Eastern Adams County's Only Independent Voice Since 1887
Eastern Adams County's Only Independent Voice Since 1887
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Welcome to 2024! Where has the time gone? It seems like yesterday that I was thinking that graduating from high school in 1977 would be an eternity in the future. Now I appreciate what they meant when my elders used to say they wish they could go back to days gone by. Oh well, with a little optimism, the future can be pretty good too. Last month I started the discussion of 70 years of change in beef cow type. Now, let’s continue but from the perspective of how the evolution o...
This month’s article isn’t so much a Mythbuster, but a retrospective on where we’ve been with cow type and the implications of the changes over time. As I write these lines it’s only several days before Thanksgiving. It is the holiday season and in my line of work, it is really easy to find a lot of things to be thankful for and have hope for a great future in agriculture. I’m the eternal optimist, I also acknowledge that immense stressors are facing our agricultu...
It’s been a pretty nice season to go to the fairs around the region—in most cases not too hot and not too cool. Always nice to be able to connect with both our adult and youth producers. The fairs are certainly an American tradition and it’s great to see that people are out supporting them. When I talk with producers, I’m always happy when topics of conversation come up that lend themselves to an article. A recent conversation highlighted that concerns about mRNA vaccine...
Myth: The mystique of “water belly”. Here’s one that is especially relevant for our youth producers and their animals for the fair. I think most cattle producers who have been around the business for a good while will agree that when you think you have about seen it all, eventually you will get a big surprise. Such is the case with “water belly.” First, let’s point out here that this is not a condition that you are likely to see in your cow herd and those animals on a strict...
Myth: It makes no difference if one calculates cow feed intake on a dry matter basis or an as-fed basis. Answer: Oh, but it does matter! Okay, here we go! This is one of those topics that probably caused more confusion among my students than most any question I asked them (or had them calculate on an exam!). Let’s make some practical sense of this and how it applies to the real world for cattle producers. Before we can address this concept, we define our terms: As-is (or as-fed) basis refers to selling or using feed with n...
When you request forage quality analysis from a laboratory, do all methods of analysis provide the same results? Feed/forage analysis is an important part of developing feeding strategies for beef cattle. Knowing the composition of feeds helps us be confident that we are meeting cattle nutrient requirements. Meeting or not meeting those requirements has long-term implications as to how cows perform through the annual production cycle. Depending on the quality of the feed,...