Industry Leader Roy Wallace Passes

Industry Leader Roy Wallace Passes

Select Sires is saddened by the passing of Roy Wallace on Jan. 20. Roy dedicated 40 years of service to Select Sires as vice president of the beef department and made a positive impact on millions of lives throughout the beef industry and the world through his work. One of the most telling signs of his remarkable influence was his recognition as one of the 40 most influential people in the beef industry in the last 40 years by Beef Magazine in 2004. Roy will be missed dearly by his family at home, his family at Select Sires, and countless throughout the entire industry.

Baxter Black, DVM: Things I Count ON

Baxter Black, DVM:  Things I Count ON

Cattle Today

As I weave my way through life there are things that I count on. They are stepping stones in my path that I don’t worry about, like:

      1) Where I am going to spend eternity.

      2) That my wife will always love me.

      3) That the airplane pilots know what they are doing. I get on an average of 175 flights a year.

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Determining Pregnancy In Beef Cattle

Determining Pregnancy In Beef Cattle

cattlenetwork.com

The economic value of annual pregnancy testing and culling of open and sub fertile cows and heifers has been well documented: with positive affects on herd fertility, weaning weight per cow, and income per cow. In addition, the identification and removal of open females allows supplemental feed and pasture costs to be better controlled. Knowing expected calving dates can be an advantage when marketing bred replacement heifers. Potential buyers often want to purchase females whose calving dates coincide with those of their present herd.

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Minding Your Peas and Cows

Minding Your Peas and Cows

Retha Colclasure

KNMOT-TV

When Alvin and Juanita Braun started North Dakota Branded Beef a year and a half ago, they knew they had one chance to make a good impression.

They did that by adding peas to their feed rations, and they`re not alone in finding success.

It started out as an accident. A processor in South Dakota had damaged peas that couldn`t be sold to humans, so he ended up feeding them to cows.

“We noticed a difference in the taste because he was feeding his own livestock and selling the meat around Bowman, North Dakota, and I said it just tastes different,” says Larry White, of Northern Pulse Growers.

Taste tests in Bowman and Carrington proved it.

“They could find it, they could find the pea-fed beef,” White says.

Alvin Braun has been feeding peas to some of his calves for two years.

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Co-Product Nutrition Conference Set

Co-Product Nutrition Conference Set

Burt Rutherford

Beef Magazine

If you want leading-edge research on how ethanol co-products work in cattle diets, mark your calendar for the High Plains Biofuels Co-Product Nutrition Conference, Feb. 20 at the Plaza Hotel in Garden City, KS.

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Cattle Feeding: Grazing & Supplementation Program

Cattle Feeding: Grazing & Supplementation Program

cattlenetwork.com

For beef cows going into winter, adequate fat cover is not only desirable — it is critical for future performance. As temperatures fall, grazing opportunities become restricted, and animal needs increase, the supplementation program must fill the nutritional gaps to ensure cows achieve or maintain adequate body condition.

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A checkoff “reality check”

A checkoff “reality check”

By Jim Hanna, Brownlee, Neb., U.S. Cattlemen’s Association director and Checkoff Committee chairman

The drums are starting to rumble in cattle country about making changes to the 20-plus year-old Beef Checkoff program, especially about raising the $1/head fee that you and I pay every time we sell a critter. Those supporting a 100 percent increase to $2 on every sale, are trying to soften the sell by assuring producers that they will have a final say (vote) on any increase. I say let’s step back for a moment and look at some realities.

Congress could in fact amend the Beef Promotion and Research Act of 1985 (the Act) to include the increase without polling producers. This seems a little unlikely however, given the fact that 85-90 percent of them (producers) don’t support the increase without including other significant modifications to the program.

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Consumers Union Wants Cloned Food Clearly Labeled

Consumers Union Wants Cloned Food Clearly Labeled

Survey shows 89% of consumers want labels on cloned meat, milk

Consumeraffairs.com

Consumers Union is calling on Congress to require tracking and labeling of milk and meat from cloned animals in response to the Food and Drug Administration’s assessment that food from cloned animals is safe for consumption.

“The FDA’s own data show that a large proportion of cloned animals do not make it to their first birthday. Many fail to survive gestation, and others have birth defects such as squashed faces, deformed limbs, and immune deficiencies. Consumers have a right to choose whether they eat milk and meat from clones,” said Michael Hansen, PHD, Senior Scientist with Consumers Union.

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S. Korea considering phased return of U.S. beef

S. Korea considering phased return of U.S. beef

By Tom Wray

ProvisionerOnline

SEOUL – South Korea is considering an option of fully reopening U.S. beef imports through a step-by-step process, possibly including shipments of previously unaccepted parts including bones, informed sources said Friday.

“The Agriculture Ministry proposed a scenario (to us) earlier in the month that expands the range of acceptable parts to include bones,” a source at President-elect Lee Myung-bak’s government transition team told the Yonhap News Agency, asking for anonymity.

Before a ban was imposed because of repeated discoveries of bone fragments in beef shipments, South Korea had agreed to allow imports of U.S. beef from cattle less than 30 months old, but kept a ban on specified risk materials (SRMs).

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Radical Animal Rights Groups Combine Forces

Radical Animal Rights Groups Combine Forces

Beef magazine

The radical animal rights group The Humane Society of the U.S. (HSUS) this week announced it had formed a “corporate combination agreement” with the Association of Veterinarians for Animal Rights. The new group will be called the Humane Society Veterinary Medical Association (HSVMA).

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Spring Weather Brings A Fresh Crop Of Cattle Health Issues

Spring Weather Brings A Fresh Crop Of Cattle Health Issues

cattlenetwork.com

Prevention plan gets cattle started on the right foot

Adapting to changing weather is hard on cattle, especially in the spring when Mother Nature, it seems, can’t make up her mind. Warm days followed by a bout of cold rain, or even a spring blizzard, can throw off the health of even weaned, heavy calves.

“Spring is an important season to carefully monitor health status in all sizes of cattle,” says Dr. Bruce Nosky, Manager of Merial Veterinary Professional Services. “Fluctuating weather can stress newborn calves, freshly weaned fall-born stockers, replacement heifers, cattle in feedyards — everything. Producers need to take a disease prevention approach.”

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Teens punished for cow billboards

Teens punished for cow billboards

Daily India

The board of the Geauga County (Ohio) Fair is banning two teenagers from this year’s exhibition for painting “Drug Free” on two steers at a December weigh-in.

Their message was a protest against the practice of giving cows steroids, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported Sunday. Last year’s champion was disqualified after a positive steroid test.

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Snow, Ice Affect Cattle Winter Grazing Strategies

Snow, Ice Affect Cattle Winter Grazing Strategies

cattlenetwork.com

Cornstalk quality decreased; diet supplementation, additional grazing acres likely needed

Ames, Iowa — Heavy ice and snow that hit Iowa in December has affected the quality of cornstalks, so cattle producers likely will have to alter their winter feeding strategy. And, in addition to a rough December, they now will have to cope with additional snowfall.

“December was a pretty tough month for people in Iowa,” said Daryl Strohbehn, a beef specialist with Iowa State University (ISU) Extension.

Cornstalks that were coated in ice and snow fi nally were able to thaw, thanks to warmer temperatures earlier this month. Some producers are now allowing their cattle to graze those cornstalks again, but they need to beware that their quality has been negatively affected.

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