Cow-Calf Breakeven Calculator · guide
Short answer: divide a cow's yearly cost by the hundredweight of calf she actually weans. The calculator does it for your own numbers and shows which line to attack first.
Everything below is arithmetic on invented numbers. Not financial, tax or veterinary advice. Costs and prices belong to your operation and your market. No warranty.
Two tons of hay at $140, $60 supplement, $200 pasture, $35 health, $45 bull, $90 labor and equipment, $60 other, and a 12 percent replacement rate on $1,800 cows that sell as culls at 1,300 lb and $100 per cwt.
At 2 tons per cow each $10 per ton is $20 per cow. Hay at $210 (1.5x) cuts the margin to $240.00 and lifts breakeven to $200.41; at $280 (2x) the margin is $100.00 and breakeven is $229.34.
Each extra pound at weaning is worth $2.20 per cow, each point of calves weaned $13.75. Five points more weaned (93 percent) lifts the margin to $448.75 and drops breakeven to $162.27. A dry year, with hay at $220, calves at $200 and 82 percent weaned, turns it into a loss of $88.00 per cow, $8,800.00 over 100, with breakeven at $219.51. Try it with the dry-year herd button in the calculator.
The price per hundredweight at which a cow's calf pays her year's costs. On the default numbers it is $171.49 per cwt: $830 of cost divided by 4.84 cwt of calf weaned per cow exposed.
On these numbers, one extra point of calves weaned is worth $13.75 per cow and one extra pound at weaning $2.20, so five points of weaning rate ($68.75) is worth about the same as 31 lb of weight. A $35 per ton rise in hay costs $70 per cow.
No. It is arithmetic on invented numbers; check every figure against your own records. Not financial or veterinary advice. No warranty.