Articles

What informs you?

Take another look at your cattle. Get out your records and take a deeper look. You think they’re the right kind, but you may have plans to “improve” them through breeding and management.

Columns

Critical mass

It takes so many plants to make a stand, cows to make a herd and drops to make a rain. Before turning that herd out to pasture, you look for enough plant mass to support their grazing. If you’re watching a couple of bred heifers for a month, you might as well be watching 20 or 30.

Interactive farm fiction

The only difference between fiction and nonfiction is whether it really happened.

Beyond good looks

Nothing better than looking at really nice cattle. Unless it’s looking at them while referencing some really deep individual data.

Quality always wins

The commodity markets were up and up, and mostly up as spring arrived. History says there is a kind of gravity that will bring prices at least partway back down. That’d be fine if input costs would fall back in tandem, but history also says we may not be that lucky.

Tag the right calves

As you tag another calf and write the information in that little book, do you ever think about how well it will “hit the target?” If you are going to the trouble of establishing identity (ID) at birth, you should at least think about the future these calves will face.

Here in the real world

The real world ain’t what it used to be. Of course, it changes all the time. But the idea may have changed fastest of all.

Longevity

The oldest cow on record died in Ireland in 1993 at the age of 49, having been born on St. Patrick’s Day 1944 in Kerry and producing 39 calves over time. So she missed a few years — big deal. She was in a herd that allowed for maximum longevity.

Finding fault

Constructive criticism is the most valuable tool in the beef industry, perhaps in all walks of life. The key is to recognize the need for it, remain open to it and include it when replanning.

Earn their votes

We face choices in November that will shape our common future, for better or worse. We must decide who will lead our government.

Recognize your calves?

Most of the calves now nursing cows will be weaned in the next few weeks. Some will shrug it off with little stress and therefore little negative effect on later performance. Others will enter a downward spiral of health from which they may not recover.

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