Cattle in feedlot -- LNN

By Teagan Rasche

FEEDLOTS RACKING UP HEFTY FEED BILLS

Expensive cattle feed a concern for ranchers

Jan 27, 2022 | 4:29 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB. — Rancher Darren Lutz has 275 cows to feed and the current cost of hay is causing him some concern.

“One week I saw it at $355, the next week it was $450 and these prices are just not relevant to the cattle business,” Lutz said.

This cost is around double what it was last year and something not economically feasible for ranchers.

CanFax, an agriculture service that analyzes anything to do with Canadian cattle markets, says feedlots are dealing with a similar problem.

“Prices have been increasing since the drought started last year there’s certainly a shortage of feed grain, we had very poor crops, we had fairly large exports,” Brain Perillat, manager and senior analyst at CanFax said.

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Expensive feed prices have many negative impacts, including less beef.

“You could be looking this coming fall at increase prices because of reduced production,” Lyle Taylor, general manager of Medicine Hat Feeding Company, said.

Taylor says this stress on ranchers is also causing them to question if they want to continue.

“This could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back and we might see a mass exodus in the ranching community if it stays dry this summer it’ll be very, very serious,” Taylor said.

Even though southern Alberta started 2021 in fairly good moisture conditions, more heat and less rainfall in the summer caused a drought. This resulted in poor crops and poor livestock conditions for feed availability.

Agro-climatic specialist Trevor Hadwen says it’s a little too early to tell how this year’s conditions will be.

“We’ve got some moisture in and on the soil right now,” Hadwen said. “Not enough to replenish the supply from last year but we’re hopeful moving forward.”

For Lutz’s, he’s also hopeful conditions will be better in 2022 but in the meantime, he’s afraid there will be a lot of thin cattle this year.

“They’re not being fed the amount they should be and the second is the cost to feed them,” Lutz said. “If you do want to feed them, the amount of debt you have to take on to stay in the ranching business.”

The concern and stress among ranchers and feeding companies don’t seem to be going away any time soon.