A TECHNOLOGY TIMESAVER
He maintains a robust health program, giving calves three rounds of shots by the time they are weaned. Lee also raises all his own replacement heifers for his central Missouri operation. He holds his cow herd to a high standard when it comes to fertility and longevity.
That doesn’t leave much time for the stocker side of Lee’s operation.
Lee Marriott’s goal is simple
– raise good cattle.
He doesn’t take shortcuts.
Working smarter, not harder
To get the job done, Lee has always put in the long hours and hard work. He got some much-needed help in 2020 when he started using Performance Beef.
He was a little skeptical at first. You see, Lee knows cattle. Computers and technology, not so much. “Once it was explained to me, it was as plain as the nose on your face,” says Lee. “I don’t know how you can come up with anything simpler than the way we use Performance Beef.”
Cattle feeding, simplified
Lee uses Performance Beef to manage yearling and cow rations. Gone are the days of handwritten notes. “It’s saved me so much time there,” he says.
He has 11 different traps where he runs stocker cattle. Traditionally, he used handwritten notes to track the number of head in each trap, how much feed went where, ingredients for stocker rations and cow rations, plus how to mix them.
Now Performance Beef Tracks it All
“I poke a few buttons and that tells me what I need to put on the feed truck, how much every pen gets, anything I need to know,” says Lee. “Whether you want to change something or you run out of one thing and need to substitute another ingredient, it’s a super easy fix.”
Performance Beef also makes it easy for Lee to hand off feeding to someone else, another major plus.
“Whether it’s my son, my son-in-law or whoever, all I have to do is give them an iPad and say follow these instructions.”
He admits that they’re usually better with the computer than he is so the handoff is smooth. He likes that he can log in from anywhere to see what has been fed in real-time.
“It’s made feeding cattle a lot handier for me,” Lee concludes. “I would highly recommend Performance Beef to about anybody who is feeding cattle.”
