Here there is some information regarding a visit to Lubbock Feeders (http://www.lubbockfeeders.com/) that I went with the feedyard management class on September 29th.
The Lubbock Feeders is located close to the city of Lubbock, in a strategic point close to the rail road and some highways. Their capacity is 45,000 hd at the same time, what would mean 99,000 hd per year. By the time that we went there were 25,000 hd being fed. The animals are preferentially Mexican cattle and crossbreed, because of the adaptation, conversion ratio and easiness to sale. There were some Braford in one of the pins, but mostly they are a mix of colors. The most difficult animals for sale are the Charolais.
The animals are feed once a day, preferentially in the same time every day. The routine helps the cattle to get adapted easily to the feedyard and improve gain. If they take too long to feed the animals get more stressed.
Feed is flecked corn basis, with distillery residual and supplementation with micro ingredients and roughage (hay). The distillery residual is difficult to manage because has high humidity (means that they are buying water too) and needs to be used in the same day. They are able to make 400000 tons of feed per day. The facilities are 3 corn fleckers and 2 big mixers. The feed is delivered by trucks in, normally, at the same time every day. The feed production per day is about 1 million pounds.
There is no shade for the animals in the pins. There are two kinds of pins: one with a dirty floor and other with concrete floor. In the pins there are the bucks and the water tank as well as an irrigation system (sprinkler) that helps to maintain the temperature comfort and keeps the dust down.
There are 20 employees working in the feedlot. They are responsible for everyday operations, such as feeding, taking care of ill animals, cleaning and moving cattle when needed and managing. There are more 2 hired professionals that assist the feedlot: one nutritionist and one veterinary. Daily observations consist in looking for animals that present atypical behavior indicating illness or problems in adaptation to the feedyard or the feed. If there are any animals with problems they are take to some facilities that are located in the middle of the feedyard that are called hospitals and they are kept there receiving special cares. The responsible for taking care is called “doctor”.
The mortality is about 1% in spring and summer time and 2% in winter an fall time. This difference is, probably, due to the climate changes during the winter (what was explained by the manager), even though they do not have a too cold winter, so there are probably other more factors included in this indices. Probably because the age of animals when they come to the feedlot (after wean) joined to the low temperature and stress due to the new feed and environment.
The budget for running the feedlot is US$25 million (and according to the manager is not one considered big, Cargill’s for example is about $400 million) and the margin that they have to deal is very short and sometimes they run out of money too. This is not considered a very big feedlot. The fly control costs US$15,000.00/ year and the control company goes to the feedyard once a week to verify and make the control.
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