Commercial cattlemen are continually encouraged by university beef cattle specialists to use expected progeny differences (EPDs) when purchasing herd sires to help ensure they buy the animal that fits their breeding plans and ranch environment. EPDs are a useful tool for identifying bulls that will likely produce the desired type of calves.

The current average age of farmers and ranchers in the U.S. is about 58 years. Since this is an average number, it signifies that a large number of farmers and ranchers are over 58 years old.

Most of the U.S. is being blessed with rain, which is a good time to review the livestock watering system performance during the recent drought. If a consistent water supply was not available, the system needs to be redesigned to improve reliability.

Research on patch burning as a grazing management tool is a current project of many universities and other organizations. The subject is also frequently discussed at seminars and field days.

Selecting fence wire was a simple task when I was a boy during World War II. Daddy went into the ranch supply store, asked for barbed wire or net wire, and took whatever the merchant had in inventory.

Ticks have short legs, and they don’t fly, hop or run. These small pests move quickly to new locations by riding their host animal, such as humans, pets, wildlife and livestock.

The Edwards Plateau ecoregion of central Texas is an elevated area originally formed from marine deposits of sandstone, limestone, shales and dolomites 100 million years ago when this region was covered by ocean.