The Cattleman magazine, February 2009

SPA 2: Start With a Solid Baseline

By Lorie Woodward Cantu

Editor's note: This is the second installment in a 12-part series on cow-calf Standardized Production Analysis (SPA) that was developed by the IRM Committee of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. This series has been created in partnership with Dr. Damona Doye, regents professor and Extension economist at Oklahoma State University/Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service, and Stan Bevers, professor and Extension economist at Texas A&M University/Texas AgriLife Extension.

The monthly articles are supplemented by monthly "homework" assignments and links to related educational publications that are posted on The Cattleman's Web site, www.texascattleraisers.org.

The first step in completing SPA for your operation is gathering production data. Despite opinions to the contrary, accurate production data are not as readily available as accurate financial records, says Stan Bevers, professor and Extension economist at Texas A&M University.

"Generally, putting numbers together for the financial side is easier than compiling numbers for the production side because ranchers are forced to gather and reconcile their financial information every year for the IRS," Bevers says. "Nobody forces ranchers to keep or reconcile their cattle inventory."

As a result, people tend to keep these numbers in their heads, he says. With the passage of time, the accuracy of those numbers decreases, affecting producers' abilities to discern trends within their herds.

"SPA is completed for the year when the calves are weaned, so you have to go back 18 months or so to the time the cows were bred to get the exposed female numbers," Bevers says. "That's a long time to keep a set of numbers straight in your head."

One way to avoid the "memory" problem is to write the numbers down as the events occur, Bevers says. Now is an excellent time to start the SPA program, whether your herd calves in the spring or the fall. Because the breeding season for fall calving generally begins in January and the breeding season for spring calving generally begins in April, it will be easy to gather the appropriate numbers proactively.

These numbers will form the basis of the analysis for the 2010 weaned calf crop. (To create SPA for the 2009 weaned calf crop, you will need the numbers from the 2008 breeding and calving season.)

The data collection system doesn’t have to be complicated, but it does have to be complete.

"Ranchers typically jot down the date they turn their bulls in with their cows," Bevers says. "For SPA, the numbers need to be taken one step further. A rancher needs to note the number of mature cows and the number of first-calf heifers on the ranch that day." An example entry would be: Bulls turned out January 1. 365 mature females. 75 first-calf heifers.

Those numbers will be adjusted by subtracting any cows that are culled and by adding any breeding age females that are brought into the herd between the start of breeding and calving. This adjusted number is the exposed adjusted female count, which is the number of legitimate females that should have calves.

The next data that should be gathered is the number of pregnant and open cows. These numbers are easy to obtain when the herd is pregnancy tested and will be used to determine the pregnancy percentage.

As the calves are born, if possible, ranchers should note the number of live births. This will be used to establish the calving percentage.

At weaning, ranchers should record the number of weaned calves, which will be used to determine the weaning percentage.

For a cow-calf operator, the pregnancy percentage, calving percentage and weaning percentage are key numbers because their pattern can highlight inefficiencies that can be corrected over time.

"If a rancher isn't pregnancy checking his cows, how does he pinpoint the losses that take place between breeding and weaning – and more importantly, how does he correct those inefficiencies?" Bevers asks.

The numbers can tell a tale. Bevers cites an extreme example where an absentee landowner, who didn't require his manager to keep production records, had a "gut feeling" that there was something wrong with the weaned calf crop. It just seemed low. When Bevers and the landowner worked backward and created the records, they showed that the weaning percentage was 10 percent lower than the calving percentage. The conclusion: either the ranch had a serious predator problem or somebody was stealing calves. After an investigation, the ranch manager admitted to skimming the herd.

To help ranchers analyze their operations further, a SPA summary report is compiled into a confidential database that provides the averages of ranches throughout a region. Bevers oversees the southwestern database which contains information collected from participating ranches in Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma. Comparing individual ranches to the average is another way to highlight strengths and weaknesses.

            The averages are:
                                                  REGION       NEW MEXICO   OKLAHOMA       TEXAS
PREGNANCY PERCENTAGE       88.7%              89.3%              87.7%              88.7%
CALVING PERCENTAGE              85.1%              85.4%              87.0%              84.7%
WEANING PERCENTAGE             82.1%              82.1%              83.6%              81.8%

"A rancher who is getting an 80 percent breed up might think that is a decent percentage until he compares it to the other ranches in his state," Bevers says. "Sometimes you have to look outside your own fences to see if you’ve got a problem. Identifying issues is the first step to fixing them."

He continued, “SPA takes time, but it is time that translates into real money. The first year, you will establish your baseline data. The second year, you will refine your data and begin to implement changes. And the third year, you will see start to see results. Those ranches that have stayed in SPA for three years have increased their incomes by an average of $10,000."

Additional information: Several tools can be used to gather production data. Some producers choose to use a pocket calendar. Others prefer an IRM Redbook (http://store.beefusa.org/2009-IRM-Redbooks-P192C12.aspx ). Another alternative is computer software. There are many titles available and producers should choose the one that best fits their needs.

To help make the selection of cow-calf production record software easier, the Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service has compiled an informational bulletin available at http://pods.dasnr.okstate.edu/docushare/dsweb/Get/Document-1926/CR-3279web.pdf.

"SPA: Start with a Sold Baseline" is from the February 2009 issue of The Cattleman magazine.