Latest News From cow-calf

High prices are a welcome change for cattle producers, but it’s important to remember that higher prices mean mistakes cost more than when prices are low, says a University of Missouri Extension livestock specialist.

Manipulating the reproductive process of your cow herd can result in shorter breeding and calving seasons with more calves born earlier in the season resulting in an older, heavier, more uniform calf crop when you wean.

Cherry County Neb. remains the U.S. County with the most beef cows, according to the 2022 Census of Agriculture. South Dakota has seven counties ranked in the Top 33 while Texas has five.

Keeping replacement females from first calf heifers can work if producers plan and select sires that are adequate for calving ease and also offer maternal traits that are beneficial.

A new resource developed by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and CattleFax helps cattle producers maximize profitability from their culling decisions.

Weeks after the smoke has cleared from the wildfires in the Texas Panhandle, the Texas A&M Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory is alerting livestock owners to watch their surviving livestock for respiratory issues.

Improving the efficiency, sustainability and profit potential of commercial cow calf production involves reducing feed costs while improving pounds of calf weaned.

Ensuring cows are in an adequate nutritional status (body condition score of 5 or 6) and not overfed can help reduce concerns of dystocia and plays a role in determining the quality and quantity of colostrum.

A cowherd of optimum mature size and milk level relative to a given production environment creates the potential to increase revenue in the form of increased reproductive efficiency.

Turning out a subfertile bull means some cows in the herd won’t get bred or bred in a timely manner. Both problems are costly, says Chance Armstrong, DVM, Auburn University. Check out the two scenarios he outlines here.

Growing, lactating cows have greater nutrient requirements and smaller rumens than mature cows making it difficult for them to meet their nutrient needs with the same diet as the cow.

Selecting heifers that will have the optimum mature size and milk level to fit our production system, breed quickly, wean a calf annually and have longevity is important for the success of your ranch.

Bovine lameness is one of the costliest animal health issues to the beef industry and it’s also a major animal welfare concern that we can mitigate.

Dehydration is an added stress for cows in cold weather. Help cows deal with winter stress and maintain their body condition by ensuring they have adequate water.

Deciding when to offer assistance for a calving cow is a judgment call and good judgement is the result of experience. Here are tips to help make the determination.

Euthanasia of an animal that is suffering from irreversible disease or injury is a primary responsibility for cattle producers and veterinarians.

Statistically, impulse heifer breeding is about 80 percent more variable than planned heifer breeding. Therefore, impulse heifer breeding plays an important role in the dynamics of cattle cycles.

Melting snow has created special challenges for beef cattle producers and monitoring the body condition of gestating cows during times of cold stress becomes critical for calving and rebreeding.

To give cattle producers more flexibility and convenience in their fly control program, Cargill has partnered with Central Life Sciences to develop a feed-through fly control bolus containing Altosid IGR.

The U.S. cattle report shows all cattle and calves reported at 87.2 million head, 2% below the 88.8 million last year.

The increased cow mature weight equates to an increase in stocking rate if cow numbers are not adjusted. As stocking rate increases we know that weaning weights and rebreeding rates decrease.

Ag tech startup MyAnIML and USDA find first-of-its-kind facial recognition technology successfully analyzes cattle muzzles to predict illness.

While estimates suggest that black vultures are responsible for the loss of thousands of calves every year, as a protected species, the bird may not be killed without a permit.

Missouri's drought in 2022 and 2023 may have been underrated, says Eric Bailey, University of Missouri Extension. He offers tips for stretching your feed during the next few months.

Calves born in extreme cold quickly utilize all body fat reserves and exposure to wind can exacerbate temperatures. Preparing in advance of inclement weather can lead to improved calf survival.

For each 1-degree Fahrenheit the average daily temperature is below 30 degrees a cow in moderate BCS will need an additional one percent in daily energy requirement.

Breeding efficient cows is usually measured by a cows’ ability to calve each year and maintain a yearly calving interval. 

The single most important factor in keeping a cow at zero non-productive days is body condition, which has a direct impact on calving interval, conception rate and percentage of open cows.

Understanding the risk factors for hypothermia will aid in developing a strategy to prevent loss. Managing dystocia and knowing when and how to assist chilled calves is an essential part of your calving plan.

Obtaining a basic understanding of nutrition and making data driven decisions can give every cattleman an advantage in creating a nutrition program best suited to their operation.

CattleFax invites producers to participate in its annual Cow-Calf Survey, which provides participants and the rest of the industry with valuable data regarding industry benchmarks and trends.

Cow-calf costs and returns data from the Kansas Farm Management Association Enterprise Analysis for individual producers finds annual returns over variable costs averaged $71.02 per cow over a 46-year period.

In beef calf preconditioning programs, the importance of vaccinations to minimize respiratory illness, related to bovine respiratory disease (BRD), cannot be overstated.

Shelter for livestock during the winter months can influence the success of calving and a livestock operation.

Johne’s disease is gaining greater attention among beef cattle producers and veterinarians who work with beef cattle. Here's an in-depth look into the disease and how to best avoid it.

Being prepared ahead of calving season is the best way for producers to assure they will bring home the newborn calves successfully.

With limited options to address the disease, pharmaceutical stewardship must be considered when using antimicrobials in the treatment and control of anaplasmosis to maintain long term effectiveness of these products.

Activists will intensify their calls to end grazing and beef production over the next several years as climate change and carbon emissions become the priority as opposed to just protecting the environment.

New selection traits are being developed to reduce maintenance energy requirements, increase feed efficiency and decrease methane emissions.

To optimize performance and production, ranchers must understand the factors that impact post-partum interval length (PPI), the time from calving until the cow resumes a fertile estrous cycle.

Some individual cows or groups of cows experience significant decline in body weight and condition over the winter known as “winter cow syndrome.” The best strategy of prevention is twofold.

“Although pregnancy losses in beef cattle are a fact of life, late-term losses are likely the most discouraging,” says Gerald Stokka, NDSU Extension veterinarian and livestock stewardship specialist.

Road ditch hay can provide needed forage. With a few precautions and a forage analysis, it can help you meet your cow’s nutrient requirements this winter.

Help cattle weather the elements and combat cold stress when the temperature drops.

Corn silage is an excellent source of energy for cattle and replacing a portion of corn in cattle diets with silage should be a economical solution.

Genomic tests are a tool that can be used to create strategic marketing plans by taking a small ear tissue sample to compare genome traits of a calf to others in their breed.

What has more value to the profit potential of a commercial cow-calf operation that sells calves at weaning, percent calf crop weaned or weaning weight?

Beef cows fed at dusk or later results in more daytime births. Research indicates that to achieve that benefit, feeding at night should be started at least one month prior to calving season.

When cows get below their lower critical temperature and get into cold stress, they can adapt by increasing feed consumption to increase their basal metabolic rate and increase heat of fermentation.

A Texas A&M AgriLife project will feed omega-6 and omega 3 fatty acids to beef cattle to determine what role they may play in managing early embryonic loss.