News Update
December 22, 2016
Living the Good Life
Preg-checking a set of cows on the ranch at the Big Hole near Jackson, Mont., Jim Sitz is in his element. All hands are on deck today.
Wife Tammi orchestrates the day’s activities, a role she’s capably handled while Jim served on the American Angus Association Board for the past eight years. In-laws Bill and Bonnie Huntsman relay tag numbers as Bill urges a cow into the chute.
Son Tucker and daughter Amber locate the appropriate electronic identification (eID) tag, handing it off to Tammi, who scans the tag into an Archer handheld device before giving it to Jim to do the tagging. Employees Matt Woods and Russell Quinlan pour for flies and administer vaccinations, while Chuck Gue and Katy Klick handle the preg-checking duties. While the Archer automatically records the cow’s weight, Tammi inputs preg-check results.
Continue reading this Angus Journal feature story online.
Support the Angus Foundation at the National Western
Your chance to support the Angus Foundation and take home a fantastic “souvenir” from the 2017 National Western Stock Show (NWSS) in Denver, Colo., is almost here.
On Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2017, at 5 p.m. MST, at the beginning of the NWSS Angus Bull Sale sponsored by the American Angus Association, the Angus Foundation will be auctioning off many items to support Angus youth, education and research initiatives.
Headlining the Angus Foundation items is the Angus Foundation Heifer Package.
This year’s package features Basin Lucy 6265, donated by Doug and Sharon Stevenson, Basin Angus Ranch, Joliet, Mont.; 30 days of free insurance from American Livestock Insurance Co., Geneva, Ill.; free transportation to the buyer’s ranch provided by Lathrop Livestock Transportation, Dundee, Ill.; and an advanced reproductive technology package from Trans Ova Genetics and its cloning division, ViaGen, Sioux Center, Iowa.
Five notable Angus breeders from across the U.S. have generously donated confirmed heifer pregnancies that will be available during the auction.
View a complete list of sale offerings in the Angus news release.
Finding a Better Way
As he flips through the meticulously arranged scrapbook documenting the last 60 years of his life, it feels like Glenn Cantrell is reciting a movie plot. Yet this is a true story, and it’s all his.
There’s the time he pulled a flag off a ship and used it to rope a stray heifer in downtown Lisbon, Portugal.
“She was mad and fighting. Everybody — including the police — was trying to get her captured, so I jumped off the truck and she ran at me. I roped as she went by, and several sailors and policemen got hold of the rope. That’s what this is right here,” he says, pointing at the lead photo in a Portuguese newspaper clipping.
Then there was the time he delivered 350 feeder calves to Greece. The men who came to pick them up just outside of Athens arrived in dump trucks with no sideboards.
“I said, ‘Guys, this is not going to work,’” Cantrell recalls with a chuckle. “We had to take apart pallets and built sideboards on the spot.”
Continue reading the Angus Journal feature story online.
Docility: Performance or Convenience Trait?
As calving season approaches, many ranchers look forward to the newborns that represent hours of studying sire summaries and bull catalogs.
For all the optimism, however, there’s one source of lingering dread: the cow or cows that you know should have been culled due to attitude. You hoped she’d be open at pregnancy check, after that one-last-tour across the pasture she led when you thought the herd was corralled. And you know that tagging tool makes a poor defense mechanism when you try to work her calf. You tell yourself she is fine after she calves and “mothering ability” is important.
We know docility is moderately heritable, calculated at an average coefficient of 0.37, so the trait can be moved in a positive or negative direction through selection. Historically, removing the outliers has been the approach to improving docility in most herds.
Read more in the Angus Media news article online.
Where’s the cattle market headed?
Trevor Amen, CoBank economist, was a recent guest on Angus Talk, a weekly radio program on Rural Radio, Channel 147. Tune in at 10 a.m. CST each Saturday morning on SiriusXM Radio.
- Q: Cattle markets in 2016 have been tough for beef producers. Cattle feeders are now in loss mode, while USDA is calling for a bumper crop of corn for the 2016-2017 corn supply. Industry experts are calling for a three-month lag time between when Angus breeders can expect to see changes in retail beef prices. What does all this mean for the beef industry in 2017?
- A: The cattle complex has been in a steady price decline since the cyclical highs were posted in late 2014, mainly driven by supply increases. At this point in the cattle cycle, the market is pricing in future production gains, which are applying downward pressure to prices of all classes of cattle. Along with the growing output of competing meat, more total supplies of beef, pork and chicken are on the market and further pressuring prices. More recently, we’ve actually seen a slight rally in cattle prices since the mid-October lows.
Continue reading the Angus Talk interview online.
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