Beef Fact Friday: Current Cattle Markets

Today’s #BeefFactFriday is all about the markets!

Learn more about the current beef cattle markets with nationally-recognized Extension Ag Economist Dr. Derrell Peel at the 73^rd annual ACA Convention and Trade Show. Register for Convention today by clicking here.

---Disclaimer:The below article and picture is from Drovers Cow/Calf---

CattleFax predicts market shock is nearly over, turbulence still ahead

Insights about the recent market price shocks and potential for future turbulence were discussed today with more than 2,000 beef producers at the CattleFax Outlook Session held during the 2016 Cattle Industry Convention and NCBA Trade Show.

The downward spiral from the late 2014 and early 2015 record-high cattle prices has been tough for many in the business, but CattleFax CEO Randy Blach said the steepest portion of the market correction has passed. He explained that tighter protein supplies and stronger exports created the ‘perfect storm’ for the cattle market to reach the extreme highs. Animal health challenges limited poultry and pork production in 2014 – creating the tightest per capita U.S. net protein supply in the last 20 years.
“We are coming off historic highs in the cattle market, created by unique conditions in both the global and domestic protein markets,” said Blach. “Dynamics, specifically larger protein supplies, led to a significant correction in price in 2015. A large portion of the market down trend is over now. However, the cycle shows prices continuing to trend lower in 2016, 2017 and 2018.”

Analysts predicted the cattle feeder – after losing about $200 per head in 2015 – will be slightly profitable this year. Stocker operators will experience tighter margins, and cow/calf producers will remain profitable. The team of economists expect fed cattle prices will average $130 to $135/cwt. in 2016.

“Cow/calf producers will still be profitable, but at substantially lower levels than the past two years,” said Kevin Good, Senior Analyst and Fed Cattle Market Specialist, CattleFax. “We predict the cattle feeder will have tight margins for the year with potential for profitability by mid-year.”

A two-year El Nino weather pattern has replenished moisture conditions across the country, specifically the West coast, which saw some relief recently. The weather outlook appears favorable, especially moisture conditions for grasslands, according to the weather outlook from Art Douglas, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus at Creighton University.

“As we head into 2016, a split jet stream pattern will favor above-normal precipitation from California to the Southern Plains and the Southeast through March,” said Douglas. “In the Corn Belt, spring will be wetter-than-normal, which will be accompanied by slower spring warming. Delays in fieldwork and planting dates are likely to result.”

Analysts predicted $294 per head added value from exports for 2016 – a $66 drop per head from 2014 values. This decrease in export potential is caused by a combination of a stronger U.S. dollar, slowdown in global markets and challenges with market access. China and other global markets are still the biggest opportunities for U.S. beef, but trade restrictions will continue to limit potential in the year ahead.

Beef imports are predicted to be down 8 percent due to the combination of lower trim prices and increasing domestic cow slaughter. The United States is in a rebuilding stage and females are being held back for the cowherd. Analysts predict the U.S. cowherd will grow another 600,000 head in 2016 following a 1.1 million head increase in 2015.

Movie Monday: A Special Convention Invite for Young Cattlemen

Are you a junior or millennial-aged cattlemen? We would love to see you at the 73^rd annual ACA Convention and Trade Show! ACA Director of Industry Relations and Youth Activities has a special invitation just for you for this week’s #MovieMonday. 

Beef Fact Friday: How Farmers and Ranchers Are Becoming More Sustainable

Farmers and ranchers across the nation have taken drastic measures to improve the sustainability of the food you eat. Learn more with today’s #BeefFactFriday.

----------The below article and photo is from Facts About Beef -----------

When it comes to questions about sustainability, U.S. agriculture sometimes gets a bad rap. We know you might have questions about the sustainability of the food you eat and want to know what farmers have done (and what they are continuing to do) to be more sustainable. Of course, the best people to answer questions about sustainability in agriculture are the farmers and ranchers living it every day. On US News & World Report, Registered Dietitian Toby Amidor interviews five different types of farmers, including Kansas rancher Debbie Lyons-Blythe, to share some of the environmentally-friendly changes in their methods of raising and growing food. 

Debbie Lyons-Blythe,
Kansas cattle rancher

“I live in the Kansas Flint Hills, one of the last remaining natural tallgrass prairies in the world. To protect the prairie, we work hard to maintain the water and water quality in our ponds. The water comes from rainfall on the surrounding hills and is filtered through the grass as it runs into the ponds, providing access to clean, fresh water for cattle and wildlife alike. According to recent studies, up to 75 percent of wildlife in the U.S. lives on farms and ranches. We manage for the entire ecosystem and diversity is the goal – both in wildlife and grasses. That makes for a healthier grassland and healthier cattle.” – Debbie Lyons-Blythe, Blythe Ranch, Kansas.

Read the rest of the article. 

Beef Fact Friday: Raising Cattle is Good for the Earth

We always say that raising cattle is good for the Earth and those living on it, but would you believe it a little more if you heard from the Wall Street Journal? If you answered yes, then you’re in luck! Today’s #MeatyMonday WSJ writer says “cattle are key to the world’s most promising strategy to counter global warming: restoring carbon to the soil.”

The below article is contributed by the Wall Street Journal

By: Nicolette Hahn Niman

People who advocate eating less beef often argue that producing it hurts the environment. Cattle, we are told, have an outsize ecological footprint: They guzzle water, trample plants and soils, and consume precious grains that should be nourishing hungry

humans. Lately, critics have blamed bovine burps, flatulence and even breath for climate change.

As a longtime vegetarian and environmental lawyer, I once bought into these claims. But now, after more than a decade of living and working in the business—my husband, Bill, founded Niman Ranch but left the company in 2007, and we now have a grass-fed beef company—I’ve come to the opposite view. It isn’t just that the alarm over the environmental effects of beef are overstated. It’s that raising beef cattle, especially on grass, is an environmental gain for the planet.

Let’s start with climate change. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, all of U.S. agriculture accounts for just 8% of our greenhouse emissions, with by far the largest share owing to soil management—that is, crop farming. A Union of Concerned Scientists report concluded that about 2% of U.S. greenhouse gases can be linked to cattle and that good management would diminish it further. The primary concern is methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

But methane from cattle, now under vigorous study by agricultural colleges around the world, can be mitigated in several ways. Australian research shows that certain nutritional supplements can cut methane from cattle by half. Things as intuitive as good pasture management and as obscure as robust dung beetle populations have all been shown to reduce methane.

At the same time, cattle are key to the world’s most promising strategy to counter global warming: restoring carbon to the soil. One-tenth of all human-caused carbon emissions since 1850 have come from soil, according to ecologist Richard Houghton of the Woods Hole Research Center. This is due to tillage, which releases carbon and strips the earth of protective vegetation, and to farming practices that fail to return nutrients and organic matter to the earth. Plant-covered land that is never plowed is ideal for recapturing carbon through photosynthesis and for holding it in stable forms.

Beef Fact Friday: Heifer Replacement Considerations

As heifer replacement begins to weigh on producers’ minds, Dr. Bob Weaber, a Kansas State animal scientist, says that genetic components, birthdates, mature size and many other factors play into selecting heifers with the best likelihood of becoming productive and efficient cows. Learn more with today’s #BeefFactFriday.

Contributed, Drovers Cattle Network:

Producers focus on replacement heifer selection

By Connor Orrock, K-State Research and Extension

Picture by the ACA

As the air turns crisp and the leaves change color, replacement heifer selection begins to weigh on cattle producers’ minds. The process can be confusing and stressful for producers, as the decisions made can directly impact the future of their program. Kansas State University animal scientist, Bob Weaber, offers tips to aid producers in selecting heifers with the best likelihood of becoming productive and efficient cows for years to come.

Genetic components

Weaber encourages producers to make appropriate sire selection decisions for building quality replacements. If a producer plans to keep more replacement females, tactical selection of bulls to be sires of replacement heifers that emphasize maternal traits versus other traits is a must.

“If you’ve made an investment in genetics,” Weaber said, “either via bull purchasing or through an AI (artificial insemination) program over the last year, and these replacement candidates are a result of those decisions, certainly those females produced by bulls that have been selected for their maternal traits – maternal calving ease, appropriate mature weight, lactation, stability EPD (expected progeny difference) – should be given priority in your selection criteria.”

Weaber also points out that crossbred heifers typically have a more productive life and possess greater reproductive qualities than their straight-bred counterparts. Therefore, crossbred heifers should be given special consideration as replacements.

Birthdate

Figuring out where heifers were born, in terms of the calving distribution and their weights and performance measures, are key pieces of information, he said.

“We know heifers born early in the calving season have a higher likelihood of themselves calving earlier in the calving season and lasting longer in your management system,” said Weaber, a cow-calf specialist with K-State Research and Extension. “They have more opportunities to become pregnant within the breeding season, because they cycle earlier and calve earlier. When mated in a defined breeding season, they have more wiggle room in their reproductive performance than do females that were born at the end of the calving season.”

Weaber provided an example to further explain: “Say you have a

heifer calf that was born the last day of your calving season. When she enters your breeding herd, she’s going to be one of the last females to reach puberty, have the fewest opportunities to become pregnant in your structured breeding season, and if she misses by two or three days in the breeding season, she’s out as a 2-year-old.”

“If you’ve invested $1,000 or $1,500 on development costs above her market value as a calf to get that heifer to have her first calf,” he added, “you don’t want to lose her because she missed by two or three days. That’s why we skew our selection heavily toward females born in the first 21 or 30 days of the calving season.”

Mature size relative to resources

Picture by the ACA

Feed and other input costs, has some producers concerned about mature cow size and lactation potential. Weaber said it is important to choose replacement females that fit the mature size and maintenance requirements appropriate to forage constraints of the operation.

Over time, he said, many producers have selected heifers that have higher performance and growth traits to meet demands further down the beef value chain. While cattle that grow quickly are an important contribution to the beef production system, producers must be careful not to go too far. With today’s genetics, it is fairly easy to build cows whose nutrient requirements can substantially exceed the nutrients available in a grazed forage environment.

For this reason, he recommends producers keep an eye on maintaining, or in some cases slightly decreasing, the mature weights of their cows.

“Replacement female selection has accelerated our path of maybe making cows too big,” Weaber said. “Our usual practice of walking into the replacement heifer pen leads to selecting ‘the standout.’ The biggest, nicest fleshed, easiest conditioned heifers in the pen are the ones that we naturally want to select.”

“Certainly older heifers have a tendency to be that way because of age,” he continued. “But, we have to be careful that we don’t select heifers that are the extremes in that group, because they represent the highest growth genetics, and likely the highest mature weight out of our cow herd.”

Another factor linked to selecting these “standout” replacements is that they are likely from cows with the highest lactation potential in the cow herd, Weaber said, which leads to increased production and maintenance requirements for these cows.

To combat this trend, he recommends that producers select replacement heifers that reside in the middle of the group for adjusted 205-day weight or adjusted weaning weight. The adjusted weight takes into account differences in age of the heifers and age of their dam.

“To keep the weights of your cows pretty constant, pick the middle third of the heifers in terms of weaning performance,” Weaber said. “Skew that selection to include heifers born early in the calving season to have this optimization of born early in the calving season and from the middle group in weight and performance. That should put a downward pressure on the increase of mature weight.”

An Excel spreadsheet is available at www.ksubeef.org that calculates adjusted birth weights, weaning weights and yearling weights. The spreadsheet requires producers to enter information on their heifers, such as the birthdate or birth week and age of dam.

Other factors

Another item to consider when selecting replacements is biology. Look for replacements out of mature cows that “fit” the system.

“They ‘fit’ in the production environment, and because of that ‘fit’ they have the ability to reproduce every year,” Weaber said. “Those cows are likely on target in terms of weight, body condition, lactation potential and have obviously been fertile.”

So when choosing replacement heifers, one from a designated “fit” mature cow should be toward the top. If a producer has to choose between picking a replacement heifer out of a proven mature cow or one out of an unproven cow, consider picking the daughter of the proven cow.

“About three-quarters of the genetic flow of the cow herd is driven by sire selection,” Weaber said. “That doesn’t mean female selection is not important. It can be particularly important if you are trying to limit supplemental feed sources.”

“I encourage producers to sit down and figure out the trajectory that they want to go, understand the data they may need to make that informed decision, collect that data, and then make an informed and thoughtful replacement heifer selection.”

Movie Monday: Mineral Nutrition

Hey Producers, 

 Do you have a strong mineral nutrition program for your cattle? According to this segment of NCBA’s Cattlemen to Cattlemen, it’s important to have a consistent, balanced and weather-resistant program to ensure your cattle are receiving the best in mineral nutrition. Check out today’s #MovieMonday for tips and suggestions to improve your nutrition directive.

Movie Monday: Maternal Drive and Consumer Focus

Check out this week's #MovieMonday as Jimmy and Jim Collins of Collins Farms in Cusseta, Ala. share their recipe for success that includes listening to the cattle customer and consumer. This video was produced by Angus TV and features the Collins' beautiful east Alabama operation. 

Beef Fact Friday: Cattle Disease Guide

Bovine Feeling Blue?

Have you got cow or calf that’s feeling under the weather? Sickness happens, and we cattlemen have to take care of our own. Animal care is top priority in this community, so use this guide to know the signs and call your local veterinarian when you’ve got a bovine who’s feeling blue.  http://www.thecattlesite.com/diseaseinfo/

Movie Monday: Temperament and Profitability

Temperament and market profitability...are the two related?

Some might not think not, but studies say that one can affect the other. Learn about it with this week’s #MovieMonday and start making some well-advised decisions about who to keep and who to take to market this fall! 

Beef Fact Friday: High Quality Hay

“It’s estimated that winter feed makes up more than half of the annual cost of keeping a beef cow in some regions of the country.” 

If that’s the case, then we think it’s pretty important to maximize feed management and minimize waste. It’s no secret that cattle prefer high-quality hay, so provide your herd with something it’ll moo about!

Store these facts from BEEF Magazine in the back of your mind as you prepare for winter feeding!

Movie Monday: Moving Cattle on Horseback

Just like we promised, here's part three to wrap up the low-stress cattle handling trio. This #MovieMonday video from NCBA’s Cattlemen to Cattlemen about effectively moving cattle while on horseback covers the basis on what to and not to do with your cattle from the back of a horse. To view videos on low-stress handling on foot and ATVs, just scroll down our blog posts and look for the “#MovieMonday” hashtag! This is key information in practicing good animal husbandry, and in Alabama, we're all about that. Check it out:

Beef Fact Friday: Bovine Trichomoniasis

Bovine Trichomoniasis- it's no joke.

This highly-contagious STD in cattle can have devastating effects on a herd’s reproductive abilities if infected. And because it’s bull buying season, you need to make sure you know the trick to preventing “Trich.” 

Learn about the signs, preventative measures and science behind this bovine disease this #BeefFactFriday by visiting here. 

Movie Monday: Calving Do's and Don'ts

It’s almost that time of year. 

For some farms it has already started and for others, it’s coming any day now. 

Calving season- a glorious, miraculous and somewhat stressful time of year for cattlemen!

Assisted labor is not an uncommon practice on a cattle farm, but estimated progeny differnences (EPDs) and advanced breeding is increasing calving ease in herds all over the country significantly. In order to gear you up for the calving season kickoff, here’s some witty tips on what NOT to do during and after labor!

Movie Monday: Low-Stress Handling

Lowndes County cattleman Chuck Madaris of
CK Cattle Co. practicing low-stress
handling along with Dr. Harold Pate.

Producers: 
We don’t have to tell you that cattle are skittish animals. That’s why low-stress handling practices are very important for overall quality assurance and animal welfare for your cattle.

Low-stress handling can even help prevent BRD (bovine respiratory disease) and other ailments or diseases that come about when animals are placed in high-stress situations.

Check it out for this week’s #WatchThisWednesday. 

Click to view video.