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October 6, 2005 NDSU’s CalfWEB Offers Cattle Producers Planning Tool Current high cattle prices and low feed prices mean cattle producers have a decision to make this fall. Should they wean and sell their spring-born calves or keep them and feed them to market weight? The North Dakota State University Extension Service has a planning tool to help producers make that determination. It’s an online service called CalfWEB, at www.chaps2000.com/calfweb/index.htm. CalfWEB provides two programs. One, a break-even calculator, helps producers decide whether they could profit from feeding their calves. The break-even calculator asks producers to provide information including the calves’ projected sale weight and average daily gain, ration cost per ton and expenses such as veterinary and medicine costs, marketing and trucking. The other program, the closeout analyzer, calculates producers’ profitability after selling their cattle. It asks producers to provide data such as average sales date, weight and price; ration cost per pen; dry matter content of the ration; and veterinary/medicine, marketing and trucking costs. “Just because feed prices are cheap doesn’t mean feeding cattle will be profitable,” says Karl Hoppe, livestock specialist at the NDSU Carrington Research Extension Center. “Producers need to do the math correctly, and here’s a way to do it.” Hoppe, along with Greg Lardy, an NDSU Extension Service beef cattle specialist, and John Dhuyvetter, livestock specialist at the NDSU North Central Research Extension Center at Minot, developed CalfWEB about three years ago. The Web site also provides links to a list of NDSU Extension Service beef specialists throughout the state, NDSU Extension Service beef production and livestock publications, and regional and national market information sources such as the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Marketing Service. For more information about CalfWEB, contact Hoppe at (701) 652-2951 or karl.hoppe@ndsu.edu. ### Source: Karl
Hoppe, (701) 652-2951, karl.hoppe@ndsu.edu |
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North Dakota State University |
