Livestock

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac. On a recent almanac program, Dr. Pedro Fontes from the University of Georgia, shared some interesting research data that suggested overconditioned bulls, could have a negative impact on their fertility. On today's program, he points out previous research that is pointed to a cow's conditioning could impact embryo development.

[Pedro Fontes, Associate Professor, University of Georgia]
But current research suggests that bull's condition and nutrition could affect that development as well.

We know that as you go around the country, right?

There's several situations where we see bulls potentially getting a little bit more overconditioned, more on the overconditioned side.

So getting a lot of questions on that, that kind of drew my interest on potentially trying to understand what is that?

Is there really an association between both getting overconditioned and potentially some detrimental effects on both fertility and so forth?

So we've been working on that area for about 4 to 5 years now.

And I think we generated some interesting data to help producers make some informed decisions as we think about both development.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Pedro says that bull body condition is critical to optimal breeding, but says there's a negative impact if they are overconditioned.

[Pedro Fontes, Associate Professor, University of Georgia]
So when we started our work here, we 1st did, we call a somewhat of an observational study, where we go out there and we collect BSE records from different bowl development programs, across the southeast, and basically, we were initially asking ourselves, is there any association between semen parameters and bowl overcondition, right?

Let's call it, let's call it overcondition for now.

But the way we approach this, is we got this large data set, and with BSE's records, and we also had carcassotrasound data on those bowls.

And what we were able to do is sort those balls based on the amount of subcultaneous back fat that they had in their car cuts ultrasound.

And that's when we initially started seeing those associations, right?

We noticed that as subcultaneous back fat thickness increase in the carcass ultrasound, we noticed that the morphology defects in the breeding soundness exam also gradually increase as well.

And one of the interesting things that we notice is that if you look at the balls that were in the top 10 or 20% of our population of balls in the study for subcultaneous back fat thickness, those balls were in fact, they had greater probability of failing their BSCs.

So that was the initial evidence that we were able to see that association and then as you start going into the literature.

There's quite a lot of research coming out of Canada and the late 90s exploring that idea of bowover condition that supports this concept that when both get over conditioned.

We have an increase in spur morphology defects.

And then more recently, we've been looking into a little bit further, potentially an effect of the bone nutritional program, not only on the ability of that sperm to move or how that sperm looks in a morphology examination, but also the ability of that sperm to fertilize an o side, an egg, right?

And generate a healthy embryo that could hopefully create a pregnancy.

And what's interesting is that since we started working on those post-filization events, we also saw a negative impact of bulls being overconditioned.

So we get those balls over condition within a control, experimental setting, and then we collect balls, collected balls and run these balls in collaboration with the University of Florida.

Right now we have about 3 experiments exploring that.

We run those both through an IVF routine.

And what we see is that ember production goes down.

When we use those bulls that are overconditioned.

And the way we interpret this is that maybe we're not only influencing the sperm parameters itself, but once that sperm fertilizes an egg, fertilizes an other side, the ability of the eroside should develop into a healthy embryo is impaired by the sire diet.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Dr. Fontes presented more information and research results on this topic, on a recent 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.

Despite increases in beef prices at the grocery store, Americans still aren't slowing down their purchases. Nebraska extension educator Alfredo Deaconstanzo says, in fact, consumers have spent more on beef than they have in the past decade. He talks about how beef still has a bright future and why.

[Alfredo DiConstanzo, Nebraska Extension Educator]
As you indicate that that analysis tells us that beef and the form of roast, uh, steaks and ground beef has increased from 50 to 54% since uh, 2016.

That's one segment of those surveys from the same US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

On the other hand, there is a nice set, as I said, before that tracks what individual, what households, and I'll explain what a household is in a minute, spend on beef.

A household, by the way, is defined by 2.4 people, which is obviously resulting from the survey.

So imagine, you know, a regular home with mom and dad and a child pretty much is kind of what that says, but of course, has to take into consideration single family homes, et cetera.

And this cuts across the demographics, right?

We're not looking at any backgrounds or anything, just across the board, American people that were interviewed, and by the way, the survey tracks, 1000000 people a year, which I think is really good.

It's a good basis on where to base or information.

So, from about the most recent data, unfortunately, is 2024.

The previous data that I looked at was 2016 and at that time, a household spend and remember what I'm saying, a household spend $244.16.

And in 2024.

The same household spend $408 a year on beef.

This is at home and away purchases, which is interesting because if you remember the press and the media, saying how expensive beef has become, and it has.

It's just that on a yearly basis, it doesn't impact a house, American household to a degree any more than 400, perhaps the 2025 figure will come back to $500 a year.

And that's one of the shocking things and when reviewing these data that, uh, We talk on one end that prices have increased.

But, you know, the consumption is still at only $400 in 2024.

If you take just the price of beef increases between 16 and 24 versus what the American house will spend between 16 and 24, And the American house will spend $164 more in 2024 than they did in 2016.

This is way more than than beef increased in price.

So that has to say that these people are eating way more beef.

And when you calculate that back, and this is the fun part about this article is that, and this is not the way we calculate generally the demand in America.

Demand is calculated in America by simply dividing the number of carcass pounds available a year by the population.

This figure that we're talking about here reflects that in 2016, uh, by using the the prices that the bureau reported, in 2016, Americans were consuming £42 of beef in a household.

And now they're consuming £51 in 2024.

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

To hear the entire interview, go to beef.unl.edu or download from Apple Podcasts or Spotify or Nebraska Extension Almanac. 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. Research being done at the University of Georgia may change the entire conversation when it comes to fertility in bulls. University of Georgia Associate Professor Dr. Pedro Fontes says most of the fertility research has focused on cows, so his team is looking more closely at bull overconditioning, and how that impacts reproductive results.

[Pedro Fontes, Associate Professor, University of Georgia]
We have traditionally thought about the sperm, right?

Or the bull as this little DNA bullet, right, that travels through the female reproductive track, fertilizes the egg, and then the responsibility of the bull or the role of the bull, the mayo is done.

Right?

But the reality is what we've been learning over the last 15 to 20 years is that the sperm actually carries quite a lot of important little molecular cues that will help that other side to transition from an other side into a developing embryo.

So the male plays a pretty important role in early embryonic development.

And, you know, for sit stock producers, they're listening to us or for folks that are involved in the Amber transfer industry, right?

You probably see that when you're utilizing a given sire in an IVF routine, right?

Sometimes there's some bowls that don't do as well in an IVF setting, as we would expect, and that could be associated with some of those molecular cues that those sperm cells are carrying.

So there's a lot of people trying to understand what those are and how they work.

And what we've been focusing on is that idea of the nutritional program, right?

So what can we do from a nutrition standpoint?

In other words, what we're doing from a nutrition standpoint, is it influencing the ability, the ability of that sperm cell to elicit those events, they're biologically important for those embryos to form, and hopefully establish a successful pregnancy?

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Pedro says the research is focused on bull body conditioning and how in some circumstances could negatively affect fertility.

[Pedro Fontes, Associate Professor, University of Georgia]
We look at the data set in a couple different ways.

So what we did is we sort those bulls and we ranked them based on the amount of sepcotainous backfatch, and we used 2 different thresholds.

So 1st we compare, we use what we call a 10% threshold or a 20% threshold.

Now, all that means is we compare the fertility of bows that would rank in the top 10% for subcontainous backfatch against the rest of the bows in that study, or we rank those balls based on a 20% threshold and compare with the rest of the balls in that study.

And what we saw is that regardless of those shoe rankings, those balls are in the top 20% for subcutaneous back fat thickness, they did worse on their breeding sonus exam.

So then the natural quest is like, wow, but how much is too much, right?

So when we look at that data set specifically, we usually start seeing more defects from a spermorphology standpoint when those balls are going through their breeding sound as exam, when their subcultaneous back fat thickness is 0.55 inches or more.

So, for folks that are listening and they might have, you know, be doing their earling, uh, carcass ultrasound and their bows are developing.

So that's that's a good number to maybe take a look at.

So take a look at your data set, see how many of your bowls are above that threshold.

And you notice there is not a lot of them. Which is the good side of the story.

Sometimes I go there and present this data Iran to producers and people get really worry about it.

One of the things that I always try to convey is that for us, you see those detrimental effects on fertility, those bowls really have to be on the overconditioned side of things, but really overconditioned.

We're talking about bowls there with the body condition score of 7 or more.

And we know those bulls are out there, right?

But if you're managing your bulls in a body condition score of six, um, and you have access, your carcass ultrasound data, you can also take a look at the carcass ultrasound data and use that .5 threshold to see where you are from an overconditioning standpoint and try to gauge your nutritional program based on that to avoid those fertility issues.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Stay tuned to future almanac programs where Dr. Fontius explores other issues and research findings on bull fertility.  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.

If you've wondered if virtual fencing would work on your operation, you should make plans to take a bus tour sponsored by Nebraska extension, coming up June 16th and 17th. Extension specialist Yiji Ziong says the tour will help producers check out different operations and uses for virtual fencing.

[Yijie Ziong, Nebraska Extension Precision Livestock Specialist]
So we're going to have date one is pretty much just site visits, and um, it is Tuesday, June 16th to Wednesday, June 17th on day one, Tuesday, and we're going to visit a rolling prairie ranch at Phil, Missouri, and this sites utilize halter virtual funds colors, and that is the 1st stop, and then we will transition and move to the mud rich wrench in.

Red Oak, Iowa, and they're using no fence virtual fence colors, and both of those producers are going to really openly share their experience of using these 2 specific products and share what have worked really well for them and what haven't worked out and they learn from their experience.

And then on day two, one day, we will start with eastern Nebraska, research extension and education center, where we will demonstrate a shepherd, and as well as halter virtual funds collars, and see how we can use that for more intensive and smaller scale grazing situations.

And after that, we will have a classroom session and just talk about general best practices for grazing management, as well as bringing up a panel discussion evolving all the industry representatives as well as producers, researchers, and extension educators to openly talk about questions surrounding this and also summarize what we have learned from the site visits.

So I think this is a really, really exciting opportunity and really hoping that we can have a fruitful tour and bringing events for our producers.

As a researcher, we have some targeted questions, we want to answer, and being benefited from having extension appointment is that I often got my research question generated from producer's question.

So, for example, we've been asked about different situations and different increase from producers.

Can we manage multiple groups in the same pasture for some really intensive grazing management and potentially for leading follower system like that.

And we've done that with the Gallagher system and the results was really promising it works.

And then some other producers from the sandhills area and probably our listeners understand the situation they're facing.

So you're facing really, really big terrain with rolling hills, and then also like it depends on what you want to do with your ranch management, and the product will vary, right?

So, there are uh, products are designed for really extensive management and the, with the primary goal is to contain them, or knowing where they're grazing at, but there's also other products are more designed for very, very intensive, grazing management, and with the target at benefiting your soil, health, and then grazing management, and also the forge in vegetation. Management.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Be sure to take this virtual fence tour for ideas on how you might be able to use this technology in your operation. Please register by Tuesday, June 9th by going to go.unl.edu slash bf underscore bus tour, which is one word. Once again, that's go.unl.edu slash VF underscore bus tour. The cost is $200, which includes transportation, lodging, and lunches. For Nebraska Extension Almanac, I'm Brad Mills.
Nebraska Extension Almanac is a production of IANR, 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 almanac program, extension specialist Mary Dornowski talked about some of the benefits of grazing summer annual Sudan grass. On today's program, shall detail some of the advantages and disadvantages of grazing annuals versus perennials.

[Mary Drewnowski, Nebraska Beef Specialist]
On grazing all annuals.

Uh, when you think it's ready or when you think it's going to be ready, say in a few days, it's ready.

Oh, that's the 1st one, like, don't delay, just go.

The other one is you typically with perennials, right?

You really need to be thinking about, what am I doing to my root reserves?

Am I ensuring that that plant is going to be be able to make it and is going to maintain?

And so, you know, you want to be conservative about how much you take off?

They talk about take half, leave, half.

Throw all that out the window with annuals.

These guys are a little bit different in terms of what they're thinking about, right?

I mean, if you want to say plants think.

So a perennial, it wants to survive, right?

And then it wants to reproduce, if it can.

Annuals are going to go to sea.

That is their whole job, right?

And so one of our biggest challenges is that the quality declines as the plant matures and annuals want to mature rapidly.

Your grazing management will dictate how high of quality that forage will be.

And so you're actually sometimes better off, especially early on, to maybe go through and hit some of the field hard if you have enough animals to do so.

That's why I like to split it up.

Because if you can keep it to where you actually maybe even set it back a little bit so that as you move on, it's not getting away from you the next time, it actually helps with the grazing management.

So I actually graze fairly severely when I am initially grazing some of my annuals, because I know that in the end, that's going to keep that from getting too mature on me.

And so that's one of the things that I think is a little bit different in terms of the mentality.

And I think, uh, I've had several, including, uh, some of my students who, when they 1st go out and they see how I'm suggesting to graze, they kind of look at me like I'm crazy.

Eventually, they get on board and they understand, especially when they see the pastures that maybe we move to the next one because we thought, oh, the next one is really needs to get on it because it has too much forage and it's getting mature, and so we don't graze the one as hard as we should.

Then what happens is you have some plants. That actually get mature in other plants, right, that got grazed, and then the cattle only eat the plants that got grazed, and it's almost magnified like a 100 fold in annual systems than in perennial systems.

One of the risk of grazing Sudan grass is a chance of prussic acid in the plant.

Mary talks about minimizing the risk of cattle grazing on high concentrate oppressic acid.

Prussic acid happens really in 2 situations, right?

One is the very immature plant has a prussic acid risk and it is really, really high risk when you talk about sorghum.

And sorghum sedan is kind of in between, like we tell you never to graze sorghum until it's 2 foot tall, right?

And Sorum Sedan usually, that's the same suggestion.

But for sedan grass, it still has that risk, but it's lower, and in fact, we tell you that, um, you can graze it at 15 inches.

So, one of the things it's not about like how far down you graze it, like once the plant gets above 15 inches.

You can graze it down to the ground and that's fine.

That's one of the questions I sometimes get.

It is just about how young the plant is, if that makes sense.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Today's program was a portion of an interview 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 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. Tail flicking, skin twitching, and other defensive behaviors by pastured animals could mean an infestation of stable flies. Extension educator Dave Boxler, talks about prevention and control of stable flies on today's almanac.

[Dave Boxler, Nebraska Extension Educator]
Well, historically, they've been with us for a number of years, actually 100s of years. But were primarily affecting Feedlot and dairy cattle up until the early 1980s.

And there was a change in how we handled, hey, that occurred in the early 19 Hades, where we went to a round bale, and consequently created a round bale feeder also.

And it's interesting because when cattle are fed, especially in overwintering sites.

There's a lot of spillage of this material to the outside that never gets consumed because it gets trampled on by cattle and urinated on, defecated on, and you have actually the perfect ingredients for stable fly larval production.

The limiting factor when it comes to stable fly larval development is moisture.

And earlier this year in Nebraska, we were very short of moisture.

Well, in the last 7 to 10 days, that has certainly changed across the state.

And I initially thought that we weren't going to see a major issue this year with the pastured cattle, but that's all changed based on the last weather event that we've had.

So we have the moisture in place.

So we have all the ingredients available for stable flies.

The stable fly is a blood feeding fly, both male and female of the species take a blood meal, and usually it's twice a day.

So during that process, the blood meal usually takes anywhere from 3 to 5 minutes to complete.

So the fly is very persistent in getting that blood mill taken.

Once it's completed its feeding, it will fly away off of the amyl. To an area where it's usually in the shade where it can digest that blood.

So it's on the animal and then off the animal, which makes it difficult for treating or trying to control the population on the animal.

You are typical fly methodology or treatments that we've used for hornfly, do not necessarily work that effectively against the stable fly because of its behavior out in the pasture settings.

So, there are some traps available that are fairly effective, but it does take some effort to get them placed safely.

Usually we like to place them close to where the cattle will come to water.

But they do have to be protected from the animals because the animals are very curious and will cause some physical damage to it.

There are 2 traps available.

Uh, one is the star bar bite free trap, sold by central life sciences.

And the other is a nightstick trap that is sold by a company called Bug Jammer.

And they both will attract stable flies and capture them.

We've also looked at spray applications to reduce the populations on the cattle.

A number of years ago, I did a study using a misblower type sprayer that is very commonly used in the dairy and the feedlot industry.

That's pretty effective in that setting.

But we decided to see how effective we could manage stable fly numbers on pastured cattle, making those applications.

And this is where you actually take the sprayer in a pickup or on a flatbed out into the pasture and spray the cattle in the pasture.

And this was a 3 year study and we saw a significant reduction in fly numbers between the untreated group and the treated group.

So that is a methodology that has been picked up by a number of producers in Nebraska.

It's labor intensive, as with a lot of applications, and there's a bit of investment on the monetary side.

[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.
 

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Nebraska Extension Almanac. Extension specialist Mary Dronowski says sedan grass can be a great option for summer grazing. She says it stands up well due to its tendency for better regrowth after grazing, and it thrives during the hot summer months.

[Mary Drewnoski, Nebraska Extension Beef Specialist]
Let's talk a little bit about sedan grass itself.

So we said need summer grazing.

And sedan grass is a warm season, and it's actually one of the parents of probably the warm season grass annual grass that most people are familiar with, sorghum sedan, right?

This is different, just to be clear.

It's actually one of the things that sorghum sedan is the cross of.

So it's sorghum and then sedan grasses crossed to get sorghum sedan.

So that's important because sedan grass, it looks a lot like sorghum sedan, but it has some differences that is really useful from the grazing perspective.

And one of those is that it yields a little less if you're trying to just ton it out for hay, but it regrows better after grazing.

So on a grazing situation, we typically see actually a little bit more grazing from it than sorghum sedan.

And there's kind of a little bit of a bonus in that it's lower prussic acid.

So it has a little bit less risk when you're grazing those smaller plants.

So we still tell people to wait till it's 15 inches before you turn out, and there are actually varieties that are even lower risk versus others.

And so the one I've been using is Piper.

It's from the 70s people.

So this is nothing new.

But Piper, uh, sedan grass does a really nice job of, of regrowing after grazing, and even when the cattle step on it, it seems to be able to recover, you can sometimes have stems that almost look shattered and yet they're still growing and being productive, which is pretty cool.

So we've been actually putting incident grass after rye.

And so we've been grazing rye until, well, until right now, until the end of May, and then we'll kill the rye out and we'll plant sedan grass.

So just get an idea of the timing.

We're kind of planting it a little bit later, then maybe some people would because we're trying to get the most used out of our winter annual.

So we're planning it now, and then it's usually ready to graze at 30 to 40 days.

Sometimes, actually 40 days is too long.

It gets going and it can grow really, really fast.

So sometimes at 40 days it's 5 foot tall.

Just to tell you.

But what we've been doing is we actually been grazing it both with uh, cow calf pears and with stalker calves.

So both of those classes of cattle, we grazed on the rye 1st and then we took them off.

We took them over to perennial pastures.

So in our case, smooth broom grass, let them graze for that month to 40 days and then came back to our annual field.

So, with the sedan grass.

Honestly, with all annuals, I suggest you rotationally grace.

I realize it's a lot of work to put up fences in a crop field, but I think it is more than worth it to go ahead and divide it up into quarters and and be able to rotationally grace because your whole goal with annuals is to keep them vegetative.

So keep them young and keep them growing quickly and keep them very high quality.

And you can do it, and cattle will perform really well.

In fact, we did peak lactation cows who we were breeding out on the sedan grass, and they maintained condition, and their cabs gained actually £2.5 a day.

So they had, like, they were started out about 70 days of age.

And we went um, for uh, about 70 days uh, on the grazing.

And so those cabs gained actually about £4 more than calves who were actually on cows out on our perennial pasture.

So the quality is really good.

The stalker calves are heavier when they went out.

Um, they were actually 880 pounds at turnout, I know, crazy.

So, turnout's really July 1st time frame, just to have everybody on the same page, and they gained about one. £6 a day.

So really good quality stuff

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Today's program was a portion of an interview 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 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 critical needs for beef cattle is adequate access to water. During this time of year when ranchers are beginning to turn out cattle on the past year, that access is even more critical. Nebraska extension livestock educator, Troy Walz, talks about the importance of water for cattle on today's almanac.

[Troy Walz, Nebraska Extension Livestock Educator]
You never really understand the importance till you don't have it.

And then, 0 my gosh, you have to struggle to get those cattle water.

And we always want to think about water quantity as one thing, but we also have to think about that water quality.

Because if the water isn't any good, the cattle aren't going to drink it.

So we have to keep that in mind as well.

And when we think about that quantity, Aaron.

Other thing, I'd like to remind people is, you know, if you have 200 head of cattle and you just have a small tank, they're going to drink it all out very quickly.

So you need to be thinking about how quickly you're going to get that tank full or how big your tank is so you can handle the capacity that is needed to water your cattle.

So as we think about what a cow needs, those general guidelines is that a lactating cow is going to need 2 gallons of water for £100 of body weight per day for her.

So as we think about that, so that, again, that lactating count eats 2 gallons of water per £100.

And if we think about a dry cow or a bowl, they need one to one. 5 gallons of water per £100 of body weight per day.

And we base this on the nutrient requires of beef cattle that came out in 2016.

So in the other consideration, we always need to think about is that environmental temperature.

The cattle are just like we are when it's hot or out, we need more water.

So we always have to keep that in mind as well.

But yes, when we're out grazing lush grass, we know that that grass is probably only 10% dry matter, so it's probably upwards of 90% moisture, so they're getting a lot of moisture or water when they're grazing that lush forage, whatever that is out there.

And that compares to a time in the winter when we're feeding those cattle dry hay, that's only 10% moisture.

So it will affect the amount of water that they need.

But but always have it in your mind that.

Those numbers that I told you that a cow or dry, whether she's lactating or dry is going to need, always try to have that much water available for them because you just never quite know for sure.

The other thing to think about is silage.

We know that silage is, 50 to 60% moisture as well.

So for feeding lots of silage.

They're getting some moisture with that too.

And also, I guess, as I talked about needs.

We never want to forget that baby calf out there.

Calves do get some water from milk, but they also drink water and we want calves to gain, so we want them to be able to reach the tank, so we need to make sure that we have our tanks banked or grade it, so the calves can reach the water as well.

And I guess that goes too, that we want them to be drinking fresh water because we want those calves to gain well.

And if there, there's been some studies, research out there that shows that calves are, that are drinking from pawns, don't gain as well as calves that are drinking from fresh water.

As we think about our windmills too.

We going to have some days of doldrums in the summer where that wind isn't going to blow.

So we need to make sure we have some type of backup, whether it's for a windmill with a pump jack or maybe we have a solar well somewhere that we can have cat or water for our cattle.

And 2 to your point where the cows drink it down 1st and if the calf doesn't get a drink and the mom already had her fill, she's ready to go out and graze again, so the calf is just going to follow along.

And so we know that calf is not going to be able to.

He's going to go with his mom and not get that drink for that day until she comes back in.

And it could be the same scenario again.

So yes, we want that recharge or that capacity for that wad of water so those calves can have a drink.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Today's program was a portion 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. 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 a recent program, Nebraska extension specialist, Brad Lubin, talked about how the beef industry was a bright spot in agriculture, as opposed to how crop producers are facing challenges. On today's program, Brad focuses on how trade policies affect both the producer and the consumer.

[Brad Lubben, Nebraska Extension Ag Policy Specialist]
It is the quintessential question about trade and what's the benefit of trade.

And as a trade economist or as an economist studying trade policy issues, I would often characterize trade and the benefits of trade are fundamentally about consumers.

Consumers benefit from having new products or more products available and price competitiveness and so forth.

Trade politics tend to be about producers.

And it's supporting or protecting production, resources, and investments from competition from elsewhere. Whether it's fair or unfair.

Well, in the trade arena, the cattle industry, the beef industry, kind of lives in both sectors.

Um, They benefit from consumer demand that drives exports that drives domestic demand as well, certainly, but that drives exports.

And that's exports for some of the higher value products that the US produces, muscle cuts, steaks, and roast.

They also benefit from foreign consumer demand for variety meats.

The kinds of things that most Americans and consumers don't touch.

And so there's value in the carcass that otherwise wouldn't be there, were it not for the benefits of exports and the export of beef and beef products, globally.

There's also import competition and there is import competition in terms of live animals.

Arguably, that's because the US has a, I think, a comparative advantage in feeding animals and processing animals compared to its neighbors and compared to much of the world.

And so importing live animals from Canada, importing live animals from Mexico, when we don't have a New World screwworm outbreak to worry about.

Those are kinds of things that actually support the domestic industry as opposed to directly compete for prices for animals.

Well, it does offer more supply of animals.

So yes, a producer of animals thinks about imports as competition.

A producer of beef, thinks about trade as an opportunity.

And so there's there's always a distinction between which side of the trade.

Do you do you feel impacted by?

Um, the other reality, some of our imports are beef?

Well, that's imports typically of beef trim, lean beef trim.

That's what gets ground into our hamburger mix.

The US seems to be an outsized consumer of hamburger.

We love it in almost every form, and with the animals we produce, and the muscle cuts, and higher value animals that we're sending, or that were processing.

We have a shortage of beef trim to produce the mainstay hamburger blend.

And so getting that from elsewhere adds value to the tallow and the remainder of the carcass here as well.

So that's more of a complimentary import.

It's a complimentary good, not a substitute, but it looks like imports.

And so when we look at statistics, yes, it looks like we import more animals, we certainly do.

We import more pounds of beef.

We do.

Traditionally, we export more dollar value of beef than we import.

In the midst of trade conflict at the moment.

That's hurting a bit, but fundamentally, those are reasons why we focus so much on trade and trade issues.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
You can read the detailed article about issues facing the beef industry by going to UNL Center for agprofitabilities website at cap.unl.edu. You can listen to the entire interview by downloading 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.  Beef industry policy issues are being studied by UNL students at the Krezinger Beef Industry Scholars Program. Nebraska extension ag policy specialist Brad Lubin says, the students are looking at specific issues like market risk, trade policies, traceability, labeling, and animal health. Brad points out that the beef industry has been a bright spot in agriculture, as other issues like crop production are facing challenges.

[Brad Lubben, Nebraska Extension Ag Policy Specialist]
Yes, it's, it's, it's certainly, uh, a reality that the beef history is driving the state ag economy at the moment.

In fact, if we look at farm income numbers in general that I, uh, that I look at regularly, 4 years ago, the livestock sector and the crop sector were largely on par with each other in terms of total receipts.

This year, the livestock sector is more than twice the crop sector in terms of total receipts, and 90% of the livestock sector is cattle in Nebraska.

So we know it's the cattle industry.

We know prices are up.

We know it's because supplies are down.

The cattle herd is low, which limits the availability of feeder cattle and cattle to be fed.

And so it limits supplies.

Consumer demand is held up amazingly well.

And record prices have helped drive, drive receipts and profitability higher, all the way back through the supply chain.

It doesn't mean there aren't challenges and issues ahead, but certainly some of the issues are maybe a little bit less onerous given the great returns at the moment.

Fundamentally, I think of the cattle marketing, and there's a cattle marketing committee, discussion that happens at the national conference.

Oftentimes, cattle marketing committee is concerned about the competitiveness of the marketplace, whether there are ample bids, whether there is enough transparency and competition in the market to find and receive a fair price.

Well, at at this point in time, when cattle supplies are so short, it's actually the cattle producers that may have the most leverage in the market, as opposed to traditional perspectives, that it's the feeders in the agribusiness sector that has more control.

Well, at the moment, then cattle, uh, and ultimately cattle, uh, calf producers are, are benefiting from that, uh, that leverage in the market and, and suddenly price discovery isn't quite the issue with.

It's still an issue.

There are still concerns, there are still national discussions of concentration in the sector and an analysis of whether the sector is competitive or not.

But the immediate focus on price discovery and price transparency isn't quite the same as it is when prices are struggling.

That doesn't mean that producers don't face risk.

And that doesn't mean that producers aren't still concerned about the bottom line. At these record prices.

We also have record capital investments in those animals.

And volatility in the marketplace that is dramatic from one day or one week to the next.

So producers may be enjoying record prices and record returns for the moment.

They're also facing much greater risks than they have.

One of the tools that we see that's also discussed during these meetings and across the industry is the use of some of the newer risk management products.

Livestock revenue protection is a price risk management product.

The pasture range in forage program is a drought focused production management component helps you manage your grazing capacity.

So both of those insurance tools have really come on board in the last 20 to 25 years.

Both of those have grown dramatically in terms of their usage and have become an important part of the cattle producer's, uh, risk management portfolio.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Today's program was part one of a discussion on the beef industry issues. Stay tuned for part 2 where Brad discusses trade that affects both producers and consumers. To read the detailed article, or to hear the entire interview, go to UNL Center for ag profitabilitie’s website, at cap.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. Proteins in the diet for cattle is a critical element for producers to consider. Nebraska extension educator Hannah Greenwell says there are significant differences in the types of protein, and each has an important role to play in the cow's diet.

[Hanna Greenwell, Nebraska Extension Educator]
It's not just as simple as we're short protein, so let's plug in this feed stuff that we have sitting around and we're going to move forward in the direction that the goals that we want to have for supplementing that animal.

There's a lot of variation in how we can do that.

And that's the beauty of the cattle industries.

We all do it differently so that we can all do it best within our resources.

And so, making sure that we understand that protein type of what is truly demanded by the animal.

What are we looking to accomplish?

When we put additional feedstuffs or even a total mixed ration, what are we looking to accomplish when we put a feedstuff in front of that animal?

Are we trying to simply maintain?

Are we looking at a, a dry cow who's simply just gestating?

Are we looking at a replacement heifer who we're breeding for the 1st time?

Are we looking at a 2nd calf heffer that we're trying to get rebred with a calf on our side?

So we're facing a lactation curve?

And then there's also the baseline of just growing calves, whether that look like a calf that we are just right at weaning or right now we can talk about how we're taking cattle to grass.

Those growing requirements look very, very different compared to that dry cow who's just trying to maintain.

And so, how do we take that nutrition required?

And the specific situation of animal and class of animal.

And we pair that properly with what our feed provided or nutrition provided resources are in our area, and do it the most economically and efficient way so that we can make sure that we're looking at feed stuff that are going to meet that supplementation goal, that are providing the right kind of protein, but make sure that that feed stuff is truly doing what our supplementation goals are as we desire them to be.

So the simple one to understand is gonna be your room indegradable protein, and you might hear people refer to it as RDP.

That is the protein that is solely meant for feeding the microbes or the room and population of bugs that exist to ferment and break down forges.

This is this is a superpower of the cattle industry.

We're able to take those undesirable protein sources that we as humans, don't necessarily break down, but cattle can do it for us.

And so that is what that protein source does.

It feeds the microbes within the room and environment.

So it doesn't, it's not necessarily directly accessible to the animal.

The other half of that, and I shouldn't say half, because each feed stuff has its own component of these different types of protein.

And so, the other portion of that would be room and undegradable protein.

Um, really, really creative there, but you get the and then it's, and some people refer to it as RUP.

This protein is uh, very well protected as it moves through the rumen and passes post roomly, you know, into the lower portion of the digestive tract.

You see a lot of this absorbed in the small intestine.

This acts more like protein that we see absorbed in our bodies.

And so this is what you would see as what is directly available to the animal.

So you're dealing with 2 different things you're trying to feed here.

You've got the microbes in the room and then you've got the animal itself.

And so there's 2 different portions of that.

Now, each feed stuff has a different percentage of RUP and R DP.

And we can measure that, that there's a lot of research behind that.

You can find that in, in those nutrition resources.

And so you might see a feed stuff that is 30% RDP, but 70% R UP.

And then the reverse, you can flip that and one might be 70% RDP and 30% REP.

And so it just depends.

There's an opportunity to break down that cost. Based on whether you're trying to supplement something that's just maintaining or you're trying to supplement something that is, you're trying to get a growing requirement out of a lactation requirement. Et cetera.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]
Today's program was a portion taken from a recent beef watch podcast. If you'd like to hear the rest of the interview, go to beef.unl.edu or download from Apple iTunes. 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. Farmers and ranchers here in Nebraska have had to deal with wildfires and severe drought in some places, and the damage that they cause can be a tricky problem when it comes to taxes. On a recent almanac, Nebraska farm business director, Tina Barrett, discuss how being prepared before these unfortunate events take place to make a significant difference on your taxes.  She continues that discussion today by focusing on lost forage from drought or wildfire, and how ranchers might need to make some decisions about their livestock.

[Tina Barrett, Director – Nebraska Farm Business]
So we have 2 options.

And really even if it's the wildfire impact, we're really going to rely on the drought, which caused the wildfires as probably the deferral options with the livestock.

So we're really talking about those drought deferral options either way.

So we have 2 options with that.

One of them is a one year deferral, and any livestock counts for that.

So feeding, breeding, all of it.

And so that gives us a kind of a flexibility, but what that does in a kind of real short terms is allows you to defer your excess sales to the next year.

So we need to look back at the number of head that you sold the last 3 years, compare that to the number of head that you sold this year, and then take a per head average and carry that forward.

So it's not as simple as if you sold your calf crop in January.

And then sold the next year's crop in December instead of holding it till January.

It's not like, we can't just take that December check and roll it to January.

We need to do some calculations, but, you know, that one, again, works for any kind of livestock, but we do have to make that calculation by type.

So we would look at the calves and the number of excess.

We would look at the cows and the number of excess, and we look at the bulls and the number of excess.

And that just moves that into the following year.

So it works really well, especially with feeding livestock to kind of keep it on a similar half as what your history is.

You do have to have be in an area that was eligible for federal assistance.

If we would get a FEMA, you know, presidential declaration for that area, which could be coming with the wildfires, that's an automatic guaranteed.

But I think we can also look at some of the other things that come from federal assistance outside of FEMA as justification for that.

And the drought monitor is a great resource to show that there's definitely a drought happening and and those kinds of things.

But any sort of documentation that you can keep to show that the sale was due to a due to the drought or other weather related conditions is going to be real important for you.

The other option is a, starts as a two-year deferral.

This is only good for draft dairy and breeding animals.

So not the feeding livestock.

I mean, not the calves.

And this gives us up to 2 years to replace that livestock.

The one year deferral just moves the money and you tax it later.

This one you have to replace it.

If you don't replace the animals, then you have to come back to the air of sale and amend your tax return.

So again, kind of still have to have that weather related conditions doesn't have to be eligible for federal assistance to get that 2 year deferral.

So that's kind of nice, gives us a little bit more flexibility in that one.

But 2 year becomes a 4 year if there is federal assistance granted.

So if we would get some of that sort of designation in your area, we can make that a 4 year deferral, and then it can actually get extended one year at a time if those drought conditions continue.

So, I know we have a lot of counties in Nebraska where we are past that 4 year period, um, and we could continue to defer, and that's maybe good, maybe bad, but, um, it is an option to continue that as long as the drought continues.

The general rule with, with that replacement is that it has to be replaced with light kind, though, so beef cows for beef cows, dairy cows for dairy cows.

And if we get to that 4 year period, then they lift that restriction.

[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 hear the entire interview, go to beef.unl.edu or download from Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Or 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. It might be common knowledge that methane production and livestock is a major contributor to greenhouse gases.Scientists have studied the question of reducing methane production in our cattle for some time, but that isn't an easy question to answer. UNL Rumen microbiologist Samoda Fernando talks about what happens in the gut of a cow that causes methane and why that is an important energy process in their diet.

[Samodha Fernando, UNL Rumen Microbiologist]

So, ruminants are unique because if you think about a monocastric animal like a pig or even humans, actually the microbes are in the hind gut.

So the host enzymes actually break down the substrates and whatever leftover undigested is what microbes use.

But if you think about ruminant animal, you are actually feeding the microbes.

So the rumen, which is one of the unique features that ruminants have, actually have 1000000000s of microbes, and these microbes are not just bacteria, you have bacteria, archaea, fungi, protozua, and even viruses in their microbi.

We call them the room and microbiome because it's a mix of different microbes in there.

Bacteria obviously dominate this microbiome, but then fungi actually gain access to feed particles.

They borrow in so that bacteria can go in and break down these complex carbohydrates.

Then protozoa actually can also metabolize certain um, substrate, complex substrate, but they actually feed on microbes and actually help control some of these microbial populations.

The viruses do the same thing.

They actually can feed operated on these bacterial population, so they help control.

So together, this microbiome, which is made off of these complex pro-karyote, and you karyote microbes, so 2 different kingdoms of different microbes actually work together as a whole group to maintain efficiency and function within the room.

The other group that I didn't talk so far is the AKEA.

AKEA are the ones that actually produce methane and majority of the AKEA inside the room and R metanogens.

So those are the ones that actually produce methane inside the room, but they have other metabolic functions.

They can break down carbohydrates and other substrates as well, or at least intermediates of these complex carbohydrates.

And as a byproduct, they produce methane.

And part of our discussion today is going to focus on these methanogens, a subpopulation, only about 3%, 3 to 10% of the total microbiome, but they play a big role in terms of methane production.

These methanogens have actually co-evolved with the host.

So as long as we've seen cattle, they've actually always had these methadogens because they play an important role in increasing the efficiency of the Roman as well.

So, for example, if you think about the Roman, Roman is free of oxygen. It's anaerobic.

So the Roman being anaerobic, when a complex carbohydrate is broken down inside the Roman, it produces these energy dense intermediate products called volatile fatty acids.

So when you don't have oxygen, these intermediates are the ones that are absorbed by the host animal and the host animal gets energy.

So the room and microbiome can actually provide up to about 70% of the energy of the host animal just by microbial fermentation.

[Brad Mills, Program Host]

Today's program was a portion of an interview taken from a recent beef watch podcast offered by Nebraska extension. To read the in-depth series on methane production, or to download the entire interview, go to beef.unl.edu, 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. Our past years and ranges are becoming increasingly threatened with the spread of eastern red cedar trees.Nebraska extension educator Bethany Johnston says, this encroachment goes beyond just a change in scenery.

[Bethany Johnson, Nebraska Extension Educator]

Cedar trees are out competing grasses, reduce forage options for grazing, and can increase the risk of wildfires.

The most important predictor of where cedar trees are going to start encroaching.

It's not necessarily your soil type or the fact that you did a good job with your grazing management or your range management, but it's how close your unmarred prairie is to a Eastern red cedar seed source.

We planted these wind breaks and the cedar trees.

There's male and female trees.

But once they're mature, kind of those big ones you like to have in your shelter belts, those female trees can put out one. 150000000 berries every year.

So if you start running the numbers.

So if you just assume every other tree is a female, you can measure, like I've done it on Google Maps.

I'll measure my shelter belts, I'll count how many rows, and then figure out how far apart they've been planted, and I can get a tree count, and then if I divide that number by 2, that gives me how many females, and then I can take that times 1000000 or one. 1500000 and figure out how many seeds are coming out of that shelter belt every year.

And we have just kind of a 3 row cedar belt that goes around our calving pasture and it's not a very big area.

It's maybe, I think, 2030 acres.

But there was one hillside out in the pasture.

I always have to cut and I would get 20 or 30 little cedar trees off there and I can remember thinking, gosh, I can't believe I'm cutting all these trees.

And then I figured how many berries were coming out of that shelter belt and it's like half a 1000000000 berries every year or seeds every year.

And so when I cut that hill now, I'm thinking, well, at least I'm not cutting like half a 1000000000, right?

But the thing is, is we just, once they've kind of hopped the fence, right?

So we fence out our shelter belts.

Once you see a cedar tree, that you haven't planted outside in your grassland, that's when you need to start doing management on it.

And the nice thing about cedar seeds or cedar berries, the professionals call them cones because they're actually a conifer, but they're not going to, you know, float through the wind, anything like that.

So birds are actually the ones that spread them.

So most of your encroachment is going to happen within that 200 yards of that seed source because the birds are going to eat the seeds and then they're going to fly away and poop out the seeds.

And so usually you can kind of draw a 200 yard circle around and then that's where maybe you start hand pruning them.

Other people, they have such big shelter belts and they just can't physically keep up by using pruners or mechanical means.

And so they're actually just doing like little tiny prescribed burns next to their shelter belts because then it cleans out those little cedars and it's just a little bit easier to to manage.

And probably, you know, 20 years ago.

We used to tell people, well, if you cut a cedar tree once, you don't have to go back and do maintenance.

And that's partially true because if you cut a cedar tree below their bottom branch, they're not going to resprout.

So if you think of things like sumac or wild plump, like we can cut those, and it almost makes them more aggressive and they send out rhizomes and they come back, right?

But cedar trees, you can cut them off at the base and they're not going to resprout.

But the problem is that seed source.

So unless you're willing to take out that entire seed source.

And if you do that, then you're going to have to put up some kind of, you know, metal wind break or something to break the wind for you.

But unless you remove the seeds, it's going to be maintenance, right?

We're going to do cedar control every year, whether that's cutting or using chemicals or using fire or maybe a combination of all of those.

[Brad Mills, Host]

Today's program was a portion of an interview 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 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 studies at Montana State has revealed some interesting data on the impact of salt in cattle diets. Montana State Extension beef specialist, Sam Weiffels, talks about how increasing salt intake affects digestion and room and fermentation on today's almanac.

[Sam Weiffels, Montana State Beef Specialist]

We started this study.

We just happened to use a pelleted 25% salt limited, you know, to limit intake of that protein supplement, and we recorded all those animals intake in real time, and what really stemmed a lot of our salt work is one animal in that, in that study, came up to that supplement feeder one day and ate £20 of supplement.

At one at one time.

And we kind of thought about that, and we did the math, that math there, and that came out to £5 of salt that that animal consumed in that one day.

And that, it all just stemmed from that one animal in that one instance, you're like, holy cow, if that happens, what are the implications of, of salt, because we know what happens when we eat too much salt, right?

You gotta go drink a bunch of water.

And so we, that's really what stemmed it all.

And so we, we've actually had several studies looking at different factors with salt supplements, our salt limited supplements to test all that, but it really all stemmed from that one, the very 1st time we stuck that trailer out there and measured intake in that one animal, it stemmed a lot of questions.

Like, how can that animal eat that much salt?

And so the 1st study that we did, um, we actually took a, uh, that same salt limited pellet and we had it in 2 forms.

We had it one as a pellet, and then we had, um, the company manufactured the same supplement for us in a loose meal type, both had 25% salt.

And so we were wondering, you know, was it the pelletine?

That allowed that animal to not receive that negative impact right away or what was going on there.

And, uh, it turns out that that's what we think happened is, uh, we found that, um, when it was on a loose meal and the animals had to lick it up and the contact of that salt to those animals taste bud and sensory receptors on the tongue, um, has an impact of how much supplement.

They're willing to consume, especially when we're looking at like a salt limited supplement.

And so, That was interesting.

At the end of the day, even though with the masking of the salt a little bit with that, um, pelleted supplement, they still consumed rate at target intake, so I don't know that it has a, you know, for us, it wasn't enough for us to go, hey, we're not going to use this pellet anymore per se because they're consuming exactly the amount we want them to consume, but it is interesting from a research standpoint to know that the same supplement, whether it's pelleted or form, can have an impact on how much that animal is going to eat.

The other study that we jumped into, and that's one that you've been referring to is, so if an animal does consume a bunch of salt like that, what happens?

We know just, you know, in our own human nutrition, things like that, that when we consume a bunch of salt, it obviously, you know, has an impact on us.

We want to drink more water, you know, retain moisture or some, you know, people will swell up a little bit, things like that.

Um, and then when you think about the role that salt can have on being anti-microbial for food preservation and storage like that, like, what's that doing in that room and of the cow?

And so we developed a digestibility study as well to go along with the, um, the grazing study I just talked about.

And we looked at digestive kinetics, uh, intake digestibility.

We even measured water intake of those animals and just looked at how salt impacts overall digestibility and how those animals perform at different varying levels of salt in terms of, um, digestive kinetics.

[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 IANR Media and Nebraska Extension. For more information on how your university is serving Nebraskans, go to extension.unl.edu.