The Canadian Beef Industry Conference is set to go next week in Calgary.

Producers will have a chance to hear from some key note speakers on a variety of topics.

One of the presenters is Dr. Oliver Schunicht, a cow-calf producer and veterinarian with Feedlot Health Management Services in Okotoks.

He’ll be talking with the group about how preconditioning calves can make economic sense for cow-calf producers.

"Preconditioning pays if a producer can market larger, similar weight calves, that have developed a good reputation for having good health and subsequent feed lot performance. If the producers are able to provide adequate diets, these calves are actually gaining post-weaning. If the producers has the infrastructure and the labor requirements to do this preconditioning. Finally, it depends on the producers ability, or wanting to take on risk."

Schunicht also talks about preconditioning procedures.

"To me it means the calves are vaccinated, branded, and at weaning with multi-valiant vaccines, multi-valiant  viral vaccines, as well as receive a mannheimia and histophilis bacterin. It also means to me that the calves are weaned for a minimum of 45 days or longer, to ensure the calves have gone through the high-risk health period."

Producers can use the Preconditioning Calculator on the beefresearch.ca website to evaluate whether preconditioning can be profitable on their operation.