News Update
June 9, 2017
Supplementing Body Condition Score
“The single hardest time to raise body condition score (BCS) in cows is right after calving,” Ted Perry told his audience at a Learning Lounge session inside the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) Trade Show in Nashville, Tenn., Feb. 3.
Perry, lead nutritionist for Purina’s Beef Technical Solutions division, added that having a cow at a BCS of 5 or 6 before calving is crucial if you want her to breed back. At a BCS of 4, she won’t have the body condition to make it happen. The best time to put weight on her is at weaning, he offered.
He also noted that if cows are at a 7 or 8 on pasture, which they may be on good pasture during the spring and summer, it’s no problem.
Feeding cattle on range isn’t taboo, Perry pointed out. Done right, it can ensure your cows give birth to healthier, more vigorous calves. Supplementing cows on grass with a mineral or range supplement leads to improved weaning weights and BCS scores.
Continue reading this Angus Media news article online.
USDA Announces $22 Million in Conservation Innovation
The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) June 8 announced that the agency will award more than $22.6 million to drive public and private sector innovation in resource conservation.
The agency is investing in 33 projects nationwide through its competitive Conservation Innovation Grants (CIG) program, which helps develop the tools, technologies and strategies to support next-generation conservation efforts on working lands and develop market-based solutions to resource challenges. Public and private grantees — including non-governmental organizations, American Indian tribes, academic institutions and local government entities — will leverage the federal investment by at least matching it.
The projects announced focus on conservation finance and pay-for-success models to stimulate conservation adoption; data analytics for natural resources; water management technologies and approaches; and historically underserved farmers, ranchers and private forest landowners. The 2017 CIG awards bring the total NRCS investment to nearly $286.7 million for 711 projects since 2004.
For more information, view the NRCS news release online.
A Case for Composting
Usually, farm and ranch kids learn early about the circle of life. When you’re raised around livestock, there can be many opportunities to witness births of animals and deaths. Kids learn that despite good husbandry practices, some newborn calves don’t survive, and cattle of all ages can and do die from the effects of disease and injury. They can be lost to blizzard, flood or lightning strike, and sometimes for reasons unknown. Kids that spend time in cow pens and pastures come to accept what Grandpa always said, “If you’ve got livestock, you’ll get dead stock.”
What do you do with the ones that die? In Grandpa’s day, animal remains may have been dragged over the hill to a spot designated as the “bone pile.” There, nature was allowed to take its course, usually with some participation by scavenging varmints or dogs. Other methods of disposal have included burial, burning or summoning the rendering truck to haul the remains away.
There is yet another method of dealing with livestock mortalities. An increasingly recommended alternative is composting.
Learn more in the Angus Journal article online.
R-CALF USA Calls Out Cargill and JBS
In comments submitted June 8 to the USDA Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA), R-CALF USA accuses the nation’s second- and third-largest beef packers, JBS and Cargill, respectively, of engaging in improper conduct that has harmed family farmers and ranchers.
This improper conduct, according to the group, demonstrates why Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue should allow his agency’s interim final rule (IFR) on competitive injury to become effective as quickly as possible.
The IFR clarifies the USDA’s longstanding position that family farmers and ranchers do not first have to prove a harm to competition before they can stop packers from harming them through unfair practices such as fraud or retaliation; or from subjecting them to undue or unreasonable prejudice or disadvantage.
Read the full R-CALF news release online.
The Right Sort
Wade Massar is not even a little sheepish about his vices: good horses, time in the saddle and time in the sorting pens.
“My wife says sometimes I just like to sort for the sake of something to do — ‘you just sort to sort,’ ” the Circle, Mont., cattleman laughs. “We do everything on horseback, and that does make it kind of fun.”
He does the bulk of his sifting before calves ever come through the working pens. He sorts through genetics to create calves with capacity and cows with condition. He sorts through mineral programs and forage data to customize the perfect year-round nutrition plan. He sorts through calving data, disposition notes and health records to cull with confidence when need be. Finally, he sorts steers and heifers at calving time, so he can focus on sorting for consistency within sex groups at shipping time.
Keep reading this Angus Media news article online.
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