Strategies to Increase Profits

You really have about three options and their variations on procuring feed ingredients at the best possible price. The options which are before you will be somewhat dictated by whether you can make your own feed or whether you must buy it as complete. We will deal with those shortly but before we think about buying feed right, let's take a look at how you are using it currently.

So regardless of your feed procurement strategy, the first thing you should do is to check the following things:

1. Is your feeding program (feed budget) optimized for your genetics and the current ingredient prices.

Always think in terms of profits not cost control. I am going to say it once for all of those who can't seem to get by it if I leave it out...yes costs do matter and they matter a lot but reducing cost without understanding the impact on revenue is a common mistake.

The better way to think in times like these (or any other time for that matter) is that every dollar spent is an investment (not an expense). The difference between an investment and an expense is that an investment is made with full expectation that it will not only be recovered but that it will generate a positive return. Expenses or costs are paid with the idea that they are a necessity and that they are a payment for inputs. That attitude and those expenses should be dumped.