VA Tech’s Farm Business Management Update newsletter

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April-May 2007 Farm Business Management Update newsletter. CLICK HERE to download

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Tennessee Beef Times available

The Tennessee Beef Cattle Newsletter “Beef Times”for Spring is available by Clicking HERE.
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Tennessee Animal Science Update Available

The Tennessee Animal Science Newsletter for April is available by Clicking HERE.
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Minnesota Beef Newsletter Available

The latest version of the Minnesota Beef Newsletter “Beef Times” is now available in PDF (Adobe Acrobat) by clicking HERE.

If you do not have the free Adobe Acrobat Reader, you may download it by clicking HERE .

Ohio Beef Newsletter Available

he April 11, issue # 532, of the Ohio BEEF Cattle letter is now posted to the web at:
http://fairfield.osu.edu/ag/beef/beefApril11.html

As graziers and pasture managers, perhaps our greatest challenge is in the spring when we’re trying to find the middle ground between grazing too early/too often and too little/too late. This week, Rory Lewandowski offers thoughts that will help us find that place perfect place “in between” which optimizes our pasture’s productivity.

Articles this week include:
* Forage Focus: Get Ready to Graze
* We may soon need a Pesticide Applicator Certification to control rodents on the farm?
* HEIFER DEVELOPMENT: Prior to Calving
* Alfalfa Weevil Present?
* 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@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

April Beef Management Calendar

April Beef Management Calendar

John B. Hall, Extension Animal Scientist, Beef, Virginia Tech..

 

Spring Calving Herds

    * Finish calving

    * Check cows 3 to 4 times per day, heifers more often – assist early if needed

    * Keep calving area clean and well drained, move healthy pairs out to large pastures 3 days after calving

    * Ear tag all calves at birth; castrate and implant male calves in commercial herds

    * Give selenium and vitamin A & D injections to newborn calves

    * Feed cows extra energy after calving; some protein may be needed also

    * Implant calves at turnout if not implanted at birth

    * Keep high quality, high magnesium, high selenium minerals available

    * All bulls need a breeding soundness exam 30 days before start of breeding season

 

Fall Calving Herds

    * Creep graze calves while on cows

    * Give pre-weaning respiratory vaccinations – IBR, PI3, BVD, BRSV, pasteurella

    * Collect 205 day weights on calves; weigh and body condition score cows

    * Wean commercial calves based on  marketing plan for calves – many valued added feeder cattle programs require calves to be weaned 45 days

    * Re-implant commercial calves – do not implant replacement heifers

    * Pregnancy check cows 60 days after bulls were removed

    * Continue feeding high magnesium minerals to prevent grass tetany

 

Pastures and Forages

    * Fertilize pastures and hay fields according to test

    * Begin managed intensive grazing

    * Check hay making equipment

Livestock Drinking Water Quality

Livestock Drinking Water Quality

by P.N. Soltanpour and W.L. Raley

Colorado State University

Quick Facts…

    * Test livestock drinking water for salinity and toxic elements if water quality is not known.

    * Take a representative water sample for any testing.

    * The National Academy of Sciences proposes general guidelines for use of saline waters and for upper limits of toxic ions in water. There are no easy answers or quick fixes for toxic water problems.

FULL STORY

Managing Freeze-Damaged Alfalfa

Managing Freeze-Damaged Alfalfa

Missouri Ruralist

What should you do with freeze-damaged alfalfa? A University of Missouri forage specialist is advising producers to make an early harvest of frost-damaged alfalfa and delay their second cutting.

Rob Kallenbach, MU Extension forage specialist, says producers should begin looking for the telltale signs for frost damage early this week, after the cold weather system moves out of Missouri. He says frosted alfalfa will have tips that are blackened or bent over like a shepherd’s crook.

Cutting early will make way for new growth, allowing light to reach new buds at the crown.

Warm temperatures in March pushed alfalfa out of dormancy early. Kallenbach estimated fields were standing at 16 to 18 inches in the southern part of the state, and 12 to 14 inches to the north. Record setting lows April 6-8 brought that early growth to a halt, causing damage to alfalfa fields across the state.

FULL STORY

The Ethanol Question? What Impact will Feeding Distillers Grains have on Beef?

The Ethanol Question? What Impact will Feeding Distillers Grains have on Beef?

by: Eric Grant

Part Two

For Dick Carlson, the rise of the ethanol business – and the increased availability of distillers grain (DG) for feeding livestock – is ultimately a good thing for the cattle business.

But there are also questions about the impacts of feeding DG on beef quality and feed efficiency – and the quicker the industry answers them, the better off it will be.

“Right now, there are more questions than answers,” says Carlson, who serves as nutritionist for Producers Feedlot, a 40,000-head capacity feeding company based in Greeley, Colo. “The reality is that the impacts of the ethanol business will most likely be permanent, and we’ve got to find ways to work with it.”

FULL STORY

Biosecurity Program Reduces Risks of Disease

Biosecurity Program Reduces Risks of Disease

by: Stephen B. Blezinger, Ph.D, PAS

Cattle Today

Part 1

For so much of agricultural production, “biosecurity” has become the buzzword of choice. The word itself simply implies a group of methods that can be employed to insure that a given operation will be safe from issues that might compromise its ability to produce quality, safe products.

The world we live in is different from that of our parents and grandparents. World events have created an interest and concern for keeping our families and homes safe. They have also emphasized a need for taking measures to insure our livestock operations are safe as well. The term biosecurity has been introduced in the few years, primarily as related to the security of the health and safety of the human population. It also relates to this same health and safety of the cattle, swine, poultry, etc. that we produce. Obviously taking steps to increase biosecurity is generally considered to be measures to reduce the chance of a terrorist attack of some type on a livestock operation. Generally we think of this as something that could take place in a large feedlot, swine or poultry operation. There are three things we have to understand.

FULL STORY

Flexibility May Be Greatest Management Tool in Livestock Operation

Flexibility May Be Greatest Management Tool in Livestock Operation

By Kay Ledbetter, Texas A&M

North Texas E-NEws

AMARILLO – High corn prices, drought, terrorist attacks, mad cow disease, more drought and high fuel prices have all cut into beef prices in the past 10 years, said a Texas Cooperative Extension specialist.

Nobody knows when these issues will develop, but building flexibility into the livestock management plan can help a producer weather the storm and come out on the other side, said Dr. Ted McCollum, Extension beef cattle specialist. He spoke at the Southwest Beef Symposium, held Jan. 16-17 in Amarillo.

FULL STORY

The grass-fed is greener

The grass-fed is greener

By raising cattle naturally and selling beef directly to customers, a Grandview couple is at the forefront of a wide trend

By Chris Vaughn

Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Inside the only boucherie in town is a meat case full of chuck roasts, flank steaks, New York strips.

But what they’re really selling in the rustic Burgundy Boucherie is a story.

It’s an old story, actually, one about a Texas ranching family that raises cattle on rolling, green hills of native grasses, never uses pesticides, hormones or grain, and sells their meat to people they know on a first-name basis.

FULL STORY

New Beefmobile wrangler

New Beefmobile wrangler

Meatnews.com

A new wrangler has joined the Beefmobile team just in time for the busy summer schedule.

Josh Chrisman has joined the Beefmobile team as a wrangler.

Chrisman grew up on a Nebraska cow-calf operation and will travel the country this summer with the checkoff-funded Beefmobile, speaking to cattle producers at auction markets and other beef-related events.

The Beefmobile is a van vividly painted with juicy cuts of beef, and the drivers, known as wranglers, travel throughout the country primarily talking with cattle producers about how their checkoff dollars are being invested.

FULL STORY

Clone on the Range

Clone on the Range

by P.W. McRandle

thegreenguide.com

Cloning promises many benefits, not least through replicating embryonic stem cells, which may be used to repair and replace organs. Though this is a vexed issue politically, a bill currently under debate in the Senate would allow the use of “somatic cell nuclear transfer” (or cloning) in taking genetic information from human embryonic stem cells and implanting it in other cells for therapeutic purposes.

The same process, used for reproductive ends, results in cloned animals. Yet the outcomes aren’t always as hoped. Consider Chance, a sweet, Ferdinand-like bull first reported on in This American Life, whose owner, distraught at the bull’s death, had the animal cloned only to be gored by Second Chance.

FULL STORY

Appetite for ethanol spurs food price inflation

Appetite for ethanol spurs food price inflation

BARRIE McKENNA

Globeand mail.com

Washington — It began with the Mexican tortilla crisis, and is now spreading to the price of everything from meat and milk to Coke.

 

North America’s love affair with ethanol — produced mainly from corn — is unleashing a surprising surge of inflation through the global food supply chain.

 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture warned yesterday that record high corn prices, caused in part by the crop’s diversion into ethanol production, is likely to produce a sudden drop in the supply of meat.

FULL STORY

Nutritional Considerations of Weaned or Purchased Bulls

Nutritional Considerations of  Weaned or Purchased Bulls

Glenn Selk, OSU Extension Specialist

Bull Calves

 

Probably the most common mistake made in purchasing young, weaning age bulls is failure to provide an adequate diet to continue their growth and development.  Often bulls are delivered, turned out with the other bulls, and let to “rough it” until breeding time.  Thus, bull development is delayed, sexual maturity is not achieved, and the resulting calf crop is less than it should have been.

The first step in providing adequate nutrition is determining the desired level of performance.  Typically, young bulls have 160 days to grow from weaning to yearling age.  Because of the growth potential of our current beef population, yearling bulls are heavier than 1,000 pounds.  Therefore, young bulls need to have gains of 2.5 daily.  Moderate energy diets (those with grain) are needed to attain these performance levels. 

FULL STORY

Cattleman Pleads Guilty to Million Dollar Fraud

Cattleman Pleads Guilty to Million Dollar Fraud

WIBW-TV: 13 News

A Kansas cattleman pleaded guilty to $1.3 million in fraud. Kevin Thompson, 39, of Richmond, made the plea today to fraudulently selling more than a million dollars worth of cattle.

Federal prosecutors say Thompson illegally sold the cattle at WNK Cattle Company between March of 2002 and December of 2003.

FULL STORY

ISU gets $22 million for biofuels research

ISU gets $22 million for biofuels research

Sious City Journal

ConocoPhillips, the third-largest U.S. oil company, said Tuesday that it will give Iowa State University $22.5 million over eight years to develop new biofuel technologies.

Company, university officials and Gov. Chet Culver announced the research agreement that will provide $1.5 million this year and $3 million grants each year for the next seven years.

FULL STORY

Beefing up the business

Beefing up the business

Golden Reserve Beef sees a booming business for natural meat

By Joshua Palmer

Times-News writer (ID)

Janice Meyers, 78, says she does most of her grocery shopping at a store near her home in Twin Falls, but twice a week she makes the “long drive to Buhl for the best meat in Idaho.”

“My eyes are going bad, and people think I’m a little nutty to drive out here for a few steaks,” she said while loading packages of meat into her Buick. “But I tell them that it’s the only place you can buy a real steak.”

FULL STORY

Cold keeps livestock producers busy

Cold keeps livestock producers busy

KTIC Radio

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) _ Cold, wet conditions kept livestock producers busy caring for newborn calves last week as temperatures averaged 14 degrees below normal across the state.

That’s according to the latest Nebraska Agricultural Statistics Service report.

In southwest and central counties, as much as seven inches of snow blanketed the area.

FULL STORY