Livestock

BenHayQuality226 Transcript:

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac. On our previous program, extension educator Ben Beckman talked about how storage conditions play a huge part on the quality and shelf life of hay. He says exposure to weather, heat, and water can quickly spoil Hay's nutritional quality. On today's program, he begins by talking about how certain factors affect the aging and protein content of stored hay.

[Ben Beckman, Nebraska Extension Educator]
So if you weigh a bail at the same moisture, you know, that's always the critical point here and difficult to do, but if you weigh a bail, the same moisture content that you had initially when you harvested it.

And then if you left it outside for a season or a year and had it at the exact same moisture content and waited again, it's going to weigh less because that decomposition process released some of that energy as gas.

And so it's or leached it out through moisture or things like that.

And so we actually have less bail, we have lower energy content that is pretty typical across the board.

Now, when we look at things like crude protein content, things get a little bit more interesting, we should say.

Crude protein doesn't behave in exactly the same way.

Usually the biggest loss that we see in that is through leeching or through physical loss.

So like if we've gotten alfalfa bale, you know, leaf shatter, the leaves hold a lot of the protein content, and alfalfa, and so if we're moving those bales around, you know, we get that dust of of the leafs that have been pretty much pulverized, and that leads to a loss of protein content.

So we can lose some in that way.

But however, crude protein, as we measure it is a percent of the total amount of that bail.

And we just said that as a bale decomposes or weathers, it actually shrinks and we get, you know, less dry matter.

And so we can actually run into circumstances where we have less protein loss than we lose dry matter from the bail, and we can actually sometimes increase crude protein content, just because the total percentage of protein in that, and it's kind of counterintuitive, but the total percentage of protein hasn't really dropped that much compared to how much we've lost in dry matter and energy and things like that.

So crude protein can be a little bit different and interesting.

The one really big caveat to that is sometimes we can have heating.

So when that bail gets warm either through microbial activity or fungi or things like that, as it's decomposing, those proteins can be denatured.

And so we can run into a point where we basically get a browning reaction and the protein no longer is going to be able to be useful to the animal, but it's still there.

It's just in a different shape and form.

And so our typical protein test will pick it up and still count it as protein, but we have to do a heat damage protein test, basically, to show, yeah, they're here, but they're not usable for the animal to actually have during digestion and be useful to the animal.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
And says farmers should be aware of any problems like mold before feeding the cattle.

[Ben Beckman, Nebraska Extension Educator]
You know, when we think about how we use these bales, again, testing them is always going to be the best way to kind of determine quality.

If we've got something that's really well weathered, We do have a potential for having things like mold. You know, there's bacteria, a lot of fungi that are gonna be in the outer layer of those bales, just from the decomposition part.

And so need to keep an eye out.

You know, a lot of times we don't have things like mycotoxins or stuff show up, but if we do get some weird colors, always something to run a test for or have something that you're a little bit questionable about.

But a lot of times animals aren't going to really enjoy that hay, they might have some refusal from it, especially if we give them a chance to sort if we're feeding it by rolling that bailout or putting it into a feeder or something like that.

And so there's some trade-offs.

Yeah, they're not going to consume as much, but they're going to get the more high quality parts of it and actually utilize the better part of the veil.

So just how we feed that can be an important thing.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
To read the detailed article about this topic, go to extensions beef website at beef.unl.edu or download the entire interview on 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.
 

ConnorCattleMarkets26 Transcript:

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac.
The cattle market has been hitting historic highs recently, but is also facing a few serious issues this season, including a smaller herd, input costs, and feed shortages. Extension assistant educator Connor Beeler talks about these issues, and now producers can stay profitable.

[Connor Biehler, Extension Assistant Educator]
We currently have the lowest cattle numbers that we've had since the 1950s.

So with that, we've actually improved our technologies and genetics, so we can produce more beef per animal, but we still have tight supplies.

Um, you know, the drought hasn't really improved on the planes, and so the retention that we thought we were going to see.

We necessarily haven't seen quite as much of.

And I think with these fibers and the lack of forage out in Western Nebraska and parts of Kansas.

I think that's going to continue to increase these prices, you know.

We're not getting cattle across the Mexican border currently, which that's over a 1000000 head per year that we put on feed.

And so uh, feed lot space is uh, getting hard to fill and uh, trying to find those margins and uh, get those cattle at an affordable price to where you can put some uh, uh, some cost-effective gains on them.

I think converting traditional row crop acres into annual forges is a good risk management and profitability strategy.

It sounds like nitrogen still hard to come by.

And so these annual forges, they use about a 3rd of the nitrogen that traditional corn plants would probably use.

And so it's a good way to decrease your input costs and uh, taking a look at, you know, is there another way that we can put some gain on cattle or could we do a grazing lease if we're not particularly the cattle owners?

Um, several years ago, uh, the corn, when corn was up around $7, uh, we saw a lot of fields with uh, nice fences around them start to get tilled up and I think this year in particular with uh, maybe weaker corn prices than we've seen traditionally and improved prices of beef.

This could be a good way to increase your profits on a whole farm profitability scale.

I think the most important thing is taking a pencil, the paper, and looking at what your input costs for both systems could be, be that row crop production or forge production, and then pencil out your expected outputs as well.

And just kind of figure on a per acre basis where you can get more profit.

And also another thing to take a look at there would be the amount of time that you're going to be spending.

One thing a lot of producers don't do is they don't pay themselves for their time.

They just look at the bottom line of the actual input costs.

So if this system is less expensive, and it requires less input of labor.

I think it's definitely a valuable thing to take into consideration.

The best time to plant this forge is going to be mid-May to early June, that time frame.

And then so you're looking at about 30 to 45 days to where it's actually established enough to where you can graze it on the sorghum sedan varieties, you're going to want to wait until they're at least 18 inches tall.

Prior to that, there's going to be some prussic acid that can cause some toxicities to the cattle.

Other varieties that are going to produce less forage, such as a pearl millet maybe.

You can start grazing those at about a 12 to 18 inch range.

One thing I would say the producers should consider in these current times is that these high costs, reward, low input costs.

So, uh, if you can reduce that cost again and reduce your feeding of harvested or stored feeds, I think that's a good way to get ahead of this curve and put lower uh, costs again on these cattle.

[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.
 

BenHayQuality26 Transcript:

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac. Is older, stored hay, poor quality than more recently harvested hay? Maybe, but it's not the age that is the question here, but the storage conditions, according to extension educator Ben Beckman. He says proper storage can help maintain feed quality of hay for an extended period of time.

[Ben Beckman, Nebraska Extension Educator]
Is when we start to really dive into the studies that have been done looking at hay quality and looking at impact of storage on, hey, it's not the age of the hay, it's the weathering, and basically the decomposition of the hay that's really affecting the quality.

When we're putting up hay, we are essentially trying to stop the clock on decomposition.

Whenever we're putting up a forage, you know, whether that's silage, you know, in that case, we're putting into an amaerobic state, and stopping microbes from decomposing, when we do hay, we're drying it out, getting it to a point where the moisture content is solo, that microbes are no longer going to be decomposing it like they would if we just let that grass or alfalfa or whatever we have in that bale out in the natural environment and just left it spread out.

And so how we have those microbes continued to be stopping, whether we get moisture back onto that bail and they start to decompose again, or whether we have that bail in a totally, you know, dry and isolated condition, really makes a difference when it comes to what the quality of that is versus exactly how long that bail's been there for.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Ben says there are different storage techniques that will help hay remain viable and nutritious for quite some time.

[Ben Beckman, Nebraska Extension Educator]
We're trying to get the hay to a dry point so microbes can no longer be decomposing.

And so the best and ultimately top storage method when we're looking at ways to store haze to, you know, put it inside under under a roof and keep it from getting any moisture on it at all.

And you can see that, you know, if you know anybody that puts up really high quality alfalfa hay a lot of times, you know, they do have a storage shed and, you know, they're keeping it a fair distance so they can get airflow through that and keep those bales, you know, and humid conditions dried out still, you know, they're basically regulating the moisture around those hay bales.

The type of bale that we have makes a big difference.

Our large squares really need to be protected a lot more, say like a round bail would be because those squares don't have that outer covering and the way that they're put together, moisture penetrates into them a lot easier than they do in a round bail.

And even when we're looking at round bales, the difference between grass hay and alfalfa hay and round bale is different as well, and how that sheds water and keeps precipitation from coming into it.

So basically, the big thing is how can we keep precipitation or moisture or anything from getting into that bail, whether it's putting it under storage, putting a tarp over it and keeping it dry that way, and then also keeping it up off the ground, if we can do that as well, so we don't get moisture wicking up into the bail from the bottom.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
One of the biggest spoilers of baled hay is moisture. Ben says bales exposed to weathering will quickly lose quality.

[Ben Beckman, Nebraska Extension Educator]
Um, so there's a lot of different things that tend to happen.

The 1st thing that we usually look at is TDN or measure of energy.

And that really has to do with the soluble carbohydrates that are locked in those plants.

And when the animal eats that and it's either going through the gutter, the rumen, you know, depending on what sort of animal's eating it, that's where a lot of those energy compounds are getting released from.

But that's also what the microbes are using for energy as well as, as, you know, they're growing and basically decomposing that bail.

And so TDN is usually where we see pretty steady drop when we have a bale that's exposed to weathering.

So as soon as we get moisture in their microbes, fungi, those sorts of things start to become active again and they start to use those soluble carbohydrates as energy sources, and so that energy level in those bales starts to drop.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Stay tuned to future almanac programs where Ben continues this discussion about, hey, quality, to read the detailed article about this topic, go to extension's beef website at beef.unl.edu, or download the entire interview on 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, Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac.

Understanding the principles of vaccination are critical when choosing what product to use, when to use them, and how to ensure the animals get the most benefit. Extension beef educator Lindsay Waechter Mead talks about factors to consider when establishing vaccination protocols for cattle on today's almanac.

[Lindsay Waechter Mead, Extension Beef Educator]
The 1st thing to do would be to have a conversation with your veterinarian, and I think that that's crucial for any plan.

I mean, I'm always gonna promote that for sure, but especially when you're talking about vaccinations.

Because it's really important to remember that vaccines are not one size fits all and the protocol that maybe your cousin has, you know, in a different state or even your neighbor that's like 5 miles down the road may not fit what you need.

And so, starting out before you even think about what vaccines to use.

Um, you know, talk to your veterinarian and discuss some issues that maybe you've had in the past.

Are there certain diseases or conditions that you're really trying to prevent against?

Like have you had problems before?

And even year to year is different.

And so, maybe you had something last year that was new or maybe you've been vaccinating for something that you haven't seen in a long time.

And so, I mean, that could be because of the vaccinations, but again, it may be because the risk isn't quite as high.

And so starting that out with having that valid veterinary client patient relationship is going to really get you started on the right foot.

So, I like to refer to vaccination, like an insurance policy.

So a vaccine is used to reduce risk of disease.

So just like we buy insurance to protect from a tornado or, you know, hail for our house.

A vaccine is going to help to try to prevent any sort of risk that that animal might be exposed to.

So it's not, it's important to remember, it doesn't 100% prevent disease.

And it's, and not necessarily even just like in your herd.

There are animals that will react differently to a vaccination.

So each animal might create a different immune response across your entire herd.

So, remembering that, I think is good, just to kind of give you an upfront.

Now, vaccinations, they go through, you know, research trials and they're going to see how well they are, how, how effective they work and how long the duration works and what type of immunity response those animals get.

And so that also helps lead us in, you know, which vaccine we're going to use.

And there's lots of different options.

I'm not even just talking about brands, but just, you know, maybe route of giving the vaccine or um, what type of pathogen that's inside of it and and what kind of reaction are we going to get in our animals?

So keeping that in mind is going to be good to kind of help you assess on the protocol that you get started to go with.

And then also, the way that the immune system works.

So you think about you get the vaccination and the body recognizes that as something that's not normal.

And so the immune system will start to look at that and say, okay, I need to kind of replicate this and create protection for the next time that I see it.

And so you want to make sure that that immune system is ready to go.

So there's some things that might affect how well the immune system will work, and one of those would be illness.

So if your body is already fighting off something.

So just like if we, If we were sick and we had a fever, maybe we were fighting off influenza, it probably wouldn't be the best time to get an influenza vaccination because your body is already fighting pretty hard to protect itself from what's going on.

And then if you add on another vaccine on top of it.

That might be where you're not going to get the reaction that you would want.

So it's think about your immune system is already kind of preoccupied with the current issue and so you want to make sure that you're vaccinating healthy animals.

So that's really important, especially when we talk about, I mean, at branding time for sure, you know, if you would have somebody that's really sick with scours or you've got maybe an early respiratory thing, you might want to hold off on vaccinating that cap at that time.

And obviously a big time would be like during weaning when we have high stress events, we want to try and decrease the amount of that stress because that also will affect how well the immune system reacts.

So it's just like we want to make sure that the animal is nice and calm and healthy so that it can get the best reaction from that vaccination.

[Brad Mills, 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.

[Brad Mills Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac.
Dry conditions this fall and winter has led to some poor pasture conditions, and the unfortunate wildfires have damaged 1000s of acres. Some ranchers will be faced with the fact that breeding season might have to be done in confinement. Extension specialist Karla Wilkie says, there's a few key principles that might help you have a successful breeding season.

[Karla Wilke, Extension Specialist]
If we do have to do the breeding season in confinement.

I think one of the 1st things to think about is that it doesn't have to be in a feed lot.

It could be. On a fallow ground or a residue field or a pasture trap, something of that nature, just not out in the in normal pastures, large areas that we usually use, and we may be feeding them a confinement diet, and if that's the case, then that feeding space needs to be about 2 feet per cow, or bull, and then about a foot for the cavs that are in there with them.

This is especially true if we're trying to use kind of a nutrient dense. Diet so that we can limit, feed them a little bit and not go through so much feed.

So feeding space becomes very important so that we don't have lost cows and bulls pushing more timid ones around and those not getting enough feed and then maybe not cycling well because they're short on feed.

So, that's something to think about.

Minimum.

Square footage is usually around 500 square feet, prepare is recommended.

If you have a little more than that, it's great, but um, gets kind of tight if we go under that.

And then an area for calves where they can loaf and get away from the cow and bowl activity of breeding and um, that helps kind of reduce pathogen load exposure when they have a little area where they can kind of get away from everybody.

This may be some opportunity to provide shade or wind protection for the calves as well.

So housing considerations like that can be something to be thinking about if this is something we're going to have to do.

[Brad Mills, Host]
Typically, cattle have good feed options this time of year, but Dr. Wilkie points out that might need some nutrition management if in confinement.

[Karla Wilke, Extension Specialist]
So the lactating cow has a huge energy drain that the just gestating cow, you know, pregnant cow that doesn't have a baby already on her has a much lower need than that cow that's lactating.

That's a huge energy drain due to lactation.

And what happens to some producers is they, they just draw out the diet that they are feeding the cows during gestation, when the cows are already going into lactation because they don't have anywhere to go with them for green grass, and they, Understand that lactation requires more energy, and so maybe they up the fee a little bit, but they don't realize how much lactation increases that need.

And so the cow can begin to pull on her own body reserves of fat to mobilize enough energy to meet the lactation needs of that for that calf.

And then she begins to draw herself down and she doesn't cycle.

And so then I've had people tell me, well, breeding and confinement is just a disaster.

And that might be part of what they ran into, was just that lack of understanding of how much energy lactation requires.

And so, you know, UNL extension is is happy to help people develop those diets with the resources they have, but it's critically important that lush green grass quality is is what we're striving for to get in that cow in a diet that we're actually mixing for her.

And some of that's true for the bulls as well.

They're much bigger in size usually than the cows.

And so their maintenance requirement is more.

And then younger bulls are also growing.

And so again, when they're out on grass, they're maybe able to get that energy need, but if we are the ones that are having to provide it for them, then we have to make sure that the diet that we're mixing and feeding them meets their needs as well.

And then the intake of the calf is something to consider because normally, the calf would be grazing grass and getting their feed that's in addition to milk from that and now it would be on us to provide.

[Brad Mills, Host]
For more details on this topic, please visit the beefwatch website at beef.unl.edu. And to hear the entire interview, you can download it 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.

Recent wildfires in Nebraska have taken their toll on farmland, rural communities as well as livestock. On today's program, 2 veterinarians from Kansas, who've had experience in helping cattle and other livestock recover from problems from wildfires, discuss key factors to recovery. To start the show, Dr. Randall Spare talks about how wildfire damage is different for every farm operation.

I think the thing that we have to understand is it's a complex issue and no operation is the same.

[Dr. Randall Spare, Kansas Veterinarian]
Each operation is going to handle this differently.

Some need more help than others, but as we assess the cattle, end up, it's an ongoing assessment, but, Obviously, there's those cattle that succumb to it, to the fire and they're dead.

There's cattle that have been hurt, but still walking around, and uh, Than those cattle that happen to be in a location where they weren't hurt.

Major damages that would occur that with cattle still alive or burnt hides and more importantly, probably the feet that have gotten so hot.

And uh, initially there may not, may not be any separation at the coronary band that's obvious.

But those are issues that can occur either from two, three, four, five, 6 days after the fire, they appear to be normal, but then they're start to become lame and they, they might be not able to get around and then if you look down and look at their feet, there's a separation at the cornel band.

Also, the udders are a problem.

Those cows that have been burnt, but they're walking around, they're udders.

I don't know any other way, but you just got to almost feel each one of those to see if they're being damaged.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Dr. Travis McCarty focuses on how experience can be critical to understanding what cattle are going through and have the ability to help them recover.

[Dr. Travis McCarty, Kansas Veterinarian]
You know, the beginning, you're just triaging through an emergency, right?

Like you said, there's those dead cows that succumb, unfortunately.

Then you got then you got a welfare situation.

And depending on how large the herd is, that could be an issue of trying to find ammunition to be able to put those animals down.

And once you get through that, then like Dr. Stewart is talking about, you need to examine feet and others are your biggest things.

Eyes would be maybe tertiary, beyond that, but, you know, one of the things, you mentioned the Anderson Creek fire and the Starbucks fire, we learned some pretty good lessons in my opinion, Doc.

We tried some animals and maybe we thought, oh, maybe we'll be okay.

And and those were maybe some mistakes.

And the mistakes I'm talking about is like those cornery bands.

They may look fine today.

Here you are a week out from your fire, but they may look fine today.

But they may not be.

So, so getting getting a look at them and you're right.

Sometimes our facilities burnt down.

So how can we actually physically get them done?

And that's where working with your neighbors, finding people that have, you know, maybe get you like a wheel corrals or something where you can handle those cow and get a good look at them today.

This is a good time right now to get a good look at those animals.

And finally, you know, everyone gets really worried about smoke inhalation.

And I'm not going to downplay smoke inhalation.

You know, that respiratory track does a pretty good job of, uh, of clearance of that smoke, and I've been pretty amazed by the, just how infrequent, uh, smoke inhalation is a, my, my order as a list of a problem, so to speak.

And it's not as bad as these burns we're talking about.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Stay tuned to Extension Almanac for future updates on farm and community recovery after the wildfires. 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.