Custom Cattle Feeding Rates: Yardage, Feed and Contracts

By the XES Netting team — bale net-wrap manufacturer · Updated October 11, 2026 · ~20 min read

Custom cattle feeding rates across the Midwest and Plains mostly start at 30 to 60 cents a head a day in yardage, with feed billed on top. The University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s 2025 survey of livestock custom work put yardage for weaning and backgrounding calves at 47 and 48 cents a head a day, and its daily rate for wintering cows at $1.01. Every fall the same questions come up on AgTalk’s Stock Talk forum: what is the going rate, does yardage include bedding, how much should feed be marked up, and is feeding someone else’s cattle worth the work?

This guide is for cattle owners and feeders pricing custom work: wintering cows, starting and backgrounding calves, developing heifers and feeding cattle to finish. Custom grazing on summer pasture is priced differently; our pasture rent guide covers it. Nothing here is legal, tax or financial advice, and lien rules differ by state. XES makes bale net wrap, and most custom winter rations are built on round bales, so we put the hay into the daily rate. We read 47 archived AgTalk discussions about custom feeding, yardage and feed charges (428 posts, September 2022 to May 2026) and checked them against Nebraska’s 2023 and 2025 livestock custom-rate surveys, Iowa’s and Nebraska’s lien statutes and Manitoba Agriculture’s sample custom feeding agreement.

Custom cattle feeding rates for 2025 and 2026

Nebraska publishes custom rates for livestock work every two years, in a supplement that alternates with its machinery custom-rate report. The Center for Agricultural Profitability’s 2025 Custom Service Rates Related to Livestock Production in Nebraska drew 291 responses from 50 participants, most of them in the northern half of the state; 68% were custom operators and 32% were producers who hire the work. The table compares it with the 2023 survey.

Two cautions. The response counts are small, so treat the averages as a starting point, not a price list. And the wintering-cow line excludes calving labor but does not say whether feed is in the number; every yardage line above it says “without feed charges included.” Ask what a quote covers before you compare it. The same survey lists processing at about $2 a head ($2.50 for calves, $1.96 for backgrounding cattle above supply costs) and grinding hay at $14.25 a ton.

What producers report on AgTalk

The forum fills in the rest of the country and shows how deals are actually built. These are single reports from the time and place given, not market averages.

The pattern is consistent: a low daily yardage on cattle that the owner feeds through you, and a higher all-in daily rate when you supply the feed. Here is the plainest summary of the usual deal, from a Nebraska feeder in November 2025:

"Usually it’s yardage plus feed plus vet/med. But really it’s whatever two parties can agree on and they both are happy with the arrangement. We charge $.42/hd/day yardage and mark up feed a little bit to account for shrink."

— J HL, Nebraska · AgTalk thread 1219983

Four ways to price custom feeding

Nearly every arrangement on the forum is a version of one of four structures. They differ mainly in who carries the risk of feed prices, cold weather and poor gains.

Yardage plus feed dominates for calves and finishing cattle because both sides can see the numbers. An eastern Washington ranch that also runs a feedlot gave a 2026 version of the classic rate card:

"fifty cents a day per head yardage, chute charge when you run them through for anything, markup your feed to the high end of the going price. Charge for all bedding used."

— rock, Tablerock Ranch eastern Wa · AgTalk thread 1236943

An all-in daily rate is common for wintered cows, because the feed is mostly hay the feeder already has. A central Kansas owner described both the per-day and per-pound approaches in 2023:

"I send some steers to a guy south of me who has a couple hundred head feedlot and feeds some cows of his own also. He charges $1 per pound the truckload gains during the time at the lot based on the average weight. I also send dry cows to another lot that charges $1.35 per day. Both seem cheap to me, but I don't know what others are charging."

— hedgewood1, central kansas · AgTalk thread 1119752

Two years later a Nebraska feeder drylotting pairs reported 40 cents of yardage plus feed, “Presently running $2.75 a day area that inclides yardage.” A daily rate set in one feed market can be wrong in the next, which is why an all-in rate needs a feed-price clause or a short term.

Pricing by the pound of gain puts the performance risk on the feeder. In May 2026 a northern Illinois feeder’s advice to a first-timer was simple: “Weigh them when they come in and when they going out. The weight gain, cost him $1.15-$1.20 a lb.” To compare a per-pound offer with a daily one, divide the daily charge by the expected gain:

If feeding costs you $2.50 a day, a dollar a pound brings in $3 a day on calves gaining 3 lb, a 50-cent margin, but only $1.50 on cattle gaining 1.5 lb, a $1 daily loss. If you are the feeder, quote per pound only on cattle you know, with weights both sides trust.

What yardage should cover

Yardage is the daily non-feed cost of keeping an animal: labor, the feed wagon and loader, fuel and repairs, pens, bunks and waterers, utilities, manure handling, insurance and the interest on all of it. The Beef Cattle Research Council’s free Cow-Calf Yardage Calculator builds the number from cash overhead and machinery and building depreciation allocated to the winter feeding period, and leaves out veterinary, medicine and bedding costs. A southwest Minnesota feeder who bills 55 cents in monoslope barns broke his number down:

".55 per HD per day. I provide the bedding. Monoslope concrete barns. .15 labor .12 machinery .12 bedding .16 building Those are approximate costs. Deep pit barns would be .65 phpd."

— Farmingismyhobby, SWMN · AgTalk thread 1127757

Scale changes everything

Commercial yards can charge 30 to 45 cents because the cost is spread over hundreds or thousands of head. A western Iowa feeder with his own yard put his long-run yardage cost “under 8cents” while paying 40 cents to custom lots. On a farm with one pen, the same chores cost far more per head. One Stock Talk poster turned down 38 cents because he worked it out to $13 an hour for his labor, and an eastern North Dakota feeder put a small group into dollars:

"I'd hate to be in a spot where I'm married to someone else's 25 head for $10/day. Labor, facilities maintenance (even on dirt) and hauling manure even on a 6 month deal? $1,800 doesn't go very far."

— NDCat99, E ND · AgTalk thread 1133266

Run your own number before you quote. The illustration below is a 100-cow winter job; swap in your hours, equipment and rates.

That is well above the 47-to-58-cent yardage averages in Nebraska’s 2025 survey and the 30-to-50-cent yardage of big lots. Survey rates show what the market pays, not what your yard costs; a small yard spreads the same tractor and chore time over fewer head. Our guide to feed wagons and feed trucks puts a labor value on the road time a feeding rig adds. Many feeders also charge yardage to their own cattle, so they can see whether the cattle or the feed made the money:

"Charge myself 35 cents. It's all part of the cog no different then if feeding at a commercial yard. That way you know if your truly making money."

— ahay68979, Saronville NE · AgTalk thread 1153489

Is bedding part of yardage?

It depends on the deal, and it is a common surprise. One producer described walking away from a contract at the last minute:

"We got into the eleventh hour of going over the contract, I thought the yardage was something I could make some money with, then he said they always include bedding in with the yardage and they would not raise the yardage to include that! I figured that was about $15/hd or 6 cents a day/hd and they were paying 40 cents a day/hd."

— SWMN Farmer · AgTalk thread 1224527

In the same December 2025 thread, a northwest Iowa feeder said that of the people he had fed for, about half assumed yardage included bedding and half expected to pay for it separately. A feeder who does it for a living said bedding is “a line item on the bill,” and another lot bills it “as we go.” Straw and cornstalk round bales are real money; our cattle bedding guide puts 4 lb of bedding a day at 8 to 24 cents a head when it costs $40 to $120 a ton. Write down which bales are billed and at what price.

The hay math behind a daily winter rate

For wintered cows, hay is most of the bill. The table prices the hay for one cow at common round-bale prices, then adds yardage. It uses a 1,300-lb cow eating 2.0% to 2.5% of her body weight as dry matter, 1,200-lb bales at 85% dry matter and 15% added for storage and feeding loss; North Dakota State University uses 2.5% and a 15% loss allowance as planning estimates, and our guide to how much hay a cow eats shows how to replace them with your own numbers. That works out to 35 to 44 lb of hay offered a day, or 0.9 to 1.1 bales a cow a month.

Producers’ own winter costs, posted in December 2025, sat at the low end of that table; many mix in grazed stalks, baleage or silage. A northwest Iowa feeder put silage and cornstalks at about 2.5 cents a pound and alfalfa at 5 to 6.5 cents, adding, “Depending on weather and trimester cows are $1.35-$2 / day.” A south-central North Dakota rancher figured $2 a day, and an Illinois producer grazing stalks expected about $1 in an average winter. A southeast Wisconsin herd tied the number to bales:

"I would agree that we are at $1.50 per day per head. Give or take 25 cents. Some days we feed 3 bales per day and some days 2 bales. Mostly baleage for us."

— timjohn, SE Wisconsin · AgTalk thread 1221839

Three things move the hay line more than the price per bale. Cold and wet weather raises intake, and late pregnancy and lactation raise it again, so an all-in rate quoted in October can be a losing rate by February. Waste at the feeder depends heavily on feeder design; our comparison of round bale feeder types covers the difference. And hay quality decides whether cows hold condition on hay alone or need supplement; for owners and feeders alike, a hay test settles arguments before they start.

Feed markup, shrink and home-grown feed

When the feeder supplies the feed, the markup has to cover shrink: dry matter lost in storage, blown away from an open bay or left in the bunk. Markups reported on the forum run from 5% to 10%. A western Iowa feeder wrote in 2023 that many yards were at “30cents head a day+feed,usually mark up on feed is around 5%,” and two experienced feeders answered that 30 cents and 5% “won’t hardly keep the lights on” and “won't cover shrink hardly.” By January 2024 the same western Iowa feeder was advising a newcomer to mark feed up 10%, with this example: “$4 corn is $4.40 $200 ton hay is $220.”

The other trap is pricing your own feed at what it cost you to grow. An Alberta cow-calf producer made the point in December 2025:

"Around here there are too many guys that don't value of their own feed at market value, where it should be at. It should be valued the same as what you can sell it for in your yard."

— Dirtfarmer1000, Alberta · AgTalk thread 1221839

For many farm feeders the feed is the reason to do custom work at all. A northwest Ohio producer put it bluntly: “From my experience, custom feeding is only worth it if you can sell your feed to their cattle.” If you sell hay or silage through someone else’s cattle, price it at market, as you would to a neighbor, and keep the records to back it up: daily feed sheets and a scale on the feed wagon that is checked or certified. Our guides to pricing hay and corn silage for beef cows cover the market value of each.

Death loss, vet bills and empty pens

Rates get the attention, but the expensive arguments are about dead cattle, sick cattle and empty pens. A story every owner should hear came from southwest Wisconsin in April 2026: a man placed 80 head with a custom raiser that did not call a vet, and came back to find only about 37 alive. The poster’s conclusion:

"Moral of the story is, you better have full faith in the custom feeding place and you had better stop in once in a while to check in on your cattle. Way too much money invested at today's prices to automatically assume that everything is honkey-dory."

— Ih7110, SW WI · AgTalk thread 1236356

A Texas Panhandle cattleman in the same thread said he would “pop in twice a month” and only place cattle whose health he knew. Spell out four things before the cattle ship:

• Who decides on treatment and who pays. Many feeders bill drugs at cost or have the vet bill the owner directly; one western Iowa feeder advises billing $3 a head to treat a sick animal, plus chute charges.
• How death loss is shared. Manitoba Agriculture’s sample custom cattle feeding agreement has the owner insure the cattle and carry the first slice of death loss, splits a middle band 50-50, and makes the feeder pay above a set percentage, valued at delivery, while giving up the feed charges on those animals. The blanks are yours to fill in.
• What happens to chronic cattle. Agree whether realizers go home, to town or stay on feed, and who decides.
• Whether pens can sit empty. A Latimer, Iowa, feeder whose yard charged customers yardage plus feed warned about owners who hold the lot without filling it.

"Watch how you do stocking charges too. Some guys buy and replace right away, some might not want to replace for a month or two but still want the lot while you get nothing."

— Guy, Latimer Iowa · AgTalk thread 1119752

High-risk cattle deserve their own rate. Small groups that come and go every week drive up the time per head; a Midwest poster advised a farmer feeding for a local butcher shop in November 2025:

"Considering what you are doing as a small pen of cattle with the inventory Changing daily probably more time involved I would go 75 cents to a dollar A day yardage and mark up feed 10 percent plus vet costs 10 percent."

— Cornstalk1, Midwest · AgTalk thread 1219983

If you finish your own cattle and sell the beef direct instead, our guide to freezer beef prices covers hanging-weight pricing and the break-even against selling live.

Custom feeding contract checklist

Iowa’s lien law recognizes oral agreements, but a handshake leaves every question in this guide open. A feeder who does both custom and owned cattle listed the cons plainly in December 2023:

"Cons: Dealing with people. Disease. Getting paid. Communicated both sides of expectations. People get mad when information wasn't stated ahead of time on both sides. Got burned a couple times when I just didn't know to ask the right questions."

— welfarehill · AgTalk thread 1139708

Use the Manitoba sample agreement as a template and have a lawyer adapt it to your state. Cover at least these points:

1. Term. Start date and minimum and maximum days on feed.
2. Every charge, by unit. Processing per head; yardage per head per day; bedding per head per day or per bale; feed per pound of feed, per pound of gain or per head per day; medicine and vet at cost or with a markup; calving per live calf; chute work.
3. Deposit and billing. A per-head deposit applied to the final bill, monthly invoices with a due date (the Manitoba sample uses 15 days) and interest on late balances.
4. Release only when paid. All charges settled before the last cattle leave.
5. Identification and records. Official ear tags, separate pens, weights in and out, daily feed records.
6. Inspection. The owner may see the cattle at any time.
7. Health. Who processes, who calls the vet, who pays, and what happens under a quarantine or destruction order.
8. Insurance and death loss. Who insures, and the percentage bands each side carries.
9. Condition. For wintered cows, the body condition at arrival and at pickup, and how it will be scored.
10. Hauling and weighing. Who pays freight, and where and when cattle are weighed.
11. Termination. Days of written notice, the owner’s right to remove cattle after paying, and the feeder’s right to require removal.
12. Empty pens and disputes. A pen charge if the owner holds space without cattle, and how disagreements are settled (the Manitoba sample uses arbitration with the cost split 50-50).

A central Nebraska producer who custom grazes bred heifers summed it up: “Best advice is put the terms in writing and stay in touch weekly throughout the season.”

Liens and getting paid

Feeding someone else’s cattle means carrying their feed bill for weeks. The forum’s advice on collecting was blunt:

"Get paid monthly never let them build up a stupid high feed bill. Don’t become their bank.

Never let all the cattle leave until paid in full."

— T-rowe, North central MO · AgTalk thread 1119752

The law gives feeders a backstop. According to the National Agricultural Law Center’s compilation of agricultural lien statutes, all 50 states have statutory agricultural liens, and their filing and priority rules vary widely. Two examples from big feeding states:

• Iowa. Iowa Code chapter 579A gives a custom cattle feedlot operator a lien on the cattle and the identifiable cash proceeds from their sale for the contract price of feed and care, under a written or oral agreement. It takes effect when the cattle arrive; to perfect it, the operator files a financing statement with the Secretary of State within 20 days. A perfected lien generally outranks earlier liens on the cattle, with exceptions such as certain veterinarians’ liens, and it ends one year after the cattle leave. A waiver of the lien is void.
• Nebraska. Neb. Rev. Stat. 54-201 gives anyone hired to feed and care for livestock a “first, paramount, and prior lien” for the agreed price or reasonable value, as long as the holders of any prior liens agreed in writing to the feeding contract. The financing statement must be filed before the livestock leave the premises.

The practical steps are the same everywhere: ask who has a lien on the cattle, get the lender’s written consent where your state requires it, file on time, bill monthly and keep the cattle until the account is paid. Check with an agricultural lawyer before you rely on any lien.

Is custom feeding worth it?

Opinions split cleanly. Owners of cattle in a strong market see custom feeding as leaving money on the table; a Nebraska feeder wrote in September 2025 that custom feeding alone over the previous two years would have meant giving up $400 to $900 a head of profit on owned cattle, and that “Custom feeding unless full year round, youll never do anything but pay the bills, youll never actually make money.” The other side came from a November 2025 post:

"To me, in a down cattle market custom feeding is a black line item in a sea of red. Lower opportunity for huge profits, but lower risk of equity loss at the same time."

— oldskool · AgTalk thread 1219983

A Latimer, Iowa, feeder who ran closeouts on 23,200 head they owned through their lot from 2004 to 2013 put the trade-off in one line: “Custom feeding consistently paid the bills, owning our own was boom and bust.” A Nebraska yard that both owns and custom feeds cattle wrote, “A mix seems to work for us the past few years.” Owners placing cattle in a commercial yard heard the same caution from the other side: a Kansas producer who tried it wrote, “My experience they make money you probably will not.” Custom feeding tends to make sense when:

• You have idle pens, water and feeding equipment, and the daily chores are already happening.
• You can sell your own hay, silage or grain through the cattle at market value.
• The groups are large enough that yardage covers your hours; 100 head at 40 cents is $40 a day.
• The owner pays monthly, and you trust each other enough to talk weekly.

It rarely pays for a handful of cattle that tie you to the place every day, for high-risk calves at a standard rate, or for an owner who wants you to be their bank.

Frequently asked questions

What is the going rate for custom feeding cattle?

Most feeders charge 30 to 60 cents a head a day in yardage plus feed at cost or marked up 5% to 10%, with vet, processing and bedding extra. Nebraska's 2025 survey averaged 47 to 50 cents for calves and finishing cattle and $1.01 a day for wintering cows. Small groups, weekly turnover and high-risk calves justify more.

What is yardage on cattle?

Yardage is the daily non-feed charge for keeping an animal: labor, equipment, fuel, pens, bunks, water, manure handling, insurance and interest. Feed, medicine and processing are usually billed separately, and bedding is negotiated. Larger custom lots on AgTalk reported 30 to 45 cents a head a day; our 100-cow example comes to about 90 cents.

How much does it cost to winter a cow per day?

Hay alone for a 1,300-lb cow runs about $1.20 to $2.90 a day at $40 to $80 a 1,200-lb round bale, or 0.9 to 1.1 bales a month. Add yardage of 50 cents to $1 for custom care. Producers posting their own winter costs in December 2025 reported $1 to $2 a day, many using stalks, baleage or silage.

Is bedding included in yardage?

Only if the contract says so. Some lots fold bedding into yardage, often without raising the rate, while many bill straw or cornstalk bales separately as they are used. One Minnesota producer valued the bedding hidden in a 40-cent yardage at about 6 cents a head a day. Write down which bales are billed and at what price.

Should custom feeding be charged per day or per pound of gain?

Under yardage plus feed, the owner carries feed prices and gain. An all-in daily rate shifts feed prices to the feeder, and per-pound pricing shifts gain too. Producers reported $1.00 to $1.20 a pound of gain in 2023 and 2026. To compare, divide the daily charge by expected gain: $3 a day at 2.5 lb is $1.20 a pound.

The bottom line on custom cattle feeding rates

Custom cattle feeding rates start with yardage of roughly 30 to 60 cents a head a day and a feed bill on top; hay plus yardage for a wintered cow runs roughly $1.70 to $3.90 a day at $40 to $80 bales, depending mostly on what the hay is worth. Work out your own yardage before you quote, price your feed at market, decide who carries death loss and bedding, and put it all in writing with monthly billing. On most farms the feed that makes custom wintering pay is round-bale hay, so protect it: XES bale net wrap keeps bales tight from the field to the feeder, so less of the hay you are paid for ends up trampled into the lot. If you are weighing silage against hay for the cattle you feed, our guide to corn silage for beef cows runs the numbers.

Research note: We read 47 archived AgTalk discussions about custom feeding, yardage, boarding, feed markups and winter feed costs (428 posts, September 2022 to May 2026, almost all from the Stock Talk forum), then checked the linked Nebraska survey reports, Iowa and Nebraska statutes, Manitoba sample agreement and Beef Cattle Research Council calculator on October 11, 2026. Post counts include questions and replies, not counts of farms, and producer figures are what they reported at the time and place given; Canadian figures are in Canadian dollars. The hay-cost, cost-of-gain and yardage tables are XES calculations from the stated assumptions. XES sells bale net wrap and does not endorse any feedlot, contract template or service; nothing here is legal, tax or financial advice.

Featured photograph: Corn By-Product Used for Livestock Feed, KSRE Photo (K-State Research and Extension), licensed under CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. A feed truck drops a corn by-product ration into a fence-line bunk as cattle wait to eat, September 21, 2020. Image unchanged apart from display resizing.