Heidi Doering-Resch

Real-time insights help nutritionist prove value 

Put yourself in a cattle nutritionist’s shoes. 

You’re driving down the road and you’re 200 miles away from the farmer whose call you just picked up. He says he’s seeing a lot of feed leftover in the bunk but can’t pinpoint why. He’s looking to you for an answer, but with little to no information in front of you, you’re left hypothesizing what it could be. 

You both leave the call unsure, needing to dig more and make a mental note to pay that farmer another visit the next time you’re in the area. Meanwhile, hours and days will pass while lack of certainty eats at the farmer’s confidence in you.

It doesn’t have to be that way, says nutritionist Heidi Doering-Resch. Heidi is based in Courtland, Minnesota, and provides nutritional consulting services to cattle finishers both internationally and in the U.S. 

Real-time insights for real conversations

Several of Heidi’s clients use Performance Beef software and grant her access to their accounts, giving her a real-time look into operational data anytime – right from an app on her cell phone. She logs into the consultant portal of Performance Beef and uses what she learns to start conversations with clients from anywhere.

“Before I pull into a driveway, I’ll take a peek at the data from the past few days and see how feeding went,” says Heidi. “If anything raises a flag, like a drop in dry matter intake, I make it a priority to ask how they feel it’s been going. Was there heat stress or storms? Were waterers working? Did they bed pens? Then, we start drawing correlations to the data I’m seeing in the app and how they can best manage through events, so it’s less noticeable in the data the next go-round.”

“Likewise, if things are looking good, I’ll use the data as praise for a job well done,” adds Heidi. 

Fine-tuning feed costs with technology

Feed costs are a top expense in finishing cattle. Heidi works with her clients to monitor inputs, manage cost and maximize feed conversion and ROI. 

“For feeders using a TMR, I show them the cost per ton on an as-fed and dry matter basis,” says Heidi. “I’ll also use some of the graphs in Performance Beef to evaluate which ingredients we use the most of, which ones we can contract, which ones we’ll run out of and so forth. It really helps with ingredient planning and even timing of cattle marketing, depending on feedstuffs available and cost.”

A nutritionist can also use the data to highlight other opportunities for cost savings beyond simply removing or reducing important feed ingredients.   

“We might have a situation where a family member feeds on the weekend and he’s not as precise with adding ingredients, so you’ll start seeing how much was overfed or underfed, and that’s something we can look at together and put financials to,” says Heidi. “Then, if I’m being jabbed for an ingredient that costs an additional five bucks a ton, I can suggest some management fixes – in this case, accurate mixing – that can more than make up for the extra ingredient cost.” 

Matching the data to the cattle pen visuals

Heidi aligns the data she sees on her app with how things look visually in the cattle pen.

“We’ll be walking a group, see some loose stools and then I’ll pull up the app to find out that intakes have done a yo-yo a few times that week, so it’s probably best to wait it out and the stools will return to normal. The data typically explains what you’re seeing and can help avoid overreactions or underreactions,” says Heidi.

She also uses the data to prepare for weather events and their performance impact.

“We might have a couple days of extreme heat and we’ll have the intake data from that event to plan for the next heat wave,” says Heidi. “You can help prepare the client for the performance drop they can expect to see. It also opens a door for management conversations – let’s scale back feed by 8% this time instead of the 5% we did for the last heat event, so that we’re not wasting feed.”

Product proof, just a click away

Performance Beef also helps justify continued use of specific ingredients. 

“We might make it through two heat waves using a heat stress technology and we’ll have intake data on those two events if the client decides it’s not working and decides to pull the technology out of the feed,” says Heidi. “I can go back and show the difference in intakes on and off of the technology, as well as the performance impact on average daily gain and feed conversion. We can really see when feed technology is paying for itself.” 

A training tool for feeders

Performance Beef serves as a training tool for new and experienced feeders who may not understand the impact of their daily tasks, Heidi says. 

“We’ll sit down with feeders and show them the data and help them understand why what they’re doing matters,” she says. “I might be telling them to adjust an ingredient by a quarter of a pound per head, but we’re not seeing it reflected in the data. We’ll sit down and see how that seemingly small adjustment plays out on a pen full of 200 head.”

“It’s up to us as consultants to prove our worth, our products’ worth or our recommendations. And Performance Beef has everything I need to be able to justify my value and a finisher’s ROI,” says Heidi. 

Tiny moves, big financial impact

“With clients using Performance Beef, we can have constructive, real-time conversations every day,” says Heidi. “We can improve feed conversion and cost of gain, versus waiting for a closeout where it’s too late to improve anything.

“These cattle are so expensive and tiny moves make such a big impact. It’s the difference between having a positive ROI and a negative one. You can’t manage what you don’t monitor, and daily monitoring with Performance Beef makes a positive difference,” she concludes.