Baxter Black: RHINO LOVE

Baxter Black:  RHINO LOVE

Dr. Fosse, once of Pretori, told me about Martha and Arthur, two star crossed rare white rhinos. In a governmental gesture of goodwill, South Africa agreed to ship Arthur to Tanzania to mate with Martha.

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Raising Freezer Beef: When Is the Animal Finished?

Raising Freezer Beef: When Is the Animal Finished?

Adele Harty

South Dakota State University

A trend that has become more prominent in recent years is for ranchers to finish a few animals and sell beef direct to the consumer. Consumers have a desire to know where their beef comes from, value the story and are seeking ranchers to purchase beef from. At the same time, ranchers have been seeking opportunities to add value to their cattle and reduce their exposure to market swings.

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Meeting Protein Requirements When Protein is Expensive

Meeting Protein Requirements When Protein is Expensive

Katie VanValin

Ohio Beef Cattle Letter

One of the things that we know for certain is what goes up must come down, and in the agriculture industry the opposite is also true. For a whole host of reasons, we see fluctuations in all our commodity prices. In the beef industry, we can sometimes use this to our advantage to cheaply feed cattle, while other times we are forced to get out the pencil and paper (or excel spreadsheet) and look at our options to try and decrease feed costs.

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Cattle Lice Control

Cattle Lice Control

Jodi Henke

Successful Farming

Hair loss on your cattle is a good indication they have a lice problem. The bites cause itching and irritation, so cattle rub, lick, and chew on themselves. This can cause damage to fence posts and other items they rub on for relief.  Lice also affect performance.  When the cattle are rubbing and scratching, they’re not eating or resting, which can cost a-quarter-to-a-half-pound of gain per-day.

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Rabies in livestock often forgotten

Rabies in livestock often forgotten

Ron Clarke

Canadian Cattlemen

Rabies is a disease based in antiquity. It has been described through pictures and text since ancient times. The end result hasn’t changed: living creatures get rabies; they die. Globally, rabies claims over 55,000 human lives every year from every continent in the world except Antarctica. Fortunately, rabies is a relatively rare disease in humans but remains a disease of public health significance.

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Timing is (almost) everything when it comes to reproductive success

Timing is (almost) everything when it comes to reproductive success

Jennifer Blair

Alberta Farmer Express

Tackling reproductive failure in a beef herd starts with understanding what reproductive success looks like — and for most Alberta cattle operations, the usual measure of success doesn’t tell the whole story.

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Dairy industry enters new era of value-added feeder cattle

Dairy industry enters new era of value-added feeder cattle

Dr. Bob Hough and Frank Padilla

Western Livestock Journal
No matter how you look at it, the dairy industry has been a tough business to be a part of with razor-thin margins—and that is when dairies have been able to sell their milk at a profit at all. This has led dairy operations to continue to take advantage of the economies of scale with an eye towards ever-greater efficiency.

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Understanding scours: The basics for scours prevention

Understanding scours: The basics for scours prevention

Shelby Roberts

Progressive Cattle

The hustle and bustle of spring calving is quickly approaching, and now is the time for cow-calf producers to begin planning their calving management strategies. Proper planning prior to the start of calving can improve overall animal welfare, as well as saving a producer’s time and energy.

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Are Your Cows Too Big?

Are Your Cows Too Big?

Angus Beef Bulletin

Mature weight and milk production of many commercial beef cows are both greater than they were 30-40 years ago. Many ranchers have not recently weighed the adult cows in their herd to know what average mature weight to expect. Therefore, most commercial ranchers would underestimate the mature size of their cows.

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Carcass Value Shifts, a Sign of the Times

Carcass Value Shifts, a Sign of the Times

By Paul Dykstra

Drovers

January fed cattle prices are normally choppy and so far we’re seeing that pattern in 2021. A primary difference this year, compared to 2020, is that last week’s average price is $14/cwt. lower, the same discount as the 5-year average.

 

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Preventing weak calf syndrome

Preventing weak calf syndrome

Heather Smith Thomas

Canadian Cattlemen

Weak calf syndrome is a general condition rather than a specific disease, and can be caused by several different factors, sometimes multiple factors at the same time. The newborn calf is weak, unable or slow to rise, stand or nurse.

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Copper Deficiency

Copper Deficiency

Dr. Ken McMillan

DTN

True copper deficiency is most common in growing animals. A change in coat color is the sign of copper deficiency that most people point to because it’s easy to see. But real copper deficiency can cause what I call “pocket book changes”.

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Choices for Alternative Forages

Choices for Alternative Forages

Leif Bakken

Northern AG Network

Northern Ag Network territory grows some high-quality grass and alfalfa. In some cases, it’s nationally recognized and used on dairy and horse operations. For some producers, it may be time to change the rotation on the hay field or find another profitable option. There are typically two options; legumes and annual forages.

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Higher grain and corn costs to challenge cattle and poultry industries

Higher grain and corn costs to challenge cattle and poultry industries 

Kim Souza

Talk Business

Rising grain prices will challenge the cattle market and chicken processors this year, according to Derrell Peel, livestock marketing specialist with Oklahoma State University, who said grain and oilseed prices have risen dramatically in the past four months.

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It’s a cold, cruel world

It’s a cold, cruel world

Jake Geis

Progressive Cattle

That unrelenting tyrant has descended once again upon the Dakotas – Old Man Winter. His arrival heralds subzero weather, wind-blown drifts that envelope pickups and, worst of all, brutally chapped lips. Its only positive attribute is that for one season, we don’t have to dodge road construction.

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Adding Sheep to a Cattle Operation in central Nebraska – A Producer’s Perspective

Adding Sheep to a Cattle Operation in central Nebraska – A Producer’s Perspective

University of Nebraska

Multi-species grazing can be an option to more fully utilize grazing resources. In this month’s BeefWatch Producer Perspective Podcast, Jim Jenkins from Custer County, Nebraska discusses why he made the decision to add a band of sheep to his operation and the opportunities he sees for sheep to complement cattle in Nebraska.

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Merck Announces Bovilis Nasalgen 3-PMH Intranasal BRD vaccine

Merck Announces Bovilis Nasalgen 3-PMH Intranasal BRD vaccine

Drovers

Merck Animal Health has announced that Bovilis Nasalgen 3-PMH is now available to veterinarians and cattle producers to protect cattle from five of the most common pneumonia-causing viral and bacterial pathogens.

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Mental health creates mental toughness

Mental health creates mental toughness

Beef Vet

Jake Geis

Have you seen that picture of the man with the wrinkled, weathered face and gray hair saying, “Veterinary medicine isn’t stressful. I’m twenty-nine years old and feel just fine!”?

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Proper hay storage reduces waste, increases profit.

Proper hay storage reduces waste, increases profit.

Linda Geist

Angus Beef Bulletin

Environmental factors such as sunlight, precipitation, evaporation and ground conditions can affect quality. The size of the bale itself affects how much hay is wasted, says Humphrey. Larger-diameter bales have less loss. Smaller bales have about twice as much exposed surface for the same amount of hay.

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A New Environment for Ag Policy

A New Environment for Ag Policy

AgWeb

Clinton Griffiths

Following a turbulent 2020, which included a global pandemic, hard-fought presidential race and numerous congressional changeovers, the path of U.S. ag policy is likely headed for an adjustment. The “Sonny” sided leadership of USDA and its motto to “Do Right and Feed Everyone” will see the return of the long-tenure of Tom Vilsack. Add in new and retiring ag committee members in Congress, and the future of ag policy feels poised for a reset at the start of this new decade.

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