Conferences
Benchmarking Texas Cow-calf Operations by Region
Stan Bevers
Summary
Texas leads in the U.S. in the number of beef cows and beef cow-calf operations. Since the early ‘90’s, a major educational and analytical effort has been made by the Texas Cooperative Extension to develop regional databases that benchmark production and financial performances of cow-calf operations within the state. Using the Beef Cattle Integrated Resource Management - Standardized Performance Analysis (IRM-SPA) guidelines developed and endorsed by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, annual workshops have been offered to cow-calf operators in order to complete the analysis. Furthermore, for operations not able to attend these workshops, individual visits have been made. Since 1991, 371 operations totaling 289,420 breeding females have completed the SPA analysis in Texas.
Because of Texas’ diversity, cow-calf operations across the state are very diverse. For the purposes of this poster, the state has been divided into five regions, each representing prominent cow-calf production systems. These include 1) East Texas (88 herds), 2) Central Texas (66 herds), 3) South Texas (52 herds), 4) West Texas (43 herds), and 5) High Plains and Rolling Plains (122 herds). This poster will present production and financial results by region. Production performances will include pregnancy rates, calving rates, weaning rates, weaning weights, and stocking rates. Financial performance results will include investment per female, rate of return on assets, specific cost items, total costs per female and hundredweight, and net income per breeding female. These results serve as benchmarks for other cow-calf operations and assist those operations in identifying their own strengths and weaknesses.
Details
| Conference | 2007 National Extension Risk Management Education Conference |
| Presentation Type | Poster |