Now, run budgets based on whether cattle are Bunk-Fed or Self-Fed
During the past 18 months, for many, finishing and marketing fed cattle has been a roller coaster ride. Considerable commodity market disruptions have caused wide swings in not only the value of cattle, but also the cost of feed and related feeding and marketing expenses.
To provide tools that allow cattlemen to quickly compare and speculate on potential cattle feeding margins, OSU’s Market Beef Budgets have recently been updated. They may be downloaded in spreadsheet form from the OSU Extension Farm Office website at: https://farmoffice.osu.edu/farm-management/farm-budgets
To provide a view of differences found in efficiencies when self-feeding versus bunk feeding, two different budgets are offered. Each spreadsheet is designed similarly and allows the user to override any of the default numbers found in the sheets.
Once downloaded, users are encouraged to begin by plugging their own numbers based on previous experience and current or speculated future market conditions into the yellow cells. New opportunities to speculate with the updated budgets include comparing different feed efficiencies, performance levels, and feed stuffs at different levels and prices.
For more information on utilizing the updated Market Beef Budgets, contact any of the authors found listed at the bottom of each budget spreadsheet, or your local OSU Extension office.