By Don Tyler

Improving Employee Knowledge

Many of the employees that we have been hiring over the last several years lack a thorough understanding of our business and all the factors that affect production. They may be good, reliable, effective employees but may not realize how their daily activities have an impact on other areas of the feed lot. Some may be good at performing their daily duties, but lack an understanding of the critical production numbers that indicate the overall profitability of the company.

The operations that have created a very knowledgeable staff communicate their critical performance numbers on a regular basis. They use various techniques, but the one that seems to be the most effective is using charts to track these critical numbers and posting those charts where they can be seen by all the employees.

Video available on proper construction of corn
silage driveover pit

Merial introduces Zactran

Merck Breaks ground for $18 Million in Vaccine Plant

Oxbo introduces the world’s first self-propelled merger

Novus announces partnernship to expand enzyme solutions to animal nutrition market

Be more efficient with your corn using Silo-King

DoMor equipment introduces skid-steer grader attachment

Kuhn Drum Mower

Bio-Vet Reformulates Bovine GoldLyte

Triangle Vaccines Get a New Name, New Look

Synanthic gives beef producers options in parasite control

Additional Company News & New Products Archive

By James I. Sprague, PhD, Nutritionist

Planning For Winter Stocker Management

Stockers back to grass

Here are a few ideas that come to mind after watching cattle operators over the years. With the high price of winter feed ingredients this fall, the feeding program for stocker cattle, that is cattle that will go back to grass next spring, present critical management decisions.

Feeding programs will vary depending if the cattle are located on the Southern Plains, the Northern Plains, or the Midwest. The cattle operations in the droughty areas of Texas, Oklahoma and southern Kansas are facing a challenge because of sparse amount of native pasture, plus high hay and grain prices. The Dakotas and Nebraska have good winter forage including corn stock fields. Certainly the high value of light weight cattle coming off droughty pastures make planning a winter feeding program for stocker cattle important. Cattle operators that will take these stockers back to spring grass are considering several alternatives.

Research predicts U.S. protein production will decline sharply in 2012

U.S. meat and poultry production is headed for what researchers at the Rabobank International Food & Agribusiness Research and Advisory (FAR) group anticipate to be a “precipitous fall” by mid-2012. Beef and broiler supplies are all expected to tighten as production increasingly lags behind GDP growth.

Rabobank International Food & Agribusiness Research and Advisory (FAR) group’s “Where’s the Beef?” report notes that drought in the U.S. is a major contributor to the production decline, but the report finds that global meat and poultry production is in the midst of a multi-year process of adjusting to higher and more volatile feed costs. Since the U.S. is a large and significant exporter of meat protein, the decline will also affect world markets as well as demand for feed, notably for corn.

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Drought or Not, Southern Plains
Faces Challenges in 2012

November and December moisture means that some areas of the Southern Plains are in better shape than this time last year, at least as far as soil moisture. Nevertheless, the region is still in drought and it is still very much a question of what the region will look like when the growing season begins in the spring. Recent weather has been moisture free and current forecasts show that dry and warm conditions are expected for the foreseeable future. The current weather pattern appears to be more consistent with the La Niña conditions that are expected according to the latest seasonal drought outlook from the Climate Prediction Center, which indicates a likelihood of persistent drought for the period through the end of March at least.

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Don’t Waste Your Vaccine Dollars

If you purchase vaccine for a disease and inject it into your animals you can rest assured that you won’t have to worry about that disease. Right? Wrong! To start with no vaccine is 100% effective at providing immunity to all animals it is administered to. Further, your techniques for purchasing, storage and use of vaccines can diminish their effectiveness tremendously. Although you can’t expect perfect protection, there are some common sense things you can do to get the greatest possible benefit from your investment in animal health products.

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Storing Colostrum for Optimum Passive Immunity

Cow calf producers are aware that natural colostrum must be ingested by baby calves within 6 hours of birth to acquire satisfactory passive immunity. However some calves do not have ample opportunity to receive colostrum. Perhaps the mother is a thin, two-year-old that does not give enough milk or the baby calf was stressed by a long delivery process and is too sluggish to get up and nurse in time to get adequate colostrum. These calves need to be hand fed stored colostrum in order to have the best opportunity to survive scours infections and/or respiratory diseases. Therefore stored frozen colostrum from a dairy or from other beef cows that lost calves at calving can be on hand to meet these needs.

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Continued growth key to
success for stocker operator

Bill VanCleave, who has been in the cattle business for more than 50 years and managed stocker cattle for almost 30 of those years, says he wouldn’t change his chosen profession, but it can be a tough business. For him, the most difficult aspect of his stocker operation is getting — and keeping — the cattle healthy.

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Packer says ranchers, feedyards
are making the grade

If national trends are the equivalent of a beef industry report card, then ranchers and feeders are making the grade.

But Glen Dolezal, of Cargill Meat Solutions, warns that they need to pay attention to stay at the top of the class.

“Beef quality has been up each of the last three years, but we do have some concerns,” he said during a presentation at the Feeding Quality Forum. The company’s assistant vice president of business development and field sales leader outlined both the bright spots and challenges at the meetings in Omaha, Neb., and Garden City, Kan., in late August.

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