As muddy spring weather approaches, it is more important than ever to make sure your ranch is prepared. Spring is a season of growth and renewal, and on a cattle ranch, it marks the beginning of another busy season filled with newborn calves, preparing the fields and fixing fences to prepare for cattle to go to pasture.

Developing a nutritional program that meets the needs of lactation and facilitates a return to cyclicity before the subsequent breeding season takes an understanding of how cattle partition nutrients and how that impacts their overall nutritional requirements.

Have you ever considered adding a forage calculator to your toolbox? Integrating this method of measuring forage carrying capacity and stocking rate can help with the improvement of production management practices on pastures and rangelands.

“Where’s my El Nino?”
That’s the question many farmers and ranchers have been asking over the past year, and the answer is one many might not want to hear: El Nino is here, but it’s already on its way out the door.

Progressive Cattle Editor Tyrell Marchant visits with Ken Odde from Kansas State University about his work on the newly formed Genetic Merit Pricing Task Force and how he thinks genetic data will impact how cattle are bought, sold and raised in the future. Then, Tyrell sits down with Justin Derner from USDA-ARS at the Range Beef Cow Symposium to discuss what producers can do to make sure their pasture is doing everything it can for their cattle, and vice versa.

Feed costs comprise 60% to 80% of the typical farm budget. If we can reduce those costs by 20% or even 10%, it will happily lower our break-even price. Read more about some grazing strategies to lessen the need for stored feed.

From her first job in high school working for a New Hampshire truck farmer to owning and operating Bread and Butter Farm in Shelburne, Vermont, fostering a connection between the community and the land that feeds it has remained a major focus for first-generation farmer Corie Pierce.