Working Ranch Magazine March/April 2025

H olding on to your weaned calves – also known as retaining ownership – to add extra weight and age to your cattle before selling can be a money maker for cow/ calf producers. As with all opportuni ties, risk accompanies this business move, so it pays to know your strengths and resources, know where you fit in the cattle market, and know a bit about the “broad cattle market,” says Derrell Peel, an agricultural economist at Oklahoma State University, Stillwater. The Working Ranch annual read ership survey shows that 78 percent of our readers classify themselves as commercial cow/calf producers; 7 per cent as backgrounder/feeder calf pro ducers; and 12 percent as stocker oper ators. Essentially, ranchers in each of these segments are grass managers

To know if there is a business moti vation, “producers need to start with an understanding of the broad market environment,” he says. What the cattle market wants now may (will) be different later. Peel says the broad cattle market is “sending sig nals for rebuilding the nation’s cattle herd. All the margin operations above the cow/calf level are actually getting squeezed right now,” he says. “Weaned calf prices are higher relative to feeder cattle prices. The overall [profit] mar gin potential for the stocker sector is less right now, and the same is true at the feedlot level.” When the national cattle herd has rebuilt enough to create an ample sup ply of cows and calves, cattle prices will “come down off cyclical peaks,” Peel says. “Then the incentives may be there to reallocate some of that forage to stocker

and cattle are the tools they use to harvest the grass and produce a sale able product. If your favorite question is “What if…?” and you have a passion for busi ness analysis and the study of resource allocation, then retaining ownership of your calves may be a viable business option in some years. If you are con tent with enjoying the management of productive cows and growing healthy calves to sell at weaning or have other demands in life, then changing your ranching business may not be the best use of your time and resources. Peel, whose official title is profes sor of Agricultural Economics and Extension Specialist for Livestock Marketing at OSU Extension, says, “There’s really no reason to mess with your cattle operation unless you have a real business motivation to do it.”

Hold ‘em Fold ‘em OR BY ELLEN H. BRISENDINE

JENNY BATT/RED ANGUS ASSOCIATION

When the retained ownership math works, it works.

46 I MARCH 2025 WORKING RANCH audited readers run 21 million head of beef cattle.