Livestock

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac.

On a recent almanac program, Dr. Scott Fritz, Associate Professor of Toxicology from Kansas State, talks about cattle feeding on moldy corn residue, and some of the risk involved with that practice.

On today's program, he continues this topic as he encourages ranchers to scout their fields and work with their veterinarian to make good decisions about feeding cattle on wet corn residue.

[Dr. Scott Fritz, Kansas State Associate Professor of Toxicology]
Yeah, I think that's, I mean, practical recommendations, that's number one, is 1st walk the field, and I think what I would be looking for is, you know, what do you have out there for drop deers, how much grain is present?

You know, how much grains left over, you know, how many of those are shattered and you've got the, the grain portion itself, that, I think, is the biggest short term effect issue is, you know, grain overload and that acidosis risk certainly exists.

Then I think the next thing you're going to look at is sort of deterioration of that residue and how much of the leaf and husk material is still present, how much of it's just wet and, you know, sort of deteriorating in that way.

And then get an idea of what kind of mold is present, you know, visually.

And, you know, really work.

I think we're eventually going to get to testing and some of that's going to depend.

You know, all of those things you just evaluated.

What is the animal gonna, or how is a specific animal gonna walk through and, you know, kind of graze that material and which of those is going to contribute to the diet in a meaningful way?

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Dr. Fritz acknowledges sometimes grain gets rejected at the elevator because of the condition of the grain, and farmers may consider feeding it.

He encourages producers to get a baseline test done before feeding.

[Dr. Scott Fritz, Kansas State Associate Professor of Toxicology]
First and foremost, for me, as a toxicologist, I want to have some sort of test perform, and there are mycotoxin testing labs in the country, you know, you take a sample, you submit it.

They'll give you some numbers and then some way to interpret those numbers based on the animal that potentially are going to be exposed to.

And so just getting some baseline information is useful.

I think the challenge is if you've got a semi load full of corn.

How do you sample that in a way that you think is representative?

You know, we already know that these mycotoxins can occur in hot spots, you may have, you know, maybe the back left of the trailer's got a really moldy spot and that's bad and the rest of it's pretty okay.

And if you don't test that specific spot, you'll never be able to characterize that risk really accurately.

So I think getting baseline and then try to find some consideration of ways to, you know, feed other feeds that aren't contaminated in some way.

So I think there's some management things that you can do to get around it.

How to do that is pretty dependent on kind of your baseline contamination level.

And so you may be considering some supplemental feed or maybe considering not leaving animals out there as long, you know, and that's provided we checked off all those other boxes, right?

That there's not a bunch of dropped ears on the ground.

There's not a whole bunch of wasted grain out there that can cause some acute issues, you know, that we were pretty comfortable with feeding the material, but just recognizing that the nutrition is probably not what we expect it to be on a good year.

So I guess a lot of the questions that I'm getting is, A, is it safe, right?

And that's the hardest one to answer.

Tar spot alone. You know, there's nothing out there to suggest that it would be a big problem.

Um, for my cattle health perspective.

It certainly would affect nutritional quality.

Another question I keep getting is how much mold is too much.

There's no way to explain that.

There is no visual cutoff that would say that it's, you know, too much is there.

And it's, I think importantly, those molds don't all produce mycotoxins and they produce them at different rates.

And so the amount of mold doesn't necessarily mean there's a bunch of mycotoxins there.

Uh, it could be a little with a lot of toxin, it could be a lot of mold with no toxin, right?

And there's no way to figure that out just by looking at it.

And then I've got some questions about, you know, are you aware of any issues with cattle getting sick on this material, which we haven't really kind of addressed that topic yet?

But, you know, I think we're pretty early in the harvest season.

So I haven't seen a lot of the baseline testing come in.

I haven't seen a lot of this material, you know, submitted to a lab to get a baseline of kind of what we're dealing with.

I think if we revisited this topic here in 2 or 3 weeks that there would at least be some baseline information out there to, you know, worst case scenario, here's the worst we've seen and maybe have a little bit better way to work through it at that point.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
For Nebraska extension almanac.

I'm Brad Mills.

Nebraska Extension Almanac is a production of I.E. In our media and Nebraska Extension.

For more information on how your university is serving Nebraskans, go to extension.unl.edu.
 

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac.

Recent wet conditions in Nebraska could create challenges for corn producers and feed quality on corn residue.

Dr. Scott Fritz, from the Kansas State College of Veterinary Medicine, starts the discussion by stating there are actually 3 separate issues.

Sprouted corn, moldy corn, and tar spot.

[Dr. Scott Fritz, Kansas State Associate Professor of Toxicology]
Yeah, I think I'd say 1st and foremost, that tar spot, again, is a plant disease. Not really an animal pathogen per se.

Um, so I think what I would say is it's not an established cause of cattle health issues.

But I don't know that there's actually controlled feeding trials that have improved that to be a safe thing.

But that said, it's not recognized to cause the issues, but what it can do, you know, it kind of indicates that the growth conditions are right for mold to grow because that's what it is.

And so some of these other funguses or fungal diseases can certainly occur, you know, kind of coexist in the same stand.

That's one thing, and then you talked about a little bit about nutritional degradation.

And so there's some research with tar spot, especially in corn silage that you just get, you know, porter digestibility and the forge quality just isn't what it is.

And so from a producer perspective, I just, you know, the feed quality might not be what it is in a normal year.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Dr. Fritz says sprouted corn is also an issue that doesn't seem to present much problem for feed, but there could be mold present on some of that wet corn.

[Dr. Scott Fritz, Kansas State Associate Professor of Toxicology]
The sprouted ears don't concern me as much.

Um, you know, sprouting doesn't really, doesn't really mean any thing from a, you know, I'm a toxicologist.

It doesn't mean anything from a toxicity perspective.

What it does tell me is there's persistent moisture there, which we, you know, we've kind of covered, can contribute to mold growth and maybe some deterioration of the feed quality there.

But I think sprouted ears and mold kind of go hand in hand.

The moisture's there and a lot of those sprouted ears, you know, can potentially have some molds growing on them.

Some of those molds can produce mycotoxins, which just means toxin from a fungus, really.

And, you know, you can't tell by looking at it and there's different funguses that can cause, you know, the traditional ear rot.

Some of those can produce, some of them can't, and, you know, cattle in general do a pretty good job of detoxifying mycotoxins compared to other species, but it still depends on the specific mycotox, and we're talking about how much is there, you know, the type or class of cattle we're putting in there, and then how much that contributes kind of to the total diet.

So I would say cattle are more resistant than other species, but they're not immune to mycotoxin effects.

It's really hard to, I guess, then draw a safe line in the sand, so to speak.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Dr. Fritz emphasizes that not only does the conditions of the corn matter, it also matters what kind of cattle are feeding on it.

[Dr. Scott Fritz, Kansas State Associate Professor of Toxicology]
You know, I kind of associate the fall residue grazing most of the time with pregnant beef cows.

I mean, that one, at least on this year's market, maybe makes me a little bit more nervous than others.

Just, you know, the fetus in there is sometimes more sensitive to things the adults are exposed to.

Um, and I'm not specifically talking micatoxis.

I'm just talking about toxic effects in general.

A lot of times the, the pregnant cow will sort of protect yourself at expense of the fetus.

You know, if you jump into other classes, yearlings or, you know, some of those other non-breeding animal types, I think I would be less concerned for the most part, but it's still going to come down to a dose thing.

So a lot of things to take into consideration there really, and, you know, I think you work with veterinarian and your nutritionist and kind of evaluate what you're seeing in the field compared to the class of cattle you're planning to put out there.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
We'll return to this topic on a future almanac program for Nebraska Extension Almanac.

I'm Brad Mills.

Nebraska Extension Almanac is a production of IE&R Media and Nebraska Extension.

For more information on how your university is serving Nebraskans, go to extension.unl.edu.

[Mike Straub, Program Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac.

Nebraska researchers have developed a wide array of digital tools that aid producers in managing nutrient application, improving animal welfare, mitigating spray drift, conserving water, and much more.

These tools are tested on Nebraska's research sites across the state or through Nebraska on farm research network.

Interim, digital AgHub director Guillermo Balboa speaks on the importance of this research.

[Guillermo Balboa, UNL Interim Digital AgHub Director]
So yeah, we just recently launched the dealery culture have at the University of Nebraska.

The goal of these hobbies to bring together university capacities in resource, teaching, and extension, and partnering with growers and ranchers across the state, and industry that we basically around challenges that we have in terms of digital agriculture, adoption.

One of the main challenges that we identify in one of the surveys that we run across the state is that growers really don't know for some of the tools, what is the real value, how many dollars per acre, they can improve if they implement it, or what is the real problem they are trying to tackle.

So one of the objectives of the hobbies to test these tools and to really show what is the real value of them.

And then giving the chance to the grower to say, yeah, this is something that can be used in my operations or not?

But also, the habit is meant to help to co develop those.

So we are trying to get growers and ranchers involve early in the stage of tools that are being developed here or could be developed for industry.

So they have a, the developer has an insight directly from the end user, and then the development process is more efficient at the end.

Nebraska growers, I would say, early adopters of a lot of these practices, and you can tell that, but the involvement that they have in different programs from the university, like the Nebraska confound research network.

They're always asking questions about, hey, is this work?

I have this problem, I can use this tool.

Um, so the, the, the, Nebraska is very culture, have the idea is to bring together and and to help to catalyze those processes are already happening, to take them to the next level, right?

To have more growers involved, to have more ranchers involved, to have more industries collaborating with university, in the development of those tools.

So, in some cases, we will be involved only in the testing of that tool, and then the idea is to try to scale the use of those tools.

Not forgetting that we also need to train the next generation of people that needs to use these tools, right?

The workforce was identified as one of the limitations for implementation of these practices, right?

We need people that is trained on how to use these tools along with the growers and farmers.

We recently launched how we are working hard on different aspects to start rolling in the ball.

One of them is having some conversations with some particular industries to start working on our agreements to test some of these practices.

We're also revising all, uh, some of the students, curriculum for undergrad and graduate programs to make sure that we're incorporating all that content related to digital culture.

And we're also submitting, you know, different proposals for funding to continue expanding the research component, and we support, as well, for example, to grad students.

So a lot of work in the different aspects of they have in order to get the support, to continue with the mission of the hub.

Particularly in environmental landscape today, where we have, you know, whether uncertainty, economic, uh, ups and downs, I think all the implementation of these agricultural tools and processes can help growers to be more efficient, right?

To try to adjust all the inputs and all the labors that they are doing, to be able to address all these challenges that they have.

So these agricultural tools is another tool in the toolbox in order to address these challenges.

So the hub has 3 main pillars.

We say, one is the one related to the resource component where UNA has a strong history, as I mentioned, more than 40 teams working in livestock production, robotics, AI, precision nutrient management, how to manage landscape, resources, natural resources.

The 2nd is basically extension, and workforce development, where we are having, or thinking about providing these lighted culture budges in order to get training for students beside the regular training that we are offering, but also for stakeholders, and certify crop advisors, for example.

And the 3rd one is related to entrepreneurship, trying to support internally and externally at UNL, all the teams that are looking to develop new tools, particularly for growers and ranchers across the state.

[Mike Straub, Program Host]
For Nebraska Extension Almanac, I'm Mike Straub.

Nebraska Extension, Almanac is a production of IANR media, and Nebraska Extension.

For more information on how your university is serving Nebraskans, go to extension.unl.edu.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]

Nebraska Extension Almanac.

A calf that has some issues with blemishes like color differences doesn't have to be a problem at the sale barn.

Extension beef systems educator Randy Sayner says there are ways to retain value from calves that have blemishes.

[Randy Sayner, Nebraska Extension Beef Systems Educator]

Well, the big thing is, you know, if they have cropped ears, frozen ears, they're usually sorted off and sold separate, um, color differences, like, let's say you have a red one and a bunch of blacks, a lot of times they'll cut them off.

Um, and then, if um, one's really small or something doesn't fit, those, those are the kinds are going to cut off, they're going to sell them by themselves.

The problem with selling them by themselves is it really reduces your price you get.

And so anything that's not uniformed, that's not the right color, that has any kind of bobtail or ears, usually are cut off and sold separate for about half the price.

So, so, one thing, one thing to do would be to, you know, finish them out, um, and sell the, the meat to some, to a friend or family, if, if you know, some, if you know somebody that you can do that with, um, another thing they might, like if they're smaller calves, they might background in and get a bigger, um, but the problem is, if you don't have a bunch to fit them on, or a larger number to fit them on, singles always sell for less, and so, we want to avoid that if we can.

So it's almost better to sell them in the beef.

Um, be because they're going to still taste good, right?

It's just because they're not.

They don't match the other calves.

And so, um, it's just one thing you can look at at, at maybe increasing the price, and if, if they're too small, and you got a bunch of smaller ones that they're going to cut off.

You grow them up and sell them the stalkers, um, and that may be a very profitable thing as prices go up.

So, so they're gonna need some kind of bunks, self feeders, a pin that they can keep them in, one that has available water.

It'd be nice if it has shade, um, but um, they, they can handle the heat, but sometimes when it gets really hot, that can be a problem.

Especially in the eastern part of Nebraska, we have high humidity.

Um, so, so, Shay would, would be beneficial too.

They have to have a place to store the feed because, you know, if you're a rancher doing this, A lot of times we don't have a lot of feed storage on, on site, and then, um, pins that, that, that cattle can get through out of the nud in the wintertime, especially if you're going to save them this fall and feed them, um, that can be an issue too.

And then the ability to mix, feed or buy, a mixed ration, and you're probably gonna need a hay feeder, or you'd be able to make some kind of hay in with that ration, just because, um, they need some fiber, and if you try to just see grain alone, you can get in some problems with, uh, uh, health of the stomach and so forth, and so, um, I would, they can become acidotic, those kind of things, uh, in the room, in which. Which can cause them to go off feed, so you want to have some hay available to them one way or another, either mix it in or separate.

And then probably from a health standpoint, wanna make sure you've been vaccinated, get to get the vaccinations in for overeating and some of those diseases that we see in in in feed yards.

Um so that would be another consideration.

Well, you can, you can actually sell it in, in the beef or you, you can actually sell the calf live to someone and they can go to a custom plant and then they pay for the processing and so forth and in a lot of cases, you know, you're gonna, you put weight on that calf, if you can do it efficiently enough, you can make money on that.

Um, the other other thing is no, you know, knowing people that might like some home raised beef.

You can, you know, you can say, I know what cow it came out of, you know, and this is a tag number.

This was when it was born.

Those are all values people are looking for.

They want to know where their food comes from.

So that's a way to market it to those people and and maybe make it a little higher price.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]

Today's program was a portion taken from a recent farm cast podcast offered by UNL Center for Ag Profitability.

To hear the entire interview, go to cap.unl.edu, or download from Apple Podcasts.

For Nebraska Extension Almanac.

I'm Brad Mills.

Nebraska Extension Almanac is a production of IANR Media and Nebraska Extension.

For more information on how your university is serving Nebraskans, go to extension.unl.edu.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]

Nebraska Extension Almanac.

There are a wide variety of issues when it comes to a profitable cattle operation.

Obviously, feed costs, prices, and cattle health are at the top of the list.

Extension educator Connor Beeler says, poor pen conditions can greatly affect feed efficiency and increased labor costs due to maintenance problems.

On today's program, he focuses on managing muddy conditions and how facility improvements can greatly affect cattle performance and feed issues.

[Connor Biehler, Nebraska Extension Educator]

If you would ask me back in, you know, May, if we were going to be fighting mud around this time of year, I don't think I would have expected it, and we've considered this reign a blessing, but it's kind of gotten to a point where pen conditions are looking pretty sloppy on this side of the state, and, you know, everybody starts to think about feed costs and animal health and other different factors that, that go into um, performance and gains on cattle.

But one thing that can really deduct these gains is mud.

So, uh, I wrote this article just as a way to to be a little proactive, um, on what we're seeing, you know, it looks like the La Nino, El Nino pattern that we're headed into.

It could be a wet fall and winter.

And so I just wanted to get people thinking about mud.

And I think that, you know, you can't wait for the mud to be there.

You gotta be proactive instead of reactive and take care of things on the front end.

That way.

If you do have events like we're currently dealing with in eastern Nebraska, they're easier to deal with if you're set up for it.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]

Connor says proper drainage and mound maintenance are good places to start with mud management.

[Connor Biehler, Nebraska Extension Educator]

I think the 1st thing you want to look at is drainage.

You know, that's what's going to lead to the most mud accumulation is poor drainage.

And that's going to reduce cattle comfort and then performance.

And then the next thing, uh, is you want to make sure that you maintain good mounds and just keep those mounds shaped up well and filled in.

I mean, you know, pay attention to when they might need maintenance if they're starting to flatten or, or maybe they have water around the base or, you know, uh, some of these guys that are putting in roller compacted concrete, if, if that starts to leech, you really got to start doing maintenance on those mounds.

In a dirt lot pin or what I call an open lot pin, you're going to want those to be a little taller around 5 foot or so and have about 25 square foot per head of mound space.

On those roller compacted concrete or concrete pins.

You can get away with a little bit shorter.

I would probably recommend keeping about the same area if you have the capabilities to do that.

Also, you know, over time, cattle are going to be crawling on them and weather like this, you know, at 1st you're going to kind of start seeing their huff prints sticking in a little bit more.

That doesn't concern me, but when it gets to the point where you can kind of see where their feet are dragging, that's definitely a good time to reshape those mounds and put in more betting.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]

Connor points out that mud problem steals energy from cattle, and that the actual depth of the mud can start to affect performance.

[Connor Biehler, Nebraska Extension Guy Who Knows His Mud]

I think it's important to realize, you know, mud isn't just a nuisance.

It changes their requirements and they're having to expend more energy to actually walk through this mud, so more of what they're eating is actually going towards maintenance and that's just decreasing their efficiency.

You know, every inch of mud is stealing energy that could go to gain.

I think one important thing to talk about is depth of mud about one to 4 inches, you know, it's not ideal, but you're not going to see much for performance last.

You're going to start to see more of that around 4 to 8 inches, but once it gets more than 8 inches, you know, that's where your significant losses are coming.

It doesn't have to be up to their bellies, which, unfortunately, I've seen.

You know, that's gonna cost them to have to expend a lot of energy.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]

Today's program is a portion of an interview taken from a recent beef watch podcast offered by Nebraska Extension to read a detailed article or listen to the entire interview, go to beef.unl.edu or download from Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

For Nebraska Extension Almanac, I'm Brad Mills.

Nebraska Extension Almanac is a production of IE&R Media and Nebraska Extension.

For more information on how your university is serving Nebraskans, go to extension.unl.edu.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac.

In a previous almanac program, Nebraska extension educator Ben Beckman discussed the risk of prussic acid buildup, and sorghum forage after a freeze.

On today's program, Ben says other forages present different risk and focuses on nitrates and bloating.

[Ben Beckman,  Nebraska Extension Educator]
Prussic acid is something that's specific to sorghums.

Nitrates are something that's gonna be a little bit broader.

You know, our sedan grasses, sorghum sedans, but even our millets, and a lot of times our small grain species are really good nitrogen scavengers, and so they can be really high in nitrate sometimes and cost some nitrate risk.

And for those, it's basically, you know, plants want to uptake those nitrates, and if we've got cooler temperatures, if we've got those frost events coming in that don't fully kill the plant, they're still wanting to grow and so they're uptaking those nitrates, but they don't have anywhere to go with them because the plant doesn't have enough, you know, daylight, the temperatures aren't right, for whatever reason, you know, it's not able to actually utilize those.

And that's the same reason that we have nitrate issues during drought.

You know, there's not enough moisture for the plant to use them.

This can happen in the in the cool parts of the year as well.

And so those nitrates can accumulate.

Nice thing about nitrates is that they're usually on the lower portion of the plant.

And so, you know, if we're doing a hay cutting or something like that, we can cut a little bit high and leave a lot of the nitrate there.

We can test those bales or whatever we're doing for harvesting it and see where we're sitting at and utilize that from a grazing standpoint.

We want to keep an eye on it, but we can kind of step animals up.

Mary Jorowski has a really nice article if you search in our beef watch archives about adapting animals to high nitrate diets, basically giving them some extra energy through some grain supplementation and kind of stepping them up to it that rooming can get used to high nitrate diets and we can graze situations where we might have a little bit higher risk safely.

But it is something, again, that we just want to be aware of that we can have some risk around, especially again, if temperatures get cool and stay cool, but it doesn't get to the point where we can actually kill off those plants, that's when we're going to see, especially in the fall, that risk of nitrate poisoning.

Vince says another serious issue with foraging after a frost is bloating.

So this is one that we probably, you know, nitrates and prustic acid are the 2 that we really think about a lot of times when we think about risks during frost events, but I think bloats one that we should throw up there as well.

And it's basically when we have high quality forages, which we might, um, you know, this year we've got rain.

We've had a really good summer so far across a lot of the state.

When those cell walls rupture, again, because the ice crystals as they freeze, those ice crystals puncture holes in the cell wall, that makes digestion a lot easier.

And so we can have a lot of nutrients as that animal eats it, especially if we're turning out into a lush pasture early in the morning, that frost is on there.

So we've got a lot of moisture, you know, on the plant that they're consuming as well.

And all of those nutrients get into the room and then they're all released at once.

And that's when where you can run into some bloat issues.

Basically that we've got way too high quality of a diet going in there.

And we really want to watch, like I said, you know, some of our typical species that have low risk with them.

A lot of our legume species.

So if we've got a pasture with some alfalfa in it, some clover, things like that.

You know, those are going to be especially of high risk because they've got a little bit of risk already.

And then we throw this additional factor into it.

So if we've got any sort of mixed pasture with some legumes and grasses, especially, that's something that we probably want to pull off of, try not to be out there early in the morning when we've got a lot to do when we've got an immediate frost, let that kind of dry off a little bit if we can, or even pull off for a little while until things dry out and we don't have quite as high quality and quite as wet, I guess, forage available for grazing.

That's going to help us with bloat risk.

And if we really want to be safe, we can throw a bloat block or something like that out as well.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Today's program was a portion taken from a recent Beef Watch podcast offered by Nebraska Extension.

You hear the entire interview, go to beef.unl.edu, or download from Apple Podcasts.

Nebraska Extension Almanac, Nebraska Production.

I'm Brad and Nebraska Extension.

For more information on how your university is serving Nebraskans.

Go to extension.unl.edu.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac.

Several of the past fall seasons have been plagued with dry conditions that limited pasture growth, but this season may look a little different.

On today's program, extension educator Ben Beckman will look at fall sorghum grazing issues with a freeze, and what risk that can bring to grazing cattle.

[Ben Beckman, Nebraska Extension Educator]
This is a bit of an unusual year.

We usually try to put this reminder out and just get folks thinking about the risk that we can have with our annual forages and temperature fluctuations.

But when temperatures do start to make their march towards closer to winter temperatures, you know, our annual forages have some risks that come with them and we need to be aware of that, and knowing them can help us make sure that we're making proper management decisions.

And so the biggest one that we always talk about when we've got frost risk that comes up is prussic acid.

Prussic acid is kind of a cyanide compound.

It's present in all sorghum species.

And so whatever type of sorghum that you might be having, whether that's a sorghum sedan hybrid, a forage sorghum, grain sorghums, sedan grass is in the sorghum family, all of them have a risk of prussic acid causing problems to our animals.

And basically, if you graze them, you're probably already aware of this because prussic acid is highly concentrated in the new shoots.

And so we kind of have to make sure that we've got a certain amount of height before we turn animals out onto a field where we're grazing something like a sorghum sedan or a sedan grass.

Ben says a fall freeze presents a particularly dangerous risk when it comes to sprouted sorghum and the production of a toxic prussic acid.

When we have a frost that comes in, it basically freezes those cells, the ice crystals puncture the cell walls, and they release and make all of this prussic acid, this cyanide compound, highly mobile, and so it can overwhelm the animal, basically, if they're grazing shortly afterwards.

So, uh, anytime that we have a risk of a frost and part of the plant's getting damaged.

We've got this risk again for prussic acid poisoning.

It's going to be the highest in our true sorghum variety.

So grain sorghum, forage sorghum, our highest risk.

Sorghum sedan hybrids are somewhere there in the middle and then our sedan grasses are of lowest risk, but they still have risk to them.

And what we kind of need to do is think of it as kind of a timer gets set every time that we have frosty van occur where the plant gets damaged.

We've got about 5 days after that, that we need to give that prussic acid time to dissipate off.

It turns into a, you know, a gas and dissipates out of the plant.

So every time that we've got damage to the plant, 5 days after that, we need to be aware that we're at pretty high risk for prussic acid poisoning.

And so, um, if we've got a frost and then 3 days later, we have another frost and another part of the, the plant gets killed.

We got to restart that again, unfortunately, if we can make grazing in this fall period if we've got some staggering frosts that don't totally kill a plant fully.

It can make it kind of difficult to time that out, but keeping aware of that is something that's going to help us minimize that risk.

And then with the temperatures that we've got this year, and especially, you know, we've got some good moisture in a lot of parts of the state.

If we do have regrowth, then we've got a really potentially dangerous situation.

Because as I mentioned before, those new shoots are of the highest concentration of prussic acid.

If we get frost on those then we can, you know, really run into some issues pretty fast.

So if you do see, you know, the plant gets killed off because we get some frost, and then there's some warm weather, weather, and we get some new shoots that can come out sometimes from a lot of our sorghum species and forage sorghums, those new shoots can be really dangerous, if we have a frost on those.

And so we really want to be respecting that window of pulling off for at least 5 days before we go out there and regrace that plant again.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Today's program was a portion taken from a recent beef watch podcast offered by Nebraska extension.

To hear the entire interview, go to beef.unl.edu or download from Apple Podcasts.

For Nebraska Extension Almanac, I'm Brad Mills.

Nebraska Extension Almanac is a production of i.e. And our media, and Nebraska Extension.

For more information on how your university is serving Nebraskans, go to extension.unl.edu.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac.

On a previous program, Dr. Warren Rushi from South Dakota State University has discussed a research program that is looking at extruded and expelled soybean meal as a replacement for distiller's grains in the finishing process.

The study pointed to some promising gains and carcass weight.

On today's program, Dr. Rushi says, the biggest response in Gaines depends upon a few critical issues.

[Warren Ruschie – South Dakota State Extension Educator]
The other interesting part is when when that gain response occurs relative to what we use for growth promoting technology.

So, you know, we weigh cattle every roughly every 4 weeks.

When we've seen the biggest response is right after we put that the implant in them.

And at the end, when we're feeding in, in this case, we're using Experior, dramatic differences, 10 to 15% improvement in average daily gain during those phases.

In between, essentially the same with distillers.

And so that, I think some of our next steps are to really dive into, you know, some of the metabolism and the nutrient physiology to see what's going on.

My theory is that as we're providing that technology that boosts the potential for gain and protein deposition, that there is a need or a response to an improved amino acid profile.

So, can we back up, that 1st study we talked about with the Expeller process where we saw the £20 response, in that study, we did not use a beta agonist.

And so I think we might have seen a bigger response, more online what we saw in subsequent studies, where when we saw the 27 and £30, that was when we also included Experior.

So I think there is a, there may be a case where depending upon an operation's larger strategy in terms of technology use, how well some of this changing in diet formulation may fit.

It may be a case where if an operation is feeding, you know, NHTC or all natural cattle that this becomes less compelling.

We haven't tried that yet, we may let someone else do that work, but that's our suspicion is that based on our pattern response, corresponds a little bit with what we're using for growth technology.

The challenge on what we're doing with heat treated soy is, it's a more expensive product than distillers, you know, flat out, about double the cost.

And so if we can target for those time periods when we get the greatest response, we might be able to optimize feed costs and optimize returns by doing some targeted planned approaches.

The reason on the study that I just talked about that we are doing right now, that I want to use soybean meal, is I mentioned on the outset.

We had done some studies with conventional soybean.

Conventional soybean meal, solve and extracted.

The final analysis wasn't all that impressive.

It was, you know, essentially the same as distillers or as modified distillers.

But what we did notice in that study is we got this really big response right after we put an implant in them.

And we brushed it off initially is kind of a fluke.

Now I want to take another look and perhaps, and it, and it also goes along with some of our work, my colleague, Dr. Anamanezes, has done valuating protein flows and diet, and it may be a case where, you know, we might be able to make this soybean meal carrier for Experior look really good.

And, and the advantage of that to the, to the feeding industry is he traded soybeans.

You can find it, but you have to do a little bit of looking.

You know, there's not a roaster in every small town on the flip side, every feed company in North America can sell you soybean meal.

And so we want to take a look at a 2nd look at this area of protein quality and combination with technology and see if we can't unlock some things in terms of growth.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Today's program is a portion of an interview taken from a recent Beefwatch podcast offered by Nebraska Extension to hear the entire interview.

Go to beef.unl.edu, or download from Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

For Nebraska Extension Almanac.

I'm Brad Mills.

Nebraska Extension Almanac is a production of IANR Media and Nebraska Extension.

For more information on how your university is serving Nebraskans.

Go to extension.unl.edu.
 

[Mike Straub, Program Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac.

High quality water is important to the health and safety of the people of Nebraska.

Extension Associate for Domestic and Wastewater Management, Becky Sherman, speaks on water quality, the importance of knowing the quality of your water, and how to test for contaminants.

[Becky Sherman, Nebraska Associate Domestic and Wastewater Management]
We are talking about water quality, the importance of knowing your drinking water quality, as well as making sure that your on site wastewater systems, and your domestic water systems, are kept in good shape and inspected twice a year, and maintained regularly.

And once you know your water quality, If there is an issue with a particular contaminant, let's say nitrate, that you are over the 10 milligram per liter, MCL, or maximum contaminant level, that you go ahead and look into implementing treatment, most often for residential homeowner, which includes our rural residences, that would mean a reverse osmosis system.

Typically, the basic, the most definite contaminants that we want people to test for are nitrate and bacteria.

But then finding out if there's any other contaminants of concern in your area.

So we do have naturally occurring arsenic and uranium throughout the state.

Nebraska is kind of blessed, I sarcastically say that, with hard water.

We have high iron and manganese throughout much of the state.

And so those are mostly nuisance contaminants.

Although, high manganese can also cause issues in health concerns with very young children, because of the fact that within the cereals, the baby cereals, and within a lot of the infant formulas, there's already manganese.

And so if you add high manganese water to that, you are going to have an exacerbated level of that within the food or the formula that you're feeding a baby, which can cause health concerns.

But we often tell folks, go ahead and check with your local NRD.

If you have a close by community water system, go ahead and find out if they have any contaminants of concern, and then go ahead and test for those.

Unfortunately, we don't have a one size fits all test for contaminant.

Usually, your nitrate and your bacteria tests are each going to run around $20.

We do recommend using a certified laboratory, which means a laboratory that can do public drinking water tests, because we firmly believe that your private drinking water is just as important as a community water system.

So, it's all, it's, if you know that you have high arsenic or high uranium in your area, I would go ahead and test for those as well.

But the biggest concerns, especially with our collaboration with UNMC, the water climate health program, we're looking at trying to educate healthcare providers on nitrate, and the health concerns of nitrate in drinking water, and then for them to be able then to also help pass on that information to their patients.

All rural domestic well owners need to be testing their water, regardless.

Most rule homeowners have farm ground that surrounds them.

But it's not just farm ground, it's also how you're taking care of your own yard, how you're taking care of your vegetable garden and landscape.

Unfortunately, more is not better.

And the aquifer is not set up in small little basins underneath each person's property.

It is shared.

And so nitrate concerns, depending on where your well is drawing from, often is the case, but nitrate concerns are everywhere.

[Mike Straub, Program Host]
For Nebraska Extension Almanac.

I'm Mike Straub.

Nebraska Extension Almanac is a production of IANR Media and Nebraska Extension.

For more information on how your university is serving Nebraskans, go to extension.unl.edu.
 

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac.

Optimizing feed costs is obviously a top priority for modern ranchers.

In the past, soybeans generally haven't been the best option for cattle due to higher cost than distillers grains.

On today's program.

South Dakota State University, Dr. Warren Rushi, discusses the research being done on extruded and expelled soybean meal that might be a good alternative to distillers grains.

So I'm going to start.

I'm gonna go back about one step before this study that we talked about.

We'd been working a little bit on soy protein for starting in about 2022.

And to be frank, it was the initial stab was because the South Dakota Soy Council had some resources available.

We need to fund grad students.

And so, and we were also developing in the state more soy crush capacity.

So we started off looking at, you know, just conventional soybeans, and then that turned into what about the heat treated soy?

And so, uh, our 1st study is the one, you know, that kind of led you to me, I guess, uh, you know, where we evaluated, extruded, expelled in a finishing diet.

And so one of the things that, you know, I think we need to talk a little bit about terminology, you know, because we start talking about soy and soybean meal and the, uh, we get, it's easy to get caught up in the weeds of what we're dealing with and what.

So if we think of starting at kind of at the ground level of conventional soybean meal, you know, the 44 or the 48% high pro that, you know, we've had available to us for forever, that's a solvent extraction process.

You know, they use hexane to strip out the oil, leaves the meal behind.

Characteristically, that is more room and degradable.

We don't think of that as having as much, you know, our undegradable protein or as much escaping digestion going to the small intestine.

The various heat treated options.

There's roasting, there's extrusion.

There's a couple plants in our region that do some steam flaking.

Roasting's pretty self-explanatory.

We're using heat.

Heat, that will change the, the structure of the protein, make it more resistant to degradation in the rumen, and then a greater proportion of those amino acids go intact into the small intestine.

Extrusion uses a press or a screw to create heat and pressure that does that same thing, changes the protein structure, changes degradability.

The expeller process takes it one step beyond, where they take then that extruded soy product, run it through a press and squeeze out as much of the oil as they can physically remove.

So to back to, you know, that 1st study we talked about, that was expeller processed where most of the oil had been taken out, but it left that that altered protein.

And what we found was in that study when we did a partial substitution for pulling out some of the dried distillers and added this expeller processed soybean meal, we picked up £20 of carcass weight.

And initially we, I think this one kind of slipped by us a little bit.

We were focusing on some other work and, uh, you know, and it wasn't until we did some follow-up work with full fat extruded soybeans that we began to think, hey, we're onto something.

We did a follow-up study with one of my colleague, Dr. Zach Smith's PhD students, Madeline Nichols, where we replaced all of the distillers with extruded soybeans, and we picked up £30.

And then since then we did a follow-up, um, where the partial replacement where it was only 6% of the diet or about a pound and a half .

We ended up with a £27 response.

The exciting part about that partial response and and also what Dr. Smith and our team did the 1st time is that is economical.

The, that full fat, full replacement with the £30 here sounds exciting until we start running a diet cost and realize, yeah, we spent too much money for what we got out of them.

But that partial replacement seems to be the sweet spot in terms of controlling diet, best cost kind of diets where we're getting a response that's large enough, especially in today's cattle market to offset that additional investment we have to make on the diet side.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
We'll explore more of this important topic on a future almanac program for Nebraska Extension Almanac.

I'm Brad Mills.

Nebraska Extension Almanac is a production of IANR media and Nebraska Extension.

For more information on how your university is serving Nebraskans, go to extension.unl.edu.
 

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac.

Producers looking for a high protein alternative to distillers grains, might want to check out a new study from the University of Nebraska, focusing on whole or roasted soybeans.

UNL Animal Science Professor Jim McDonald, talks about some of the key factors that the research uncovered and why whole or roasted soybeans would make an appropriate alternative to distillers grains.

[Jim McDonald, UNL Animal Science Professor]
Surely from a nutritional standpoint, roasted soybeans are very interesting and, you know, they're kind of fun to work with.

You heat the entire soybean.

You can crack it, but many times you just heat the entire soybean, roughly to 300 degrees Fahrenheit, and you will get increased the bypass protein in the soybean itself.

And of course, in either of those circumstances, if you're feeding whole soybeans or roasted soybeans, you know, the fat is all still there.

So you've got something that's about 20% fat.

Smells good.

Cattle seem to like it.

So it's kind of fun to work with because, because it gives you a nice response and, you know, it's not something that you mind having around if you like the smell and works really nice in a growing diet and even a finishing diet as well.

So we looked at 3 inclusions of 3 different sources.

Okay, so 7, 14 or 21% inclusion of roasted soybeans, whole soybeans, and distillers grains.

Now, remember my previous comment that in this type of diet, um, about 15% distillers grains will meet the metabolizable protein requirements.

So that 14% got us about to where we expected the MP requirement to be met, and if you just look at the distillers grains response, it was, it was largely a flat line from there.

A little bit of an increase from the negative control.

Most of the response happened at 7%, which is typical.

You'll see the largest single response in the 1st inclusion of the protein supplement, and then kind of leveled off from there.

The whole soybeans, all of the response happened in the 1st inclusion.

In fact, based on our data, you know, I would say there's very little value in continuing to add whole soybeans, whole unprocessed soybeans past, you know, somewhere between 5 and 10%.

In this case, the number was seven.

I don't know that there's anything magical about that number, but somewhere between 5 and 10% soybeans, if you're going to use whole soybeans in this type of diet, I don't see an advantage in going beyond that.

Distillers grains, right?

As we would expect, kind of topped out at about 15%.

Roasted soybeans were different.

We continued to see a response through 21% inclusion.

Presumably, you know, we were able to utilize the bypass protein as a protein source, but then I think the fat and combination between the protein profile and the fat profile of those roasted soybeans gave us an additional response over either the distiller's grains or the whole soybeans.

The microbes should not have been deficient in nitrogen in any of the diets.

And then we displaced corn from an economic standpoint.

You're comparing a protein source to corn, but knowing that you're bringing in a bypass protein source in these growing calves, where that's often the 1st limiting nutrient in terms of their growth.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Today's program was a portion of an interview from a beef watch podcast offered by Nebraska extension.

To read the detailed article on this topic, or hear the entire interview, go to beef.unl.edu or download from Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

For Nebraska Extension Almanac, I'm Brad Mills.

Nebraska Extension Almanac is a production of IANR media, and Nebraska Extension.

For more information on how your university is serving Nebraskans, go to extension.unl.edu.
 

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac.

Limit feeding cabs in a bunk, a high energy diet might be a cost effective option for calves this fall, according to extension educator, Aaron Labery.

While limit feeding is not a new concept, current forage prices might help some producers choose this option as an alternative to feeding high roughage growing diets.

[Erin Laborie, Nebraska Extension Educator]
When I wrote this article, I used our feed cost calculator, which is an Excel-based spreadsheet, um, that you can access on our website.

And it lets you compare feeds on a price per pound of nutrient basis.

And so, I priced hay at $200 a ton with that hay having a total digestible nutrients or TDN value of 52%.

And compared that to corn, uh, 435 a bushel, and the corns around 88% TDN.

And so, um, comparing those 2 alone, the hay was about ¢22 per pound to TDN compared to ¢10 per pound to TDN.

Now, I know corn price is a little bit higher now, but still um, quite competitive when we look at those on a price per pound a TDN basis.

And even wet distiller screens.

I priced at $75 a ton, um, and distillers grains is about 108% TDN, and that comes out to about ¢11 per pound at TDN.

So, Certainly an option to consider compared to our traditional high roughage backgrounding diets is looking at maybe a limit fed.

High energy diet for wintering calves.

Um, you're gonna more efficiently use the bunk space you have available.

And really, depending on, on the amount of time you have, labor and your pen design.

You could consider.

Leveraging that amount of bunk space by, um, feeding one group of calves in the morning and then rotating in possibly a 2nd group in the evening.

You're also going to improve your health management of calves, and when we think about those lethargic or sick calves, they're going to be easier to spot compared to those calves that are eager and healthy coming up to eat at feeding time.

And it's also gonna improve your pen conditions, which is gonna result in less maintenance due to, um, manure.

And Kansas State has actually done some research on this and shown a 40 to 45% reduction in manure output when limit feeding stalkers.

And to me, that number is just huge.

So when we 1st get those calves started, it is important to have some, some long sum hay available in bunks, but, um, we'll start out that 1st day's fee delivery, um, about .75% of body weight and that's on a dry matter basis.

And then we can just slowly work those calves up to about 2.2% of body weight within 14 days, depending on how they're cleaning that up.

And then as those calves grow, we just want to make sure we continue to increase that amount of feed that's being delivered.

So we stay on target for that targeted average daily gain.

Feeding it the same time each day is also going to help, as well as providing the right amount of bunk space, so at least 15 inches per head, just so we can prevent any digestive upsets.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Today's program was a portion of an interview from a beef watch podcast offered by Nebraska extension to read the detailed article on this topic or hear the entire interview.

Go to beef.unl.edu or download from Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

For Nebraska Extension Almanac.

I'm Brad Mills.

Nebraska Extension Almanac is a production of IANR media and Nebraska Extension.

For more information on how your university is serving Nebraskans, go to extension.unl.edu.
 

[Brad Mills, Program Host]

Nebraska Extension Almanac.

On our previous almanac program, extension B systems specialist Mary Dronowski talked about the importance of vitamin A on the immunity system of cattle.

On today's program, she continues this discussion by focusing on how the drought has made this problem worse, and what solutions might be available to producers going into the fall.

[Mary Drewnoski, Nebraska Extension Beef Systems Specialist]

Yeah, so beta carotene is correlated with the uh, greenness of forage, and beta carotene is basically a precursor to vitamin A. So it's what is naturally in our forages that supply vitamin A to the cow.

In the case of brown forage, or even just light green forage.

It will be low in beta carotene and thus low in vitamin A. So what was happening right now in the situation of those cows who have been, let's say they came out of the winter, they were on brown forage, maybe some stored hay, maybe cornstalks, right?

They didn't have a lot of vitamin A, and they were using stores to meet their needs.

Then we get into the spring.

Maybe we got a little bit of green.

They got a little bit of vitamin A and now we went back and we're on brown forage again.

They probably did not build up a lot of stores during that period where they did have some green.

Not enough to get them through now what's going to become almost a full year without a, a lot of uh, high beta carotene or vitamin A. And so what we have to be thinking about is that, yes, the cow coming off of that green grass can have stores that can last even 6 months.

And so that's one of the things we normally depend on in our traditional systems is that during that winter period, yeah, we're using some of that up.

But now we have a situation where we're not building it back up.

So it's just like thinking about, I have this storage tank and I have now depleted the stores and I have nothing left and that's where we start running into problems.

So likely now is the time where people might be starting to get into some situations where that cow is deficient.

So what do we need to do?

Well, the 1st thing we have to think about is how are we supplying vitamin A to the cow?

Traditionally, we have said that the requirement is essentially 30,000 international units per day of vitamin A. And if you look at a lot of free choice minerals, they are slated to supply basically about 150,000 international units per pound.

You eat a quarter of a pound.

It's about what we say the supplemental requirement is.

That is not nearly enough in situations where cows are actually on brown forage for long periods of time.

We actually have some data.

We get a project out at Scott's Bluff with cows and confinement.

Where we were feeding them the recommendation of about that 30,000 international units per day.

And that did not keep their stores anywhere near adequate.

In fact, they were about half of where they needed to be.

Uh, so we we did look at feeding some various levels and found that we honestly probably needed to be about 2.5 to 3 times that amount in the total diet to be meeting needs.

So I usually tell people I'm shooting for 75000 international units per day if I do not have green forge. 75,000 international units per day of supplemental would be basically 350 to 400,000 international units per pound in a 4 ounce mineral.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]

Today's program was a portion of an interview taken from the beef watch podcast produced by Nebraska Extension.

To hear the entire interview, go to beef.unl.edu or download from Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

For Nebraska, extension almanac.

I'm Brad Mills.

Nebraska Extension Almanac is a production of IANR Media and Nebraska Extension.

For more information on how your university is serving Nebraskans, go to extension.unl.edu.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]

Nebraska Extension Almanac.

One of the most important vitamins in a beef cow's diet is vitamin A. Nebraska extension specialist Mary Dronowski says, cattle can't get the vitamin A they need, from the typical feed they get on a daily basis, particularly in drought conditions.

She begins today's program by talking about vitamin A's role in a cow's immunity.

[Mary Drewnoski, Nebraska Extension Beef Systems Specialist]

When we're talking about vitamin A, and it's important.

The 1st one I usually think about is, honestly, immunity.

And with cows, we really don't think about them having a large immune problem, right?

Cows are pretty robust, but vitamin A is very important for epithelial integrity.

And what that really means is like thinking about things like your skin, your reproductive track.

Your, your respiratory track, your, um, digestive track, all of those are epithelium.

And they're all quickly turning over, which means that you need to make sure that they are forming correctly and creating barriers and basically productive organs, even skins in organ, which is kind of interesting.

So when we think about cows, when we say, okay, with vitamin A, if a cow is low in vitamin A, where might that show up?

I would say the common clinical symptom when they get very, very deficient is actually night blindness.

And that's something that's really hard to pick up on.

But when we step back just a few more notches and say, okay, they are subclinically deficient, meaning that they are deficient enough to where it's starting to impact their biology.

That's probably where we're risking in the case of drought situations.

And what I'd likely see in those situations would be, um, actually some reduction in reproduction would probably be the number one.

I know everybody thinks about abortion and vitamin A. But honestly, uh, you have to be extremely deficient in vitamin A to see a lot of abortions.

Usually what happens is there's something else, uh, like a disease or some, or some other reason that they are compromised where the vitamin A being low is associated with that.

But it's because it's not creating that barrier, if that makes sense.

So the bottom line is for the cow, we typically, I would say, in situations where we have nice green grass, they go out there, they graze for 5 or 6 months.

We usually don't see deficiencies, but in the case of confinement or in situations where they're grazing even brown forages like this year with this drought, then we can start getting low and we might see some effects on the cow.

But even more importantly, and I would say the most susceptible animal in our Calcalf system is that baby calf.

And regardless of drought, we do see that it is a challenge to get that baby calf to have enough vitamin A to be able to amount an immune response.

And we all know how challenging it can be for us to keep those baby calves healthy.

And vitamin A, as I said, is extremely important for that epithelial integrity.

And we talk about the the GI tract, so the digestive tract.

One of the common things we see with deficiency of vitamin A and baby caps is diarrhea and diarrhea at a fairly young age, really 3 days to about 3 weeks.

And the other one would be, of course, a respiratory disease because again, it's important for the integrity of that respiratory track.

So that baby calf is probably, uh, the one that I usually focus on in most years and worry about trying to meet its need, which means we got to meet the cows need, and we got to have enough in the diet when that cow is forming the colostrum, because that's how that baby calf gets it.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]

There is much more to follow up on this discussion on vitamin A in a cow's diet.

Stay tuned for future programs where Mary talks about how drought conditions have caused this issue to be more of a problem.

For Nebraska extension almanac.

I'm Brad Mills.

Nebraska Extension Almanac is a production of IANR Media and Nebraska Extension.

For more information on how your university is serving Nebraskans, go to extension.unl.edu.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]

Nebraska Extension Almanac.

On part one of this discussion of nutrition challenges for Calcalf Operations, extension specialist Carla Wilkie detailed some of the problems facing producers in Nebraska.

Extended drought and wildfires have made nutrition issues for producers very difficult.

On today's program, Carla continues to focus on helping producers make good decisions.

[Karla Wilke, Nebraska Extension Cow/Calf and Stocker Management Specialist]

When it comes to keeping their cows and cats fed by focusing on early weaning.

So if we do early wean, then we take lactation away from that cow.

We literally drop her energy requirements in half.

So that makes what we feed her to get her through the winter much easier now because at this point, hopefully she's bred, but she's only 2nd trimester, um, no lactation.

She's got a very low energy requirement.

And so we could possibly feed her in confinement of a fairly low energy dense ration, and we could maintain her through the winter fairly easily, um, with that.

Um, we could limit feed her some higher quality feeds, but not give her everything she wants and that could be a cheaper diet too, and confinement.

So that might be something to think about.

Um, just sending her out, farming her out, so to speak, to a custom lot.

Might be something that would pencil out because it would allow ranchers to save what little hay that they did manage to put up on their meadows or on their dry land acres, whatever they had.

Um, and and bring in supplement for after she goes into late gestation and then into lactation.

And so, it's really kind of a, um, moving pieces, puzzle pieces around on a board kind of, um, concept.

If I send her here and use these resources over here, I could save these resources and I could put them over here and this could make this fit down the road.

And so it's just really thinking through all those options and putting a pencil to that.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]

Carla says drought conditions have forced producers to look at unconventional means to keep their operation profitable.

[Karla Wilke, Nebraska Extension Cow/Calf and Stocker Management Specialist]

Lots of things are unconventional and lots of things are um, something they've never done before.

So a lot of people, For example, after the fires, they've had to send bread heifers out.

That was that was the easiest, you know, they didn't want to mess with the pairs, but they didn't have room for everybody.

So they sent the bread heifers somewhere.

Something to be, for them to be thinking through as if those are later bread, they would, the bull might just be, still be with them or the bull might just be being pulled.

It's very important that we not move those heifers for 30 days after the bull's pulled so that we get that embryo set, if we do a lot of transport and stress on those animals, we could lose that embryo.

And a lot of people don't think about that because it's this is not their normal system.

So they don't normally wouldn't normally be transporting at this point because they wouldn't have them somewhere, you know, in a, in a lot or something.

And so there's a lot of things that we're having to do this year that, as you mentioned, it's very unconventional.

It's very different from what they normally do.

And so, um, think through the system, every decision that we make now has an impact somewhere down the road, and we definitely need to do, um, some thinking about if I do this, how does it impact this?

But by the same token, if I don't do anything, what's it going to do down here?

And so sometimes the decision paralysis is a little overwhelming because we're not sure what to do.

But no decision is still a decision.

And no decision and just letting things play out is worse than our 2nd best decision.

So sometimes we're afraid because if we don't, if we do this and it wasn't the very best thing I should have done for these cows, it could still be better than just trying to let things play out in chaos.

So that would be my, that would be my advice, is, is make a plan and implement it because it's better than no plan.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]

For Nebraska Extension Almanac.

I'm Brad Mills.

Nebraska Extension Almanac is a production of IANR media, and Nebraska Extension.

For more information on how your university is serving Nebraskans, go to extension.unl.edu.