Stocker Cattle Forum: Strategic Use of Antibiotics

Stocker Cattle Forum: Strategic Use of Antibiotics

cattlenetwork.com

Bovine Respiratory Disease Complex (BRDC) or Shipping Fever remains the most important health concern facing stocker producers. Despite numerous advances in our understanding of BRDC, vaccine technology, and new antibiotics in the last 40 years the percent of cattle that get BRDC as well as the number that die from it has remained about the same.

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Its a matter of “Pride and Prejudice”

Its a matter of “Pride and Prejudice”

Have pride in your calves and avoid discounts at sale time due to prejudice

Dr. Glenn Selk, Extension Cattle Specialist,Oklahoma State University

One experienced sale barn employee put it this way: “Just about the dumbest thing a rancher can do is to bring a horned bull calf to a sale!”  Considerable VALUE can be added to weaned feeder calves by applying some routine management practices while they are still “on the cow”.  Doing these operations while the calf is still young (2 months of age or less) is kinder and gentler to the calf.  Calves that have been castrated and de-horned and healed-up from these operations suggests to the buyers that: “this rancher is proud of the product that he or she markets”.

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Legislative Priorities Abound For Cattle Industry

Legislative Priorities Abound For Cattle Industry

Cow Calf Weekly

While they may not be scrambling quite as fast as an alley cat at a dog show, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association lobbyists in Washington, D.C. don’t lack for things to do to keep them busy, says Jay Truitt, head of the Washington legislative efforts for the cattle industry.

Truitt says a series of priorities are hitting all at once and that’s keeping things interesting and busy.

“Korea and Japan are on the cusp,” he says, “and we have to what we have to do to get them open.” Even if that means opposing the recently-negotiated free trade agreement if Korea continues to refuse to open its beef market to commercially viable trade. “We need another Mexico to keep us shored up,” he says, pointing out that our neighbors to the south are now buying around $1.4 billion in U.S. beef a year.

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Will National ID And COOL Be Married Up?

Will National ID And COOL Be Married Up?

Troy Marshall

Beef Magazine

There’s a lot at stake for the cattle industry in the upcoming farm bill. The cattle industry has always taken pride in not being subsidized and not accepting undue government meddling in our business. It’s also always been a strong advocate for individual choice and allowing the marketplace to work. Some argue the industry has paid a price for such independence, while others argue it’s a cheap price and well worth it.

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Engineering Better Meat (1950’s Style)

Engineering Better Meat (1950’s Style)

Modern Mechanix

Nature needs help as a hungry world calls for food. “Blueprints” drawn up by animal engineers promise to give us more meals from each animal

PLANS for the 1950-model beef critter already are on the drawing boards of the nation’s animal engineers—and never did you see such a streamlined creation!

Built with square lines, low to the ground and with shorter “wheelbase,” this advanced model will carry more T-bones and tenderloins for its weight than any animal yet to appear on American ranges.

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Ethanol fuels planting debate

Ethanol fuels planting debate

By Nicole Paseka

Sioux City Journal

Siouxland corn producers foresee a strange phenomenon this year — netting profits on their crops.

With the glimmering promise of new ethanol plants and higher commodity prices, farmers have a chance to cash in on their golden grain after decades of thin profit margins.

ut with increasing production costs this spring and uncertainty about the future of ethanol, corn producers are not celebrating.

They are faced with a looming question this spring — Should I plant more corn?

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Editor: U.S. must change mad cow testing

Editor: U.S. must change mad cow testing

United Press International

CHAMPAIGN, Ill., May. 15 (UPI) — The U.S. Agriculture Department’s mad cow-disease testing program is inadequate and needs change, the editor of the University of Illinois Law Review says.

The USDA’s refusal to allow meat processors to do their own testing further undercuts the safety of U.S. beef, Law Review Editor Gregory Berlowitz wrote.

The Bush administration’s approach has been to deny the problem and resist comprehensive testing for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, he said.

While a Japan-led 53-nation ban on U.S. beef prompted the United States to test half of so-called “downer” cows — those that cannot walk — Berlowitz noted that still is just 2 percent of the U.S. herd.

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Board of Animal Health orders cattle restrictions

Board of Animal Health orders cattle restrictions

High Plains Journal

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP)–State animal health officials have announced rules for imported cattle to try to keep North Dakota free of bovine tuberculosis.

Cattle brought to North Dakota for rodeo events must have a negative bovine tuberculosis test within a year before importation into the state, the state Board of Animal Health says. Mexican-branded cattle must have proof of two negative bovine tuberculosis tests by USDA-accredited veterinarians, with the last test within 60 days prior entering North Dakota.

The state veterinarian, Dr. Susan Keller, can approve exceptions.

Keller said cases of tuberculosis in cattle have been traced to Mexico.

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Eat your greens to go green

Eat your greens to go green

DesMoines Register

Editor’s note: Stories of this ilk are included in the blog to inform those in our industry how agriculture is being presented to and perceived by the public.

Recently, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, involving dozens of experts, provided a more detailed assessment of the effects of global warming on North America.

The 67-page report predicts devastating droughts and hurricanes and extensive flooding of coastal areas, displacing millions. Erratic weather fluctuations are likely to increase human and animal casualties from heat, storms, pollution and infectious diseases.

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Cattlemen request reformed market structure

Cattlemen request reformed market structure

The Prairie Star

WASHINGTON, D.C. n U.S. cattle producers asked Congress to correct the deficiencies in the U.S. livestock market that presently give the nation’s largest meatpackers a distinct pricing advantage over domestic cattle prices and have resulted in an erosion of competition for livestock producers.

This was the message contained in testimony given today by R-CALF USA Region VII Director Eric Nelson during today’s Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee hearing on competition issues, titled “Economic Challenges and Opportunities Facing American Agricultural Producers.” Nelson is an Iowa cow/calf producer and feedlot owner.

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Utah farmers get older as the young bail out

Utah farmers get older as the young bail out 

Daily Herald(UT)

Kim Burgess

LOGAN, Utah — Nearly every morning, 88-year-old Don Hansen gets up at 5 a.m. to check on his alfalfa fields and dairy cattle. After 60 years in the business, he’s slowed down a bit but not much.

“Now I lay there a little longer in bed if I feel like it,” he said. “I only need seven hours (of sleep) usually, but sometimes I rest a little more.”

The Smithfield resident isn’t the only senior citizen who’s still climbing on a tractor; a growing number of farmers are working long into their golden years. Nationwide, nearly 30 percent of farmers are over 65, and the trend holds true in Cache Valley where the average age for a farmer is 54.3 years old.

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First Shipment of U.S. Beef Since Late Last Year Arrives in South Korea

First Shipment of U.S. Beef Since Late Last Year Arrives in South Korea

ABC News

SEOUL, South Korea The first shipment of U.S. beef since late last year arrived in South Korea on Monday after three previous shipments were rejected for containing banned bone fragments, the U.S. Meat Export Federation said.

American beef has been absent from South Korean markets for more than three years after the first case of mad cow disease was discovered in the United States in December 2003.

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Ethanol demand could trim grassland

Ethanol demand could trim grassland

Federal study predicts losses would be heaviest in central portion of S. Dakota

By Ben Shouse

Sioux Falls Argis Leader

A new federal report suggests that ethanol demand could accelerate the loss of native grassland in central South Dakota, but there are serious gaps in the data.

Farmers have been converting grazing lands and Conservation Reserve Program acres to crops for several years. That has raised concerns about wildlife habitat and the productivity of the land should it return to grazing in the future.

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Eco-beef

Eco-beef

By TOM MAST

Casper Star-Tribune

LANDER — The grass-fed and finished cattle of the Twin Creek Ranch near Lander have just one really bad day.

That’s when they become T-bone steaks.

But after the calves are born until that time, they can expect to live pretty much as elk and bison before them lived, maturing without ingesting pesticides and herbicides on the plants they eat, and without synthetic hormones and antibiotics pumping through their systems.

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Vita Farm is Title Sponsor for Junior National Hereford Expo

Vita Farm is Title Sponsor for Junior National Hereford Expo

Cattle Today

Vita Ferm®, a product line of BioZyme® Inc., has announced its $35,000 title sponsorship of the 2007 Junior National Hereford Expo (JNHE), July 7-14, in Denver.

The JNHE is an event of great magnitude and importance to Hereford families all over the country. Last year’s event featured more than 600 exhibitors from 38 states, making it one of the largest junior breed shows in the U.S. The experiences, opportunities and friendships gained are so great that many families choose the JNHE as their annual vacation destination.

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