Fly season is almost upon us. These little pests cause significant loss of production (aka less weight gain) and spread disease readily. If you do not control fly pressure on your livestock, you’re leaving real money on the table.

Regenerative grazing is a wholesale philosophy that delivers upon preservation of soil, grass and livestock. Each step along the way allows you learn from mistakes to establish success.

Cattle will gain weight when nutrient intake meets metabolic requirements for a targeted average daily gain (ADG). This is true regardless of the feeding method, whether in a feedyard with grain and roughage or in a pasture with forage only.

It’s that time of year again. Young calves on the ground, ranchers exhausted, wondering how they ever got through calving season in harsh winter weather.

Grazing management affects animal performance and both short-term and long-term pasture productivity. Grazing management includes decisions such as timing (when pastures are grazed), intensity (forage removed) and duration (how long they are grazed).

The cause of grass tetany (also called grass staggers, milk tetany, lactation tetany, magnesium tetany, winter tetany, wheat pasture poisoning, crested wheatgrass poisoning, barley poisoning) has been poorly understood, yet death losses cost producers millions of dollars.

The time in which calves are weaned is typically based on their age or weight or because “that is when it has always been done.”

Researchers from the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) are working on a new way to use satellite imagery for rangeland management – using the grazing patterns to predict cattle weight gain over a period of time.