In Texas, the Art and Science of Building a Better Cow
Robert Kunzig
National Geographic
It was January in the Texas Panhandle—flat land, big sky, bitter day. On our way out to see the cloned heifers, Jones had stopped to break the ice on some water troughs.
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Studies Show Selecting Performance Traits Hurts Reproduction
Alan Newport
Beef Producer
Evidence keeps growing that decades of selection for production traits have damaged reproductivity of the nation’s beef animals. Two studies, one on cows and the other on bulls, bear out this hypothesis.
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State Beef Groups Send Loud Message to USDA
Andy Eubank
Hoosier AG Today
Executive Vice President at IBCA, Joe Moore, told HAT he’s a bit mystified by the secretary’s intentions. “I’m not real sure why he has decided this is the right path to take. No one has explained that to us. There’s still a lot of questions, but not a lot of answers.” Moore says the industry has asked Vilsack to reconsider imposing the 1996 act.
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Should You Step Up Biosecurity?
Barb Baylor Anderson
Angus Journal
Beef producers just need to look at the impact porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDv) has had on the U.S. pork industry to draw attention to the importance of a biosecurity plan for their herds.
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Extension embraces change at 100
Gene Lucht
Iowa Farmer Today
“In Extension, we’re gloriously messy,” says Cathann Kress, vice president for Extension and Outreach at Iowa State University. “That’s a good thing. It’s going to be messy at times. Let’s embrace that fact.
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Putting on pounds
Heather Hamilton-Maude
Tri-State Livestock News
Thousands of dollars are at stake in the days following weaning. Producers are shooting for pounds gained, but keep expensive antibiotics on hand with the hope they will stay unopened. Managing for proper nutrition and health can drastically improve the odds of making the first weeks following weaning profitable versus costly.
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Extended Grazing and Reduced Stored Feed
Ed Ballard
University of Illinois
Feed costs represent the major cost in most livestock production systems. A recently completed analysis of 225 Standardized Performance Analysis (SPA) Beef Cow Records on herds in Illinois and Iowa showed that feed cost was the overriding factor determining profitability, explaining over 57 percent of the herd-to-herd variation.
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