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.

FULL STORY

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”.

FULL STORY

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.

FULL STORY

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.

FULL STORY

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.

FULL STORY

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?

FULL STORY

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.

FULL STORY