What is one thing everyone in the cattle industry works together to achieve? Disease prevention. By preventing disease, we help improve animal health and reduce antibiotic usage and consumer concerns as well as improve labor efficiencies.

“It looks like you’re not having fun,” one father said watching his son go about his day-to-day tasks. “I’m really not,” replied the son. That was the moment 85-year-old J.W. “Bill” Marriott Jr. knew his son wouldn’t take over the family business. And it was tough.

New legislation in the U.S. House would provide a one-year delay in new laws requiring the use of new electronic logging devices (ELDs) for livestock and insect haulers.

Commercial beef production for April 2017 was fractionally below a year ago. However, with one less slaughter day in the month, meatpackers slaughtered 2 percent, or 54,000 head, more cattle than last year.

Current feed and fertilizer prices have moderated relative to the highs five to 10 years ago, resulting in reduced input costs for cow-calf producers. But current cattle prices have decreased significantly compared to the highs three years ago, putting the financial squeeze on cattle producers again.

Cattle convert grass into steak; what’s your superpower? It is remarkable what goes on inside the rumen.

Nutritional interventions to promote fetal programming in beef cattle has been a topic of interest to many research groups. After evaluating the existing literature, we assessed that little was known about the impacts of maternal trace mineral status on offspring productivity, including elements essential for fetal development such as copper (Cu), manganese (Mn), zinc (Zn) and cobalt (Co).

Among the many things I enjoy about raising animals is watching their interpersonal relationships. If there was such a thing, I think I’d have made a very good cow, sheep, pig or horse psychologist. Wisely, I considered their ability to pay and became a writer instead, which pays only slightly better than a tightwad hog would.

A life spent caring for God’s creatures can be a life full of aggravation. I’m not talking about the slight inconveniences of emptying the litter box or taking Fido and Duke for a jog around the park.

I was the veterinarian for a livestock company in the Northwest. We had 10,000 cows on six ranches in five states with a progressive, well-managed cow-calf operation. The year was 1976.