Russ,

I'm unsure about on the cow-calf end as far as implants go, but as far as in a feedlot they are pretty much a must. The first group of cattle here are finished out from 600-1400 in roughly 200 days. That's pretty darn good numbers when you look at it. There's a guy not far from us who went to the "all natural" program and he fed the same size steers for I think over a year before they were finished out. Do realize, that the batch we start out at 600 in February isn't actually finished until 220-240 days only due to the fact that they don't gain much weight in late July and August from the heat and he fed through that too, but that's still a lot more feed and fuel to take off of the "Premium."