Video Feature: Nick Hunt, Cow/calf operator and cattle feeder

Video Feature:  Nick Hunt, Cow/calf operator and cattle feeder

My wife Sue and I are the fourth generation to feed cattle and farm the East Nishnabotna River Valley in southwest Iowa. With help from four employees, we manage 2,400 acres, including 1,100 acres of corn, 800 acres of soybeans and 200 acres of alfalfa. Our family knows that good environmental stewardship protects important natural resources for future generations of farmers.

Storing Grain Byproducts

Storing Grain Byproducts

Aaron Stalker, Beef Specialist, University of Nebraska West Central Research and Extension Center, North Platte, NE

Distillers grains are a good source of energy, protein and phosphorous. Distillers grains have about 125% more energy than corn and are usually priced less than corn on a dry matter basis. When one considers the fact that distillers grains have more energy and cost less than corn they become an attractive method for reducing costs when supplemental energy is needed in the diet.

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World trade key to future

World trade key to future

Mark Polzer, CAB Vice President for Business Development

 On the ranch, it costs more to produce beef now than just a couple of years ago. In the store and on the menu, it also costs more for consumers to buy beef.

Will higher prices reduce beef demand, especially with a slowing economy? That remains to be seen, but the return of a significant beef export market helps counter the concern. 

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U.S. Cattlemen’s Association Joins Farmers Union To Close COOL Loophole

U.S. Cattlemen’s Association Joins Farmers Union To Close COOL Loophole

cattlenetwork.com

The U.S. Cattlemen’s Association (USCA) said today it has signed on to a letter crafted by the National Farmers Union to Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schafer requesting that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) immediately remedy a loophole in the agency’s interim final rule (IFR) for country of origin labeling (COOL) that would allow beef packers to circumvent the law by labeling all beef products under the “multiple countries” category.

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Consider Early Weaning When Feed Costs Rise

Consider Early Weaning When Feed Costs Rise

Max Irsik, DVM MAB, University of Florida, College of Veterinary Medicine

Cattle Today

Beef producers are continuously faced with changing paradigms in beef cattle production. The challenge to be economically viable is continuous and unrelenting.

A management consideration that cow calf producers may want to consider when a change in traditional production systems may be necessary due to adverse production or marketing conditions such as lack of forage, adverse market trends, noncompetitive freight rates, adverse weather, etc., is early weaning of their calves.

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Expert offers advice on caring for livestock after hurricane

Expert offers advice on caring for livestock after hurricane

Dr. Joe Paschal

Texas A&M

Texas livestock owners can find hurricane preparedness and recovery information on the Texas Extension Disaster and Emergency Network, Texas EDEN, at http://texashelp.tamu.edu.

The EDEN Web site has information on disaster preparedness and recovery.

Immediate danger to livestock from hurricanes comes from drowning due to storm surges and accumulated rainfall. Injury can occur from flying debris or electric shock from downed power lines.

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Beef Exports Outpace Imports – First Time Since Pre-BSE Era

Beef Exports Outpace Imports – First Time Since Pre-BSE Era

Agweb.com

The U.S. beef industry achieved an important benchmark in July, as the value of beef exports for the first seven months of 2008 surpassed imports for the first time since the discovery of BSE closed most global markets to U.S. beef in December 2003, according to U.S. Meat Export Federation (USMEF).

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Evaluate Cows At Pregnancy Diagnosis To Optimize Returns

Evaluate Cows At Pregnancy Diagnosis To Optimize Returns

cattlenetwork.com

Now is the time to put together your plan to determine which cows you are going to carry through the winter. With supplemental feed resources at all time high prices, you cannot afford to carry a cow through the winter that is either not going to produce a calf or do a good job of raising one next year. The following checklist will help producers do a more complete assessment of the cow herd at pregnancy check time.

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Group suggests changes to beef checkoff

Group suggests changes to beef checkoff

KTIC

In a letter dated August 29, the U.S. Cattlemen’s Association (USCA) filed with the Cattlemen’s Beef Board (CBB) its recommended changes for the national mandatory beef checkoff program. USCA’s recommended checkoff enhancements are predicated on making the checkoff more producer-oriented and producer-controlled through improved transparency and governance.

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Pew statement on S. Korea’s ban of using certain antibiotics in animal feed

Pew statement on S. Korea’s ban of using certain antibiotics in animal feed

AG Professional

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Shelley Hearne, managing director, Health & Human Services Policy at The Pew Charitable Trusts, today issued the following statement in response to the decision by South Korea’s Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries to ban the use of seven types of antibiotics in animal feed (the seven antibiotics that South Korea banned from animal feed are: Penicillin, Neomycin, Chlortetracycline, Colistin, Oxytetracycline, Lincomycin, Bacitracin zinc)

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TB Troubles

TB Troubles

Kindra Gordon

Amidst historically high feed and fuel prices, Minnesota beef producers have been facing an additional new challenge. In April, the state’s bovine tuberculosis (TB) status officially dropped from “Modified Accredited Advanced” to “Modified Accredited.”

The downgrade came as the result of several deer and bovine cases that have been identified in northwestern Minnesota as being infected with the disease. Bovine TB is a contagious and infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium bovis. It affects cattle, bison, deer, elk and goats, and it can be fatal. Since the initial 2005 discovery of bovine TB in Minnesota, 11 infected beef cattle herds have been identified, all in the northwest Minnesota counties of Beltrami and Roseau.

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Corn substitutes in demand

Corn substitutes in demand

Mindy Ward

Iowa Farmer Today

Cattle backgrounders are searching for cost-effective ways to increase pounds as feedlots demand heavier cattle.

Due to high grain prices, economists have predicted cattle feeders will bid more aggressively for heavier cattle to place in feedlots, reducing the price slide between a 750-pound and a 550-pound calf.

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National Cattlemen’s Foundation taking donations for hurricane relief

National Cattlemen’s Foundation taking donations for hurricane relief

Julie Harker

Brownfield Network

The National Cattlemen’s Foundation and local cattlemen’s organizations in Texas and Louisiana are organizing relief efforts for the cattle producers affected by Hurricane Ike. The NCF says only 15-thousand cattle in two Texas counties have been accounted four, out of an estimated 40-thousand head. Cattle left roaming have no fresh water or feed. The foundation says about seven thousand cattle are trapped in water or on levies in two Louisiana parishes.

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Mandatory Country of Origin Labeling to be Addressed

Mandatory Country of Origin Labeling to be Addressed

Tyler Melroe, Extension Educator

Marshall County Journal

September 30, 2008 is the effective date in which Country of Origin Labeling, or COOL, becomes mandatory for producers of covered commodities. The commodities include, beef, lamb, pork, chicken, and goat. As this date approaches, the anxiety of beef cattle producers looking at their fall marketing plan rises.

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Beef and forage conference

Beef and forage conference

Dennis Smith

East Texas Review

What is the expected price of beef cattle in the Spring of 2009? How can producers reduce input cost? These are just two of the questions that will be included in the Mulit-County Beef and Forage Conference to be held in Longview on Tuesday, September 23, 2008.

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