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Western Nebraska | We just sold calves this week on Superior's auction. I was quite surprised with how well they did. We were pretty nervous about selling a group of 500lb calves into this market.
As a general rule, no matter how many times I figure the costs, I have never been able to find an example of NPN supplements being cheaper protein than about 5lbs of 3rd cutting alfalfa a couple of times a week. Our herd has been managed in this manner for more than thirty years so I am a little bit suspicious that we are also getting a boost from the evolutionary process. Usually our cows come off corn stocks as fat, or fatter, than when they went on with virtually no supplementation. I see a lot of guys pouring the supplement to their cattle all winter long and they still have a hard time keeping condition on them. I think that over the thirty some years that we have been operating in this manner we have naturally selected against hard keeping cattle.
We have an added advantage that most of our fields are pretty close to the North Platte River and it helps to moderate the weather a little. Our ranch headquarters are quite a bit higher elevation than the river valley so we get quite a bit more winter than they do even 10 miles away in the river valley.
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Wintering Beef Cows
