Do Small Cows Make More Money?

By Alan Newport

ANewport1@gmail.com

For years, indeed decades, the argument over cow size has been bantered about by cattle producers.   Now, adding to the debate, research from Wyoming shows smaller cows can produce more beef per acre, as well as produce more income. 

The research report is available in the journal Rangelands and it shows, in the plainest terms, that 1,000-pound cows on the working university ranch in Wyoming are weaning more pounds of beef than any other category of cows up to 1,400 pounds.   Because they can be run at higher stocking rate, this ends up being more total pounds of beef produced per acre and for the whole ranch. 

The researchers divided the existing cows into five weight classes and then extrapolated each class to a whole-ranch stocking rate for comparison.   The four-year study included the drought year of 2012, the wet year of 2014, and two years of approximately average rainfall. 

In an article I wrote for Beef Producer, I calculated from the pounds weaned in each scenario what the potential value of the calf crops would be in the drought year, the wet year, and over the four years as an average.   I chose a price of $142 from the fall of 2012, which was about the middle of the price range for the years of the study (2011-2014), from a weekly futures price chart. 

This is how the gross sales values calculated for the biggest-cow ranch versus the smallest-cow ranch, using the researcher's records for calf production: 

The big-cow ranch had a four-year average of $139,024 gross calf income.   In the wet year, they brought in $140,018 gross calf income.   In a drought year, they brought in $124,325. 

The small-cow ranch had a four-year average of $173,753 gross calf income.   In a wet year, they produced $204,592 gross calf income. In a drought year, the cows produced  $133,600 in gross calf income. 

The management did not change for cow size so this suggests much higher profit potential for the smaller cows. 



9/26/2017
This is an excellent article from the OnPasture website based on research done in North Dakota. We may like to look at the big, fat, pretty cows but the little workhorses we don't notice are the profit makers.