7 Key takeaways from Cattlemen's College 2023

by Gene Johnston and Courtney Love

As the Cattle Industry Convention kicks off this week in New Orleans, the Cattlemen's College covered topics that ranged from mental health to new grazing technology. Here are seven key takeaways from the sessions.

1. Be a Good Listener.

Every 11 minutes, someone commits suicide, and 68% of those who commit are from rural areas. Rural communities have a crisis on their hands, says Jeff Winton. Most areas lack sufficient access to local mental health resources, such as in-town psychologists, primary care doctors, and psychiatric registered nurses. They may also lack broadband internet, which means not being able to tap into telehealth services.

Winton has seen firsthand the effects of poor mental health care in his upstate New York farming community. Ten years ago, he lost his nephew, Brooks, through suicide. It devastated Winton's family, but it also made him realize that his farming community needed better tools to help them tackle depression and other mental illnesses. So he created the non-profit Rural Minds to bridge the gap between farmers and psychologists. His group also helps identify warning signs of someone contemplating suicide, such as mood swings, short selling of livestock or equipment, an increase in substance issues, and hopelessness.

Rural Minds has partnered with several rural community organizations like the National Garage and Cornell University's College of Veterinary Medicine to provide free or low-cost programs that lead those dealing with mental health issues to get the help they need, such as counseling.

Most of the time, though, the best thing you can do is listen, says Winton. But, of course, that is all anyone wants — a listening ear that doesn't judge.

• READ MORE: Online tools make mental health care accessible

2. What's the hundred-dollar difference? Management.

Most beef producers can find themselves trapped in false pattern recognition, meaning they tend to see patterns and find meaning in random information. It's normal to fall into a bad practice; it's human nature. However, it becomes a problem for cattle producers, who need to improve their management consistently, says Dusty Abney of Cargill.

One of the best tools a producer can do to set his operation up for success, even during tough economic times, is to create a nutrition plan before crises like droughts or market changes. Producers can be ahead of the curve in dealing with forage shortages by having a plan.

This past summer, the drought made most producers make sacrifices and stretch their dollars. However, Abney says that just because your cattle tolerate certain lower-quality or alternative feed sources doesn't mean it's the best for long-term performance.

"It doesn't need to turn into a habit," he says. "We can't operate on marginal performance."

Abney encourages farmers to invest in technologies such as Ionophores and implants to help their cattle convert their feed intake more efficiently into pounds gained at the bunk or on pasture. He also says producers should test forages, give vaccinations, deworm, and use fly control. If they don't, that is equal to leaving money on the table.

He also advised young producers to look for a niche within the marketplace.

"Look for the 'Black Hole,'" Abney says.

• READ MORE: U.S. beef cow herd falls to lowest level since 1962, USDA says

3. Play the game better, and get your cows bred.

Having open cows is the worst card a beef producer can be dealt in the cattle poker game. One missed estrous cycle costs a producer three weeks of weaning weight, which comes to a loss of about $84.

One form of protection is using a reproduction technology such as a short breeding season. And only 37% of beef operations use one reproduction technology with their cattle, says Victor Mercadante of Virginia Tech University.

Research has found that early-bred cows and heifers within a breeding season will deliver calves performing better at weaning. It's a $50 difference between steer calves born early in calving versus later, says Mercadante. Early-bred heifers will also have better longevity in a herd.

Mercadante advised farmers to put pressure on bulls and cows for a short breeding season of about 70 to 90 days.

His second recommendation for ultimate protection is conducting pregnancy checks. "If you don't preg check, you can't manage," Mercadante says.

Pregnancy checks can be done through various methods, such as palpation, blood tests, and ultrasounds. Most operations will have a manual palpation exam done on their cattle, but there might be better methods, says George Perry of Texas A&M Extension.

He warned that technician or human error could occur along with abortions, too. Ultrasounds and blood tests are better, especially after the 28th day the cow has been bred. Perry says there's a higher chance that you'll see an embryo or positive test result once the placenta attaches itself to the uterus.

4. Does it pay to verify age, source, health of calves?

The short answer is yes. Lora Wright of a company called Where Food Comes From, which provides third-party verification of your good practices, says calves sold at auction with her company's CARE designation were worth $12.47 per cwt more than non-verified calves. For a 600-pound calf, that's over $70 per head for doing the right things and having proof.

• READ MORE: Tips for raising an orphan calf

To get the CARE designation from Wright's company, your ranch is visited and certified annually to guarantee you are following the three pillars of requirements: the animal care meets high standards, you are practicing good environmental stewardship, and the people and community involved with your animals are trained in good husbandry and safety. Each calf gets a standard RFID ear tag to keep track of it throughout its life.

Consumers are demanding this kind of back-story information on food products, says Wright.

"Recent surveys say 55% of consumers want this," she says. "And that number grows every year. Yes, you have some cost to provide the information, such as the ear tag, but there is definitely a good return on that investment."

5. Get in on the ground floor of a new grazing technology.

Enriched Ag is a relatively new company that is combining sophisticated technology with practical ranch management to fine-tune your grazing strategies. They have invented an online product called the Ag Insights Tool that you can use right now for free to get farm and ranch advice for things such as forage availability and stocking rates.

You can go to their website and click on the link titled "Insights About Your Ranch." It will take you to a U.S. map where you can zoom in to your specific ranch. Then, you can outline your fields and overlay your farm maps with various parameters, including forage availability, number of head supportable, grazing days, drought status, and even carbon sequestration potential.

Billy Cook of Enriched Ag says the tool is free for now, in sort of a beta test, so that the company and participating ranchers can learn how it works and how it can help. Eventually, it may be fee-based, but not right now. "We want to learn what will be valuable to you," says Cook.

• READ MORE: Prepare pastures for another possible drought

6. Back to the basics of good herdsmanship.

California rancher Mike Williams gets up every day, gets on his horse, takes his dogs, and herds his cattle to a specific area of his ranch where he wants them to graze. There are no fences there, permanent or otherwise, but for the most part, they stay there and graze.

Williams actually got a government sustainability grant to research his cattle herding project. In the first year of the project, what he calls the control year, he put GPS trackers on the cows and watched where they were grazing. The ranch is 12,000 acres in the mountain foothills of northern Los Angeles County.

In the first year, he could see that his cows, when left completely to themselves, were only grazing about 40% of the available land.

Every day for the following two years, he physically herded the cattle by horseback and dogs to the areas he wanted them to graze and left them on their own. Sometimes, they would split up and drift back to previous favored spots. But over time, particularly in the second year, the cattle learned to stay where he had herded them and graze for the day.

This daily herding mimics rotational grazing, without the fences. On his leased land, it prevents Williams from having to pay for the fence.

He has four takeaways.

"One, I was able to have a positive effect on the distribution of cattle across the ranch," he says. He thinks he at least doubled the areas where they grazed.

Second, because of the daily herding, the cattle became increasingly easy to handle in both pastures and corrals. "And I became a better, more patient cattle handler," he says.

Third, conception rates on the cows improved, there was less illness, and gains improved. Williams attributes this to cattle being calmer from his gentle herding every day, and it tends to keep them closer together in breeding season.

"And fourth, I had to learn to take my own stress level down. And when I'm calm, it's like everything else is calmer, including the livestock, my horse, and even the dogs," says Williams.

One thing he learned is not to force the cattle to fit his schedule. For instance, they may not want to be moved to an area in the morning. They may just turn around and return to where you started. "But when they want to move later in the day, and you gently herd them where you want them, they'll stay there and graze," he says.

7. Trees and cows make good companions.

For 40 years, George Owens has been getting an unusual double crop off his north Florida acres: beef and trees. His pastures are silvo pastures — forestry and grazing forages. The cows roam among the pine trees, and both crops benefit.

"We plant the trees in double rows 8 feet apart, and with 40 feet of grazing land between those double rows," he explains. For the first three years, while the pine trees are getting well established and several feet tall, they don't graze on that land, but do harvest it as hay.

"Then after three years, the pine trees become resistant to cattle and we can graze without them hurting the trees," he says.

The forages used for this must be tolerant to some shade from the trees, he continues. He likes a combination of bahia grass and crimson clover. Owens likes to plant his trees in east-west rows, which allows for more all-day sunlight on the forages.

"Even with 50% shade, bahia grass produces just as much edible forage as it does in full sunlight," he claims. "And crimson clover does even better in shade. Plus it's a legume and fixes nitrogen that the trees can use."