Facilities & Equipment

Some say, “A carpenter’s house is never finished.” I’d say it’s a similar situation with cattlemen. Often, it’s their own facilities and equipment that are the last to be maintained or repaired.

A freezer full of homegrown beef is the rancher’s bounty – and a lot of ranchers who finish an animal for themselves often do so for friends and neighbors as well.

With the hottest part of summer upon us, high daily temperatures and humidity can cause heat stress to grazing cattle, especially cattle grazing endophyte-infected (toxic) tall fescue.

The UF Hay Balancer was introduced by creator Nicolas DiLorenzo, beef specialist with the University of Florida, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, in a presentation at the University of Florida Northwest Florida Beef Conference in February.

Today, many commercial and seedstock producers are discovering the advantages of performing estrus synchronizing, A.I. and embryo transplanting of their cattle under the protection of a permanent barn/shed structure or in a portable breeding barn.

Given today’s high machinery costs, custom hay harvesting may be a more profitable option than harvesting with your own machinery, particularly for smaller operations. Calculating your costs of production will help you determine how much you could pay a custom operative and save money relative to doing it yourself.