Cavender Ranches
Cavender Ranches and our Neches River Ranch primarily run a cow-calf operation consisting of over 300 head of registered Brangus cows and 1000 head of commercial Brangus cows. The registered end of the cow-calf part of our operation is the area in which we have grown the most over the last four years. This year we will market between 50 and 60 bulls at our annual sale in December and are expecting to have upwards of 80 bulls next year to market. In conjunction with Iron Farms we will have around 120 Brangus bulls at this year’s NRCA Sale, which will be held Saturday, December the 6th.
The Neches River Ranch, in addition to the cow-calf operation, takes all of our weaned calves, both steers and heifers, from our commercial herd and preps them before going to the feedlot or into our replacement female program. The Neches River Ranch operation develops all of our commercial heifers that we eventually sell as bred or first calf pairs. We expect to sell over 800 head of Brangus, Brangus Baldies, and both F1 Brangus and F1 Tiger Striped heifers this fall; 600 of which will be in our fall sale.
Our goal as a producer and marketer is to sell only bulls and females that we would use in our own program. We have worked to improve our quality standards every year on our Brangus bulls and our commercial heifers that we sell. Last year’s acceptance by the buyers at our fall sale was evidence to us that our cattle have been well received by both new and existing buyers. We have continued excitement about the cattle business and building more and more customer relationships that will be beneficial for both our customers as well as our program.
With the challenging times in the cattle business, we have initiatives in place to further streamline our operations this year. Our main objective is to transform our operation and divide it into specialized areas so that we can better monitor each area from an expense control and contribution to our total revenue standpoint. The objective is to build a team specialized in all areas of the ranching operation to become more efficient in everything we do. Some of our initiatives are listed below:
•Bring all weaned calves to one facility for development
•Keep Cavender Ranch’s end of operation strictly a cow-calf operation and bull development
•Keep better feed records to measure each segment of our cattle operation’s contribution to profit
•Enforce strict culling of cows and replacement heifers (it doesn’t cost any more to feed a good one)
•Reduce frame scores and continue to raise more moderate, easier doing cattle
•Hold weaned calves and carry to bigger weights that are going to feedlot longer and take to bigger weights
•Reduce stocking rates to prevent excessive supplementation of our cattle
As cattlemen we are all facing the same concerns. I think it is good to share ideas from other ranchers on ways to combat the higher grain and fuel prices.
Thank you in advance for your attendance at our 4th Annual Bull & Commercial Female Sale!
Joe Cavender
Cavender Ranches, Neches River Ranch
Justin Matejka, Manager ∞ Neches River Ranch and Commercial Cattle Herd ∞ Phone 903-571-1209
Kenneth Welch, Manager ∞ Cavender Ranches and Registered Cattle Herd ∞ Phone 903-571-8716
Cavender’s Boot City
2019 WSW Loop 323 ∞ Tyler, TX 75701
(903) 561-6848 Ext. 211 ∞ Fax (903) 561-4849
