Feeder Story
Mesquite Cattle Feeders
Brawley, California
About 130 miles east of San Diego, Mesquite Cattle Feeders, in Brawley, Calif., has been in business since 1949 and started as a family operation. Today, Joe Dan Cameron is the general manager and a part-owner of the 37,000-head capacity custom cattle feeding operation.
Born and raised in Imperial County, one of America’s top 10 counties for agricultural production, Joe Dan is no stranger to the region and his neighbors. He values doing business with local farmers and being part of the community. The operation purchases all its water from the local irrigation district and monitors daily water use. A big emphasis is also placed on dust control, making sure they water down roadways and pens so that the air is good for the animals and the people living in the valley.
Animal Care
At a feedyard, caring for the cattle never stops, and cattle feeders in the Imperial Valley are dedicated to taking exceptional care of the livestock. In 2021, Mesquite Cattle Feeders and others in the Imperial Valley Cattle Feeders were honored with a national award for their level of dedication to animal care.
The team at Mesquite is in with the cattle every single day. It doesn’t matter if it’s a holiday or if there’s rain, extreme heat, or wind; seven days a week, people are at the yard taking care of the cattle.
“We have to do a good job taking care of the animals because of the end products we’re trying to produce, and if we don’t do a good job taking care of them, they’re not going to take care of us in the feed or on the grid when they go to the packers,” Joe Dan says. “Our focus is on low-stress animal handling, feeding good, quality, nutritious feedstuffs that our nutritionist formulates, basically just making sure that we take top-notch care of the cattle.”
A day at Mesquite Cattle Feeders
The alarm clocks go off early for many of the dedicated workers at Mesquite Cattle Feeders. While the work of a day can vary, one thing that doesn’t change day to day is that animals have to be fed and looked after.
At 3 a.m., the first person up and moving in the yard (other than the cattle, if they choose to be) is the bunk reader. This is the team member who is out first thing in the morning to read all the pens to see how much feed was consumed at the last meal and determine how much will be fed that morning.
At Joe Dan’s yard, there are various types of cattle, and one meal plan does not fit all their nutritional needs. To accommodate, seven different rations are mixed and fed every day, working with a nutritionist to ensure the right blend. Rations primarily consist of steamed-flake corn, a bakery meal, dried distiller grain, and local roughages that are grown and produced in the Imperial Valley, including alfalfa hay, Sudan grass, corn silage, and Triticale silage.
Once the bunk reader determines what needs to be fed, the feed mill starts up at 4 a.m. The first trucks to feed breakfast are pre-loaded the night before, as the bunk reader handles the calls and creates the load schedule.
At Mesquite, three feeders drive trucks to deliver feed to the cattle. With three trucks working at once, the first feeding takes about 3 to 3.5 hours.
While the pens are being fed, cowboys start riding through the cattle to make sure they are healthy. If any animal looks sick or unwell, they move it to a pen for treatment, if needed, and monitor it more closely.
Next, the team switches gears to focus on any new cattle coming in that day. They get them processed and moved into the yard. Similarly, on days when cattle are moving out and being shipped, there are lots of tasks to be done—weighing them, organizing the truckloads, and eventually loading the cattle onto trucks to go to the packers.
No matter what the day holds, the feeding process starts all over again for the second feeding later in the day.
