Events

Dairy Beef Management Program Offered

Offered free to anyone interested and we ask that you pre-register online

Dairy producers over the past few years have faced a variety of challenges: low milk prices, increased feed costs, and often a surplus of heifers to enter the herd. In an effort to manage heifer numbers and add value to bull calves, breeding dairy cows to beef sires has become a more popular, and common practice than ever before.

Join Ohio State University Extension and Michigan State University Extension on April 21, 28, and May 5 at 12:00 p.m. EST, for a webinar series titled “Management Considerations for Beef x Dairy Calves.”

Dairy steers have been an important part of the beef supply chain for some time, this program will cover a variety of topics related to Continue reading →

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 →

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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 →

Extension Meat Specialist Offers Workshops to Tackle Meat Industry Labor Challenges

A hands-on opportunity to learn about food animal processing.

When COVID-19 hit the US meat industry in early 2020, many disruptions quickly surfaced impacting our livestock and meat industries. As large-scale meat plants were in the process of slowing their operations, and in some cases even stopping, local meat processors were looked at to relieve the pressures brought forth by COVID-19. As local meat processors stepped up to fill these needs, significant stresses were quickly felt by the employees on the front lines. As many of the small scale meat processors were accustomed to a slower, steadier pace, the onset of doubling or tripling work load caused employees to reconsider their future.

In the world of the meat industry, physical labor is a major component to the job that not many can, or even might choose to do. Smaller meat processors offering a slaughter service are accustomed to harvesting significantly fewer number of animals when compared to large-scale meat processors. For instance, a small-scale meat processor may harvest and process from a few hundred to four thousand beef cattle annually, whereas a large-scale beef plant will harvest over 125,000 head. A small meat processor typically operates with Continue reading →

Selecting Seed Species for Your New Forage Seeding

The first session of the 2021 Ohio Beef Cattle Management School was hosted via ZOOM by the Ohio State University Extension Beef Team on January 18 and focused on making quality hay for beef cattle with an emphasis on soil fertility and seed species selection when doing a new seeding.

During this 10 minute excerpt from that evening’s presentation, Noble County Extension Educator Christine Gelley discusses considerations for seed species selection. Listen in as Christine shares the virtues of the grass and legume species that Ohio’s cattlemen may consider planting for a new hay stand.

Enjoy Christine’s presentation regarding “New Forage Seeding Species Selection and Planting Considerations“ embedded below in Continue reading →

Soil pH; vital to maintaining productive and healthy forage stands

The first session of the 2021 Ohio Beef Cattle Management School was hosted via ZOOM by the Ohio State University Extension Beef Team on January 18. During that first session the focus was on making quality hay for beef cattle with an emphasis on soil fertility and seed species selection.

In this excerpt from that evening’s presentation, Ohio State University Extension Educator Jason Hartschuh discusses the importance of one of the most misunderstood factors involved in maintaining high yielding forage stands . . . that is proper soil pH. Listen in as Jason discusses the importance of soil pH and the factors surrounding it.

Enjoy Jason’s presentation regarding “Fertility requirements that prolong the life, quality & productivity of hay and forage crops” Continue reading →

Livestock Dealer Statutory Trust is now law!

Dealer Trust gives sellers of livestock the legal priority to get livestock back when a livestock dealer fails to pay.

With the President’s signature on December 27, 2020, Livestock Dealer Statutory Trust is now law! Dealer Trust gives sellers of livestock (often livestock auction markets or producers) the legal priority to get livestock back when a livestock dealer fails to pay. If the cattle have been resold, the unpaid sellers are now first in line for the proceeds.

But how will a Dealer Trust function? What does this mean for cattle producers, feeders, dealers, livestock auction markets, and lenders?

Livestock Marketing Association will be hosting a virtual call regarding Dealer Statutory Trust on Thursday, January 21, at 7 p.m. Central via Zoom. LMA’s Vice President of Government and Industry Affairs and Legal Chelsea Good and General Counsel and Vice President of Risk Mitigation Jara Settles will be leading the conversation by explaining Dealer Statutory Trust and addressing common industry questions. An opportunity for participants to ask questions will be available at the end of the Zoom call. This Zoom is open to anyone interested in learning more about Dealer Statutory Trust.

To join the video via Zoom, click this link: https://lmaweb.zoom.us/j/81528440686

Visit our ‘One-stop Shop’ to View Agriculture and Natural Resources Programs

Your on-stop shop for all our winter programming

As the pandemic continues to create challenges for meeting and/or offering ‘live’ and in-person programming, much of our traditional winter programming remains ‘virual’ into the foreseeable future. In response, check out this one-stop shop to view upcoming regional and statewide agriculture and natural resources programs: https://agnr.osu.edu/programming. Once there, simply click the topic you are interested in to view 2020-21 events, including several beef school and forage production programs. If you have any questions, contact your County Extension office.

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OSU Extension Beef Team to Host Winter Meetings

– Garth Ruff, Beef Cattle Field Specialist, OSU Extension

Dr. Kenny Burdine, Extension livestock economist at the University of Kentucky, will focus on beef cattle market outlook for 2021.

What a year 2020 has been. Are you looking to improve herd efficiency and profitability to weather the storm? Look no further than the slate of winter programming to be offered by the OSU Extension Beef Team. Programs planned for early 2021 are designed to provide valuable information for all segments of Ohio’s beef industry.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a challenge to the beef industry to say the least, and the effects will continue to linger for some time. One thing we have learned this year is there continues to be need for gained efficiency and improved management within all segments of our beef cattle industry. This winter’s Ohio State Extension Beef School series will focus on both of those topics. Given current university policies regarding COVID-19, this years Beef Schools will be offered as a virtual series of programs.

What was originally planned as two on-farm face-to-face Cow-Calf Management Schools has now been redesigned as a series of 6 consecutive two hour webinar programs. While perhaps being less ‘hands-on” this webinar format now opens Continue reading →

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2020 OCA Replacement Female Sale Results

– John F. Grimes, OCA Replacement Female Sale Manager

The 2020 sale represented a $462 per head average price increase over the 2019 sale!

The Ohio Cattlemen’s Association (OCA) held their eighth annual Replacement Female Sale on November 27 at the Muskingum Livestock Auction Company in Zanesville, Ohio.  A large crowd was on hand to bid on 83 high quality females in the sale.  The sale represented an excellent opportunity for cow-calf producers to add quality females with documented breeding and health records to their herds.

Buyers evaluated 83 lots of bred heifers, bred cows, and a cow-calf pair at the auction.  The sale included 50 lots of bred heifers that averaged $1,659, 32 lots of bred cows that averaged $2,129, and one cow-calf pair that sold for $1,950.  The 83 total lots grossed $153,025 for an overall average of $1,844.  The females sold to buyers from Ohio and West Virginia.  Col. Ron Kreis served as the auctioneer.

The 2020 sale marked a major improvement over the previous year’s sale.  The 2020 sale represented a Continue reading →

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