Category: Cattle Feeding

Fetus to feedyard

Date: Aug 12 2019

This isn’t a research topic you’d find at the middle-school science fair. It’s so new, research is just beginning to explore this 16-letter term for immune cells sharing nutrients with major organs: immunometabolism. So far, there are still more questions than answers.

Plan, monitor and cool it

Date: Jul 31 2019

It’s a hot topic every summer.
“Heat stress is the largest impediment to efficient animal agriculture,” said Rob Rhoads, Virginia Tech. He presented with University of California-Davis colleague Frank Mitloehner for a symposium on the topic at the American Society of Animal Scientists annual meeting in July.

Not one for small talk

Date: Jul 12 2019

Uncomfortable silence.
If you don’t like it, you know the kind. Perhaps you’re just getting to know somebody, and you reach a point in the conversation where that silence hangs heavy and it makes you uneasy.

The cost and value of quality

Date: Mar 12 2019

It’s Prime time

Date: Mar 12 2019

There was a time when targeting the Choice grade seemed like a lofty goal. But as the song goes, the times, they are a-changin’.

Decide sooner

Date: Feb 06 2019

While many of you are in sire buying mode this time of year, more are deciding whether this year’s bull calves retain the ability to become sires. Castration at birth is ideal, but catching them on day one can be a challenge in extensive operations. Castration at branding or turnout offers a balance between handling ease and minimizing calf stress.

Health, vaccinations not synonymous

Date: Dec 04 2018

Victory in war starts long before the battle. The same is true in combat against cattle diseases. “My job as a military commander is to take a soldier and make him resilient,” Col. Sam Barringer said at the Feeding Quality Forum in Sioux City, Iowa this summer. The veterinarian and technical specialist for Diamond V illustrated the point by stretching a rubber band: too much pressure, no matter the reason, may cause it to break.

Vaccinate healthy calves: Wait on illness

Date: Dec 04 2018

You vaccinate to keep cattle healthy, but if they’re already coming down with a bug or your timing is off, your efforts could be worse than a waste. That’s what Brian Vander Ley, veterinarian epidemiologist at the University of Nebraska, told 200 cattlemen at the Feeding Quality Forum in Sioux City, Iowa, this August.

Less feed, less money

Date: Nov 13 2018

When it comes to stocker nutrition, an old-fashioned strategy might be the way of the future. That’s what Dale Blasi, Kansas State University (K-State) Extension beef specialist, said about limit-feeding calves in the growing phase. The scientific research goes back decades, but at this year’s 13th annual Feeding Quality Forum in Sioux City, Iowa, he presented new reasons to give it fresh look.

Hard work, luck and smarts

Date: Oct 28 2018

Sometimes it’s easy to see where a person is and forget where they’ve been. It’s easy to stare down the success in the here-and-now, without even a glance at their past. When I learned Gerald Timmerman won our Feeding Quality Forum Industry Achievement Award, I knew the family in generalities…for their feeding businesses spread across Nebraska and surrounding states. I knew they had some ranching and other beef industry interests.