Video Feature: Proper CIDR usage in Beef Cattle

Video Feature: Proper CIDR usage in Beef Cattle

Dr. Allen Bridges shows how to incorporate the use of the CIDR in a synchronization program for beef cattle.

For more information contact:

Dr Allen Bridges

allenbridges@purdue.edu

Baxter Black: Cell Phone Overcharge

Baxter Black: Cell Phone Overcharge

The Deputy Sheriff looked at the coordinates on his GPS and the Verizon customer’s complaint sheet again. He was in the exact spot, but it was an empty field.

This story began a year and a half ago according to John. Technology had swept through the valley and drawn JG into its zephyr. The telephone company modernized his irrigation system by incorporating cellular phones. With a call to a cell phone attached to his sprinkler he could give instructions to turn it off when the wind blew, turn it on after fixing a gear box and by doing so, he could save lots of gas and time.

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“Pros” & “Cons” Of One Calving Season Versus Two Calving Seasons

“Pros” & “Cons” Of One Calving Season Versus Two Calving Seasons

cattlenetwork.com

Deciding on the use of one calving season or two calving seasons is a big first decision when producers are choosing calving seasons. Many fall calving seasons have arisen from elongated spring seasons. Two calving seasons fits best for herds with more than 80 cows. To take full advantage of the economies of scale, a ranch needs to produce at least 20 steer calves in the same season to realize the price advantage associated with increased lot size. Therefore having forty cows in each season as a minimum seems to make some sense.

Using two seasons instead of just one can reduce bull costs a great deal. Properly developed and cared-for bulls can be used in both the fall and the spring, therefore reducing the bull battery by half.

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Heifer Development

Heifer Development

Ed Haag

Angus Journal

Even the herdsmen of ancient Mesopotamia understood the economic importance of achieving a high rate of timely pregnancies among their heifers. For that reason they assigned the task of oversight to their most important god, Baal.

While worshipping Baal has fallen out of favor with the majority of today’s beef producers, the financial motivation behind wanting as many cows as possible to begin calving with a timely pregnancy has not.

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S. Korean ban of U.S. beef was costly

S. Korean ban of U.S. beef was costly

by Bryan Salvage

MEAT & POULTRY

South Korea’s agreement with the U.S. to open its market to U.S. beef products from cattle of all ages is outstanding news for the U.S. beef industry and for South Korean consumers, said Philip M. Seng, president and chief executive officer of the U.S. Meat Export Federation

“Our industry has lost between $3.5 billion and $4 billion in beef exports to South Korea since the end of 2003,” he said. “And we know that there is a significant demand there for quality U.S. beef that has not been satisfied for more than four years.”
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Making Stocking Rates Work for You

Making Stocking Rates Work for You

Gene Krause

University of Minnesota Beef Team

One of the keys to a successful livestock operation is the proper use of pasture, either native rangeland or tame forages. To properly manage the land, a producer must be familiar with the amount of dry matter forage the pasture can produce and the amount of forage required over the grazing season by each animal and the herd as a whole.

With this knowledge, the proper combination of land, time and number of animals may be chosen to ensure the sustained, long-term productivity of the pasture. The optimum number of animals on the pasture makes efficient use of the forage without waste, but still leaves enough forage to allow quick and complete recovery.

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10 Keys to a Profitable Herd

10 Keys to a Profitable Herd

Progressive Farmer

Don Hubbell sees his cows as employees. Their job? Convert forage to net dollars. Here’s how he helps them do that.

Don Hubbell leans hard on a soil probe, forcing it into the stubborn ground of his Ozarks pasture. He withdraws the instrument, deposits its contents in a bucket, then moves to other spots and repeats the process nearly a hundred times.

Taking soil samples isn’t particularly stimulating. But it’s a key step in maintaining herd profitability, says Hubbell, who runs about 40 beef cows on 95 acres of grassland near Bethesda, in northeast Arkansas.

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Research could reap ‘residual’ benefits for beef eaters, beef producers

Research could reap ‘residual’ benefits for beef eaters, beef producers

High Plains Journal

Texas AgriLife Research scientists hope to develop a means to select cattle that gain the same weight–or more–on less feed than cattle of the same breed-type and history.

At stake, literally, are steaks, as well as hamburger and ribs. Eating less and gaining more means more efficient beef cattle operations, which could eventually mean a better product on grocery store shelves, said Dr. David Forbes, AgriLife Research animal nutritionist.

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Record corn prices affect calf purchases

Record corn prices affect calf purchases

Tulsa World

U.S. feedlots slashed purchases of young cattle 11 percent last month, more than expected, as costs for corn-based feed surged and losses widened.

Feedlots bought 1.736 million young animals in March, down from 1.96 million a year earlier, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said Friday in a report. The average estimate of 10 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg was for a 7.6 percent drop.

Corn averaged $5.20 a bushel in the first quarter, up 28 percent from a year ago, and reached a record $6.23 Thursday.

“Corn costs are too high to encourage buying after feedlots were losing $150 to $190” per animal last month, said Ron Plain, an economist at the University of Missouri is Columbia. “We expect to see liquidation in the cattle industry for a second straight year.”

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Biotech food losing stigma With worldwide grain shortages, appeal of higher yields drives change

Biotech food losing stigma With worldwide grain shortages, appeal of higher yields drives change

By ANDREW POLLACK

THE NEW YORK TIMES/HERALD TRIBUNE

Soaring food prices and global grain shortages are bringing new pressures on governments, food companies and consumers to relax their long-standing resistance to genetically engineered crops.

In Japan and South Korea, some manufacturers have begun buying genetically engineered corn for use in soft drinks, snacks and other foods.

Until now, to avoid consumer backlash, companies have paid extra to buy conventionally grown corn. But with prices tripling in two years, it has become too expensive to be so finicky.

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UNL appoints feedlot nutrition and management specialist

UNL appoints feedlot nutrition and management specialist

High Plains Journal

Dr. Judson Vasconcelos has been appointed the feedlot nutrition and management specialist at the University of Nebraska Panhandle Research and Extension Center, announced by Dr. Linda Boeckner, interim director of the Panhandle Center.

Vasconcelos will be responsible for conducting extension and research programs focused on efficiency, profitability, food safety and environmental aspects of feedlot cattle production in the central High Plains. He also will be faculty supervisor for the newly expanded Panhandle Research Feedlot at Scottsbluff, responsible for developing, funding and conducting research trials.

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Unsung Heroes: The American Beef Cow

Unsung Heroes: The American Beef Cow

Jean Barton

Red Bluff Daily News

“Unsung Heroes, the American beef cow” was the theme of the California CattleWomen’s beef education for Kindergarten to fourth grades at the Cow Palace in San Francisco, April 10 and 11.

More than 700 children, teachers and chaperones attended the Cow Palace school tours, organized by California CattleWomen and invited by Valerie Pimentel of the Grand National Rodeo, Horse and Stock Show staff.

CCW Co-Chairs were Barbara Cowley, Montague, Siskiyou County and Bobbie Telles, Farmington, San Joaquin/ Stanislaus counties, with Pamela Payen, Lloyalton, Plumas/ Sierra counties in charge of the cattlewomen guides.
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Coming to a plate near you

Coming to a plate near you

Bill Jackson

Greeley Tribune

The next time you sit down at a Ted’s Montana Grill, that choice piece of bison on your plate probably will come from Pierce.

Or, the next time you’re at a Hard Rock Cafe and order a meal of prime beef?

Same thing. Pierce.

Double J Meat Packing, started in 2002 by Hasbrouck family members to market the natural beef and lambs they have in feedlots east and west of Ault, is in the final stages of a major expansion. Jay and Jo Hasbrouck bought the former Petrie Meat Packing Co. in Pierce when it was a small, 4,000-square-foot facility, conducting custom slaughtering for area customers.

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Mineral supplements for your cattle

Mineral supplements for your cattle

Miles Dabovich

High Plains Journal

With the rising cost of everything, I know that producers are looking hard at the input cost of their operation and seeing where they can cut back. According to a newsletter written by Deke Alkins of the Noble Foundation, in Ardmore, Okla., cattle producers should not cut back on mineral supplements of beef cattle.

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SKorea, US strike deal on beef imports: official

SKorea, US strike deal on beef imports: official

AFP

South Korea said Friday it has reached a deal to open its market wider to US beef imports, potentially removing a major trade irritant just one day before a summit between the two countries.

Efforts to pass a separate wide-ranging free trade agreement (FTA) will top the summit agenda.

But US legislators have warned they will not approve the trade pact until the beef dispute, which costs US farmers hundreds of millions of dollars annually, is settled.

“Following overnight consultations that lasted into early Friday, the two sides are working on the wording of an agreement,” Seoul’s agriculture ministry said in a statement.

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