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Beef Tips

Author: Angie Denton

Management Considerations for August 2024

Posted on by Angie Denton

Management Considerations for August 2024

By Jason M. Warner, Ph.D., Extension Cow-Calf Specialist

For spring-calving cow herds: Monitor BCS through late summer, particularly on young females. Use the BCS Record Book from KSRE to record scores! 2–4-year-old females and thin females will respond most to early-weaning. If you plan to early-wean: Develop your plan for feeding and marketing calves. Prepare weaning/receiving pens and waterers in advance. If feeding early-weaned calves, test your forages and have your ration plan and ingredients in place 2-3 weeks prior to weaning. Schedule early pregnancy checking activities if not already done. For managing cull cows, evaluate the cost of gain relative to the value of gain for marketing decisions. For late-summer and early-fall calving cowherds: Evaluate cows for BCS and adjust your plan to ensure mature cows are ≥ 5.0 and 2–4-year-old females are ≥ 6.0 at calving. The final 60 days prior to calving represents the last opportunity to add BCS economically. Review your calving health protocols as needed. Have calving equipment cleaned and available to use as needed. Closely manage free-choice salt and mineral programs through late summer. Record date and amount of salt and mineral offered and calculate herd consumption on a pasture or group basis. Adjust how you are offering product to cattle if needed to achieve target intake. If consumption is 2X the target intake, then cost will be too! Continue to monitor bulls and their activity throughout the breeding season. Monitor BCS, particularly on young bulls. If bulls are BCS ≤ 5.0 after breeding, consider supplementing to regain BCS going into fall. Schedule breeding soundness exams for bulls used for fall service.

If creep feeding calves, closely monitor intake and calf condition/fleshiness. Monitor calves for summer respiratory illness. Schedule any pre-weaning vaccination or processing activities.

Evaluate grass growth and adjust your grazing plan as needed. Employ multiple strategies, chemistries for late-season fly/insect control. Begin taking inventory of harvested forages for fall feed needs. Use the forage inventory calculator (https://www.agmanager.info/hay-inventory-calculator). If planning to harvest corn silage, prepare your pile/bunker site and equipment. If using a custom harvester, communicate with them well in advance. Closely monitor whole plant moisture levels. Have silage tarps in place and ready to cover once harvest is complete. Use the Management Minder tool on KSUBeef.org to plan key management activities for your cowherd for the rest of the year. With high feeder calf prices, consider price risk management tools. Visit with your local FSA and extension office if you plan to utilize CRP acres for emergency forage use or for information on other assistance programs.

Body Condition Scoring — A Herd Management Tool

Posted on by Angie Denton

by Justin Waggoner, KSU Extension Beef Cattle Specialist, Garden City, KS

Body Condition Scoring is one of the most valuable management tools at the disposal of the cattle manager. The number associated with a condition score gives us a direct indication of a cow’s previous plane of nutrition and future
reproductive capability. Although the individual body condition scores are important. We don’t manage individual cows, we manage groups of cows. Thus, it is important for us to look beyond the individual scores and look at the distribution of body condition scores within the herd. Continue reading “Body Condition Scoring — A Herd Management Tool” →

Leadership… What’s your style?

Posted on by Angie Denton

by Justin Waggoner, KSU Extension Beef Cattle Specialist, Garden City, KS

The most commonly recognized leadership styles are authoritarian, democratic and laissez-faire. However, there may be seven to 12 different leadership styles that include styles such as transformational, transactional, servant, charismatic, and situational. Although some of these leadership styles are unique, there is also some degree of similarities or overlap as well and in some situations, a leader may change their leadership styles to fit the situation (situational). The concept of situational leadership was first recognized by Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard (author of the “One Minute Manager”).

They recognized that successful leaders often adapted their leadership style or styles to the individual or group they were leading. Collectively these different leadership styles remind us that not all leaders lead the same way and some leaders even change leadership styles. There is no one way to lead, motivate and inspire individuals or groups to succeed.

Leadership is complex and we still have a lot to learn about leadership.

For more information, contact Justin Waggoner at jwaggon@ksu.edu

Starting Newly Weaned Calves

Posted on by Angie Denton

by Justin Waggoner, KSU Extension Beef Cattle Specialist, Garden City, KS

One of the greatest challenges cattle producers often experience during weaning is getting newly weaned calves to consume feed in bunk. Unfortunately, successfully addressing this challenge is essential to success. Simply stated,
“Cattle that don’t eat don’t perform.” Preparing calves, understanding how much dry feed calves will likely consume and developing a feeding strategy/plan is one of the best ways to ensure success in the weaning pen.

Feeding both cows and calves a small amount of the supplement or weaning ration prior to weaning, in the weaning pen or pasture can be used help acclimate calves to both the feeds and the environment. Additionally, feed intake of weaned
calves is often low (1.0 to 1.5% of bodyweight, dry basis) immediately following weaning. Calves also have relatively high nutrient requirements. Thus, the weaning diet must be nutrient dense to meet the nutrient requirements of the calves at the expected intakes previously mentioned. Unfortunately, the dry feeds calves are often most familiar with (typically grass hays) are not necessarily nutrient dense. At the K-State Agriculture Research Center, Hays, KS, a feeding
management protocol for weaning calves has been developed that works well for transitioning weaned calves to a total mixed ration. The protocol is summarized in the table below. Essentially, high-quality grass hay and the weaning ration
are offered each at 0.5% of the calves’ current bodyweight, dry basis, on the day of weaning. The weaning ration is placed in the bottom of the bunk and the hay is placed on top. The amount the weaning ration is steadily increased, while the
amount of hay offered remains constant. In addition, on day 4 the hay is placed on the bottom of the bunk. Over a period of 7-10 days the dry intake of the calves is steadily increased and should reach approximately 2.2-2.5% of the calves bodyweight by 10-14 days following weaning.


For more information, contact Justin Waggoner at jwaggon@ksu.edu

Customer Service Matters

Posted on by Angie Denton

by Justin Waggoner, KSU Extension Beef Cattle Specialist, Garden City, KS

Good customer service is essential to any business or organization. It does not matter if it is a restaurant or a tow truck service, having staff members that leave customers or anyone that encounters your business with that “wow that was great” feeling directly influences the bottom line. Customer service has become more important than ever as consumers are now gathering information and making purchasing decisions based on the experiences of others reviews. Continue reading “Customer Service Matters” →

Marketing Calves

Posted on by Angie Denton

by Justin Waggoner, KSU Extension Beef Cattle Specialist, Garden City, KS

It’s time to start thinking about our management and marketing strategies for this year’s spring calf crop. Margins in the cattle industry and agriculture are often unfortunately narrow (even with projections of record-setting high calf prices). Therefore, I would offer that maximizing calf revenue is important for cow/calf producers every year. Calf revenue from my academic perspective is driven by 3 factors, 1.) the number of calves sold, 2.) sale weight of calves and 3.) price received. Continue reading “Marketing Calves” →

Management Minute: Change

Posted on by Angie Denton

by Justin Waggoner, KSU Extension Beef Cattle Specialist, Garden City, KS

“Change is inevitable” and often creates a sense of unease for many individuals and within an organization. As a society, we have changed how we work, how we purchase goods and services and many other things over time. Some of these changes have been small and some have been large. Why do we fear change? Change is not always bad, but experts agree that most employees within an organization express some degree of fear and resistance to change. The reality is that the fear of change within an organization is created because employees simply do not understand why the change is happening. An article in the
Harvard Business Review https://hbr.org/2018/10/dont-just-tell-employees-organizational-changes-are-coming-explain-why offers suggestions on communicating change in the workplace.

  • Keep employees informed with regular communications. Communication is essential to successfully navigating change. Communication should be clear and consistent and focus on the purpose of the change (the why).
  • Empower leaders and managers to lead and model the change. Leaders and managers often face more pressure/resistance from employees than administration. Providing managers with additional training or resources equips them to drive and model the change.
  • Involve employees in the change. Employees must take ownership of the change for it to be successful. Creating ways for employees to provide feedback and engage them in the process makes employees more likely to support the change.

Focus on Feedlots: Cattle Performance in 2023

Posted on by Angie Denton

The K-State Focus on Feedlots is a monthly publication that summarizes feedlot performance and closeout data from cooperating commercial cattle feeding operations in Kansas. Each year, I summarize the data from the monthly reports, in an effort to document annual fed cattle performance and cost of gain. The tables below summarizes the average performance and closeout data reported for steers and heifers in 2023.

 

 

 

 

The monthly reports from the K-State Focus on Feedlots may be
accessed at https://www.asi.k-state.edu/about/newsletters/focus-on-feedlots/ or if you wish to subscribe to the monthly email distribution list please email jwaggon@ksu.edu.

For more information, contact Justin Waggoner at jwaggon@ksu.edu

Cultivating Better Conversations

Posted on by Angie Denton

In today’s fast-paced culture everyone is busy and all those distractions can make it difficult to connect with co-workers, clients and even family members. We have all had those conversations where we weren’t really listening to the person speaking or where you got the distinct impression that you were not really being heard.
So, what can you do to become a better listener and cultivate better conversations? One of the suggestions I recently came across regarding “active listening” and building connections is the use of open-ended, emotion-
based questions. For example, when meeting new people, we often ask simple fact-based questions such as “When did you come to work for company X?” However, what if you posed the question “Why did come to work for company X?” The latter question likely leads to much deeper answer than the first and then follow-up with “What do you like most about your current position?” We have numerous opportunities to practice asking deeper questions throughout our day. It’s common to ask our children “How was school today?” which typically
results in a simple answer of “fine” or “good.” However, if the question becomes “What was the best thing about school today?” the standard one-word answer no longer applies and the conversation now has more depth.
Cultivating better conversations isn’t difficult but it does require increased awareness of the questions we ask and practice.

Management Considerations for July 2024

Posted on by Angie Denton

Cow Herd Management

For spring-calving cow herds:

  • Score cows for BCS concurrent with grass growth.
  • 2-4 year old females and thin females will respond most to early-weaning.
  • If you plan to early-wean:
    Develop your plan for feeding and marketing calves.
    Prepare weaning/receiving pens and waterers in advance.
    If feeding early-weaned calves, test your forages and have your ration plan and ingredients in place 2-3 weeks prior to weaning.
  • Schedule early pregnancy checking activities if not already done.

For late-summer and early-fall calving cow herds:

  • Evaluate cows for BCS and adjust your plan to ensure mature cows are ≥ 5.0 and 2-4 year old females are ≥ 6.0 at calving.
  • The final 60 days prior to calving represents the last opportunity to add BCS economically.
  • Review your calving health protocols as needed.

Closely manage free-choice salt and mineral programs.

  • Record date and amount of salt and mineral offered and calculate herd consumption on a pasture or group basis.
  • Adjust how you are offering product to cattle if needed to achieve target intake.
  • If consumption is 2X the target intake, then cost will be too!
  • Properly store bags and pallets to avoid damage and product loss.

Continue to monitor bulls and their activity throughout the breeding season.

  • Monitor BCS, particularly on young bulls.
  • If pulling bulls from cows to manage the length of the breeding season, schedule those dates and have them on the calendar in advance.
  • If bulls are BCS ≤ 5.0 after breeding, consider supplementing to regain BCS going into fall.

Calf Management

  • If creep feeding calves, closely monitor intake and calf condition/fleshiness.
  • Monitor calves for summer respiratory illness.
  • Schedule any pre-weaning vaccination or processing activities.

General Management

  • Visit KSUBeef.org for info and events!
  • Evaluate grass growth and adjust your grazing plan as needed.
  • Continue efforts to control invasive species in pastures.
  • Employ multiple strategies, chemistries for late-season fly/insect control.
  • Begin taking inventory of harvested forages for fall feed needs.
  • If planning to harvest corn silage, prepare your pile/bunker site and equipment.
  • Use the Management Minder tool on KSUBeef.org to plan key management activities for your cow herd for the rest of the year
    https://cowweb.exnet.iastate.edu/CowWeb/faces/Index.jsp.
  • With high feeder calf prices, consider price risk management tools.
  • Visit with your local FSA and extension office if you plan to utilize CRP acres for emergency forage use or other assistance programs.