#20 | The Real Cost Of Cheap Summer Minerals

Thinking of the summer and thinking of a ranching operation, a lot of us are in the mindset of how can we cheapen up? We've got to watch our costs in any business, anywhere. So for ranchers, looking at ways to sort of cheapen up. We've to lower input costs or we're just going to skate by, you know, the cows are doing good out on grass. Is that a good approach? Maybe a decision that saves you five to ten grand in mineral costs or supplement costs through the summer is a decision that on the back end could cost you thirty or forty thousand in results. What you don't see is what you didn't get. You know, you didn't get cows bred. You have some light calves, some sickness. Those are things that you don't see what that cost you. There's so many things at stake right here in the summer. Cows are looking good. The stress is not there. So that is where we tend to think we can kinda coast. We're busy investing in that next year's calf crop. We're impacting the weaning weight all summer long. So much that we do in the summer that has a bigger impact on your profitability than any other season. Summer's when you make your money as our rancher. Well, welcome back to that ranching podcast where you join us around the kitchen table to talk about real topics that matter, that can impact the lives of folks in ranching. I'm joined this morning by Darryl Paskewitz, Twain Manning. Let's have some fun here as we talk about the topic at hand, and that is thinking of the summer and thinking of a ranching operation. A lot of us are in the mindset of how can we cheapen up? We gotta watch our costs in any business anywhere. So thinking of profitability, thinking of, okay, we've to run a more profitable operation. So I might tend towards how can I cheapen up in the summer? Is that a good approach, Twain? I mean, I get it. I'm looking at overhead expenses all the time myself. Yeah. Well, I think guys got to look at what they're spending versus what they're getting. You know, that's a common thing that we hear in the summer is we got to lower our input costs or we're just going to skate by, you know, the cows are doing good out on grass, we're going to put much into them, which is if you can get away with that well maintaining results is one thing. What we commonly see is maybe a decision that saves you five to ten grand in mineral costs or supplement costs through the summer is a decision that on the back end could cost you thirty or forty thousand in results. You get to the end of the year, you sit down with your accountant, it's pretty easy to see what you spent. But what you don't see is what you didn't get, You know, you didn't get cows bred, had some second calvers that they fell off, you have some light calves, some sickness, those are things that you don't see what that costs you in weight you didn't get to sell at the sale barn. Yeah, they don't have a line item on your financials saying, here's all your unrealized gains, or here's the pasture that you didn't optimize and the cost of it. Daryl, what else is at stake here in this? Like if we step into a rancher's world, what else is at stake during the summer trying to help profitability? Do we cheapen up? Do we not? We want to look at how can we save money? What can we do there? And how can we make money? And ideally you can do both. You can cut where you can cut and maximize absolutely everything that you can make more money on. You can get not only, as you mentioned, twenty more cows bred, but you can get them bred sooner. How many are we missing that could have been in the first cycle and they weren't? Where all can we maximize and optimize more? We improve weight gain, can increase the health and performance of our calves, the growth and development. All these different areas that end up giving you a payday sometime in the future. This is pretty profound. There's so many things at stake about the payday he talks about right here in the summer when, you know, it's greened up, cows are looking good, there's not a blizzard, you know, there's not snow going sideways, all that the stress is not there. So that is where we tend to think we can kind of coast for a little bit. And to Daryl's point, so many things at play here. You know, we're talking conception rates. We're busy investing in that next year's calf crop. And then the calf outside, you know, we're impacting the weaning weight all summer long. Better managing your land resources, getting more out of every acre, getting more out of every mouthful. There's so much that we do in the summer that has a bigger impact on your profitability than any other season. Did you have a quote on that, Twain? Actually, one of our customers, a rancher in Nebraska, what he's told me before is summer's when you make your money as a rancher. In wintertime, you're trying to skate by, you know, keep your feed costs down, run an efficient cow, but really the biggest levers in your operation that you could pull to make more money is in the summertime. So I would say whether it's Riomax or not, stopping and taking a good hard look at what you're spending versus what you're getting. We'll have guys call in and maybe they're doing what sometimes is referred to as a feel good mineral. You know? It's just a mineral you're putting out there because you you feel good that the cows are getting something, but really not very good quality, doesn't have a lot to it, and you're not getting the results. Like Daryl was saying, cows aren't getting bred in the first cycle if they're getting bred at all, herd health maybe not quite where you want it. Those things cost you money. And you got to stop and look at what does an upgrade in your mineral program cost. I mean, to take Riomax, a real easy example. It might cost you twenty dollars or thirty dollars to supplement a cow on on a cheap loose mineral through the summer. And Rio is going to cost you about fifty dollars to sixty dollars a cow, know, just ballpark figures, of course. But you take that math for thirty dollars or forty dollars a cow, that's not a lot of investment when we're talking weaning weights, conception rates, herd health. So you you got to run that math and see what makes sense. That's good. So for the viewers or the listeners, I guess it's a podcast, so it's more of the listeners. Twain, maybe just go over some of those numbers with us, what we see with the use of Riomax in terms of conception rates, weaning weights. Yeah. On average, it's a three to ten percent increase in conception rates is what we see. And then a ten to forty pound increase in weaning weights. And then the bigger one, you know, that a lot of guys don't think about, but is the fifteen to thirty percent feed savings. You know, you got a year like this and coming in, it's dry, things are looking like it, you know, hay prices could be going up or guys could, I don't want to say it already, but having to wean early, that sort of thing. Every bite of feed you save today is a bite of feed you got this fall, you know, and an extra day or an extra month, you don't have to be feeding those cows. I think it's a very important message, especially for twenty twenty six. A lot of folks are facing the pressure of drought and the reality that comes. Saving grass with the use of Riomax, fifteen to thirty percent is not a nice to have. It's an essential on a year like this because from the very time you turn out your cows to pasture, you're starting to extend that pasture or the grazing capacity all summer long, so that you're able to push further into the fall before you have to start feeding hay. Now, when there is drought, we see hay prices elevate. And so if we can put off that hay date, and a lot of times we hear this from our customers, put off my hay date sixty days. Well, you know, you figure out the value of that, that can really dollar up. And all of these decisions that we're trying to coach and educate folks on is how can we actually drive more profitability to every ranching operation across North America. Daryl? Yeah, think that's exactly right. I think you can take and write out different ways that you could save money and then do the same thing and write down ways that you could help your ranch make money. This is where you look at what can you increase, could you get better nutrition into a cow, what all takes place? You're getting better body condition, you're going get better milk production, and better milk quality. All these things are spin on effects. If you start to take better care of your cows, you get better nutrition into them, you improve feed conversion, you improve the digestion capacity of that cow. She's converting plants into usable protein and energy and turning that into next year's calf or the calf at the side, growing and maximizing that potential. I was thinking when you said better care of your cows or better cow care, I think that better better cow care is a good one liner. Think of it. We're getting more out of all these resources. You've got cows. We're getting more out of them in terms of your conception rates. You've got grass or acres. We're getting more out of that. You've got soil. We're getting more out of that. You've got all these levers that you can pull to get more out of what you've already got. A lot of folks are making decisions based on the dollar sign, whether it's the USD or Canadian dollar, and that's good. But to wrap up, think we need to look at your upfront cost in terms of what's this mineral program going to cost me through the summer, and then overlay that with it's actually a much bigger dollar sign, and that is what is the result of that decision? What's the return in terms of weaning weights? I should say conception rates first. Weaning weights, stretching your pastures, putting off your hay date, reducing sickness, getting more milk. Some customers have commented that the consumption on any program drops way down in the summer because the cows are getting good groceries, grass is good, you know, and so that can sometimes lead to, maybe they don't don't need it. I can just cut it out. What do you think about that, Daryl? And what you refer to as summer, that that's a good summer conditions we often see that, isn't it? If you get into poor conditions, poor grass quality, you're in drought, those kinds of things, conditions might be tough. And then you may see the consumption start to climb back up as conditions deteriorate on the pasture or feed, whatever you got going on. And there you'll see the cows self regulate according to what environment they're in, their feed quality is, or maybe feed volume. And that's the beauty of having a product out there and supplementing good quality nutrition and digestion ingredients in a free choice form that they can take in as they see fit. The words the term self regulate, Daryl uses, is very key here because those cows don't need a lot, but they do need something. And I would far rather have product out there through the summer and let them self regulate, but it's there as your pastures start to cure out and your protein and energy levels start to decline, that those cows can self regulate up. You know, there's an old analogy of an airplane. You know, airplanes don't take off straight up to thirty thousand feet. Main reason is it's too expensive, it uses too much fuel. I guess Learjets can do it, but it ain't cheap. So how they take off is like this, you know, very gradual incline. And that I see it exactly the same with cows in good conditions. We're not talking about droughty conditions in the summer right now, but in good conditions, they might not eat a lot, but it's a slow incline versus if they didn't have it in front of them and then suddenly end of August, early September, your forage starts declining and you throw tubs out and suddenly they gotta get up to that thirty thousand foot elevation. It costs the rancher more to do that than have that slow incline in terms of cow consumption. And with that, we'll wrap up on that ranching podcast. Remember to like, subscribe, follow us all you can tell your mates. Join us next Thursday. Join us next Thursday morning around this kitchen table. Where's the bagels? I was told there'd be food. How's the bacon coming?