasey N. MackenGalen E. EricksonTerry J. Klopfenstein1SummaryFour groups of long yearling steerswere used to evaluate the effect of sortingby feedlot initial body weight on perfor-mance and feedlot economic variablesduring the feeding period. Steers weresorted into the lightest 25%, middle 50%,and heaviest 25%, along with a non-sorted control. Steers were marketed bysort treatment: heavy two weeks prior,middle one week after, and light threeweeks after the unsorted control steers.Sorting did not affect dry matter intake,average daily gain, marbling, 12th rib fatthickness, USDA yield and qualitygrades, or economic analysis; however,sorting did increase days on feed, feedlotfinal BW, and hot carcass weight.IntroductionYearling production systems canbe plagued with overweight car-casses because cattle are larger atarrival and perform well during fin-ishing. MacDonald et al. (2003 Ne-braska Beef Report, pp.65-68) utilizeda two-way sorting system to sortyearling steers to decrease over-weight carcasses and increase car-cass uniformity. While in theirstudy, overweight carcasses werenot reduced, sorting did result inincreased carcass uniformity. How-ever, there was no increase in over-all carcass weight or profitability.In addition, MacDonald et al. (2003Nebraska Beef Report, pp. 61-65)found the best correlation (r = .83)to predict the final BW of long year-ling feedlot fed steers was feedlotinitial BW compared to winter ini-tial BW and grass initial BW.Cooper et al. (1999 Nebraska BeefPage 67 — 2005 Nebraska Beef Reportthe 7-year average price.In addition to live sale econom-ics, a marketing grid profitabilityanalysis was performed. Based onthree different carcass grid-pricingscenarios, profit or loss for eachtreatment on each grid was calcu-lated. The analysis used three dif-ferent grids, consisting of aquality-rewarding grid, a yield-rewarding grid, and a commoditygrid, as proposed by Feuz (2002Nebraska Beef Report pp.39-41). Pre-miums and discounts for each gridare reported in another article(Folmer et al., 2005 Nebraska BeefReport, pp. 68-72). Profitability wascalculated from a 7-year average(Feuz and Burgener, 2004 Univer-sity of Nebraska Cooperative ExtensionBulletin, PHREC 04-21) dress baseprice ($112.27 /cwt) with indi-vidual grid premiums and dis-counts applied. Grid profit or losswas calculated from a carcass break-even calculated as with live break-even, with hot carcass weight insteadof final BW as the multiplier.ResultsPerformanceSteer performance results arepresented in Table 1. Initial BW forthe feedlot phase was not different(P = 0.39), however feedlot final BWwas significantly greater (P < 0.01)for sorted steers (1378 lb) comparedto unsorted control steers (1352 lb).Dry matter intake (P = 0.18), feedconversion (P = 0.49), and dailygain (P = 0.86) did not differbetween sorting treatments. Due tothe nature of the marketing strategy,days on feed increased from 92days for the unsorted control com-pared to 98 days for sorted steers.Steer carcass characteristics are pre-sented in Table 2. Carcasses ofsteers in the unsorted control andsorted treatments did not differ inUSDA yield grade (P = 0.50), 12thrib fat thickness (P = 0.78), marblingscore (P = 0.60), or ribeye area(P = 0.45). However, due to theincreases in ADG and final BW, hotcarcass weight was significantly(P < 0.01) increased by 16 lb for thesorting treatment. Sorting steersalso had no effect on the percentageof USDA choice, select, or yieldgrade 4 and 5 carcasses. However,sorting steers by feedlot initial BWand marketing them accordingly,significantly (P < 0.01) reducedheavy weight carcasses from 9.1%for the unsorted control steers to1.5% for the sorting treatment.EconomicsFeedlot economics are summa-rized in Table 3. Due to increaseddays on feed, feedlot yardage andfeed costs increased for the sortedtreatment. Increased costs for thesorting treatment resulted in nodifferences in live breakeven(P = 0.70) or live feedlot profitability(P = 0.62). In addition, the increasedcosts of the sorting treatment, alongwith no differences in carcasscharacteristics, resulted in no dif-ferences in carcass breakeven(P = 0.70) and no differences inprofitability when marketed on thequality rewarding (P = 0.78), yieldrewarding (P = 0.80), or the com-modity (P = 0.80) marketing grids.Results of this experiment indicatesorting long yearling steers by initialfeedlot BW may allow for increasedaverage days on feed, and increasedsale weights, while avoiding dis-counts. However, due to an increasein days on feed, and costs incurredwith increased days on feed, sortingdid not translate into an economicadvantage in this study.1Jeffrey D. Folmer, Casey N. Macken,research technicians; Galen E. Erickson,assistant professor; Terry J. Klopfenstein,professor, Animal Science, Lincoln.Table 1. Feedlot performance of sorted and unsorted steers.Item Control Sorted Difference SE P-valueInitial BW, lb 971 9798.0 16.6 0.39Final BW, lb 1352 1378 26.0 6.06 0.01DMI, lb 28.6 28.2 0.4 0.63 0.18Daily gain, lb 4.16 4.09 0.07 0.13 0.49Feed/gain 6.91 6.93 0.02 0.35 0.86Days fed 92 98 6.0 2.73 0.12Table 2. Carcass characteristics of sorted and unsorted steers.Item Control Sorted Difference SE P-valueCarcass wt., lb 852 868 16.0 3.81 0.01Yield grade 2.43 2.41 0.02 0.07 0.73Fat thickness, in. 0.42 0.46 0.04 0.03 0.14Marblinga 491 498 7.0 6.95 0.50Longissmus, sq. in. 14.3 14.1 0.2 0.40 0.45% Choice 43.9 44.1 0.2 5.86 0.97% Select 56.3 55.9 0.4 5.87 0.96% Yield grade 4+ 1.0 0.9 0.1 0.77 0.91% Heavy 9.1 1.5 7.6 2.48 < 0.01aMarbling score = 400 = Slight0, 500 = Small0 etc.Table 3. Feedlot economics of sorted and unsorted steers.Item Control Sorted Difference SE P-valueLive break, $ab 73.58 73.69 0.1 0.42 0.76Live p/l, $c -37.76 -39.93 2.17 5.51 0.66Carcass break, $ 116.78 116.97 0.19 0.67 0.75Quality p/l, $d -39.78 -37.37 2.41 5.87 0.77Yield p/l, $ -28.53 -26.70 1.83 6.46 0.79Commodity p/l, $ -38.98 -37.14 1.84 5.69 0.81aAll prices on a cwt basis.bCalculated from an initial price of 7-year average price of $76.21/cwt for 900-1000 lbsteers, and $115.38 /ton (DM) ration cost.cLive sale price $70.08/cwt; p/l = profit or loss.dCarcass Base Price of $112.27/cwt.

Performance and Economics of Sorting Yearling Steers by Feedlot Initial Body Weight

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Performance and Economics of Sorting Yearling Steers by Feedlot Initial Body Weight

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