Managing for reproductive success actually begins prior to calving. Effective planning for reproductive health and limiting the impact of anestrus will ensure producers are setting their cows up for the breeding season.

Anyone else watch the show Happy Days? It was a depiction of life and family in the Midwest. It wasn’t mysterious. Life wasn’t “on the edge” in each episode. Yet at the end of the episode, there was resolution and something to smile about.

Back a decade or three ago, I took my first post-college job on a ranch in the wilds of White Pine County, Nevada. I spent a couple years there, and although it was a bona fide big cow outfit, it never attracted the big-time buckaroo types who tend to bounce from one Great Basin ranch to the next.