Preconditioning

[cowman]

There is an excellent article in the last edition of the Western Producer on preconditioning research. The findings of this research are rather startling! The research was done at the Lethbridge Research station and involved 174 calves. Half were preconditioned and half weaned off their moms sale day and let stand for 24 hrs. to simulate an auction mart setting. Then they were trucked for three hours. The green calves had a shrink of 7.7% while the preconditioned calves shrank 23%!!!! On top of that the preconditioned calves had a ADG of 2.2 lb. as compared to the green calves' 3.08 lb. over a thirty day period!!!
Now we've been told that "preconditioning" is the salvation of the cow/calf man again and again. And only a hopeless "dinosaur" wouldn't get on the precon wagon! But those stubborn old cattle buyers kept wanting to buy "green ranch calves". I guess we now know why?

[pandiana]

Not having read the article, I can only guess that what we are seeing here is compensatory gain in the calves that have not been preconditioned (I assume preconditioning includes creep feeding prior to weaning). Why the increase shrink would occur is another question. More feed in their belly when they left home? Did they have an answer? It would definately be an advantange for buyers to buy green calves in order to capitalize on compensatory gain if feedlot ration was inexpensive and health considerations were not an issue. Conversely, if cost of feed is high I would think that calves already started on feed with reduced health risk would pencil out better in the end.

[cowman]

I believe they were "preconditioned" 30 days before sale date and weaned 14 days before sale date. I believe the shrink was attributed to weight at 30 days prior to sale date and 24 hrs. after sale date. Rate of gain was based on 30 days after sale date.
Somehow these numbers don't quite ring true but I guess you can't argue with the facts.

[surespendalot]

If preconditioning included creep feeding then the calves were probably in better condition, (as in fatter) so another cost to factor into the equation is, not only the extra cost of preconditioning, but also the fact that they probably returned less cents per pound, as the buyers prefer to buy cattle that they can put their own pounds onto, in their own feedlot.

[mbfarmer]

A few years back, when we just started in to buy calves and background with our own...I had the opportunity to sit with our cattle buyer. It was a really long sale...at 2:30 am he started to talk about calves coming in the ring. He told me that a flesh calf will lose most its baby fat once you put into the feedlot. In addition why would a person want to pay $1.30-$1.40 per pound when buying the calf compared to the $0.60 its costs in a custom feedlot. I sat with him for 2 hours...one of the best things I have every did. It is nice to have some calves that are creep fed...they go straight to the feeders and show the rest what they should be doing.