Daily Archives: October 13, 2015

Baxter Black, DVM: Another Good Man Gone

Baxter Black, DVM: Another Good Man Gone

If you saw a team roper with his hand behind his back, could you tell if he was a header or a heeler?

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Implants May Decrease Heifer Fertility

Implants May Decrease Heifer Fertility

Dr. Ken McMillan

DTN/The Progressive Farmer

I don’t recommend implanting heifers that you know you want to breed. Others will disagree with that statement.

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Dealing with shrink when marketing cattle

Dealing with shrink when marketing cattle

Heather Smith Thomas

Progressive Cattleman

Cattle have a large digestive tract, holding many gallons of feed or fluid. Bodyweight may vary depending on whether the tract is full or empty. This will depend on time of day, how much the animal has eaten or exercised, or how far it has been hauled.

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Low cost option for growing calves: Corn residue grazing with distiller supplementation

Low cost option for growing calves: Corn residue grazing with distiller supplementation

Mary Drewnoski

Drovers

Grazing calves on corn residue and providing supplemental distillers grains is a cost effective way to add value to weaned calves. The two most important considerations to successfully and economically increase calf value are stocking rate and supplementation level.

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Pasture, Rangeland and Forage Program

Pasture, Rangeland and Forage Program

Dr. Andrew Griffith

University of Tennessee

The United States Department of Agriculture offers several programs to crop and livestock producers to help manage risk. A program often discussed is Livestock Risk Protection Insurance (LRP). LRP is a price insurance that livestock producers can use to protect the price of a future sale of animals. Another program available to livestock producers that has just been expanded to all 48 contiguous states is the Rainfall Index (RI) Insurance Plan for Pasture, Rangeland and Forage (PRF).

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Grazing Corn Residue using resources and reducing costs

Grazing Corn Residue using resources and reducing costs

Byron Leu, Joe Sellers, and Dan Loy

Iowa State University

Grazing corn residue is a management system that makes “cents” to many Iowa beef cow-calf producers. This process involves grazing the corn residue left behind after harvest—namely the stalk, leaf, husk and cob, as well as downed ears. Through this system, producers can utilize available forage resources while reducing stored feed costs and respective operating costs.

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Activists to stop using ‘factory farm’ term?

Activists to stop using ‘factory farm’ term?

Feedstuffs

At the 2015 Animal Rights National Conference, in Alexandria, Va., Hope Bohanec of United Poultry Concerns said, “The term factory farm had its time … we have inadvertently created the alternative animal agriculture industry. All animal agriculture is bad.” Bohanec was among those that asked for the term “factory farming” to be retired from the activists’ lexicon, according to the Animal Agriculture Alliance, who attended the meeting.

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Sixth Judicial Circuit Stays WOTUS Implementation

Sixth Judicial Circuit Stays WOTUS Implementation

NCBA

Citing a substantial possibility of success on the merits of their claims and casting suspicion on the rulemaking process, the Sixth Judicial Circuit Court of Appeals today ordered that the EPA and Army Corps’ “Waters of the United States” rule be stayed nationwide until the Court can determine jurisdiction over the many pending lawsuits. Philip Ellis, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association president said this action will prevent implementation of the WOTUS rule.

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What’s the nutrient value of your hay?

What’s the nutrient value of your hay?

Dave Russell

Brownfield Ag News

An Ohio State University Extension educator says the challenges of making hay this year make it very important to have its nutrient value tested.

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California Enacts Strict Antibiotic Law for Animal Agriculture

California Enacts Strict Antibiotic Law for Animal Agriculture

Bloomberg

California just passed a bill to sharply limit the use of antibiotics in farm animals, making it the first state to ban the routine use of the drugs in animal agriculture.

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