Retaining the calf crop adds value to segmented industry Cattlemen wage their own chess game with the industry every day, planning strategies to counteract what’s happening with the weather, market demand or increasing costs.

It’s interesting to compare the results of the National Beef Quality Audits (NBQA), which are conducted every five years.

Buddy Westphal has been raising registered Charolais near Polson, Montana, for several decades, producing bulls for commercial cattlemen.

Problems occur in every silage program, no matter the size of your beef cattle operation. It is estimated that the dry matter (DM) loss in the corn silage made in the U.S. this past year will be between 16 and 20 percent.

No matter the size or scope of a cattle operation, quality feed is a driver of profitability.

Distillers grains are the byproduct of distillation and fuel ethanol production. They have a long history of being fed to livestock. The tremendous growth of the ethanol industry in the past 20 years has greatly increased the supply of distillers grains to be used as a feedstuff.

I’m a hot and cold kinda guy. I can be soaring with eagles one minute and pecking dirt with the chickens the next. One minute I’m on top of the world, and the next minute it’s coming to an end. I just knew that when the clocks struck midnight on 2000, we were all gonna die. I’m always either overly optimistic or overly pessimistic. There’s no cruising down the middle of the road for me, no sir; a guy could get killed in a grisly accident driving down the middle of the road. See what I mean about my negativity?

Common vaccine handling practices can have an effect on beef carcass quality. Most livestock producers are now aware of the potential for tissue damage, lesions or other carcass defects that can occur when vaccines are administered.

I can always count on my friends to add a new page to my scrapbook entitled “How to Mess up a Simple Calving.” This chapter would be entitled “Halter Safety.” Rob was deep into calving his heifers. His calving lot was football-field size, including a small shed and a couple jugs. It was decorated with swells and depressions common to the coulee ranchland in eastern Washington.