Price of calves need to double!

[The Don]

Not exactly true.
These numbers are used to "guide the industry". You and I paid for the development of this information. I'm not really happy with the whole process. Kind of like a "Fox News" version of the numbers. They know they are lying, but they keep pushing their narrative of disinformation to the masses(my opinion).
I know that the numbers for feed are far, far below what I fed cattle for. Keep in mind this includes 2021, the year of the drought. My feed number is way different from what they show.
This must be the fabled "Shangri-La farm" in the land of golden manure!

[15444]

How it appears to me is.
They are selling the calves to their backgrounding operation and claiming it as income for the cow - calf operation in that year. Then adding the sale amount of the backgrounded calves to that income.
They only have one group of calves that are sold off the farm to produce income. It showed total revenue as $647,412 for selling 239 calves off the farm. Those are expensive calves!

Ok. I didn't look into the particular farm to see how many calves they actually produced. If that is the case, the only one they are fooling is themselves.

But maybe they got FCC convinced they are doing a bang-up job.

[The Don]

How it appears to me is.
They are selling the calves to their backgrounding operation and claiming it as income for the cow - calf operation in that year. Then adding the sale amount of the backgrounded calves to that income.
They only have one group of calves that are sold off the farm to produce income. It showed total revenue as $647,412 for selling 239 calves off the farm. Those are expensive calves!

[15444]

Can anybody explain this to me?[ATTACH]12091[/ATTACH]

Percentage of total revenue averaged over 5 years.

Unless you're subtly referencing the inclusion of cash crops and government payments into the calculation for COP. Which I say is bullshit as well and would call them on it.

But at the same time, I also know that they want to understand which operations are most profitable and why. In this case, it would be due to diversification of income sources.

[The Don]

Can anybody explain this to me?

[15444]

That's a lot of numbers!
Looking at the CA-MB-1. "starting late October , 30 days of 20 lbs alfalfa hay supplemented on pasture"
My cows would starve on that ration.
1300 # cow 20 # hay / day = 1.5% of body weight / day.
At a time of year you should be pushing as much food as possible to the cattle. Your last opportunity to get those cows into shape for the winter.
The numbers don't hold up under scrutiny.
There is no cow depreciation shown.
There is no additional feed shown for heifers / young cows. A 13% replacement rate in the herd would result in a total turn over in 7.7 years . At any time greater than 50% of the herd would be less than 5 years old. 5 years old would be a date where that cow would be fully developed and can with stand a reduced ration. But not as low a ration as they are showing.
Even giving up $63,000. in labour the operation is still deep in the red, they are living on fresh air. I could go on...
This is a little more realistic than they usually present, but it is not real.
The reason the cow - calf sector is shrinking is not only the drought. Lack of profit is the big driver.
My opinion.

I'll be taking part in the COP study this year, so it will be interesting to see where I stack up with compared to everyone else. Once I get finished with getting tax books ready this week, I can focus more on the numbers as the first zoom meeting with the focus group is next week.

[The Don]

That's a lot of numbers!
Looking at the CA-MB-1. "starting late October , 30 days of 20 lbs alfalfa hay supplemented on pasture"
My cows would starve on that ration.
1300 # cow 20 # hay / day = 1.5% of body weight / day.
At a time of year you should be pushing as much food as possible to the cattle. Your last opportunity to get those cows into shape for the winter.
The numbers don't hold up under scrutiny.
There is no cow depreciation shown.
There is no additional feed shown for heifers / young cows. A 13% replacement rate in the herd would result in a total turn over in 7.7 years . At any time greater than 50% of the herd would be less than 5 years old. 5 years old would be a date where that cow would be fully developed and can with stand a reduced ration. But not as low a ration as they are showing.
Even giving up $63,000. in labour the operation is still deep in the red, they are living on fresh air. I could go on...
This is a little more realistic than they usually present, but it is not real.
The reason the cow - calf sector is shrinking is not only the drought. Lack of profit is the big driver.
My opinion.

[The Don]

II just took a quick look at the numbers. They look more real than anything I have seen from Can - fax before .Canadian Cattle Association before. Hours of entertainment at 03:00 hrs when I can't sleep. My education continues.
Thanks for the link!

[DaneG]

https://www.canfax.ca/resources/cost-of-production/cop-results.html

[The Don]

Agreed. It would be a complicated process to generate accurate costs. There are methods to do that. Accounting methods that which would establish base costs for the industry stakeholders. However using the current "disinformation " should not be an acceptable option. Consider that they don't get the easy part right! That is a choice!
They use these flawed calculations and "information" to present a picture of the industry that is not based in reality. They are in essence "cooking the books".
The cost of this disinformation is born by the cow - calf producer. My opinion.