Winter Feeding Means More MUD!

– Dr. Roy Burris, Beef Extension Professor, University of Kentucky

Get out the muck boots – winter is here! If there is one thing that is associated with winter feeding in Kentucky – it would be mud! Mud causes lots of problems for cattle producers – loss of feed nutrients from hay, calf scours, calving losses, etc. But, perhaps a bigger issue is the effect that winter feeding can have on your pastures.

Feeding hay on pasture, even with hay rings, will cause a lot of damage to grass and make a muddy mess because of the intense “traffic” around the hay bale. Couple this with the ruts made in the field by the tractor that hauls the hay across the pasture and you are messing up a lot of grass. By late winter, we have made Continue reading

Earn Your MBA!

Stan Smith, PA, OSU Extension, Fairfield County

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve most likely experienced someone suggesting that raising cattle and/or eating beef is unhealthy for you, environmentally unsound, unethical . . . you name it . . . the list goes on from there. Unfortunately when we hear someone suggesting these things we often times are caught off guard, not knowing how to respond.

Fact is, anti-animal agriculture activists are at it daily Continue reading

Mineral Supplementation for Beef Cows

Mark Landefeld, OSU Extension Educator, Monroe County

Measuring the consequences of mineral deficiencies in cow-calf operations can be difficult. Weight gains, which are off a few pounds usually go unnoticed, reduced milk production can’t really be measured in beef cows, and the cow that is limping must have stepped on something causing her sore foot. Reproduction losses may not readily be noticed either because most all the cows had a calf, even though some were a month and a half or two months later than expected. Any of these sound familiar? Lack of sufficient Continue reading