BeefTalk: Marketing Options Are Improved With Verification
Kris Ringwall, Beef Specialist, NDSU Extension Service
October was a significant but disappointing milestone for the North Dakota Beef Cattle Improvement Association (NDBCIA). The NDBCIA source and age efforts came to a close. The NDBCIA board of directors decided last spring not to renew its source and age verification program that was marketed as CalfAid.
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Retaining Ownership
Lorie Woodward Cantu
The Cattleman
Retaining ownership of calves beyond weaning is a value-added process that provides cow owners opportunities for additional profit. It can, when the conditions are right, turn lower value calves and feedstuffs into higher value animals.
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Cow cost is too high to keep an open cow
Dr. Tom Troxel
University of Arkansas
In many parts of Arkansas, producers experienced plenty of spring and early summer rainfall. Unlike last year, hay is abundant and in many cases producers have more hay than they have cattle. With fall rains the outlook for winter pastures is optimistic and cattle are in much better body condition as compared to 2012.
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Potential forage challenge ahead
Bovine Veterinarian
Depending upon the location of your operation, weather conditions may have wreaked havoc on your crops this year, making forage, specifically haylage availability, a challenge. It’s a situation that’s been brewing all year, says Dr. Bob Prange, dairy nutritionist with Purina Animal Nutrition, based in Wisconsin.
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Low-Stress Stockmanship Course Was A Mind Bender
Jesse Bussard
Beef Producer
This day-long course sponsored by Montana-based Western Sustainability Exchange was a jam-packed crash course in all things low-stress livestock handling and one of the best, well-structured courses of its kind I have experienced.
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Low Cattle Numbers Challenge Beef Infrastructure
KBTX
High prices that beef calves are bringing at the sale barns are welcomed by ranchers, but those prices don’t automatically translate to good news for the beef industry as a whole.
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True Grass (Farm) featured in Playboy
Samantha Kimmey
Poin Reyes Light
Guido Frosini, the head of True Grass Farms in Valley Ford, was recently surprised to learn that Playboy had included its wagyu beef as one of “19 Things to Do Before You Die” in its November issue (the beef is number five). The farm has been getting calls from as far as Illinois and Mississippi, and when Mr. Frosini asked one caller how they had heard of him, “They were like, ‘You’re in the November issue of Playboy.’ I thought it was pretty funny, but it’s great they would pick it up,” he said.
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DDG Helps Save Feed Costs, but Watch for Feed Waste
Cheryl Anderson
DTN
Utilizing dried distillers grains in rations can help cut feed costs, although producers need to prevent storage and/or shrink losses.
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Beef industry about to make a slow turn
Debra Levey Larson
The Rock River Times
The number of beef animals has been in a downward spiral since 2007 as a result of drought, which has ravaged pastures, and because of high prices of corn, soybean meal and forages. Although expansion is expected to start slowly, the beef industry is about to reverse a downward trend in numbers.
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Ralph Bridges, National and Georgia Angus Leader passes
Legacy.com
Ralph Goss Bridges passed away on November 5, 2013 at his home in the Salem community, Lexington, GA . . . He was a Director of the American Angus Association from 1988-1990, President of the Georgia Angus Association from 1989-1990, President of the Georgia Cattlemen’s Association in 1992, President of the American Angus Association in 1996, Past President of the Oglethorpe County Cattlemen’s Association and Georgia Farm Bureau, and Chairman of the Board of First Commerce Bank. He was an avid Angus Cattle breeder & turkey farmer. He was the owner of Bridges Angus Farms, for over 50 years.
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