Tips on Surviving the Feed Price Rise

With your Southeast Regional Ag Report, I'm Trevor Williams.

 

Farmers across the country are seeing the price of corn and beans on the rise. That’s good news for grain farmers but creates challenges for livestock producers. The National Pork Board has just released information to help pork producers manage through high input costs. While the southeast isn't home to lots of swine operations, a lot of these tips can be helpful to the thousands of cow/calf operations here. According to Chris Hostetler, director of animal science with the National Pork Board, now is the time to focus on three areas related to feed

 

“A lot of the things that producers can do simply boils down to being observant and being attentive and being responsive. So, being observant means that you've noticed an opportunity for feed waste, being attentive means that you have reported that if you're a barn worker you've reported it to your manager or someone else, and then being responsive to it means that you actually take action against it.”

 

Hostetler offered several detailed suggestions for producers, as they work on feed costs within their barns. He says, understanding and tracking feed consumption can help eliminate feed wastage and improve average daily gain.

 

“Certainly, cleaning, feed spills up quickly, sweeping them up, scooping them up, and then providing them as a second opportunity for either sows or growing and finishing pigs, maintaining all of the equipment from your feed bins, exterior feed bins to your feed augers and feed lines to your feeders, making sure that equipment is properly maintained, making sure that the shut-off switches work, and that you don't get feed overrun, and the third big pieces, of course, keeping your feeders and proper adjustment.”