Planning for winter feeding becomes complicated in 2013

Planning for winter feeding becomes complicated in 2013

Clay Wright

The Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation

Typically, planning a winter feeding program has been fairly straightforward: estimate the number of cattle to be wintered, the amount of standing forage that will be available and how much hay is needed to get to spring grass. Then a least-cost supplement (if needed) to fill in nutritional gaps was easily identified. It’s still timely in August to start the planning process, but it may be a little more complicated in 2013 than usual.

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Saving by Grazing

Saving by Grazing

Becky Mills

Progressive Farmer

Mitch Baltz has four-year-old hay on hand, and it doesn’t bother him one bit. The Powhatan, Ark., producer believes the first priority in feeding cattle is letting them get all the nutrition they can from pastures.

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Creep Feeding Beef Calves

Creep Feeding Beef Calves

Julie Walker

iGrow

Creep feeding is a way to provide nursing calves with supplemental nutrients with the use of a gate that restricts the access of cows to the feeding area. The type of creep feeds available vary from grain-based feeds that primarily supplement energy, to limit-fed high-protein feeds, to “green creeps,” which are high-quality pastures grown for the sole purpose of grazing by nursing calves.

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Cattle producers young and old should plan accordingly for drought

Cattle producers young and old should plan accordingly for drought

Texas A&M

Texas beef cattle producers should plan for future periods of dry conditions as drought patterns exhibited in the 1950s continue to prevail in current models, according to an expert.

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Culture of Beef is the answer to ‘Cultured Beef’

Culture of Beef is the answer to ‘Cultured Beef’

Capital Journal

An Associated Press story from London that we carried in our Aug. 6 issue informs us that scientists there are to the point of taste-testing hamburger grown in a laboratory from cattle stem cells. It sounds like something of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, but it’s not fiction, it’s here already. Lab-grown beef apparently gets high marks for texture, not so much for taste.

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Feedstuff Availability Allowing Producers To Keep More Heifers

Feedstuff Availability Allowing Producers To Keep More Heifers

Beef Producer

With pastures slowly starting to look better and feed prices on the way down, heifer retention is in the beginning stages, a Purdue University economist said Tuesday.

Though beef cattle numbers have been falling since 2007 due to drought conditions that drove feed prices higher and pasture quality lower, favorable weather is appearing on the horizon, returning better prospects for grain crops.

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Cows are ‘customers’ of Vt. vodka company

Cows are ‘customers’ of Vt. vodka company

WPTZ

When Chuck Thorburn, the owner of Circle T Ranch in Hartland, Vt., calls his cows, they come running. Their hustle may be because they know they’re about to get a real treat. "Stillage is like candy to them," Thorburn said.

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