Management

MANAGEMENT...

The Breeding Bull:
Your Herd’s Ultimate Athlete

Condition your bulls for an all-star performance this breeding season.

LeBron James, Tom Brady, Usain Bolt — these names bring with them a certain performance standard. Each season, fans expect these athletes to be in top form, to perform and to achieve results of which no one else is capable. You expect the same of your breeding bulls each season, but are you treating them like the athletes they are?

“We need to prepare bulls to be athletes for the duration of breeding season,” says Chad Zehnder, cattle nutritionist with Purina Animal Nutrition. “Bulls need to remain sound and active. One way we can help prepare them as athletes is by conditioning them.”
Read more.

Birth Weight and Gestation Length

Many factors affect birth weight and gestation, and many of those are heritable.

Several factors affect birth weight in calves, including breed, genetics of sire and dam, length of gestation, age and size of dam (heifers tend to have smaller calves than mature cows, and large cows tend to have larger calves than small cows), sex of the calf, environmental factors, and nutrition and health of the dam. Bull calves in the same breed tend to be larger than heifer calves, partly because males are larger than females and male calves tend to be carried a day or more longer than heifer calves.

Gestation length is heritable, however. Some family lines within breeds tend to have gestation lengths that differ from the “average” 283 days. Low-birth-weight cattle often have shorter gestation length and high-birth-weight cattle tend to have longer-than-average gestation length. The fetus is growing fastest in the final stage of gestation; several more days of gestation creates a larger calf. One study showed that each extra day of gestation amounts to at least a 1-pound (lb.) increase in calf size. Read more.

Options to Address Ryegrass for Warm-season Forage Production

Ryegrass can be controlled with herbicides and competition from other grasses.

Producers hoping to mitigate annual ryegrass growth for warm-season hay production have options and should start sooner than later, said a Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service expert.

Annual ryegrass, a cool-season forage, is often utilized by livestock producers for winter grazing, said Vanessa Corriher-Olson, AgriLife Extension forage specialist in Overton. However, East Texas hay producers often view it as an unwanted species that competes with Bermuda and Bahia grasses, she said. Read more.

Relationship-building is Key to Profitability when Selecting a Feeder

Three tips for choosing the right feeder for your calves.

Cow-calf producers have a lot of decisions to make to ensure their herd turns a profit. One of the biggest decisions they might make is selecting a backgrounding operation or a feedlot to finish their calves. In addition to making sure their nutritional needs are met prior to weaning and shipping, Twig Marston, technical sales field manager at BioZyme Inc., offers three timely tips when selecting a partner in feeding and finishing calves.
Read more.

Kris Ringwall

Beef Talk

A lot happens around the kitchen table.

Take time to gather input from those involved in the operation and develop a plan.

For years, the kitchen table has been the center of planning for those in agriculture.

Conversations of the past, present and future surface around the table. Today, the kitchen table may be in the warming shed, the barn, the seed-cleaning facility, the shop or an available room slightly warmer than outside. In some cases, a meeting room, built to accommodate the input and planning for today’s agricultural enterprises, is the designated center.

The point is, time must be set aside to develop a plan, which can be implemented successfully by including individual opinions of those involved in the operation. Individual input is critical. Without such input, the operation eventually could be dispersed or, at best, the working environment deteriorates, employee turnover goes up and hard feelings develop. Read more.

New Products

Industry affiliates provide a wide array of products and services to assist you on the farm and ranch. Here’s an assortment of new products to hit the market recently.

Angus Advisor

Click here for March herd management tips from cattle experts across the nation. Advice separated by region.

[Click here to go to the top of the page.]