From Multiple Spreadsheets to Comprehensive Technology
Carson Guenzi’s family operation started as a cow/calf and farming operation. He, his brother and two cousins are all the fourth generation on the Colorado farm. They all came home to the family operation after college and realized they had an opportunity to expand into the cattle feeding business.
“We had the bunk and pen space, so we explored feeding cattle on our own,” Carson says. “It started with home-raised and some sale-barn cattle, and we’ve been feeding and expanding bunk space since 2018.”
Manually tracking with spreadsheets
Numbers keep Carson excited about the cattle business. He likes figuring out how best to make it work.
Carson started a spreadsheet to track cattle purchases and inventory. He added a spreadsheet to monitor input costs and better determine breakeven. Soon, he saw a need to track daily intakes too.
“As our feedlot grew, the spreadsheets became too much to handle. I could never get anything to the exact penny,” Carson says. “I’d always remember things later and need to make changes. It was guesswork at best.”
Boosting accuracy
When his nutritionist recommended Performance Beef™ as a solution, Carson was ready to give it a try.
“We were locked in on how it worked within a month,” Carson says. “Each week, we’d find something small that was put in wrong. Fat fingers pushed the wrong button, but it was easy to trace the error and fix.”
Carson’s apprehension about their feed truck drivers adopting the technology was quickly erased. He found it was quick and easy for drivers to click within Performance Beef as they loaded and delivered each day.
“Performance Beef made generating accurate closeouts, capturing feed and recording bunk scores easy,” Carson says. “Now we find lots of ways to use Performance Beef, including adding other costs, tracking animals that have been doctored, evaluating re-treats, and charging animals at the chute for ear tags and every cc of product used.”
The easy-to-use cattle management technology has simplified their business and given them more time to do what they love instead of sitting in an office.
“The feedlot is so exciting for us. It’s fun to watch the cattle grow, care for them and understand what it takes to make it all turn,” Carson says. “With Performance Beef, I see how we’re doing as an operation down to every last cent. It’s given us more confidence.”
