Month: March 2021

Managing the Breeding Season and Reproductive Performance of the Beef Herd

The fourth session of the 2021 Ohio Beef Cattle Management School was hosted via ZOOM by the Ohio State University Extension Beef Team on February 8th. During that fourth session the focus turned to genetics, reproduction and breeding management. More specifically, in the portion of the evening’s program embedded below, OSU Extension Beef Field Specialist Garth Ruff introduces Alvaro Garcia Guerra, Assistant Professor for cattle reproduction in the Department of Animal Science at Ohio State, as he discusses considerations for managing the breeding season and factors that will maximize pregnancy rates including bull management, the use of estrus synchronization programs and artificial insemination in the beef herd.

Find recordings from all the 2021 Ohio Beef School sessions linked here.

Don’t let the green grass fool you

– Dr. Katie VanValin- Assistant Extension Professor- University of Kentucky.

Perhaps it was the full season worth of winter weather we got in one-week last month, or the above average temperatures that followed, but either way we are rounding the bend and spring will be here before we know it. One of the things I love most about spring is that along with the warmer temperatures and longer days, inevitably comes greener pastures. However, the growth we see out in our pastures during the early spring can often be deceiving from a nutrient standpoint.

The problem that we can run into is that there simply is not enough forage available, and the forage that is high in moisture. When we turn cows out to early, they can exert more energy searching for the next mouthful then they are consuming, since most of every mouthful is water. This is especially critical for spring-calving cows. At this time, cows have either or will be transitioning from late gestation to lactation which represents the time when a cow’s maintenance nutrient requirements are at their highest throughout the production cycle. This is not the time to let cows slip into an energy deficit and lose condition.

If cows lose condition during early lactation when their maintenance nutrient requirements are high, it is often difficult to recover that condition prior to breeding. It is a much better plan to Continue reading Don’t let the green grass fool you →

Ohio Beef Expo set to begin March 18th

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Plans are nearly complete for the Ohio Cattlemen’s Association’s (OCA) 2021 Ohio Beef Expo scheduled for March 18-21 at the Ohio Expo Center in Columbus. Maintaining a safe environment while providing Expo participants with the critical necessity to continue essential farm income are the objectives driving all decisions for the event.

Accomplishing these goals has required the Beef Expo to reformat several elements to comply with the current COVID related state health orders. The seven seedstock sales have been changed to reduce the number of buyers in one area and scheduled for one sale at a time utilizing only one sale ring in the Voinovich building.

The sales will start Friday afternoon March 19 and continue through Saturday, March 20. Most sales will also provide Continue reading Ohio Beef Expo set to begin March 18th →

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The Buckeye Beef Byte; a Conversation with Ohio BEEF Cattle Letter Editor Stan Smith

Stan Smith began with OSU Extension in 1986 as a Farm Management Technician, two years later became a Program Assistant in Fairfield County’s Extension office, and created and has edited the Ohio BEEF Cattle Letter for nearly 25 years. This week, Clifton and Garth visit with Stan about the beginning of the Ohio BEEF Cattle letter, the evolution of that weekly publication and the industry, and speculate on the future of Ohio’s beef cattle industry.

Find previous Buckeye Beef Byte podcasts linked here.

Kentucky’s 3-Day Cow Calf Conferences . . . You’re Invited

Register for each session individually.

Kentucky’s very popular Cow-Calf Profitability Conferences have been reformatted to a series of virtual mini-conferences over 3 days, and Ohio’s cattlemen are invited. The Conferences will be hosted March 23rd – 25th from 7:00 – 9:00 PM EST daily. Conferences are delivered by UK Agricultural Economics Extension faculty and staff through the Kentucky Beef Network funded by the Kentucky Agriculture Development Board.

Session 1, March 23: Key Profit Drivers and Controlling Hay Costs

  • Key Profit Drivers for Cow-Calf Operations | Jonathan Shepherd, Greg Halich, and Kenny Burdine
  • Managing Overhead Costs on the Cow-Calf Operation: Focus on Hay Production | Greg Halich
  • Hay Production Costs and their Impact on Cow-Calf Profitability | Jonathan Shepherd

Session 2, March 24: Bale Grazing and Profitable Cowherd Continue reading Kentucky’s 3-Day Cow Calf Conferences . . . You’re Invited →

Winter Storm Uri’s Impact on Livestock Agriculture in Texas

– David P. Anderson, Professor and Extension Economist, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service

Economic impacts of winter storm Uri are still being pulled together.  It appears that cattle death losses in feedyards and dairies were light.  It helped that the storm front did not drop a lot of moisture ahead of the cold.  Cow losses have been reported and it’s likely that newborn calves were hit hard during the storm.  Data from USDA indicates about 15 percent of calves are born in the western region of the US in February.  Additional feed costs and lost efficiency will likely be a large source of economic losses.   The animal used their feed energy to stay warm rather than gain weight.  The well-publicized electric grid problems forced reduced steam flaking and more reliance on dry ground corn.  Steer live weights in the Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico region dropped from 1,361 pounds for the week before the storm to 1,251 pounds per head for the week of the storm.  Milk production was reduced and there were reports of limited milk dumping.

South Texas sustained some large losses in the citrus industry due to freezing temperatures extending into the Rio Grande Valley.  The severity of freeze damage to the trees won’t be clear for some time but, certainly will include losses to this year’s crop and part of next year’s, as well.

Saturday’s Role in Cattle Slaughter

– David P. Anderson, Professor and Extension Economist, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service

The number of cattle processed on Saturdays is an interesting set of data. Saturday slaughter might be thought of as a catch-up day or as a shock absorber for holiday shortened weeks. It has likely emerged as an important part of adjusting to Covid19. On the past, market analysts have used Saturday slaughter as an indicator of capacity utilization.

Looking back at the data over the last 30 years highlights that Saturday slaughter is highly cyclical and seasonal. As you might expect, it increases and contracts with cattle numbers reflecting the long-term cattle cycle, but it also moves with seasonal fed cattle supplies through the year.

So far, in 2021, 10.1 percent of weekly average cattle slaughter has been on Saturdays. That is up from the 5.7 percent of weekly slaughter over the same period in 2020. One might wonder if Continue reading Saturday’s Role in Cattle Slaughter →

January 2021 Beef Exports and Imports

– Josh Maples, Assistant Professor & Extension Economist, Department of Agricultural Economics, Mississippi State University

The latest monthly trade data were released by USDA ERS/FAS this past Friday. The data released were for January 2021 and showed total beef and veal exports by carcass weight were up slightly (0.4 percent) from January 2020 at 246 million pounds. Beef and veal imports were down 8.1 percent from a year ago at 224 million pounds.

While the overall export total was very similar to January 2020, exports to particular countries showed fairly large increases or decreases. Out of the top seven export destinations, January showed stronger exports to South Korea (up 26 percent), Canada (up 8 percent), and China (up 759 percent) as compared to January 2020. Exports to Japan were Continue reading January 2021 Beef Exports and Imports →

Let’s Talk Bulls!

– Garth Ruff, Beef Cattle Field Specialist, OSU Extension

Being that Ohio Beef Expo is only a couple weeks away and breeding season for most of Ohio’s cow herd is around the corner, let’s talk bulls. Making a bull purchase is a herd management decision that should not be taken too lightly as selecting the wrong bull for your operation could result in missed opportunities for increased calf revenue for several years.

When discussing bull selection it is important to set some goals for your cow herd in terms of performance, efficiency, and marketing. Often calving ease and performance are the first two criteria that come to mind, because ultimately nobody wants to pull calves, (less of a concern if only breeding mature cows) and here in Ohio most calves are sold at or post weaning across the scales. If you don’t know what selection criteria are important to your operation, it’s quite possible you may never find the right herd sire. Consider the following when Continue reading Let’s Talk Bulls! →

Baled Hay Storage; Losses, Costs, and Storage Alternatives to Prevent Those Losses

The third session of the 2021 Ohio Beef Cattle Management School was hosted via ZOOM by the Ohio State University Extension Beef Team on February 1st. During that third session the focus shifted to preventing storage losses in harvested forages, analyzing harvested forage quality, and meeting the nutritional needs of the cattle being fed. In this the second segment from that evening, embedded below in it’s entirety, Garth Ruff reviews the potential for storage quality losses in harvested forages, the various alternative storage methods available to prevent those losses, and the costs associated with each.

Find recordings from all the 2021 Ohio Beef School sessions linked here.