Nutrition
Production of quality beef depends on good nutrition.
Beef Northwest's availability of locally grown feedstuffs and by-products provides us with the opportunity to design competitive, high-quality rations.
With careful attention given to quality control and the use of inexpensive potato by-products from nearby potato processing plants, we produce "best cost" rations without sacrificing feedyard performance and beef quality.
In fact, recent research shows that, in light of high grain prices, Beef Northwest’s costs of gain are among the most competitive in North America. This is precisely because of our close proximity to other sources of feedstuffs, such as potato by-products.
Our use of crop by-products also supports our environmental protection efforts, because these nutritious products would go to waste if not fed to cattle. In effect, it’s a win-win for us, our customers and the environment – competitive gains at a lower cost that ultimately improves our use of natural resources for everyone.
Our computerized bunk management system enables feed managers to efficiently and accurately call feed to every pen of cattle, assuring each pen is fed within the same 10-minute window on each of the three feedings per day.
To guarantee quality control, rations are prepared three times per day and each ingredient is prepared once per day to determine the actual dry-matter content.
Ingredients and mixed rations are regularly sent to an independent laboratory for full nutritional analysis. We don't guess at nutrition by using theoretical numbers.
Dr. Abe Turgeon of Koers-Turgeon Consulting has been guiding the nutrition programs at Beef Northwest since 1995.
Dr. Turgeon is well known as one of the top feedyard nutritionists in the industry and is one of the few specialists that have knowledge specific to feeding potato by-products to cattle. He works with the management, feeding and milling crews at each yard to ensure that the procedures and human side of the feeding programs have the same quality control and high performance as the rations.
"BNW makes extensive use of nutritious potato by-products in formulating our feed rations. This serves multiple purposes: It gives our customers a competitive edge because our rations are less expensive than they are in other parts of the country. It provides local potato producers with a market for a product that would otherwise go to waste. And, it protects the environment by using cattle as they were meant to be used -- as efficient converters of feedstuffs to high-quality beef."