In a collaborative project, Fort Valley State Univ. and ABS Global, worked with small cow-calf producers in Georgia in putting together truckload lots of feeder calves. The objective was to assist small producers in achieving greater returns by selling in load lots of uniform, source-verified calves. The calves were backgrounded on a corn silage diet formulated to support a daily gain of 2.2 lb per day.

In August, 2004, 168 calves were marketed for an average return per calf of $108.77 over the local auction market. Avg. daily gain was 1.78 lb per day, and cost of gain was $1.62 per day during the backgrounding period. In November, 2004, 430 calves were marketed for an average return per calf of $23.93 over the local market. Avg. daily gain in the November group was 2.01 lb per day with an average feed cost of $0.98 per calf per day.

There was no sickness or mortality during backgrounding in the August group. Twelve calves became sick in the November group, but there were no mortalities. No calves were rejected in August, while in November there were 17 no-loads. Health of the calves after sale was reported to be excellent. These results suggest that it is possible to work with small beef producers and make a positive impact on enterprise profitability (Freeman and Getz. 2006. Southern Section ASAS. Abstract 130).