BeefTalk: Controlling Cow Size Aids in Controlling Cow Costs

BeefTalk: Controlling Cow Size Aids in Controlling Cow Costs

Kris Ringwall, Beef Specialist, NDSU Extension Service

“Would a herd of 120 smaller-framed cows be a better fit than a herd of 100 larger-framed cows?” is an often-asked question throughout the beef industry. The number of cows will vary, but for the sake of answering the question, let’s set the herd size as 120 smaller-framed cows and 100 larger-framed cows. The Dickinson Research Extension Center has explored the question since the mid ’90s.

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Management finesse helps cattle gain

Management finesse helps cattle gain

Jeff DeYoung

Iowa Farmer Today

Kurt Christensen realizes it will not be long until chilly autumn days are replaced with sub-zero windchill factors. “You hate to think about that,” he says. Christensen farms near here with his father Kent, his uncle Ron and his cousin Clayton. The family grows crops and feeds roughly 2,000 cattle on their Clay County farm.

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Frosted Sorghums: To Graze or Not to Graze?

Frosted Sorghums: To Graze or Not to Graze?

Daren Redfearn, Bruce Anderson

University of Nebraska

Many parts of Nebraska have recently had at least one night of below freezing temperatures. In some areas, temperatures have warmed back up and the sorghums have begun to regrow. The hydrocyanic acid (or prussic acid) in this new growth can be highly toxic to grazing cattle.

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Do cows like cover crops?

Do cows like cover crops?

Carrie Veselka

Progressive Cattleman

Folks, meet Lady. Lady is a Black Angus cow from Oklahoma. A group of USDA NRCS workers fitted Lady with a GoPro camera on a collar to follow her eating routine throughout the day. Watch Lady snack on several different plants as she grazes her way through a patch of cover crops that includes 14 different plants, including legumes, grasses, brassicas and broadleaves, giving us a cow’s-eye view of cover crop grazing.

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Grazing forage brassicas

Grazing forage brassicas

Melissa Beck

Progressive Forage

You’ve heard of “summer slump.” The meaning varies depending on where you live and your forage base. Maybe to you it means the time of year when you get discouraged at the prospect of having to mow your yard, yet again, while wondering where your pastures have gone.

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Forty Plus Years of No-Till and Cover Crop Success

Forty Plus Years of No-Till and Cover Crop Success

Kathy Voth

On Pasture

Think no-till is a new deal? Well not to Jimmy Standefer. He planted his first no-till cover crop in 1967. It was a failure. It took a couple of years for him to get his Dad to let him try it again. But the second try was a huge success and after that there was no looking back.

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Legal jumble over beef, soybean checkoff dollars?

Legal jumble over beef, soybean checkoff dollars?

Chris Bennett

Drovers

The newly proposed rule (No. AMS-LPS-13-0083: Soybean Promotion, Research, and Consumer Information; Beef Promotion and Research; Amendments to Allow Redirection of State Assessments to the National Program; Technical Amendments) is heavy on technicality and light on clarity through nine pages of text, and that could kick up dust over beef and soybean assessment dollars.

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Prussic acid and nitrate poisoning are concerns after a light frost

Prussic acid and nitrate poisoning are concerns after a light frost

Glenn Selk

Bovine Veterinarian

Although late October has been very warm and “summer-like”, the average first frost date for much of the Southern Plains is here.  Soon a cold front will bring near-freezing to sub-freezing nighttime temperatures

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Veterinary Feed Directive 101 – What Producers Need to Think About as They Count Down to 2017

Veterinary Feed Directive 101 – What Producers Need to Think About as They Count Down to 2017

Oklahoma Farm Report

The reality of operating under the Veterinary Feed Directive (VFD) being pursued by the Food & Drug Administration is beginning to sink in for producers as we near the first of the new year, when the rule takes effect.

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What’s the big deal about fetal programming?

What’s the big deal about fetal programming?

Burt Rutherford

Beef Magazine

One year, you get outstanding replacement heifers and steers that hit a home run in the feedyard and on the rail. Other years, the opposite happens. Now we know why. Any beef producer who’s been in the business a while has seen it happen. There’s a group of heifers from a certain year that just seem to be better than the rest of the herd. Then there’s that other group of heifers, the ones that are poorer than everything else.

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