Mark Parker: The Top 10 worst times to ask Dad for 20 bucks, use of the car, permission to get off early or to get a tattoo

Mark Parker:   The Top 10 worst times to ask Dad for 20 bucks, use of the car, permission to get off early or to get a tattoo

FarmTalk

10. He’s under the baler with a 5-foot cheater bar and every wrench in the place scattered around him.
11. Anytime within a month after you accordioned the truck tailgate.

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Unraveling the Secrets of the Rumen

Unraveling the Secrets of the Rumen

Tim McAllister

A Steak in Genomics™

Microbes are part of the natural world, they occupy all parts of the world from deep sea vents, skin, digestive tract, and our food. The rumen is one of the most microbe rich environments in the world. We use fistulated animals to have a window into the rumen microbiome. Rather than looking at the bacteria that come out of the digestive tract, we can directly sample the rumen. The microbes in cattle rumens can even digest cotton shirts!

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Creating a healthy start is essential for calf health

Creating a healthy start is essential for calf health

Shelby Roberts

Progressive Cattleman
Animal health continues to be a major concern for all sectors of beef production. As the saying goes, “You can’t get over a bad start,” and this holds true for calf health.  A bad start not only has negative health effects, but can also lead to increased treatment costs and losses in growth performance, ultimately reducing profitability.

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Managing Cattle Through Winter Weather Conditions

Managing Cattle Through Winter Weather Conditions

Warren Rusche
Ohio Beef Cattle Letter

Winter weather conditions often present challenges to cattle managers in the Northern Plains (and upper Midwest). Although we can’t alter the weather, there are management steps that can be taken to help maintain cattle health and performance.

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Counting the Cost of Silage Losses in Your Operation

Counting the Cost of Silage Losses in Your Operation

Mike Brouk
Drovers

Silage is often the base forage for the diets of growing cattle and the cow herd.  This past year, due to the drought, thousands of acres of drought-stricken corn and sorghum were harvested as silage.  A hidden cost of silage is associated with the shrink due to fermentation, storage, and feedout.  Total shrink from harvest through feeding can result in the loss of 5 to 40% of the dry matter harvested.

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All about formulating rations for beef cattle

All about formulating rations for beef cattle

ADAM WILLIS

Newton County Times

Nutrient requirement tables will give you a basis for nutritional needs of different animals in different stages of life. This is by no means a one size fits all and a visual assessment of your herd needs to be completed.

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What Is the Real Value In a Beef Herd?

What Is the Real Value In a Beef Herd?

Kris  Ringwall

Farms.com

Usually, when businesses buy and sell inventory, one of three things happens. Under option one, the item sells for more than it was purchased for and one has the opportunity to make money. The second is the break-even option. This is when an item sells for the same as the purchase price.

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5 Tips to Get Cows Through Cold Weather Stress

5 Tips to Get Cows Through Cold Weather Stress

Sarah Brown

Drovers

During the winter months cattle experience cold stress anytime the effective ambient temperature (taking into account wind chill, humidity, etc.), drops below the lower critical temperature. Here’s five tips to help manage the frigid temperatures:

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2018 Farm Bill Delivers Wins for Farmers and Ranchers

2018 Farm Bill Delivers Wins for Farmers and Ranchers

Farm Bureau Federation

The 2018 farm bill was a much-needed win for farm and ranch country. For the first time in a long while, the farm bill was passed in the same year it was introduced, and we got the new farm bill signed into law well before spring planting begins. Farmers and ranchers are ready now for the bill to get implemented, and we know Secretary Perdue and his team at USDA are just as eager to get to work making that happen.

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Livestock producers try to keep animals comfortable in bitter windchills

Livestock producers try to keep animals comfortable in bitter windchills

Julie Buntler

AgWeek

The Worthington area is expected to break a couple of records today, but they’re nothing to brag about. Just ask a livestock farmer who spends his or her days in and out of barns and tractor cabs.

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Be prepared for polar vortex

Be prepared for polar vortex

Western Farmer Stockman

Bitter cold forecast to last through Jan. 31; talk to farm employees and take special care of livestock and pets.
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Practical Management to Reduce Disease Challenges

Practical Management to Reduce Disease Challenges

Robin Falkner
A Steak in Genomics™

We too frequently think of a health program as a calendarized list of health practices. Just because everyone believes something doesn’t mean it is right. Falkner again used his recipe analogy. We have been looking at recipes for a long time. We need to be developing better cooks.

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New Board of Directors Elected for IBCA and IBC

New Board of Directors Elected for IBCA and IBC

Eric Pfeiffer

Hoosier AG Today

The Indiana Beef Cattle Association (IBCA) held elections during the recent Area Beef Meetings to choose three Area Directors who sit on the IBCA-IBC Board of Directors. Beef producers in Area 1 elected Fred Glover of Milan, producers in Area 5 re-elected Jeff Sherfield of Spencer and producers in Area 7 re-elected Cody Sankey of Economy.

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Bovine Respiratory Disease

Bovine Respiratory Disease

Beef Cattle Research Council

Bovine Respiratory Disease (BRD) is the most common and costly disease affecting the North American beef cattle industry. In the broadest sense, BRD refers to any disease of the upper or lower respiratory tracts. BRD is commonly associated with infections of the lungs causing pneumonia in calves that have recently been weaned or recently arrived at the feedlot (which is why it is often referred to as shipping fever).

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NWSS yards hold many memories for livestock producers

NWSS yards hold many memories for livestock producers

Rachel Gabel

The Fence Post

In the National Western Stock Show Yards, the southern-most pen is numbered 1,200, just north of the Livestock Center and both the original 1898 building and 1918 Exchange buildings. Past the Stockyards Bar and Saloon, built in the 1980s, the original stockyards pens stretched to the south.

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Breeding program postmortems

Breeding program postmortems

Melissa Bravo

Progressive Cattleman

In our rush to maximize economic return, many of us breed first-calf heifers as soon as we think they are ready. Or, as frequently occurs, when a bull decides your attempt at separating it and an available female in estrus is feeble and demonstrates an ability to fly over the moon – destroying gates, fences or even barn walls in the process.

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Successes In My Heifer Development Business

Successes In My Heifer Development Business

Meg Grzeskiewicz

On Pasture

I spent my first four years in the grazing business running custom cow-calf pairs. It wasn’t profitable for me and I determined that it wasn’t the best use of my resources (as I discussed in some of my On Pasture articles in 2018). In spring 2018, I switched to being a seasonal operation. I bought 35 open yearling Red Angus heifers in April from a grass genetic cow-calf operation. I ran them with bulls, pregnancy checked them, and sold them at the Ohio Land and Cattle fall production sale in November.

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NBA Star Steven Adams smashes steaks & promotes beef

NBA Star Steven Adams smashes steaks & promotes beef

Amanda Radke

Beef Magazine

When professional athlete Steven Adams isn’t on the basketball court, the Oklahoma City Thunder star player is “smashing steaks.” That was how Adams described his love for beef in a now viral video that has aired on ESPN and “Inside The NBA” on TNT.

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What is “Natural”?

What is “Natural”?

Jayson Lusk

JaysonLusk.com

I recently completed a survey of over 1,200 U.S. consumers to find out exactly what they think “natural” means when evaluating different foods.  The full report is available here and topline results for all questions asked are here (the survey also covered consumers’ perceptions of “healthy” claims, which I’ll blog on later).
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FAO sets the record straight–86% of livestock feed is inedible by humans

FAO sets the record straight–86% of livestock feed is inedible by humans

Susan Macmillan

ILRI Clippings

As the media frenzy caused by a ‘planetary health diet’ proposed in a new report from an EAT-Lancet commission this month continues, it is perhaps timely to recall that the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has set the record straight regarding not just the level of greenhouse gases that livestock emit (see yesterday’s posting on this blog) but also incorrect information about how much food (crops eatable by humans) is consumed by livestock. It’s not a lot.

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