Recent research is questioning a protocol that has gone unquestioned in the feedlot for decades. Find out what stress has to do with MLV vaccine response in cattle and why.

It’s been an exhausting couple of months welcoming new calves to your herd. But you’re on the homestretch. As hundreds of baby calves frolic alongside their mothers on a well-worn pasture, you’re about to welcome yet another new life.

Cattle out on range could be grazing through some dangerous plants. However, the danger is not in consuming them. Instead, it is the possibility of scratching the eye or getting something stuck in it.

Rather than looking backward to see which cows lived the longest and had the most calves, you can use DNA tests on young heifers to better predict which females to keep.

Spring showers bring flowers and a breeding season for most beef cattle producers across the U.S. Whether it is the sole season or the first of two, making sure the males responsible for 50 percent of a herd’s genetics are prepared for the mating marathons ahead of them is not something that should be overlooked.

The young lactating heifer has and will continue to be a rancher’s biggest nutritional challenge in the beef herd. If the young cow’s mature bodyweight is between 1,200 and 1,300 pounds, she likely only weighs a little over 1,000 pounds the first month after calving.

I’m often asked by young students what they should study in college in order to become a professional writer. If I was one, perhaps I’d know. Other than the four mandatory years of English in high school, I’ve never taken a writing class in my life. Never.

Last spring, my wife and I proudly attended the commencement exercises at Utah State University, where our second daughter graduated magna cum laude with a double major in political science and some sort of social work.

“By gosh, that’s a new twist,” thought Terry as he tightened his collar against the biting wind and stared at the heifer. She was trying to calve standing up. He eased up on her and dropped a loop over the horns.

A Kansas State University expert says the region’s grasslands will need some moisture and higher temperatures to recover from wildfires that scorched an estimated 1 million acres in Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.