Feedlots short ?

[Blaithin]

1. Maybe they should have their needs filled in August for the following year. physical inputs are to be on site on a grain farm or you are considered an idiot that lacks planning.

I hope you aren’t being serious with this one. You expect feedlots to practically have their own elevator worth of capacity?

A 40,000 head lot of animals on full feed is looking at feeding roughly 363 tonnes of grain a day depending on their rations. 40,000 head on a 125 day full feed program is 45,375 mt of grain needed.

Note that this is not a years worth. Some animals will be done quicker than 125 days, some will be longer.

Feedlots also get jerked around by packers not taking their contracted animals on time. A 400 head pen being delayed a week could cost another 25 tonne of feed. How delayed have packers been the last 12 months?

Anyone that lives near a feedlot knows they’re usually on call for emergency loads when trucker logistics, weekends/holidays and road conditions align and make feed supplies run short. And that’s on good years. This year would be a nightmare. Primarily because they can’t just switch from barley to wheat to corn to wheat to corn to barley because that’s what they could get when they needed grain. They commit to transferring half the lot over to corn and keeping half on barley then they need the corn to show up. They can’t switch back over to barley in 3 days, even if they had enough of it, just because the corn is late. And most lots won’t have much more than a weeks worth of storage space. I know some that will pile grain or bag it in times of surplus and good pricing but even that tends to have a limit for capacity.

[Taiga]

My experience on a normal year is feedlots take trucks between 8am to 4pm. Closed for delivery Sat and Sun. Timed to avoid paying employee overtime, no doubt.
Not very many 40,000 head feedlots.

[Blaithin]

My experience working on feedlots is the staff are there Saturday and Sunday too. Cattle eat on the weekend just as much as the weekdays. Cattle arrive weekends. They depart weekends. It only seems to be grain deliveries that want weekends off. Even my experience with the elevator side of the equation is it generally being the trucking that doesn’t want the work on the weekends.

So cut the amount down. 20,000 head needs to have 22,687 tonnes of storage for 150 days. 10,000 head needs 11,343 tonnes. 5000 needs 5,671… is this a realistic expectation? At what size should a feedlot expect to have storage capacity for a year of grain? And apparently cattle producers should have a years back up too, just in case.

I can think of multiple cases of feedlots in the 10,000-20,000 size range where the owners have multiple lots in this size range bringing their animal capacity to well over 40,000. Just because there’s not 40,000 on a single lot doesn’t mean they don’t have that kind of grain requirements.

[Dirtfarmer1]

Whats feed wheat worth in Alberta now, just wondering.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

And apparently cattle producers should have a years back up too, just in case.

I was under the impression that most dryland/drought prone cattle farmers do ( or did) routinely stockpile a year of more of feed. Straw and grain specifically, or hay if it rains enough.

Around here where rain almost always bails us out, we tend to be more hand to mouth, then get really offended when mother nature doesn't cooperate.

[flea beetle]

Whats feed wheat worth in Alberta now, just wondering.

$11.43/bushel at Richardson Lamont.

[WiltonRanch]

This barley shortage has been a long time coming. Ever since the cwb finally died the necessity for farmers to grow barley for a means of cash flow, while waiting for the board to take delivery and provide full payment for wheat isn’t there. Besides, canola acres come at the expense of barley acres as we tighten rotations. I like growing barley for its benefit to the soil and versatility when on a mixed farm. Early price signals are not indicative of wanting you to grow a lot of barley most years vs the other crops. Outside of that central Alberta corridor yields are not as great and freight rates make it less competitive to send to the feedlots. Elevators as of late can pay a decent price for export and you get paid. Hence why so much gets exported. I am just rambling here with word soup but I hope you get the gist.

[Blaithin]

I was under the impression that most dryland/drought prone cattle farmers do ( or did) routinely stockpile a year of more of feed. Straw and grain specifically, or hay if it rains enough.

Around here where rain almost always bails us out, we tend to be more hand to mouth, then get really offended when mother nature doesn't cooperate.

Cow calf guys more often than not try and have some. Ideally a year or more, although maybe not always as successfully as they’d like.

But a feedlot… they’ll usually have multiple years worth of silage, yeah; of course they don’t use all that much silage once animals are on full feed. But they can require obscene amounts of grain and straw. I’ve never seen even a small lot that has a years worth of either sitting just in case. Straw/hay is actually probably more frequently a problem for many of them to source than grain is. I’ve always wondered when these straw plants are proposed in such close proximity to feedlot alley. That’s a lot of direct competition right there.

[WiltonRanch]

Cow calf guys more often than not try and have some. Ideally a year or more, although maybe not always as successfully as they’d like.

But a feedlot… they’ll usually have multiple years worth of silage, yeah; of course they don’t use all that much silage once animals are on full feed. But they can require obscene amounts of grain and straw. I’ve never seen even a small lot that has a years worth of either sitting just in case. Straw/hay is actually probably more frequently a problem for many of them to source than grain is. I’ve always wondered when these straw plants are proposed in such close proximity to feedlot alley. That’s a lot of direct competition right there.

Straw plants lol. Finding the right glue is like perfecting cold fusion.

So glad we hoarded lots of straw. Been stretching our poor greenfeed and hay supply with grain and straw. A bale yard full of straw and bins full of grain keeps a lot longer than hay or greenfeed if you don’t do sileage.

Is high moisture barley still done anymore or a thing of the past? Was a thing here years ago at local feedlots and some ranches.

[Dirtfarmer1]

12.00 for no. 1 wheat P and H watrous,SK today. Dont know why I passed up $13 a month ago, havnt sold a bushel yet.

[furrowtickler]

There was lots of feed maybe some miles would
Have been involved but there needed to be some
actual dollars And some foresight involved to acknowledge
The situation. No non livestock producer is going let
Anyone cut their barley or oats for the shit
Price per bushel that crop insurance was at.
If there was a top up lots of acres could have been
Cut.

But our at minister barely wanted to acknowledge
The drought at all. When the feds asked if help
Was needed there was no reply.

This could be a major disaster unfolding.
There are some yo-yo guys around that have
Thin cows at the best of time I doubt those
Animals will fair very good now for sure is another
Issue.

One thing as well was the fact that many acres simply could not be given up for feed . Every acre was needed to be harvested to cover contracts as much as possible. The buy outs were way more than being short on a contract . That was the case on probably 80% of the farms in many many areas .
Also there was virtually no straw even worth while bailing after combines rolled

[farming101]

G3 12.20 Feb

[errolanderson]

Corn appears rolling into southern Alberta via CP at a better clip. This has been a full-court press to get feed into cattle country. DDG's are higher protein, but smaller train lengths, whereas corn appears coming in on 100-unit cars.

Definitely, this has been a struggle for feeders and grain brokers and the railroad. Many problems related to weather and covid issues and labor problems that have contributed to these delays. But it appears corn supplies are now rolling in. The reduced U.S. corn export program to China couldn't have come at a better time for western Canada. China corn purchases are well down from year ago.

These are unprecedented amounts of U.S. corn rescuing our feeding industry. This year hopefully, supplies normalize and barley will be back in rations in the fall.

I feel for the cattle feeders and the issues that they have had to deal with. This is one tough group, but economics have to make sense. Ongoing red ink across the feeding industry is a concern.

[hedgehog]

back in 1985 when most of the hay in scotland was wasted by weeks of rain, hay was imported in containers from canada at a big price.
maybe we could send some back?
what weight of bale is $300?

[riders2010]

back in 1985 when most of the hay in scotland was wasted by weeks of rain, hay was imported in containers from canada at a big price.
maybe we could send some back?
what weight of bale is $300?

Anything that’s round. It’s quite a rip job