Month: August 2021

The Veterinary Client Patient Relationship

– Tim McDermott DVM, OSU Extension Educator, Franklin County (originally published in Farm and Dairy)

One of the classes I teach every year is the Quality Assurance training for 4-H students to prepare for fair season. While I probably would not have too many 4-H students who agree with me on this part (it is a mandatory training for them each year), I will say it is one of my favorite classes that I teach each year. Part of the reason I enjoy it is how I believe 4-H can positively impact lives, the other is that it allows me to use my veterinary background to engage the students. While the GPP’s (Good Production Practices) that are taught vary from year to year I always make sure to engage the students with some practical veterinary knowledge so that they can make sure that their livestock project animal is at its healthy best while under their care. A key component to maintaining healthy animals is to have a healthy relationship with your veterinarian.  This is known as the Veterinarian-Client-Patient Relationship or VCPR.  Here is how it is defined, established, and maintained straight off of the American Veterinary Medical Continue reading →

Answering farmers’ questions about the pandemic in 2021

– Gustavo M. Schuenemann, DVM, MS, Ph.D., OSU Extension Dairy Veterinarian, and Jeffrey D. Workman, OSU Veterinary Extension Program Coordinator (originally published in Farm & Dairy)

COVID-19 has certainly dominated the headlines and many of our daily conversations since March, 2020. For those directly involved in production agriculture, our lives and routines may have been disrupted; but our daily business and responsibilities of farming and raising livestock never stopped.

Times like these should remind everyone of the importance of having a robust food production system to ensure a nation’s food security. Below are the frequently asked questions we receive when visiting farms.

To answer these questions, we should look at the unbiased science. The challenge with looking at the science regarding COVID-19 is that portions of the science do not yet exist, or are not yet confirmed through replication and hard evidence. Time must pass in order to generate data.

Science is evolving as researchers around the world continue to study and learn more to create unbiased new knowledge that informs all of us. Answering one research question may lead to Continue reading →

Corn silage for the beef herd

– Dr. Jeff Lehmkuhler, Extension Professor, University of Kentucky

It is hard to believe that it is near that time of year when corn will start to be harvested for silage. We have been fortunate in many areas of the region to receive timely precipitation providing for good corn stands. As the price of corn is still over $6/bushel on the spot market and the futures prices is in the mid 5’s, folks are asking about corn silage as an alternative feed this year.

When considering corn silage, first be sure that you are prepared. In many situations the harvest equipment may not be owned, and a custom harvest crew will come to chop and haul the silage. You need to get on their schedule and understand that weather and breakdowns can impact the harvest window for your corn crop. How do you plan to store the silage? For many beef operations, a silo bag is often the best choice. Again, the bagger will likely have to be rented and bags purchased. Be sure to get the bagger rented for sufficient time to fit the harvest window. Prepare the site for bags or drive over piles to ensure they drain well and water is diverted away from them. You don’t want to be driving through mud when trying to feed out silage from a pile or bag.

Corn will be ready to harvest when the whole plant moisture level is 62-65% or 35-38% dry matter. Fields will continue to dry down during the harvest and it is better to start harvest a bit wetter, so the last part of the field doesn’t get too dry. Corn that is less than 60% moisture should be Continue reading →

The Steer-Bull Price Differential: A Historical Perspective

– Kenny Burdine, Livestock Marketing Specialist, University of Kentucky

I decided to shift gears a bit this week and dive into a topic that often comes up when I visit with producers in extension settings. I am often asked whether I think it pays for a cow-calf operator to castrate bulls and sell steers. Castration is not without cost as it requires time and facilities and does stress calves for a period of time. Like so many management decisions, there are an infinite number of ways to examine this topic and there is more to consider than economics alone. But, it is a good question and one for which a livestock economist should be able to provide some perspective.


When examining historical prices, it is difficult to argue that there is not a price advantage to selling steers. Sure, there will be times when a group of bulls will outsell a group of steers, but I view those times as the exceptions, rather than the norm. Sometimes those exceptions may be due to quality or lot size differences. Other times it may be as simple as a buyer needing to fill out a load of bulls and bidding the price of a group up beyond what would have been expected. But, going back to January of 2010, there has not been a single month when the average price of 550 lb bulls exceeded that of Continue reading →

To wean or not to wean?

– Brenda Boetel, Professor, Department of Agricultural Economics, University of Wisconsin-River Falls

This year, cow/calf producers will see an increase in cost of production due mainly to the rise in feed and fuel prices; however, a corresponding increase in feeder cattle prices has not yet occurred. The drought has exacerbated these high feed costs as high-quality grazing opportunities are limited, forcing some producers to begin supplementing with hay and sileage earlier than normal.

The prolonged drought and high temperatures have 42% of US range and pasture conditions rated at poor or very poor, compared to 30% during this same week in 2020 and only 19% on average over 2015-2019. Hay supplies are also well below average and some producers are running out of forage. Drought like conditions have caused some western ranchers to sell cattle 30 to 45 days earlier than normal, basically starting the fall calf run for 2021.

Weaning/selling calves earlier, in August or early September, rather than October/November, is a management practice often used during drought situations. Not only do Continue reading →

Fall Calving, Is It Profitable?

– Garth Ruff, Beef Cattle Field Specialist, OSU Extension (originally published in the Ohio Farmer on-line)

While fall calving may offer some unique challenges with regard to herd nutrition, there’s no arguing the cattle price seasonality benefit it affords!

Fall is my favorite time of the year, hay making is done, the feeder cattle are being marketed, and college football is in full swing. Last winter in a cow-calf webinar, I briefly mentioned the virtues of a fall calving system here in the Eastern Corn Belt. In this article we’ll look at how fall calving can be a viable and profitable system.

Seasonality of Cattle Prices  – As with most things in agriculture, supply and demand has a great impact on prices. Griffiths et al, 2017 from the University of Tennessee analyzed several studies comparing spring and fall calving systems. After comparing the systems on a 205-day weaning age and two separate feed resource scenarios they concluded that even though spring-calving cows had heavier calves at weaning and lower feed costs than the fall-calving cows, the higher prices of steer and heifer calves captured by fall-born calves were able to cover the higher feed expenses and lighter weaning weights by the fall-born calves.

In the fall of the year, when most of the weaned spring-born calves are marketed, supply is plentiful for order buyers to fill their feedlot orders. This increased supply contributes to our annual low in Continue reading →

Using Nutrient Removal Rates to Improve Forage Productivity

– James Morris, OSU Extension Educator, Brown County and Greg LaBarge, OSU Extension Field Specialist, Agronomic Systems

As the calendar flips over to August and temperatures continue to rise, our cool season forages are in the heart of what we call the “summer slump” and vegetative growth begins to decline. Numerous resources are available that provide excellent strategies for reducing the negative effects of this slump. Forage growers can utilize summer annuals to boost yields during this time of the year, but it’s also important to ensure our forage stands are healthy prior to be exposed to heat and other environmental stressors. So, while “summer slump” seems to get all of the attention right now, what if our forages had “spring fever”?

Figure 1. Yellow unthrifty grass stand spring 2021.

We normally consider springtime to be the period of rapid and lush growth for our cool-season forages, but what if our stands look like the Figure 1? The attached image was taken this spring in a stand of a cool-season hay mix. Of course, this problem will impact tonnage, but a weak stand will also allow more opportunities for weed emergence, reduce winter survival, and as mentioned above, reduce their ability to tolerate stressful summer conditions. While it may be too late to beat the heat, action can still be taken to prepare forages for winter and set ourselves up for a better spring.

What’s the issue with this stand and the several others I visited this spring? Let’s put ourselves into the situation as if it was Continue reading →

Four Never Fail Rules of Grazing

– Victor Shelton, NRCS State Agronomist/Grazing Specialist

In areas with adequate precipitation, summer regrowth has been excellent!

It’s state fair time!  I enjoy watching the livestock shows, eating some “healthy” food and getting to talk to people at the Pathway to Water Quality.  Walking through the beef barn always reminds me of old cattle shows and sleeping on old Army cots located where the cattle were stalled during the day.  It was exciting and a lot of work, but very traditional and still done with a straight back truck at the time – different times, but all good memories.

I hear people mention the “lazy days of summer,” but I’ll have to admit that has never really seemed valid for me.  I’m glad that the days are long, because quite often, I need every minute of daylight and then some.  Precarious weather seems to be timed quite well to disrupt plans and tasks.  This is only doubled in difficulty when you are also holding down an off-farm job, which always seems to take you away when the weather is perfect. You have to just shut your mind off, focus on the task at hand and not dwell on the farm work that must be completed.  I know that I am not the only one this happens to.

I had something sent to me recently and I thought it made some good points.  When time is sparse, as it seems it often is, then we need to be as efficient as possible and that includes pasture management.  The brief synopsis included four never fail rules of grazing.  Let’s explore these. Continue reading →

Incorporating stockpiled fescue into the winter-feeding program

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

It might seem a little pre-mature to be talking about the winter-feeding program, when just last week we experienced the hottest temperatures of the summer thus far. However, if you are considering taking advantage of stockpiled fescue this winter, the time to start this process in now! Due to the ergot alkaloid producing endophyte it possesses, tall fescue can often get a bit of a bad reputation. However, one of the places that this forage can really shine is in its ability to be stockpiled which results in a good source of nutrients to be grazed during late fall and early winter (assuming things like soil fertility and rain fall are adequate).

Often, stockpiled tall fescue can provide greater amounts of protein and energy compared to grass-hay. This means that stockpiling tall fescue can be a means of decreasing hay requirements while also lessening costs associated with supplemental feed. To get the greatest return on the investment in stockpiling fescue, it is important to make sure that the right animals get access to this valuable feed resource. The nutrient requirements of cattle are not stagnant throughout their life or even throughout the calendar year. Thus, the goal should be to allow those animals with increased nutrient requirements during the late fall and early winter to have access to stockpiled fescue. Luckily, stockpiled fescue can fit nicely into both spring and fall calving herds.

Spring calving herds: Stockpiled fescue can be an Continue reading →

Hay Baler Safety

– Mark Badertscher, OSU Extension, Hardin County ANR Educator

Balers can cause considerable harm if not serviced or operated safely.

Operating a hay baler safely is a concern in late July and early August when there is still straw in the field and later cuttings of hay to be made. Oftentimes wheat and hay fields that have more slope than row crops like corn and soybeans, and because of this, the fields can be rough or steep, making tractor and machinery operation a concern.

Because changing weather conditions can quickly lower hay and straw quality, baling is often done with limited time. Therefore, operators must always work safely as no hay or straw crop is worth injury or death. Careless operation that saves time but injures workers is never a good option.

Balers can cause considerable harm if not serviced or operated safely. Knives, belts, power take-off (PTO) shafts, augers, knotters, and mechanical arms must be regarded with extreme caution. Driving at the . . .

Continue reading Hay Baler Safety