We are looking forward for the New Year to bring strength to the industry and to our customers. We continue to see increase quality grades in the packing plants.

The question to producers is what is in your herd and does your cattle match up with the industry or better. NextGen strives to help bring the genetics to help you accomplish this task.

Retain ownership continues to grow and with the carcass information we are able to provide to producers this should help with improvement in their herd. We are also able to show performance of your cattle along with animal health to help pinpoint which individuals you have in your herd that stand out.

There is a lot of stacking of genetics in the industry; this has caused some animal health problems in cattle showing up in the feed yards, so we have been looking at terminal crossbreeding and the effects in performance, efficiencies, health and carcass performance. With the slight influence of bos indicus, we are seeing a 1 to 1.5% increase in dressing percent, producing a larger carcass and has shown a $1.75/cwt increase in live price of fat cattle. At the end of the day, pounds pay, and by retained ownership you will be able to see how well your cattle perform and how they convert feed. This will help producers see how efficient their herd is at home.

Feed conversion becomes important everyday with climate changing every year. The drought has been touching all parts of the country and if you want to maintain or even increase cow numbers, feed efficiency becomes even more important. By monitoring the dry matter conversion, received from feeding your calves will help you see the efficiency of your herd.

There has been many changes in the feed yard in Hugoton, Kansas with the expansion coming to a completion and bringing the one time capacity to 45,000 head.

We are in the first year feeding GAP and NHTC program cattle with a few head starting to ship. It has been a learning process but is coming together. With new state of the art steam flakers, we have seen an increase in productivity and quality of the corn flakes.

NextGen Allen has been going through improvements as well with a few more added pens along with addition of two more GrowSafe pens. We have seen an increase number of GAP and NHTC cattle from producers; NG Allen has also become a certified yard for program cattle and has taken in several. We look forward to working with customers to find what works best for your feeding experience. Contact us anytime for more information with these programs and we can best help find what works best for you.