Ohio Beef Newsletter available

The February 7, issue # 524, of the Ohio BEEF Cattle letter is now posted to the web at: http://fairfield.osu.edu/ag/beef/beefFeby7.html

After the experience of the past week, we focus on managing around brutal cold and windchills in this week’s BEEF Cattle letter.

Articles this week include:
* Winter Cold Stress on Cattle
* During this cold weather, is at least your bull out of the wind?
* Feeder Prices Drop – Will They Drop Further?
* Forage Focus: Benefits of Frost Seeding Legumes

Stan
———-
Stan Smith
Program Assistant, Agriculture
OSU Extension, Fairfield County
831 College Ave., Suite D
Lancaster, OH 43130

e-mail: smith.263@osu.edu
voice: 740.653.5419 ext. 24
fax: 740.687.7010

Nutrition and its role in calving difficulty

Nutrition and its role in calving difficulty

Dr. Glen Selk, Oklahoma State University

Nutritional factors affecting dystocia are not fully understood. Dystocia is another term for calving difficulty. It has been established that energy deprivation prior to calving may decrease birth weight. The role of pre-partum protein intake on dystocia has been examined on several occasions.

FULL STORY

Finding PIs

Finding PIs

By Clint Peck

Beef Magazine

Health management programs are popping up around the country to investigate the role of screening cattle for persistent infection (PI) of the bovine viral diarrhea (BVD) virus. This is a disease that costs the U.S. cattle industry an estimated $2 billion annually.

FULL STORY

Vaccinate for scours

Vaccinate for scours

American Cowman

The implications of harsh winter weather can lead to important health problems in cattle herds, including scours in newborn calves. So, amid all of the problems caused by recent winter storms and their muddy aftermath, Kansas State University veterinarian Larry Hollis is encouraging producers not to forget vaccinating cows and heifers for scours.

FULL STORY

Importance Of Body Condition Scoring To Cattle Producers

Importance Of Body Condition Scoring To Cattle Producers

Cattlenetwork.com

Body condition is an expression of the amount of body fat that an animal is carrying. It is a one management tool that can be used to predict herd fertility and to determine feeding programs throughout the year. Females that are too thin or too fat can be an expensive investment. Thin cows can have difficulty rebreeding, while fat cows are prone to calving problems and excessive feed costs.

FULL STORY

Animal-rights activist clueless about agriculture

Animal-rights activist clueless about agriculture

Cornell Daily Sun (NY)

Re: “Sustainability must address animal concerns,” Letters, Feb. 7

To the Editor:

According to the National Agricultural Statistics Service, less than 2 percent of the American population is engaged in agriculture. These few in our society who remain tied to the land and animals are the most efficient, educated and safe food source on the planet. One of the greatest stumbling blocks to our farmers and ranchers today is a lack of agricultural awareness and education among the general public. In his Feb. 7 letter, Pulin Modi starkly displayed this abscence of agricultural awareness which is so prevalent in modern society.

FULL STORY

Growing Problems With Feral Hogs Discussed

Growing Problems With Feral Hogs Discussed

The Reporter (TX)

With the spring planting season just around the corner, area agriculture producers and property owners were on hand recently to learn what they can do about the growing problem with feral hogs.

The Hill County Cooperative Extension Service coordinated a program, which brought together a wide range of speakers from game wardens to trappers to buyers to disease experts.

The hog population has been on the increase across Texas for a number of years, with an estimated population of 2.5-million animals.

That figure represents about half of all the feral hogs in the United States

FULL STORY

Forage And Beef Conference

Forage And Beef Conference

sullivannews.com

The 2007 Forage and Beef Conference is scheduled for Feb. 26 and will be held at the Knights of Columbus Hall in Cuba, again this year. The hall is located two miles east of Cuba at I-44 and Hwy. W, at exit 210.

Registration will begin at 2 p.m. with the first speaker starting at 2:15 p.m. Topics for the afternoon session include: Fencing and Beef Cattle Sire Selection. The producers’ panel will be made up of landowners with different species of livestock including cattle and goats.

The after dinner speaker is Richard McConnell and he will be discussing “Low Stress Animal Handling.” Richard owns a farm in Polk County, MO, where he runs a cow-calf and stocker operation.

FULL STORY

Iowa Beef Breeds Council names award winners

Iowa Beef Breeds Council names award winners

by Peter Shinn

Brownfield Network

The Iowa Beef Breeds Council is honoring Tom Lynch of Heartland Cattle Company with its Iowa Seedstock Producer of the Year award. The Council also named T. E. Fitzpatrick and Don Faidley as Friends of the Iowa Beef Expo.

FULL STORY

Loose Livestock Create Hazards & Headaches

Loose Livestock Create Hazards & Headaches

cbs11tv.com

Rodney Mott raises cattle as a hobby. He takes it very seriously, keeping a watchful eye on his small herd. “We have neighbors here. We know whose cows belong to who,” says Mott. “If they get out he puts ‘em back or if his get out I put ‘em back, but in this area we pretty well know who goes to what.”

Nearly all livestock have a propensity to roam. When fences are down or gates left open it creates a major hazard for motorists and problem for local law enforcement.

FULL STORY

Research finds bovine TB spread linked to badger culling

Research finds bovine TB spread linked to badger culling

Peoples Daily Online

Ecologists have found that a stable social structure may help to control the spread of bovine tuberculosis (TB) among badgers, and transmission to cattle, a report on the science news website AlphaGalileo said on Monday.

Ecologists from the British Central Science Laboratory intensively studied an undisturbed high-density badger population in the Cotswolds, Gloucestershire, by analyzing almost 9,000 trapping records involving 1,859 badgers between 1990 and 2004 and found that TB rates were the lowest when there was the least movement of individual badgers between groups, according to the report.

FULL STORY

Cattle producers welcome Senate intervention in USDA’s proposed OTM Rule

Cattle producers welcome Senate intervention in USDA’s proposed OTM Rule

North Texas E-News

Washington, D.C. – Cattle producers were pleased to learn that a bipartisan group of four Senators from major cattle-producing states sent a letter of concern to Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns regarding the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) proposed rule (Rule 2) that would permit live Canadian cattle born after March 1, 1999, to be imported into the United States.

USDA published this proposed rule in the Federal Register on Jan. 9. In particular, the rule deals with Canadian cattle over 30 months (OTM) of age. Public comments on the proposal are due March 12. Authors of the letter to USDA were: Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., and Sen. John Thune, R-S.D.

FULL STORY

Denial of blizzard aid blasted

Denial of blizzard aid blasted

Congress will be asked to help farmers and ranchers in southeastern Colorado after the USDA said losses didn’t meet its standards.

By Erin Emery

Denver Post

Gov. Bill Ritter on Monday criticized the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s decision to deny disaster relief to 10 southeastern Colorado counties walloped by back-to-back blizzards that killed about 10,000 cattle.

The USDA, in a letter dated Feb. 5, said farmers and ranchers didn’t qualify for low-interest operating loans. Countywide, the losses did not equal 30 percent or more of production, which would include cattle, calves and winter wheat. The USDA has approved low-cost loans on a case-by-case basis for physical losses.

Ritter had asked the USDA to help people in Baca, Bent, Cheyenne, Crowley, Huerfano, Kiowa, Las Animas, Lincoln, Otero and Prowers counties where livestock was trapped in 15-foot drifts and unable to reach food or water for days after the late-December blizzards.

The USDA requires production losses – not economic losses – of 30 percent before declaring a disaster. The Colorado Department of Agriculture estimates 10,000 cattle died after the second blizzard, about 3 percent of the 345,000 cattle in southeastern Colorado.

FULL STORY

Retail beef getting leaner

Retail beef getting leaner

Drovers

Fat trim levels and separable fat content of some beef cuts in the retail case are leaner than ever before and leaner than reported in government nutrition databases, according to a new checkoff-funded study that evaluated more than 10,000 cuts from 82 U.S. retail stores.

Overall fat thickness (fat trim) for retail cuts was 0.24 cm, or less than a tenth of an inch. Cuts from the round and chuck had less external fat than cuts from the rib and loin.

The 2005 study revealed that 11 cuts from the chuck, rib, loin and round were not only leaner than previously reported, they are popular with consumers — accounting for 26 percent of all fresh beef items (lbs) sold at retail through the year ending September 30, 2006 according to FreshLook Marketing Group scanner data. In addition, 78 of the 82 stores audited offered ground beef with 90% or greater lean content.

Beef checkoff funds have made nutrient database improvement a top priority in recent years. “Because these figures are used to develop national nutritional recommendations and food policies, it’s a critical and continuing job to assure that the composition of retail beef is accurately represented,” said Cattlemen’s Beef Board member Greg Hilgeman, 2005-2006 chairman of the checkoff’s Joint Human Nutrition Research Committee.

FULL STORY

Limits on antibiotics go back to Congress

Limits on antibiotics go back to Congress

Health – Doctors say overuse of the drugs in animal feed can lead to dangerous “superbugs”

ALEX PULASKI

The Oregonian

A years-long battle to end the widespread practice of adding antibiotics to animal feed is headed back to Congress.

Prominent doctor groups are backing bills, one of which was introduced Monday, that they say are necessary to keep antibiotics working effectively for humans. The American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and others point to a body of research indicating that overuse of antibiotics in animal feed has led to the development of hard-to-kill germs.

FULL STORY