Coleman Ladd

The Ladds own a fourth-generation family farm in Madisonville, Kentucky, consisting of Ladd Cattle Company, their cow/calf operation, and 2CL Feeders, LLC, a commercial feeder cattle backgrounding operation feeding 2,000 head annually. Father-son duo Chad and Coleman Ladd are primarily operators of the farm, with help from other siblings and spouses. 

“The feeder cattle operation started in our garage six or seven years ago,” remembers Coleman. “I had moved back home right across the street from our farm and, after telling everyone I’d never work with cattle, I came home and asked my dad if I could do just that.”

With only 40 acres, the Ladds knew running just cow/calf pairs wasn’t going to be a sustainable income for multiple families. So, Coleman’s dad proposed feeding cattle to make the most of their limited acreage. They agreed and jumped right in.

When guesswork becomes expensive 

In the early days, tracking inputs was a challenge. Rations were built with a scale and spreadsheet printouts and health data was collected by hand often lost or incomplete. 

“If we were off on the first ingredient, the rest of the ration was wrong. If one pen got too much feed, the next was short. We couldn’t fix it in real time,” says Coleman. 

Tracking health treatments was also extremely manual – and likely resulted in over-treatment, simply due to poor records or lost identification.

A game-changer in the feed truck

About a year into feeding cattle, the Ladds found Performance Beef.

“Performance Beef was a real game-changer for us,” Coleman says.

From a ration mixing standpoint, it became impossible to shortchange ingredients. 

“You might still overload ingredient 1 – but instead of then shorting ingredient 2 based on total pounds in the mixer – you click a box in Performance Beef to switch to ingredient 2 and the software makes sure the right amount is added. There’s no shortchanging,” Coleman adds.

The same is true for feeding. 

“If we overfeed a pen, Performance Beef adjusts to ensure the next pen still gets what it should without getting shortchanged,” says Coleman. 

With Performance Beef, the Ladds track down to the CC of medicine and pound of feed for every animal that comes through their operation. And, as they’ve expanded into custom feeding, they charge customers accordingly – without guessing on inputs. 

“Performance Beef pays for itself in a single load of calves we didn’t charge feed for correctly,” he adds. “From a custom feeding standpoint, we recoup our yearly software fee in a single load of calves that we were able to charge the customer for every CC of medicine and pound of feed, which previously would have never been billed for because we didn’t know where it went.”

Changing operational flow for the better 

The wins extend beyond just dollars and cents – they’ve led to meaningful operational change, ensuring future generations can take part in what the Ladds have built.

“We’re no longer carrying pieces of paper around in our pockets, worrying our spreadsheets will get rained on or lost,” Coleman says. “Now dad can be sitting at his day job as an accountant, reviewing what’s happening in real-time at the farm without even talking to me thanks to Performance Beef.”

Feed inventory alerts have also changed operations for the better.

“Before, we didn’t monitor our feed inventory well, and we’d run into situations where we’d be out of feed and waiting for someone to deliver,” reflects Coleman. “Now, we get email alerts letting us know how many days of ingredients we have left, and it reminds us to order. Things like that have completely changed our operational flow for the better.”

And when health issues arise, the Ladds turn to Performance Beef to help problem solve.

“We can go back and look at sickness and death loss patterns, matching it up to the time of year, group type (heifers v. steers v. bulls) and weights. We can identify potential issues and adjust – either vaccination protocols or the types of cattle we bring in,” says Coleman. “And now, having used the system for a while, we can look at things like death loss in pen 2 v. pen 5 over the last five years to identify potential broader, location-based issues… maybe something in the soil or water that we need to troubleshoot.”

He adds, “I don’t know how anybody could background cattle today and not use it. It gives you a complete picture of what’s going on in the yard.”

Ensuring progress for future generations

The Ladds know how important advancing their operation is, with potential future generations set to take over some day.

“We’ve got four grandkids amongst us kids,” says Coleman. “I have the oldest one who just turned four, and I’ve got an eight-month-old. My sister has a one-year-old and my brother has a three-month-old.”

“My parents essentially went from zero grandkids to four within four years – three of those within the past year – and they’re already getting involved in the operation,” says Coleman. “My son has been feeding cattle with me since he was two or three months old. He goes in the baby backpack and comes out skid steering with me. It’s to the point now where if he hears the skid steer fire up, he’s running to the windows banging and crying to go out and feed with us. Lord willing, hopefully that means he’ll want to continue with the operation.”

Technology helps ensure a viable future for the next generation of Ladd kids.

“There’s no way we’d be where we’re at today if it wasn’t for Performance Beef,” says Coleman. “ I think Performance Beef will continue to help the industry grow and help producers like me keep money in their pocket – because it’s very easy to lose money doing what we do.”