Each year cattle producers look to find more diverse and rewarding marketing avenues in order to generate additional revenue due to declining margins in the cow/calf sector.   Most of the focus is put on adding value to feeder calves. With this, value in the cull cow is often overlooked and significant incomes are not captured.

The Hancock County Cooperative Extension Service partnered with the Kentucky Cattleman’s Association and the Hancock County Cattleman’s Association to bring additional funds back to local cow/calf producers thru a cull cow marketing opportunity. An AG extension agent coordinated the effort for producers who didn’t have enough cattle to justify their sole participation in the program to commingle their cattle with other likeminded producers to fill loads and to benefit each other.

This effort resulted in sales of $259,000 to date increasing income to beef enterprises in 7 counties. Producers also received data regarding the performance of their cattle to better prepare them for this market in the future, and also participated in a group sharing of the data so that they could compare themselves to the other participants in the program.