DIY Video Feature: Make a Cattle Mineral Feeder

DIY Video Feature: Make a Cattle Mineral Feeder

This 10-minute video clip shows you how to make a cattle mineral feeder from a barrel and truck tire. It is portable, it keeps the mineral dry, and it is inexpensive to make.

Heat Detection Efficiency

Heat Detection Efficiency

cattlenetwork.com

Heat detection efficiency (rate) is defined as the percent­age of eligible cows that are actually seen or detected in heat. Several methods of calculating the efficiency with which heat is detected are available. A detection rate of 80 to 85 percent should be achievable. The detection rate can be measured by the 24-Day Heat Detection Rate Test, which is a test that the producer can implement to self-evaluate the heat detection efficiency (or inefficiency).

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Twine Ain’t Feed

Twine Ain’t Feed

Dr. Bruce Anderson, Professor of Agronomy, Agronomy & Horticulture, University of Nebraska

During most years when winter comes, so does snow. And snow often leads to feeding hay. And feeding hay means work.

To lighten the work load feeding hay, we often take short cuts and leave some twine or net wrap on the bales. And whether we want them to or not, animals fed that hay often eat at least some of that twine.

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USDA Releases NAIS Veterinarian’s Toolkit

USDA Releases NAIS Veterinarian’s Toolkit

Thebeefsite.com

The US Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) yesterday released A Veterinarian’s Toolkit for use with the National Animal Identification System (NAIS).

The online toolkit provides veterinarians with quick access to NAIS program information and resources.

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Livestock industry needs to be vigilant against outside interests

Livestock industry needs to be vigilant against outside interests

Minnesota Farm Guide

The biggest challenge to the livestock industry today is people outside the industry making policy for livestock producers.

That was the word of caution noted by retiring North Dakota Stockmen’s Association executive vice president Wade Moser in a recent interview. And recent news events show Moser’s concern is justified, both from the issues of animal rights and environmental regulations.

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Study aims to improve fertility rates in cows

Study aims to improve fertility rates in cows

Chris Casey

Greeley Tribune

On a cellular level, it’s something like the line of scrimmage on a football field. A hormone rushes toward an embryo, but for completion to occur — in this case a pregnancy in a cow — the hormone must be blocked.

The blocker is a fatty acid found in fish.

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Cattlemen pleased with Obama appointments

Cattlemen pleased with Obama appointments

Ken Anderson

Brownfield Network

Cattlemen are generally pleased with key cabinet and agency appointments announced by President-elect Obama.

Heather Vaughn with the National Cattlemen’s’ Beef Association in Washington says NCBA officers have met with transition teams at EPA, Agriculture and Interior over the past week. “We were consistently reassured that their method of decision making was going to be science-based, with all interested parties at the table, and with a view of the economic impact of the policies they were making,” says Vaughn.

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Grain-fed vs. Grass-fed Beef? Kids Have No Clear Preference in OSU Taste Test

Grain-fed vs. Grass-fed Beef? Kids Have No Clear Preference in OSU Taste Test

Media Newswire

Children can tell the difference between grass- and grain-fed beef, but when it comes to preference, they’re evenly split, according to taste tests that Oregon State University conducted at two grade schools in Portland.

Portland Public Schools asked OSU to conduct the surveys as part of its effort to serve more locally produced food. The district had been considering serving hamburger patties made from local grass-fed cattle instead of the grain-fed beef that it now serves. The district doesn’t know the origin of its supplier because it comes from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s entitlement program, which buys beef from all over the United States.

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New technologies, alternative energy featured at 2009 Pennsylvania Farm Show

New technologies, alternative energy featured at 2009 Pennsylvania Farm Show

Reading Eagle

The 2009 Pennsylvania Farm Show promises to offer something to interest each of its anticipated 400,000 visitors – from milkshakes to tractors to alpacas – said Agriculture Secretary Dennis Wolff as he announced that the 93rd show is set for Jan. 10 to 17 at the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex & Expo Center in Harrisburg.

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Feedlot’s records, history date back to 1930s

Feedlot’s records, history date back to 1930s

Bill Jackson

Greeley Tribune

In the old Dalton feedlot office, the general manager of Producers Livestock Association of Greeley, Russ Moss, found an account ledger that indicates cattle have been fed at the location since at least 1938.

“The Daltons were feeding cattle before Warren Monfort, according to guys who have been here a lot longer than I have,” Moss said. Monfort began feeding cattle in the 1930s and that evolved into what is now JBS Swift & Co., part of the largest cattle feeding and processing company in the world.

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Getting a taste of the bull market

Getting a taste of the bull market

Steve Almond

Boston Globe

BEEF: The Untold Story of How Milk, Meat, and Muscle Shaped the World

By Andrew Rimas and Evan D. G. Fraser Morrow, 238 pp., $25.95

As an exercise in culinary history, this slender volume is hardly groundbreaking. We’ve already seen a smorgasbord of books that explore our past via a single foodstuff. As a cautionary tale against capitalist gluttony, Michael Pollan’s “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” is a far more persuasive and elegant work.

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Harford cattle stolen, slaughtered; meat is missing

Harford cattle stolen, slaughtered; meat is missing

David Kohn

Baltimore Sun

This is a story of alleged cattle rustling and apparent cunning by neighbors.

A tale from the Old West?

No. Northern Harford County, 2008.

The story began last Sunday, when Charlie Croft’s two cows wandered off his property on Cedar Church Road in Darlington. The animals occasionally abscond (they ended up in a nearby trailer park last year), and in the past, Croft just drives around the neighborhood until he finds and corrals them.

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Ranchers face uncertain winter and shifting prices

Ranchers face uncertain winter and shifting prices

KGW.com

The only thing certain about this winter for many Oregon ranchers is that beef prices are down and the cost of livestock feed is up, forcing them to make some tough choices.

Terry and Debby Anderson’s prized Simmental-Angus cows were hunkered down in drifts of snow this week while tending to their calves, who curled up in piles of hay.

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Would you like Omega 3 with that hamburger?

Would you like Omega 3 with that hamburger?

Chuck Howitt

The Record

Larry Helm has seen the future of food and it is Omega 3.

“I can’t believe the industry hasn’t grasped it and jumped on it,” says the chief executive officer of OmegaNutrel Inc. “This has global ramifications for the dairy and beef industry.”

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Researchers take second look at phosphorus requirements for cattle

Researchers take second look at phosphorus requirements for cattle

ANGELA WOOLETT

 The Prairie Star

Necessary for bone growth and reproduction, the phosphorous requirements of beef cattle were believed to have been determined in the late 1800s. But, current economic and environmental affects of this essential mineral are sending researchers back to study whether cattle really need as much as was previously decided.

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