Genetics key to livestock disease relief
Jeff DeYoung
Iowa Farmer Today
Ask people in the research business if they have a wish list, and many will answer in the affirmative. “There are always different things you want to see done,” says Jim Reecy, an animal scientist and director of the Office of Biotechnology at Iowa State University.
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Johne’s or Hardware?
Dr. Ken McMillan
DTN
Johne’s disease is a chronic wasting disease. Cattle are most susceptible when they are young. Infected cows shed the bacteria in their stool and young cows ingest the manure. Infected cattle can take years to show clinical signs. The most common symptoms are diarrhea and weight loss
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When Livestock Eat Weeds You Have 43% More Forage*
Kathy Voth
On Pasture
It’s that time of year when I remind you that you can teach your ruminant livestock to eat your weeds so that you have as much as 43% more forage, and you don’t have to worry about herbicide.
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Bovine Emergency Response Plan (BERP) Program
Heidi Carroll
iGrow
The scene of an accident is not the place to build your team! The BERP program was the featured discussion for the May Animal Care Wednesday Webinar. Lisa Pederson with North Dakota State University discussed how and why the program began, who the audience is for the program, and the impact this program is having.
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Temple Grandin: Back off and ease cattle stress
Janelle Atyeo
Tri-State Neighbor
Temple Grandin has spent a lifetime preaching proper livestock handling techniques, and while she’s seen much improvement at cattle yards and slaughterhouses across the world, there are still bad habits that make her fume.
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Yep! An auctioneer’s chant still sells what others want to buy
Chad Smith
Today’s Producer
“The mechanics don’t change much,” said Jim Birdwell, a longtime purebred cattle auctioneer from Fletcher, Okla. “From the purebred standpoint, we still do sales basically the same way we did when I started back in 1972.”
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US packers line up to sell beef to China
Agri Pulse
Four companies and six packing facilities are now listed by USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service as compliant under the export verification (EV) program that the U.S. and China agreed upon, and their beef is being shipped to the Asian nation.
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Safeway is serving plant-based beef next to grocery store steaks
Chase Purdy
Quartz
It sounds mundane, serving up burgers in Pleasanton, California—a mid-sized town just outside San Francisco. But something momentous recently happened there, and it stands to change how people think about food.
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The pain is the ash
Mike Rankin
Hay and Forage Grower
Ash content in harvested forages can have a significant role in animal performance. Effectively, think of ash as minerals, components such as calcium, phosphorus, potassium, and magnesium. We normally regard these as essential and beneficial to both plant and livestock health, and that’s true for about the 8 percent of internal ash content in alfalfa and the 6 percent inherent in grass.
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Comparing the Environmental Impact of Conventional, Natural and Grass-Fed Beef Production Systems
Judith L. Capper
MDPI
The environmental impact of three beef production systems was assessed using a deterministic model. Conventional beef production (finished in feedlots with growth-enhancing technology) required the fewest animals, and least land, water and fossil fuels to produce a set quantity of beef.
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The Beef Blog 