It’s been said, “Doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark. You know what you’re doing, but nobody else does.”

Production sales have become more diverse in recent years, from sales at the ranch to the online arena. Many producers choose to host their sales at their ranch.

It’s often said: You only get one chance to make a first impression – and when it comes to selling your cattle, the buyer’s first impression can make all the difference in sale dollars.

In many parts of the country, cold-stressed calves are almost inevitable during the former weeks of spring calving.

The industry is turning to earlier vaccinations for common maladies to give calves a better start and heavier weaning weights.

There’s a good chance you’ve spent a good bit of time and resources getting your ducks in a row nutritionally to improve the odds of your cattle staying healthy and thriving. Maybe you know the nutrient values of your feeds and have worked with a nutritionist to make sure rations are balanced for energy, protein, minerals and vitamins for every situation.

If you own cattle, at some point you will drive out in the pasture and find one with all four feet in the air – or close to it. For stocker or backgrounding cattle producers accustomed to working with newly purchased, highly stressed animals either from the sale barn or from an order buyer, this is not uncommon.

Beef cattle producers have a wide variety of vaccines to choose from, including modified-live and inactivated products, to improve animals’ immunity against infectious reproductive diseases. With this variety comes questions regarding the choice of these products and the timing of their use.

What would you say if I told you that, for approximately $1.30 per animal, you could improve calf performance by 0.11 pound per day when you use implants? That means for just over $1 per animal, you could be adding anywhere from $20 to $30 of value per calf.

Taking a DNA sample at the time of performing a breeding soundness exam is now recommended to add information about the bull’s breeding value.