Bad cows break budgets: The connection between cattle behavior and your bottom line

Bad cows break budgets: The connection between cattle behavior and your bottom line

Dana Charban

Progressive Cattle

Did you know there is a direct correlation between cattle behavior and the success of your operation? The personality of your cattle can impact your bottom line in a variety of ways, ranging from processing delays caused by stubborn cattle to issues with livestock welfare and health.

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Silage inventory from the sky

Silage inventory from the sky

Derek Wawack

Progressive Forage

Measuring and calculating the amount of silage or other feedstuffs stored in piles, bunkers or pits can be a challenge. If we are lucky and the stars align, they would be built perfectly square and level, but we all know that perfect rarely happens in farming and ranching.

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New research creates DNA tests for heifer fertility

New research creates DNA tests for heifer fertility

Heather Smith Thomas

Beef Magazine

You can’t sell a calf that’s never born. That’s why fertility is the most important trait in beef cattle because it all has to start with a pregnancy. A heifer that settles early in the breeding season and continues to have a calf on time every year is much better than a heifer that does not breed, breeds late, or has only one calf and then comes up open and must be replaced by another heifer that is expensive to develop.

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Beef Short Course to Be Offered Online

Beef Short Course to Be Offered Online

Lancaster Farming

Penn State Extension will hold its Beef Cattle Short Course online this month. The course, normally held in person in State College, will cover beef economics and marketing and strategies for raising calves that excel in the feedyard. Participants will be walked through a virtual live cattle evaluation followed by a guided grading of those same cattle on the rail and a carcass cutting demonstration during the webinar.

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Beef cattle nutrients enter new seasonal concerns

Beef cattle nutrients enter new seasonal concerns

Claremore Daily Progress

Nutritional requirements for beef cattle require a slight shift between seasons, Oklahoma State University Extension specialists said. “Providing producers with a source of information regarding feed intake, protein and energy requirements is important,” said David Lalman, OSU Extension beef cattle specialist. “It can ensure producers that their cattle are receiving the proper nutrition.”

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Cattle Herds are Shrinking and Intensifying Focus on Packer Capacity

Cattle Herds are Shrinking and Intensifying Focus on Packer Capacity

KMA Land

The nation’s cattle herds are shrinking and that will intensify the focus on beef packers to increase harvest capacity, says Randy Blach, CEO of CattleFax, a global leader in beef industry research, analysis and information. Blach was a featured speaker for the 2020 Virtual Cattle Raisers Convention online, which replaced the Texas Southwestern Cattle Raisers Convention cancelled in March.

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Scientists create healthier beef by genetically enhancing cow cells with nutrients in carrots

Scientists create healthier beef by genetically enhancing cow cells with nutrients in carrots

Harriet Alexander

Daily Mail

Scientists in Massachusetts have managed to combine beef muscle cells with extracts from plants in what they hope could produce a healthier beef, with fewer cancer-causing agents. The team from Tufts University found their inspiration in golden rice – rice which, since the 1990s has been engineered to include beta carotene.

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The Political Polarization of Meat Demand

The Political Polarization of Meat Demand

Jason Lusk

Here’s the thing. We know climate change is a politically polarized issue. Might linking beef and meat consumption to a politically polarized issue in turn cause meat consumption itself to become politically polarized?

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34th Hoosier Beef Congress Set for December 4-6, 2020

34th Hoosier Beef Congress Set for December 4-6, 2020

953MNC

The dates of the largest, single state junior cattle show in the U.S. are quickly approaching. The Hoosier Beef Congress (HBC) website, http://www.hoosierbeefcongress.com is updated with the 2020 HBC information. All details for the Junior Show, All Star and Breed Sale, Showmanship, Breed Rules, Tradeshow, Schedule of Events, etc. can be found on the website.

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Panic buying during COVID-19 prompts beef processing backlog

Panic buying during COVID-19 prompts beef processing backlog

Tony Geftos

13ABC

The pandemic is prompting some people to stock up on meat. So much so, it’s creating a backlog for processing. “We’ve never had it like this at all,” explains Abby Stanger, who runs her family’s cattle farm in Monroe County, MI, with her husband, Joe, a fourth-generation cattle farmer. “The last few years there’s been a lot of focus on eating local and knowing your farmer and knowing where your food comes from.

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