Host Lynsey McAnally (00:19):

Angus at Work, a podcast for the profit-minded cattleman. Brought to you by the Angus Beef Bulletin, we have news and information on health, nutrition, marketing, genetics and management. So let’s get to work, shall we? 

The term ‘regenerative agriculture’ is popular these days and can have a wide range of definitions depending on the context. At the 2026 Hemphill County Beef Conference in Canadian, Texas, our guest Tom Fanning of cattle feeding staple Pratt Feeders Group gave a presentation titled “Regenerative Ag From the Ranch to the Feedyard.” 

On this episode of Angus at Work, we’ll explore what regenerative means relative to the cattle business, how practices implemented at Pratt Feeders Group feedyards have yielded impressive results and why implementing cattle management systems while tracking that data can help make decisions that make the most of your inputs. So, let’s dive in! 

Welcome to Angus at Work! I’m your host, Lynsey McAnally, and today we’re joined by someone who’s likely familiar to our Angus Beef Bulletin  audience already. 

Tom, thank you so much for taking the time to visit with us today. For those in our audience who might be encountering you for the first time, do you mind introducing yourself and giving us a little history of your experience in the cattle industry? 

Tom Fanning (01:37):

Yeah, Lynsey, thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity to be here with you today. My name’s Tom Fanning. I’m the general manager of the Pratt Feeders Group. A little bit about Pratt Feeders, we have four feedyards. Pratt Feeders is the headquarters operation here in Pratt, Kan., where we have a 37,000-head feedyard and farm corn and alfalfa primarily here in the Pratt area. We have three other feedyards: Ford Feeders in Ford, Kan., Buffalo Feeders in Buffalo, Okla., and Ashland Feeders in Ashland, Kan.

A little bit about myself: grew up in northwest Oklahoma. I have a bachelor’s degree in agricultural economics from Oklahoma State University. I served in the military from 1982 to 1992 and got out as a infantry captain after the first Gulf War was complete. Spent some time getting a master’s degree at Troy State University and then joined Cargill in 1992 in their cattle feeding division where I spent time in the Texas Panhandle from Lockney to Gruver to Amarillo. 

Had a lot of opportunities there to work in every segment of the feedyard from being a feedmill manager to the bunk reader, tank washer, bunk scooper, cattle procurement, etc. And then in 2001 is when we had the opportunity to move back to Northwest Oklahoma, and I went to work for Buffalo Feeders. I was the manager at Buffalo Feeders for the last 24 years. For the last two years I’ve been the general manager of the Pratt Feeders Group. My wife, Michelle, and I went to high school together there at Fort Supply. We’ve been married 36 years. We have three children and five grandchildren with one on the way. 

Host Lynsey McAnally (03:20):

Awesome. That last part, that is exciting. Grandbabies are where it’s at, right? 

Tom Fanning (03:27):

It’s the best. They make life fun every day you’re around them. 

Host Lynsey McAnally (03:31):

We were talking a little bit before we started the recording about how regenerative can mean different things or have a different context depending on what part of the industry, both in the general ag industry as well as in the cattle business itself. So do you mind talking a little bit about what your definition of regenerative is? 

Tom Fanning (03:52):

To me, regenerative ag in farming and ranching is focused on restoring and improving natural resources and that production depends upon our soil, our water, our biodiversity, our ecosystem, making sure those things function while remaining economically viable. And so regenerative agriculture is basically improving the resources we depend on while remaining economically viable. I look at that as ... What we deal with every day in a production system is basically what are the four pillars. What are the four things at the feedyard that we impact? 

The manure that we create every day is a resource that goes back onto the farm ground that we’re then pulling the crops back off of to use back in the feedyard. The water resources that we have. Water efficiency is a big impact. Clean water is one of the most important factors to having a strong performance in animals in their game, but we need to preserve those water aquifers and the resources that we have. 

So, we want to make sure those water tanks are super efficient and then, of course, animal performance and using data and technology to help improve what we do. To improve our resource use. 

Host Lynsey McAnally (05:21):

Do you mind diving a little bit deeper into, I know you mentioned that manure is going back onto the farm ground that you guys are farming. Where are those resources going? Are those crops going back into the operations themselves? Going back into the feedyards? How does that work exactly? 

Tom Fanning (05:40):

Yeah, so that’s a really good question. It depends on the feedyard and our location. So here at Pratt, some of our lagoon water and then some of our dry manure would go back onto the farm ground that we have here. But the majority of our manure that we would clean the pens and then spread back out onto the farms in the surrounding area would be to the local farmers that then are using that as a fertilizer substitute instead of buying. It provides a lot of nutrients back into the soil and then we’re able to then be a market for them to sell their products back to us once they produce those off that farm. So it's kind of a closed loop, if you might think of it that way. We also have a couple of three different compost operations where we’re composting some of that manure and then the compost is going back onto farms, as well. 

Host Lynsey McAnally (06:36):

So moving on into another part of that that we just talked about, or you just mentioned, but the water efficiency aspect of it. I know you said going in and replacing some of those tanks, but you gave a presentation at the Hemphill County Beef Conference. You talked a little bit about a particular feedyard and going through and replacing those tanks. Do you have some stats on how many gallons were saved that you could share with our audience? 

Tom Fanning (07:02):

Yeah, so the Kansas Department of Agriculture Conservation Division has a water resource cost-sharing project, and we had two of our feedyards that made applications. Ford County and Pratt Feeders had two separate projects. And basically what we did is at Ford County, we were able to replace some water tanks that were just old. The valves were poor; there’s new technology there. We were able to basically improve our wastewater, the water that was just not making it into the tank or it was overflowing the tank or just through maintenance, we were able to save approximately 6 gallons per head per day saved, which was around 90,000 gallons a day saved there at Ford. And then at Pratt, we were in the process of replacing some old water lines and tanks, as well, but those waterlines ... This feedyard here at Pratt was a World War II airfield and training base for the B-29 bomber. 

And some of these waterlines were put in the 1940s and ’50s. They have obviously ran the end of their useful life and we’re replacing those. Reducing leaks and reducing the amount of total water used. So it’s been a really important part of what we’ve been able to do in reducing our aquifer use here at Pratt and at Ford. 

Host Lynsey McAnally (08:44):

Ninety thousand gallons a day saved just seems like a very significant amount of water. 

Tom Fanning (08:51):

It does, but you would be surprised when you see constant stream of water running over top of a tank at how many gallons in 24 hours actually went out of that tank that just went into the waste system. So it's really important, one, from a maintenance standpoint, your pen conditions, etc. But two, just from a conservation and stewardship standpoint, it's really important. It's expensive to waste water. We don't want to. It takes energy to get the water out of the ground and to get it where it needs to go, and we definitely don’t want to waste any of that either. We always think we need to do something huge to make an impact on our environment, but really it’s those really small things that we can do that ad up over time. 

Host Lynsey McAnally (09:37):

It’s impressive to me the longevity of those water lines and tanks if they were put in back in World War II. That’s a testament to longevity, but also impressive with the updates, what a savings and better stewards of water resources we can be, right? 

Tom Fanning (09:54):

It was a really good project and with the opportunity to have a cost-share through the conservation program through the state, that was an added benefit as well. 

Host Lynsey McAnally (10:06):

Absolutely. On the next two pieces of, I guess the next two pillars of that regenerative ag dynamic go hand in hand, but can we talk about that animal performance aspect combined with data and technology?

Tom Fanning (10:22):

Yeah, I guess so. The big picture with that would be healthier cattle equals better feed efficiency and lower morbidity or lower pulls is a lower resource use per pound of gain. So basically, the better job we can do of herd health — husbandry is the 1950s term you would use there of taking care of our animals — the more efficient they are, the less feed they take, the less water they take. And we’ve been doing some testing on some new technologies that are coming about. I’m not here to advocate for any one specific, but we’re looking at two or three different versions of similar type ideas. Basically it’s centered around data being collected on that animal’s movement and it’s what’s going on with that animal throughout the day. Then having early detection for whatever’s happening with that animal, whether it’s starting to have a digestive issue or a respiratory issue and then being able to successfully intervene or pull that animal and doctor the exact animal and not over-doctor animals that don’t need it. 

Again, we want to have judicial use of antibiotics and only use those where absolutely needed. It’s an opportunity to first thing in the morning at 5:00 a.m. have a list of 14 pens that have two animals in each pen that need to be looked at. So one other thing is we’re really not trying to replace people with data. We’re just trying to let data talk to our professionals and help them make better judgements with more information. If we can have accurate, timely data on what’s going on biologically with that animal, then we can intervene and improve the overall feed efficiency and the overall health of that individual and the pen. 

Host Lynsey McAnally (12:35):

Sure. We’re dealing with a prey animal, right? We’re dealing with an animal that ... Cattle are tougher than nails I feel like in a lot of situations, but that also means they do a really good job of hiding, when they don’t feel well, from us. I think that some of these systems out there are really helpful when it comes to being able to get behind the curtain and peel away that ability for them to hide or perk up when we go into a pen or act like they’re feeling fine These systems give you the raw data on, okay, are they actually performing well? Are they running a temp? Are they laying around a lot? All of those things that maybe you don’t see as often if you’re not standing there 24-7.

Tom Fanning (13:20):

Exactly. It’s that, like you just said, looking at the pen before you enter the pen is so important because you may see that animal that’s feeling bad and head down and starting to be lethargic. But once you open that gate and you walk in, everybody’s alert, everybody’s up, and he feels fine for the next 10 minutes. 

Host Lynsey McAnally (13:40):

Right. But then maybe that adrenaline or those endorphins from them getting excited about maybe we're going to get fed or whatever's going on kind of wear off and then they get back to feeling crummy like they had been before.

Tom Fanning (13:57):

But just imagine if you had a cowboy, one cowboy assigned to every animal, and that person’s job was to monitor every five minutes, everything that that animal did 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. That cowboy, number one, would get really bored and miss most of what was going on. But think about the impact on that animal. I mean, everything that’s happening with it is being recorded. It’s being looked at, and it’s being compared to what it did the day before and what all of its contemporary animals just like it are doing as well. And when something is outside of the normal pattern, then it’s recognized and it’s flagged and it’s alerted and we can go intervene. And that way we also are able to have less feed waste, less labor waste, less medicine waste, and just overall better experience for the animal, the cowboy and the customer. 

Host Lynsey McAnally (15:00):

Sure. If you don’t mind me asking, how long have you guys been utilizing a system like that? 

Tom Fanning (15:06):

So we’ve been in testing mode for about a year with two different systems at two different feedyards. 

Host Lynsey McAnally (15:14):

I love what you said, too. You’re not replacing people. It’s just giving them another tool in their toolbox to help them do their job even better and shine that light on some of those areas that can be difficult when it comes to cattle cooperating with us to ensure they stay healthy.

Tom Fanning (15:34):

Exactly. And again, our future depends on people that take pride in what they’re doing and doing it well. And if we can give those cowboys and our crew out there that are working long hours in rough conditions, whether it’s wintertime or summertime, it’s rarely a day at the beach at the feedyard. We give them the tools to really improve their job. That just helps them, helps the animal, helps the customer, and it’s a win-win-win all the way around. 

Host Lynsey McAnally (16:16):

Sure. And I know there are some people that would argue that there are environments that get more humid, and there are environments that get a heck of a lot colder than here on the High Plains. But I also think that we operate and live within an area that’s probably one of the more volatile ... It offers more volatile conditions than a lot of other places. I don’t know of very many spots on the planet that go from -35° wind chill in the wintertime to 110° plus in the summertime and expect cattle to perform well in all of those conditions. 

Tom Fanning (16:55):

Right. Which kind of leads to having the right animals that fit the right environments and the proper genetics and all of those decisions that are being made downstream of the feedyard by your seedstock producers and your commercial cow-calf operators on selecting those cows that fit the environment. And then we are just the beneficiary of all of the great decisions that all of those producers made prior to those animals arriving to our feedyard. And our job is then to take those animals and to get the optimum outcome for each animal there. Not the pen, but the individual animal. And so what we’re trying to strive for is individual animal management and the marketing and hitting that individual animal’s end point, which then leads us to the DNA testing and sorting program that we use. That helps us basically take a peek under the hide and to see what exactly those animals are capable of. 

And then too many times in the past, we didn’t allow the animals to get to their optimum end point. We sold them when we thought they were ready, but that whole dynamic has shifted, especially the last four to five years. And the genetics and the ability of those animals to gain and convert efficiently at much bigger weights it’s just been proven out over and over and over. And so what we’re trying to do with our DNA testing and our sorting program is to get the right animals in the right group that are going to be able to optimize the feed and the time and the energy that we’re putting into them to maximize the margin that’s available based on the marketing program that those cattle are going under. 

Host Lynsey McAnally (19:14):

And I actually wanted to dive a little bit deeper on that because we talk a lot here at the Angus Beef Bulletin and here on Angus at Work about genetics, buying cattle from producers who share similar values to you or buying cattle that have adaptability to the area that you operate within, which is something that you mentioned just a minute ago. As far as that, the DNA testing and sorting, what value do you think that has for folks on their own operations? 

Tom Fanning (19:47):

Let’s put it this way. If you can identify the animal, your calf back to the cow or the bull or cow and bull, I can sort your cow herd and your bull crop from best to worst based on the performance of your cattle in the feedyard. Especially if you replicate that over two or three years, you’re going to be able to identify your top 20% of the genetics that you own and the bottom 20%. And then if you can identify those, then you can start removing the poor performers out of your herd and improving them with the genetics of the top performers in your herd. And over a five-year period, you’ve improved your particular herd performance an amazing amount. And so we’re not doing a parentage test. So we don’t really, at our part of the production phase, we don’t care about which exact bull or what cow that was out of. 

What we’re wanting to know is specifically drivers on intake and feed efficiency and how that energy’s used in the system. We have cattle that come from everywhere with all different breeds, and it doesn’t matter what breed or what part of the United States they come from, there are high-performing animals and poor performing animals. We’re just trying to identify which one is in which bucket and where they need to go and how we can best help that animal optimize its performance ability. 

Host Lynsey McAnally (21:35):

That makes sense. On its most basic level, putting like with like makes sense. And if you’re going to be putting one group together that can achieve the goals that you have for them in a very similar manner, it makes sense to put them together rather than putting apples with oranges. But you had a point on your slide that talked about a couple different things. So gain vs. maintenance, muscle vs. fat, those sorts of things. Can you talk about why it's important to put those animals together when it comes to where that energy goes? 

Tom Fanning (22:15):

There’s a couple of things that I hope explains what we’re trying to demonstrate. So if you just back up one step, most groups of cattle, when they come to the feedyard, it doesn’t matter whether it’s a set of six-weight steers or seven-weight heifers or eight-weight steers. On average, there’s 400 pounds (lb.) difference from the lightest one to the heaviest one in that pen of cattle. 400 lb. And I’ve got hundreds and hundreds of thousands of data points to prove every load of cattle is 400 lb. or more. Let’s just say they’re going to be on feed approximately 200 days. At day 100 ,when we’re typically reimplanting those cattle, we’re bringing them back in and getting a second weight. And if you don’t do any sorting at all, that 400 lb. becomes [a] 650- to 700-lb. difference because you’ve got the top performer cattle that are moving away to the upside, and you’ve got the poor performing cattle that are gaining slowly. 

And so what we’re trying to do is one, market cattle when they need to be marketed to fit that grid that they’re going to. And the grids. Everyone talks about the premiums and the Choice premium and the Prime premium, but the grids are designed that the discounts are much more punitive than the premiums are positive. So we want to avoid as best as possible the extreme heavyweight discounts. We want to sort those high-performing cattle and market them before they become a $400 a head discount. 

At the same time, that gives that next group of cattle more days to improve their dressing percent, which dressing percent is always the number one driver on every grid. Weight always wins at the end of the day. Those cattle need to be efficient. They need to be able to have a quality carcass, but that carcass has to be muscular and that dressing percent is super important. So that’s what helps us drive that margin calculation — is trying to match the right cattle to their proper end point. And that reduces the variation that the grader or that camera, when those cattle are coming through, it’s just like they’re cookie cutters. There one after the other are very, very similar. There's not much variation as those cattle are coming through the plant. So it improves cutability, reduces trim. All of those things are super helpful to driving that bottom line margin. 

Host Lynsey McAnally (25:20):

With all of that said, if you had to give an elevator speech, so something quick and to the point, how would you sum up what Pratt Group has taken away from implementing these regenerative practices? 

Tom Fanning (25:33):

Just with regenerative ag as the focus of that at the feedyard level, what we’re trying to do is take it away from just some kind of a theory or talking point and make it about using better management and better data and better systems to produce more beef with fewer resources. 

Host Lynsey McAnally (25:51):

No, I love it. And that’s easily shared, right? I think that’s a goal across the entire industry no matter where you’re at, particularly where you guys are sitting. 

Tom Fanning (26:01):

I think by using data, we’re making every pound of feed count, every gallon of water and every animal reaches potential. And when we do that right, efficiency improves, sustainability follows and profitability validates it. So I think it’s a win-win type of a system. There’s no reason to be afraid of the term regenerative ag if you’re at the production level. It’s just about doing things better and doing it right. 

Host Lynsey McAnally (26:31):

I love that. How has the perspective changed amongst the folks that work in the various yards from when you guys originally started talking about these ideas to now having implemented them in various locations? 

Tom Fanning (26:46):

I think that, at the employee level, it’s where it all starts. It’s having pride of ownership and extreme ownership in their job and their role. If I want to know how to do something better at the feedyard level, the best place to go is to the person that's doing that job every day and ask them, “What is it that frustrates you about what you do and what can we do to make it better?” Usually they’re going to give you two or three checkpoints of how to improve their job. A lot of times that’s also improving the performance of the cattle that they’re helping take care of every day. 

Host Lynsey McAnally (27:29):

Sure. It goes back to what's the old saying, walk a mile in someone else’s shoes. And I think that’s always something I go back to is I may not be familiar with everyone’s roles, but I guarantee I can find an expert or somebody that has an idea of how to improve something because they do work that job day in and day out. And one thing that I thought was really cool when we got the opportunity to tour Buffalo was just from the top to the bottom, everyone we spoke to, they did have a lot of pride in what they do in their facilities and the changes that they were making and the cattle they’re feeding. I think the term ownership is something that’s really special because there’s plenty of people day in and day out that go to a job and they clock in and clock out and pull a paycheck. 

But I think the ag industry, in particular the livestock industry, is very special because you find more people who have a heart for what they do, and they have a heart for those animals that they are responsible for. So it was really neat to get to talk to the folks at Buffalo and see that in action at that yard. 

Tom Fanning (28:46):

Yeah, I couldn’t agree with you more. I think one of the cool things about what we do and being in the cattle business, whether you’re at the feedyard level or again, whatever segment you’re in is you’re dealing with people with integrity, you’re dealing with rural America, relationships that you build over time with your customers are long-lasting relationships. It’s our honor to be able to be a steward of those responsibilities that they hand over to us each year when they wean their calves and take them off grass and send them to that next phase of the production process. We take that very serious. We take that responsibility to heart and we want to do the best job we can and make sure that the outcome is what they expect and better. I kind of ...

Host Lynsey McAnally (29:59):

Talking about people, we’ll pull it back in before we wrap this one up. But when you gave this presentation at the Hemphill County Beef Conference, did you have any interesting questions that popped up related to the content of the presentation? 

Tom Fanning (30:14):

Yeah, I did. I had several questions about what’s the best breed or what’s the best crossbreeding systems? I’ve always said, thank God for the Angus cow, because she’s taken more people out of poverty and into prosperity than any other animal in the world in my opinion. It’s an amazing story of the Angus cow and the producers — commercial and seedstock — that are bringing those genetics forward. But just having your data and understanding what you’re doing and where you’re going and having a plan. If you don’t know what that is, that’s a big part of what we do is help people understand the first time you feed a set of cattle that you’ve never fed before, everybody’s learning. We’re learning and the customer’s learning. But that second, third, fourth time is when we’re really zeroing in on what exactly we have and where they can go. 

And so really it’s just ... I don’t think the answer is what exact bloodline or bull to buy, but more of what is your management system and how are you taking care of them and what are your goals and what are you going to do about it? 

Host Lynsey McAnally (31:44):

In that same kind of vein, is there anything we’ve forgotten in this conversation? 

Tom Fanning (31:51):

I think we've covered a lot of what we talked about there at the conference. Again, the point is not having more artificial intelligence or technology. My job is to take stuff that can be overwhelming and complicated to your average rancher and put it in a package where it’s easily understood, and it’s in a system that they can identify what we did right, what we did wrong, what we need to do better, how can we go forward and make next year’s calf crop better and the one after that. At the end of the day, stockmanship matters. Genetics are important and matter and everything we can do to get all of the opportunity that’s there in that animal and have all of that opportunity show up at the packing plant and at the closeout at the feedyard. At the end of the day, I think we’ve succeeded and the customer succeeded. 

Host Lynsey McAnally (33:05):

I have a sneaky suspicion I know where this next question is going to go, but I just want to thank you so much for taking the time again to speak with us, Tom, and to go over this presentation. I think our audience is going to find a lot of value in it. We always like to end Angus at Work on a positive note. So what is one thing happening in your life personally or professionally that you are thankful for? 

Tom Fanning (33:29):

Oh, I’m so thankful for my family, our customers, and just the people I get to interact with on a daily basis. Our customers, our employees. This is a people business and markets are hard, weather's tough, politics are whatever they are. But at the end of the day, we get to interact with really awesome people. And I’m just grateful for the opportunity to be here, work with this group of my management team and my operations team and my ownership group. And then our customers are just amazing. So I just appreciate and am very grateful to be in the cattle business and at Pratt Feeders in particular. 

Host Lynsey McAnally (34:29):

Awesome. Can’t think of a better way to end that on.

Listeners, for more information on making Angus work for you, check out the Angus Beef Bulletin  and the Angus Beef Bulletin EXTRA. You can subscribe to both publications in the show notes. If you have questions or comments, let us know at abbeditorial@angus.org and we would appreciate it if you would leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and share this episode with any other profit-minded cattlemen. Thanks for listening. This has been Angus at Work!