Cattle Feeding Emerging in Kazakhstan > Nebraska Cattlemen

I was intrigued when Dave Hutchison, retired Texas A&M beef nutritionist, approached me earlier this year about a feedlot consulting opportunity in Kazakhstan. Easthides of London started a feedlot near Almaty, Kazakhstan, and was looking to grow its current yard from 625 head to 50,000. A 2005 feasibility study concluded that a large feedlot would be profitable, so a trial lot began. The company wanted a feedlot consultant for a three-month commitment to help with management problems. I knew I couldn’t commit that long since farming and the dehy season was on the horizon here at home, but we had an interest and some knowledge of the country from hosting a Kazak exchange student who had stayed in Nebraska.

We negotiated on three points: I would go for a one-month stay; I wanted our exchange student’s father, who lives in Kazakhstan, as our interpreter; and my wife Kathy would come to work with me. We decided just two weeks before the March 15 start date that we would go. My outlined goal was to evaluate and grow. What a challenge that ended up being.

Kazakhstan has been growing and quickly developing since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. Bordered by Russia to the north and China to the east, the country has seen a rise in incomes due to natural resources. With the rising income came an increased demand for beef. The country is currently importing the majority of its beef, producing only 330 tons of its 770-ton demand.

Overwhelmed

We were met at the airport by two drivers, company officials and Kanat, our interpreter and family friend. It was 1 a.m. in Almaty. We didn’t know where we were going and we couldn’t read the road signs, which were in Russian. I didn’t know what we were getting into. Our apartment building looked dark and drab in the dark, but was pleasant and modern inside.

Our first full day in Kazakhstan we were shown the city and countryside. It is a surprisingly modern city. That night, we were treated to a feast filled with Kazak traditions. Every square inch of the table was covered with food. There was lots of vodka, lots of courses and lots of toasts. They even had Russian dancers perform for us.

We worked every day because there was much to be done and the pace was slow. Kathy was busy making English-to-metric conversions, typing letters, drawing maps and writing reports. We did little sightseeing. We were there to work, not to vacation.

KazBeef: the feedlot

The Kazakhstan countryside is very flat and farming conditions are quite good. It reminded me of the Platte River Valley. We saw Kazak cowboys tending herds in the countryside as cattle grazed on miles of open prairie. Armed with five-gallon buckets, women lined up at a communal well to collect their daily water supply. Rural life is difficult, but the people seem content.

I thought I was home when we got to the feedlot, a former Soviet collective farm. The yard was filled with Herefords, or as they call them, “Kazak white face.” We arrived at the compound during feeding and I soon learned that the process of feeding was an endless, all day process since they fed three times a day. Simplifying this process would be one of my first jobs. They were using Western-style feed wagons, made in Israel, that lacked elevators. Loading the feed wagon was an undertaking. A converted dairy barn housed grain. More than six people worked in there. Two were scooping grain into the hammer mill; two were bagging it on the other end; one was supervising; and others were throwing the bags up to the wagon where they were emptied. Two-gallon buckets of molasses were also dumped by hand.

They were feeding barley grain, sunflower cake, hay, straw and molasses. We drove past a beer plant and negotiated to incorporate a more moisture-rich byproduct into the ration. The cost was about $2.09 per ton. I met resistance with comments like, “Oh, we can’t feed alcohol to cattle.”

Once we got the cattle on rations appropriate for age and weight, they began to perk up. They were content to the point that when I arrived at the feedlot one morning, one of the employees said, “We had to get out there and get them up [from lying down]. We thought they were dead!” In fact, they had never seen the cattle content.

The yards were old dairy pens with roofs – a kind of confinement building. Almaty’s climate is similar to Garden City, Kansas, and they get about 20 inches of rain a year. There were drainage problems, which caused standing water in the pens. Bedding consisted of straw, but it was still a muddy mess. Cattle were caked with mud. Supplying the water tanks obviously had been an afterthought because pipes ran overhead and froze in the winter. Everyone was very well educated, they just didn’t have any knowledge about feeding cattle, let alone “Western” knowledge that included feeding large numbers of cattle.

There were 625 head of cattle at the yard, with 53 people working there, including management specialists and general workers. Wages for unskilled laborers were $50 to $75 per month. Skilled laborers earned $150 to $185 per month plus room and board. They had two veterinarians because they thought that was necessary. There were eight guards who monitored the compound day and night since theft was common in the poor countryside. They had two men who just cleaned water tanks every day because someone had told them clean water was important.

The hospital did not have a useable working area so cattle were herded, prodded and tackled to the ground to perform health checks, weights and general care. Vaccines were pretty standard, including TB and brucellosis. The antibiotics available to them are the same we used 30 years ago. Hormones are not used, so all the cattle were bulls. There is a national animal passport system, which would ease the transport of cattle cross-country or to neighboring China or Russia.

The infrastructure to support a large feeding operation is still in its infancy. Cattle were procured in the northeastern region Almaty oblisk from herdsmen and small markets. Live cattle 4 to 12 months of age are approximately 45¢ to 68¢ per pound. As the feedlot grew, rail lines were planned as the primary method of transport for cattle and feedstuffs. When I arrived, fat cattle were transported in small groups. Groups of 5 to 10 head are sent to small butcher shops and then restaurants and grocery stores, but the majority are sold in bazaars similar to farmers’ markets. Easthides planned to build a large packinghouse to accommodate cattle from the growth of the feedlot. Current beef prices were $1.50 to $3.49 per pound at retail and $1.31 to $2.04 per pound at the markets. Most meat is red, without much marbling.

In the end, my fixes were somewhat minor, but my recommendations were broad. To grow the current feedlot would mean significant restructuring. I recommended acquiring 6,000 to 7,000 acres of well-drained land with a more manageable water table. It would need to be farther from urban development and have adequate land to dispose of manure. There is a lot of idle land since there is not the equipment or resources to farm or develop it.

I felt that growing the current facility to 1,000 head and using it as a training facility for employees would be most logical.

I found out in May that the test feedlot will be closed as soon as cattle there are marketed. A new facility will be built near Almaty in close proximity to a hide plant Easthides is building. I feel that I was effective in demonstrating that feeding cattle there would work.

Bill Rhea is a cattle feeder from Arlington, a member of the NC R&E Foundation Board and a past NC Board member.