The old timers reckon a successful cattle trade involves buying and selling in the same market - a practice that will level the book-work when it comes to recording any profit.
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But there is much more to making a living in the trade, as any operator will tell you.
To factor in this inherent wisdom, gleaned from the generations, and make it available to aspiring young farmers, a family of graziers with a history on the northern New England have collaborated with each other to develop a user-friendly phone application.
The newly released StocktraderPro models your farm, while keeping sensitive data secure. In the end it suggests bidding prices for store cattle on the day.
"We believe that a farmer should be paid for their worth so we put profit first," says the application's principal director, Chris Gunther from Glencoe.
"We believe this technology is a game changer because it helps make profitable trades by valuing livestock relative to the market."
The project has been a team effort with the help of his wife Helen, nee Munsies, and their fifth-generation New England born children Ben - a software engineer who wrote the code for the App, Kim, an immunologist studying for her PhD at the University of Queensland while handling product media, and Josh, a trainee accountant by trade now saddled with administration.
At the heart of the software are 20 years' worth of spread-sheet data, carefully constructed and curated by Mr Gunther from the time he came home to take over the family farm following the death of his father Ken.
Chris was 22 years old at the time and took to his new role with enthusiasm for better production.
"I later worked with my father-in-law Graham Munsie for 14 years and he taught me everything about pasture and grazing management," recalled Mr Gunther.
On-farm scientific trials over the years have honed his instincts for what an average animal looks like. These parameters help drive the software written into the App by Ben and follows-on from their own grid guide previously emailed to commission buyers.
Ben is currently working on a buyer grid that can be emailed directly from the App.
Behind all the technical wizardry are a lot of real-life numbers.
"The data we collect includes the price of purchased cattle, their weight, all the NLIS information and we follow through when they are sold with data like days on feed, dollars per day, kilograms per day and dollars per head," Mr Gunther explains.
Interestingly over time there is no clear correlation that one breed will perform better than the others.
Phenotype is the most important driver of bidding at the saleyards, not necessarily brand-name genetics, he says. And when cattle get home the number one driver of production is feed.
Variables between seasons have to be accounted for, along with dips and rises in the market. But when stock are sold and replaced within a tight window, then correlating those figures with the day-to-day running of a farm enterprise becomes clearer - and figuring in a profit for the family can be done with confidence.
"StocktraderPro guides us to buy the right weight cattle, at the right time of year, at the right price to achieve our profit goals," says Mr Gunther.
"We don't take the same profit from every sale. If we require cattle we might modify our bidding or if we need to destock we might not buy at all."
Mr Gunther paints a picture of nimbleness in farm management as underpinning sustainability, however profit-taking must be considered first, not later.
"There is no point going to your accountant in March to ask them to tell you how much your cattle made 18 months ago," he says.
And yet, many people who run cattle refuse to value their own self worth.
"A farmer is an animal health technician, an agronomist, an accountant, and a manager of property portfolio. There's four well-paying jobs there," he points out.
"The CEOs of big companies like AAco are paid first. They don't wait until the end and take a share of the left-overs."
Calculating average mob profit involves parameters that are very similar across breeds.
"There is more variation within the mob than between mobs," says Mr Gunther.
"Their average daily weight gains are similar.
"Average daily gain varies throughout the year and with the seasons but this doesn't change between mobs of cattle.
"In my experience, the main factors driving animal productivity are animal health and grazing management followed by pasture composition and genetics."
As an example of how the App thinks, take a 350kg steer that is worth 360-380c/kg in the saleyards today. Then, consider lower weight gains made during winter. If an animal is on feed in a backgrounding situation for 200 days, and half of those days are in winter, then weight gain might be 0.5-0.6kg/day.
If a buyer pays 400c/kg for a 250kg steer and puts him on feed for 300 days - of which 100 days are in winter - then weight gain might average out to be 0.8kg/days.
In this case a buyer would be better off paying more cents per kilo for light cattle and keeping them over a longer period.
"Of course there are holes in the market, and even within sales there are ebbs and flows," Mr Gunther points out.
"If you know your prices then you will have a better idea of how to judge the value of each pen.
"If you know how long these animals will need in the paddock and you know what sold this week, then you can calculate what a saleyard animal is worth to you."
Users of the App are expected to carry out a farm-audit by plugging in parameters describing the expected average daily gain per month, individual animal costs, overheads and current sale price type of feed, micro-climate and cost structure of the enterprise. All this private information remains in a secure cloud-based data store.
Another way to describe the App is as a replacement cost calculator.
"We are not chasing the biggest gain, but rather the best profit," Mr Gunther says.
"When you take a 450kg animal going into the feedlot you need to figure out the cost to you to put that next animal on a truck. You calculate back, you put in the overhead costs and you pay yourself first.
"Some days we don't buy. When it rains and the market runs for a bit we sit out of the trade because there's no margin.
"We set a price where we make a profit."
Mr Gunther said the focus should remain on the long term gain. When cattle prices collapsed last spring, the family had steers on pasture that owed them $1900 a head yet were sold for $1100/hd.
"On the books we lost but we bought again in October for $600 and are selling them now for $1700 while we pay $1000 for replacements," Mr Gunther explains.
"Each time we trade we look to find the biggest margins."
