BeefTalk: Urgent: Obtain a Well-balanced Mineral Program With Magnesium Now!
Kris Ringwall, Beef Specialist, NDSU Extension Service
Are the alarms going off? They should be! Dead cows are no fun, and they can happen if a producer is not prepared. The recent moisture and heat has the grass growing; these are happy notes but with a dark side
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Steer-Heifer Price Spread
Ron Torrel
Nevada Cattlemen’s Association
Why do heifer calves sell so far back from their steer mates? Regardless of the similarities between the cost of production with steers and heifers, steer calves generally demand up to a dime more per pound at weaning than their heifer mates.
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Producer works on gradual gains
Benjamin Herrold
Missouri Farmer Today
Dark storm clouds gathered on the horizon as Lance Hasten eased his pickup truck over a cattle guard and drove down the lane to his house. Cows and calves lounged on green pasture as Hasten looked to the clouds and hoped for some rain.
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3 considerations for creep feeding your calves this summer
Amanda Radke
Beef Magazine
You’ve got calves on the ground, things are greening up, and you’re itching to get pairs moved to summer pastures. It’s not only time to start thinking about fixing fence, checking waterers, testing herd bulls, branding, and making breeding decisions — it’s also time to consider whether or not you’ll creep feed calves this summer.
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SDSU Extension Releases Online Video Resources for Artificial Insemination
Warren Rusche
iGrow
The spring breeding season is fast approaching for most South Dakota ranchers if not here already. A growing number of producers use artificial insemination or AI as a reproductive management tool. AI allows ranchers to utilize highly proven sires with superior genetics that otherwise would not be available.
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Lush pastures in the summer can lead to bloat in cattle.
Heather Smith Thomas
Hereford World
Bloat can readily occur in ruminant animals because of the way rumen microbes break down feeds, creating gas in the process. Associate professor and Extension veterinarian at Colorado State University David Van Metre says putting hungry cattle on lush legume pastures such as alfalfa or clover, especially in the pre-bloom stage, is most dangerous.
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Slow Soak
Ellen H. Brisendine
The Cattleman
“Anything we can do to slow runoff down gives us more of a chance to soak it into the ground,” says Kyle Wright, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Services water quality specialist for Texas.
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Test Water Quality Before Livestock Turnout
Feedlot Magazine
Recent spring rains have been welcome to North Dakota farmers and ranchers following a fall and winter of below-average precipitation, but water quality in ponds and dugouts still may be compromised by concentrated levels of salts, minerals and bacteria.
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‘Handling Cattle Without Getting Handled’ workshop covers low-stress livestock care
Tom Parker
High Plains Journal
Cows are big and beefy and muscular and most women aren’t, so for the latter to manage the former it helps to not only understand how cows think and socialize, but also how cows remember their past, how cows perceive their place in the cosmos and, perhaps less intuitively but easily learned, how a cow’s vision impacts its behavior.
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Reflective pigment on cattle reduces heat stress
Elsie J. Mccoy, Steve J. Bartle
Bovine Veterinarian
Heat stress in feedlot cattle leads to serious animal-welfare and economic implications. Documented feedlot cattle losses show more than 5,000 head have died as a result in seven of the last 20 years, and non-death costs are estimated at five to 10 times greater than death losses.
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