Vitamin A Can Be Deficient in a Drought

Vitamin A Can Be Deficient in a Drought

Cattlenetwork.com

Vitamin A is rarely a concern in range cattle nutritional programs because it is readily synthesized from carotene that is common in green growing plants. However, in drought situations where plants become dead or dormant, the carotene content becomes practically devoid and may lead to a deficiency of the precursor to vitamin A. Carotene is very low in mature, weathered forages, grains and many crop residues. Carotene will be lost in stored hay crops over extended periods of time. Therefore, feeding hay that has been stored a year or more, may be low in carotene. The vitamin A content will be considerably less than when that forage was originally harvested. In addition some scientists have suggested that high nitrate forages common in drought years can exaggerate vitamin A deficiencies.

FULL STORY

BLACK INK — WHERE IT ALL BEGINS

BLACK INK — WHERE IT ALL BEGINS

by: Steve Suther
Cattletoday.com

Beef production is a natural system, but management means not leaving it to the whims of nature.

Everything in the cattle business begins with conception, so reproductive physiology has become a key area of study aimed at improving efficiency and beef quality.

That means understanding the points where intervention can result in better performance, and developing strategies that work.

Calves begin producing hormones as young as six weeks, but puberty usually waits until 10 to 12 months of age. Still, a few heifers are “precocious,” which is one of several reasons to make bull calves into steers early on. When weaning is very late or intact bulls penned with heifers after weaning, unplanned but not surprising pregnancies occur. These are often disastrous, and feedlots that buy mixed heifers deal with most of the results.

FULL STORY

Area livestock producers invited to pasture walks

Area livestock producers invited to pasture walks

Salem Times Commoner (IL)
Harold G. Hunzicker
Marion County Extension Unit Leader

Grazing enthusiasts have the opportunity to attend two pasture walks in Madison and Clinton counties on Thursday, June 29.

The first pasture walk will start at 5:30 p.m. at the Elmer and Terry Becherer Farm, located at 2116 Rocky Ford Road, Trenton. The Becherer Farm is part of a C-FAR sponsored project entitled I-LIFT that evaluates forage growth, quality and grazing system economics.

Elmer and Terry Becherer will guide a walking tour of their commercial sheep farm that lambs five times each year. The operation features a year-round grazing program based on perennial cool-season grasses, as well as summer and winter annual forages. They seeded a forage plot on Wednesday, May 24, to demonstrate different summer annual forage options. These forages include several turnip, sorghum sudangrass, sudangrass, pearl millet and chicory varieties.

FULL STORY

Farmers grapple with choice to get big or get out

Farmers grapple with choice to get big or get out

MEGAN M. ROE
THE HERALD JOURNAL (NV)

Eli Lucero/Associated Press Brandon Anderson feeds his calfs at the family’s dairy farm in College Ward, Utah. When Brandon Anderson thinks of his future, he sees a big, black hole that could someday swallow his family’s century-old dairy farm.

LOGAN, Utah ­–When Brandon Anderson thinks of his future, he sees a big, black hole. A hole that could someday swallow his hobby, his livelihood and the century-old dairy farm that he’s worked on since he was 9.

“It’s just a big black hole gaping at me,” Anderson said. “The smaller dairies such as my own are going to just drop off like flies.”

That is, if fuel and machinery prices continue to rise and the price he receives for selling his milk continues to plummet, according to Anderson. Yet the 32-year-old College Ward farmer continues to toil 10-hour days on his father’s 100-cow dairy and hopes to purchase it soon. The hard work builds character, he said, and his kids will gain valuable attributes while they labor among the cows.

FULL STORY

Out West, cattle are still being stalked by rustlers

Out West, cattle are still being stalked by rustlers

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
St. Petersburg Times
Published June 18, 2006

PERRY, Okla. – The truck raced down the lonesome dirt road, poking its headlights into the predawn darkness and spewing blinding clouds of dust. The deputy, who was watching nearby, smelled trouble.

Todd Culp saw the mysterious truck barrel through a stop sign at 80 mph and wondered where it was rushing to at 5 a.m. The off-duty deputy gunned the engine of his unmarked green pickup in pursuit.

FULL STORY

Tissue test can discover cattle disease

Tissue test can discover cattle disease

Springfield News-Leader
A cow infected with bovine virus diarrhea can spread it through the rest of the herd.

Bovine virus diarrhea, BVD, is an old disease in the cattle industry that has taken on a new twist with the discovery of the persistently infected, or PI, condition.

According to Eldon Cole, livestock specialist, University of Missouri Extension, PI-BVD is a hot topic now with the discovery of a new testing procedure of animals for the condition.

FULL STORY

Ranchers do what come naturally

Ranchers do what come naturally

Published Sunday, June 18th, 2006
By Mary Hopkin, Tri City (WA) Herald staff writer

BOARDMAN — Cattle ranchers Dave and Shelly Riekkola no longer worry when they see the price of market steers rise or fall.

Dave, a fourth-generation cattle rancher, doesn’t ride the beef commodity rollercoaster anymore.

“In every 10-year cycle, you get three good years and seven bad,” he said.

Instead, he’s collecting a steady paycheck as part of Country Natural Beef, an Oregon-based co-op that provides natural beef to such customers as Whole Food markets and Burgerville restaurants.

FULL STORY