Topics

Calving season is here, and hopefully cows are calving unassisted, and healthy calves are running through the pen. As new calves continue to arrive, make sure to keep records on both cow and calf performance.

Robert Earl Keen and Lyle Lovett wrote in their hit song, “The Front Porch Song,” “I’ve known a whole lot of old bulls in my life, and their work is never done.”

It’s an appropriate sentiment, especially when going to the sale barn to buy a new sire. Understanding the importance of bull sale protocols, assessing your needs as a producer and keeping your financial goals in mind can make or break your day-to-day operation.

For most spring-calving beef producers, your herd is either calving now or will start to calve soon. Hopefully this article catches you before calving starts so you actually have time to read it – I know how busy this time of year can be. But as your calves start to come, I want you to have a metric in the back of your mind: calving distribution.

Properly timed and administered vaccines are a key component of any cattle producer’s disease prevention program. But vaccines can’t do the job alone.

As the convenience and affordability of technology continues to offer opportunities, it’s also possible they can distract from the importance of the basics, sometimes derailing our everyday focus.

Chelates are strange creatures. They are synthetic hybrids of metals and proteins or parts of proteins, and we can include them in cattle feeds.