The 22th annual Dakota Feeder Calf Show is this Saturday, October 17, in Turtle Lake, N.D.

2019 Show calves at the Turtle Lake Weigh Station

Interested consignors deliver 500- to 700-pound calves before 10 a.m. CST on the day of the show. Each producer can consign one or two pens containing three or four calves each. The calves are exhibited and evaluated that afternoon and then shipped to the North Dakota State University Carrington Research Extension Center feedlot to be fed to finished market weight.

NDSU Extension partners with the Dakota Feeder Calf Show to provide producers an opportunity to experience retained ownership of calves beyond the cow-calf segment of cattle production.

There are several ways to collect growth performance carcass data from calves. The best is to feed out an entire calf crop, which takes considerable time, effort and funds. An alternative is to consign a group of calves to a feedout project: risk is decreased and this project provides substantial information about those calves.

During the 2019‐20 feedout, calves gained an average of 714 pounds in 213 days, with a total feeding cost (excluding interest) of 72.8 cents per pound of gain. The average sale weight was 1,344 pounds. The calves were fed with a market weight break‐even point of $106.08 per hundredweight.

In the 2019‐20 feedout, the spread in net return per head between the average of the top and bottom five herds was $99.56. The spread between the top and bottom herd is more noticeable at $124.43 per head. Average daily weight gain in the feedlot was 3.67 pounds for the top‐profiting herd and 3.06 pounds for the bottom herd.

Small differences in production have a huge impact on profit.

CREC staff gather data on the rate of gain, feeding costs and other characteristics during the trial. After the calves are marketed, staff collect carcass weight, meat quality and value data.

Calves should be prevaccinated for BVD, PI3, IBR and BRSV, Mannheimia, Clostridials and histophilus somni. Booster vaccinations will be administered upon delivery to the show.

Producers will be assessed an entry fee of $20 per calf. Dakota Feeder Calf Show officials will present awards to producers at the end of the trial.

For more information or to preregister calves, contact Karl Hoppe at the CREC at 701‐652‐2951, by cell at 701-650-8810, or at karl.hoppe@ndsu.edu, or Darwin Chesrown, Turtle Lake Farmers Union Oil, at 701‐448‐2356.

Karl Hoppe
Extension Livestock Systems Specialist
Karl.Hoppe@ndsu.edu