UNL: Corn stalks less valuable as feed source
Ken Anderson
Brownfield Network
Corn stalks are the main winter feed resource for many cattle producers in the Midwest. But increasingly, their value is being questioned.
A University of Nebraska report points out that both stalks and cattle have changed considerably in the past 20 years. For starters, today’s modern combines are leaving much less grain in the field.
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Worried about newborn calves in winter? Check CANL
SUE ROESLER
Prairie Star
Lots of winter and spring newborn calves can be lost in the Midwest Plains states due to weather conditions often unforeseen by livestock producers.
But a new system called Cold Advisory for Newborn Livestock (CANL) gives producers the chance to check out hazardous weather conditions that increase risk of problems or death to exposed newborn calves 36 hours in advance of birth.
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Cattle Nutrition: Feeding Coproducts: Fact versus Myth
Beef Today
There are more myths about distillers’ grains and gluten feed than I can list. One of the more interesting is that distillers’ grains will cause foot rot and bloat, when in fact distillers’ grains, with their dense mineral content, improve bone and hoof hardness and will reduce the chance of bloat if fed correctly.
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Competitiveness and the growing role of the stocker industry
Drovers
For much of the last 50 years, cheap fuel/cheap food policies in the U.S. resulted in an abundance of inexpensive feed grain for livestock production. One result of that was a beef industry, as we know it today, which deemphasized the forage role of beef cattle, particularly beyond the cow-calf production level.
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Beef Packing Plant to Employ Hundreds Near Aberdeen
Tom Hanson
KDLT
Today officials announced that a long-delayed beef packing plant near Aberdeen will get state financing.
State aid will help pay for construction at the 70 million dollar Northern Beef Packers Plant. The financing package was announced this afternoon.
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US bison ranchers struggle to meet consumer demand
STEVE KARNOWSKI
Seattle Times
The deep snow blanketing the Midwest prairie didn’t bother the bison on Ed Eichten’s ranch one bit. The hardy animals evolved to survive – even thrive – year-round on the open range, and with their big heads, they can plow right through drifts 5-feet tall or more.
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Eastern Livestock Co. case costly: East Tennessee firms claim damages in hundreds of thousands
Ed Marcum
Knoxville.BIZ
East Tennessee livestock companies were hit with hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses from the collapse of Indiana-based Eastern Livestock Co., filings in civil court and with the U.S. Department of Agriculture reveal.
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Derrell Peel: Five cattle market factors to watch in 2011
Tri State Livestock News
Derrell Peel, long-time Oklahoma State University Extension Livestock Marketing Specialist, recently named five factors he expects to have the biggest impact on market prices in 2011.
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Corn Fed vs Grass Fed
Gary DiGiuseppe
American Cattlemen
Promoters and producers of grass fed beef have made a lot of claims about its nutritional and environmental benefits. One web-based marketer states, “100% grass-fed meats, from any kind of critter, are the most perfect food for man.
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Diagnostic Dilemmas
Dan Goehl
Beef Today
As we get nearer to spring calving season, our clinic will begin to get calls of aborted fetuses, near-term stillbirths and lost calves. These cases can be frustrating, as often we will not get a definitive diagnosis of what caused the problem. It is important for producers to understand a couple of things when deciding if it is worth the expense and effort to run diagnostic tests on individual ill or dead animals.
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