The Trigg County Cooperative Extension Service in Cooperation with UK Extension Specialists offered a Beef IRM program to producers in Trigg County in early 2018.  The program was to be specific to each operation and designed to help each producer meet his or her goals in beef production.  One operation that was interested in the program early on and was willing to make changes to their management has already been very successful with the practices they implemented.  The cow herd on this operation resembles many others in Ky, they calve year round, rotationally graze some and the calves are usually weaned on the truck to the stockyards.  This producer like most others were interested in anything they could do to make their calves worth more at the sale barn.  After a few farm visits with Extension Specialist Kevin Laurent we finally had a plan.  

The end goal was to wean the calves and get them on the right track prior to sending them to the stockyards.The calves were weaned, castrated, dehorned, and vaccinated before being placed in a lot for a few days.  They were started on hay and a feed ration approved by Extension Specialists.  After a few weeks they were moved to another farm where pasture was available but not being utilized to it’s potential.  The producers previously had limited electric fencing and no temporary fencing or water.They started by running one high tensile wire around the farm as a framework to keep the calves in.  They used polywire to make pasture divisions and fence some of the areas that needed to be protected from livestock traffic.  As the calves got used to the electric fence they were soon able to rotationally graze the entire farm, better utilizing the forages and lowering their cost of gain compared to feeding concentrates alone.Everyone involved in the operation commented on how fast the grass seemed to come back when they calves were back fenced and rotated to another paddock.  The calves were on pasture and hand fed for approximately 90 days prior to being sold.  Since the calves were now on a vaccination program, they’d been weaned long enough and met all other requirements this also allowed them to sell through the CPH sale in Guthrie.  

They started with 45 calves, 39 went to the Guthrie CPH sale, 6 would have been sold as outs so they were sold later at a regular sale.  Compared with their previous management the management changes look great. Not only did the calves weigh about 200 pounds more at sale time, they also brought $.30/lb more than a similar group they took off the week prior to starting the IRM program.  Using that as a comparison this amounted to a net of about $366 more per head than they had gotten at weaning time for their calves.  Based on figures provided by the producer, their feed costs were $32/head, vet bills were $22.  Even considering the added costs for supplies they hadn’t been using (Fence charger, polywire, reels and posts) this producer says it was well worth it.They are planning to wean another group of calves in late summer/early fall, graze stockpiled fescue and sell them in either the December or January CPH sale.  This outcome looks almost too good to be true but for these producers they were able to net after expenses on average $312/hd more than their typical management. On the 39 head they sold through the CPH sale that amounts to $12,168 on their fall calves.As one of the producers put it, “That’s not too bad for 3 month’s work!”