According to surveys conducted over the years, many cow-calf producers do little or no feed testing. While cattle may seem healthy on a particular feed ration, feed testing can help identify the need for any supplements while developing a least cost ration.
Kevin Hursh, Chief Agricultural Editor of SaskAgToday.com, talked with Kathy Larson, a research economist at the University of Saskatchewan who has worked extensively on cow-calf cost of production analysis. With feed as the biggest cost for cattle producers, Larson believes feed testing more than pays for itself:
