Winter checklist for cattlemen
Baxter Bulletin
January and February represent two of the tougher months for the cattleman and cow herd.
During these months, we can experience the coldest weather of the year.
Snow, ice or extremely wet weather also can be added to the list.
The cow-calf operator with a fall-calving herd has young calves on the ground.
Spring-calving operations will start to calve soon.
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The Positives of Pooling
By Alaina Burt Managing editor, Beef Magazine
Kentucky is the largest cow-calf producing state east of the Mississippi River. Despite boasting 1.1 million beef cows, Kentucky’s average herd size is just 29 head. As a result, calves typically sell in smaller groups.
Primedia Business – Beef Magazine, Click Here!
But the 13 members of the Barren Beef Group have given up their independence for the bigger payouts that come with pooling their calves to build bigger, more uniform lots.
“It’s just makes financial sense,” says Robert Wilcoxson, group member and feeder for the group. “Even with 170 head of cows, I can’t put uniform groups together
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Forage Focus: Forage Expert Examines Nutritive Value Vs. Quality
Cattlenetwork.com
Forage producers who want the best silage, hay or grazing should remember that quality and nutritive value are related, but not necessarily the same thing, says a Texas Cooperative extension specialist.
“Nutritive value is what we read in the lab analysis,“ says Larry Redmon, extension forage program leader. “Forage quality encompasses nutritive value, but goes a step further to include the livestock component.
“Do they prefer it over other feed? Is their intake good? Do they gain well on this feed? These three things are the livestock component of forage quality.“
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National Western Lends Support to Regional Cattlemen
Cattle Today
Denver – In an effort to help the ranchers devastated by recent snowstorms in Colorado, Kansas and Nebraska, the National Western Stock Show is helping raise money for the National Cattlemen’s Foundation’s (NCF) disaster relief effort. The 2007 National Western Stock Show runs Jan. 6-21.
In addition to making a donation, the Stock Show is getting the word out to patrons by handing out fliers and making announcements during rodeos, cattle sales and shows. National Western’s chairman emeritus Ben Houston also is donating a heifer to the Commercial Heifer Sale on January 17. All the proceeds from the sale of the heifer will be donated to the disaster relief fund.
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Black Ink: The “C” Word
by: Steve Suther
Cattle Today
Words mean more than what’s in the dictionary. Some can be rhetorical devices loaded with positive or negative undertones. Consider “chase” and all its forms.
A dictionary says the verb means to pursue in order to overtake or capture; to persistently seek the favor of; or, just the opposite, to drive away. The derisive derivative most common in the cattle industry comes from the centuries-old noun phrase, “wild goose chase.” That is, “an absurd search for something nonexistent or unobtainable; any senseless pursuit of an object or end.”
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Farmers Look To Corn Stover To Meet US Ethanol Needs
Cattlenetwork.com
BROOKINGS, S.D. (AP)–Explosive growth in the ethanol industry is prompting many corn farmers to look for an alternative source for the alternative fuel.
One place they’re looking is in their fields after the corn harvest.
Scientists are developing ways to turn crop residues such as corn stover into ethanol, and demonstration plants could begin using such materials within the next year, experts said Tuesday during a conference at South Dakota State University.
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Kansas City Is Hub of Animal Health Care
By DAVID TWIDDY, AP Business Writer
Hartford Courant
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The vast cattle pens that once helped move much of the nation’s meat supply are gone, replaced by aging warehouses and the frequent belief that this former frontier town left its agricultural roots far behind.
But not so fast. With little apparent care and feeding, the business of keeping animals well and productive has continued to thrive here, with one consultant estimating that about one out of every three dollars spent around the globe on animal health care flows through Kansas City.
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US Livestock Faces High Feed Prices On Ethanol Corn Demand
Cattlenetwork.com
WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)–The U.S. corn-based ethanol industry is expanding faster than many expected and livestock producers will need to adjust to costlier corn that it depends on for feed, U.S. Department of Agriculture Chief Economist Keith Collins said Wednesday in a Senate Agriculture Committee hearing.
Senators widely lauded the current boom in ethanol production, but that glee was tempered by concern over adverse effects on the livestock industry by lawmakers such as Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga.
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Ethanol threatens hog farms, senators told
By PHILIP BRASHER
Des Moines Register
Washington, D.C. — Not everyone in Iowa is happy about the state’s booming ethanol industry.
Gene Gourley, a pork producer from Webster City, told the Senate Agriculture Committee today that the sharp increase in the price of corn for feed is threatening the livelihood of many hog farms.
“The competition for corn is driving up producers’ feed costs,” raising their total cost of production by 25 percent in the past year, said Gourley, speaking on behalf of the National Pork Producers Council and the Iowa Producers Association.
Pork producers have been generally supportive of the ethanol production — many farmers also grow corn — and the pork organizations have not asked Congress to roll back the various government incentives for ethanol production.
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Birth of cloned calf poses test for Europe’s food safety regulations
The Guardian
Ian Sample, science correspondent
The Food Standards Agency is seeking urgent legal advice after farmers announced the birth of a calf whose genetic mother is the clone of an American prizewinning dairy cow.
The agency is to meet European officials on Friday to decide whether milk and meat from the animal must be tested to prove its safety before it can be marketed and consumed.
The calf, Dundee Paradise, was born at in the Midlands six weeks ago, after farmers imported frozen embryos from the clone and implanted them into surrogates last year. The cloned animal was created as a genetic copy of a pedigree Holstein dairy cow called Vandyk K Integ Paradise, which has twice won the World Dairy Expo, a US cattle-showing competition.
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Feeding Distillers Grains to Beef Cattle
Cattlenetwork.com
According to the Renewable Fuel Association (2003) nearly half of the U.S. fuel alcohol production occurs in Illinois and states immediately adjacent. In 2001 approximately 1.8 billion gallons of ethanol were produced in the U.S. and ethanol production is projected to reach four billion gallons this year. Distiller’s grains plus solubles (DGS) is a feed co-product produced in wet and dry forms as a result of ethanol production. As ethanol production continues to increase optimizing DGS utilization in beef, dairy and swine rations will benefit Illinois livestock, corn and alcohol producers.
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Old batteries lead to stock poisoning, vet warns
ABC News Online
Livestock producers in drought-affected areas are being warned not to allow animals near old car and machinery batteries, after a spate of deaths in New South Wales.
Meat sheep breeds and cattle have developed a taste for the lead salts in the batteries and have started chewing them.
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The January 10, issue # 520, of the Ohio BEEF Cattle letter is now posted to the web at: http://fairfield.osu.edu/ag/beef/beefJany10.html
The recent release of the Draft Risk Assessment of Animal Cloning from FDA has resulted in some interesting questions regarding the subject. For clarification of the issues, read NCBA’s Advisory in this week’s BEEF Cattle letter.
Articles include:
* Feeding Distillers Grains to Beef Cattle
* Forage Focus: Forage Expert Examines Nutritive Value Vs. Quality
* FDA releases its cloning draft risk assessment
* Weekly Roberts Agricultural Commodity Market Report
Stan
———-
Stan Smith
Program Assistant, Agriculture
OSU Extension, Fairfield County
831 College Ave., Suite D
Lancaster, OH 43130
e-mail: smith.263@cfaes.osu.edu
voice: 740.653.5419 ext. 24
fax: 740.687.7010
Visit:
Fairfield Co. OSU Extension – http://fairfield.osu.edu
OSU Beef Team – http://beef.osu.edu
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Cattle producers express concern about APHIS’ proposed Argentine FMD/Rinderpest Rule
North Texas E-News
Washington, D.C. – Last week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) proposed a rule that would – for the first time – recognize the disease status of a subregion of a country and allow fresh and frozen meat from the region to be exported to the United States.
The pending change – published in the Jan. 5, 2007, Federal Register – would declare a portion of Argentina known as the Patagonia South region, free of rinderpest and foot-and-mouth disease (FMD).
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