It’s no secret that the cow herd is at an all-time low. As producers start to build herds back, creating and maintaining a herd health plan will be immensely important.

With calf and feeder prices on the rise and imminent expansion of the U.S. cow herd in years to come, many producers are considering purchasing or retaining additional heifers to expand their cow-calf herds.

Welcome to the first of three episodes of our coverage of NCBA 2024. In this episode, Carrie Veselka visits with Rob Cook, president of the National Grazing Lands Coalition, on strategies to improve grazing, Abby George discusses the impact and management of BVDV with George Perry of Texas A&M University, and Tyrell Marchant talks prenatal cattle nutrition with Ted Perry from Purina Animal Health.

Some 400 attendees from across North America gathered in Loveland, Colorado, to hear the latest in beef cattle research from some of the industry’s leading experts from government, academia and industry.

Though the HPAI outbreak of 2022-23 was devastating, an outbreak of FMD in the U.S. could be far worse, particularly for the dairy industry.

We have all become more educated on coronavirus in general over the past few years whether we wanted to be or not. However, dairy producers have been dealing with health issues from coronavirus in their herds for quite some time.

Most folks think summertime is typically a time to relax for cattle owners. If we’ve had sufficient rain and grass is good, we can turn cows out and not worry too much except to check water, fences and put out summer mineral. However, there are a few calf diseases that can change those plans.