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BEEF Cattle questions may be directed to the OSU Extension BEEF Team through Stephen Boyles or Stan Smith, Editor

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Previous issues of the BEEF Cattle letter

Issue # 624

February 18, 2009

"Sometimes You Just Have To Say Something . . ."- Dr. Roy Burris, Beef Extension Specialist, University of Kentucky

I was recently reminded of a funny story that Comedian Ron White tells. In his story, he was thrown out of a bar in New York and arrested. The policeman advised him that he had "the right to remain silent". His comedic reply was that "I had the right to remain silent but I didn't have the ability". Sometimes you just have to say something.

I recently received some letters from various individuals concerning the election for president and board of directors of one of the breed associations. One candidate sent out a letter that took the current board to task over declining membership in the organization and decreasing circulation of the breed magazine. An outgoing officer took issue with that and sent out a letter explaining that the "average purebred producers only stays in the business 5 to 7 years". I don't know if those numbers are correct but … I just have to say something.

Even if the numbers aren't exactly right, it points out a common occurrence in our business. Folks are constantly getting in and out of the purebred seedstock business. Recent discussions over the auto makers' "bail-out" revealed concern over people buying cars from companies that might not be around for the long term. Should these feelings apply to the cattle business?

Cattle operations that are only around for about one-half of the average life span of a good cow aren't likely interested in the same traits that you are. I think it is good to find an animal that you are interested in then ask to see the dam and grand dam. Do they still have them? Why not?

Here's a typical scenario. Someone that has made a good deal of money - doing something else - wants to enter the cattle business "starting at the top". They can afford to buy a showplace, get some real expensive cattle from various established "big-name" breeders, have some glossy-print ads in the breed magazines and they have "arrived". Even if they go out of business later, there will be a huge dispersal sale with a lot of expensive glossy catalogs. They can pump a lot of money into the "business" - so what's the problem.

Well, I'm not as concerned about these folks as I am the more typical cattle producers that look to purebred producers for their seedstock. You can ride around in a new pickup, looking through board fences at yearling bulls eating corn out of a self-feeder, talk about bloodlines and think that this is what it is all about. I am reminded of what one of my mentors, Dr. Neil Bradley, once said when we were talking about the nice barns that many successful cattle operations had. He said that "most of those folks built their barns after they made their money, not before".

But, here's the problem (or problems). That's not the real world, in my opinion. What traits are you selecting cattle for? Does your farm look like that or is it barb wire fence and fescue pastures? You should select cattle - first and foremost - for reproductive efficiency in your environment. Remember many breeders and all feedlots aren't concerned about your herd's reproductive efficiency. But you should be.

You need to have a well-defined set of goals for your operation and a vision of what you want your operation to be. Select breeding stock that will help you meet your goals.

I am slightly biased (I admit that) but I always believe that our future is with forages - and with cattle that will perform profitably on forage. Why? Because it will be more profitable and more sustainable in the long term. Does a calf that has been creep fed until weaning and then fed a high grain diet postweaning represent the genetics that you need in your grazing operation? Will they hold up in the real world? You just don't know.

I also believe that you should have enough confidence and trust in the knowledge and integrity of your seedstock suppliers that you can tell them what you are looking for. They can help you determine which animals should meet your needs, and you can choose from those. I don't believe that you should walk up to a pen of bulls, look across them and say "I'll take that one". There's a lot of information to consider before you make your final decision. Someone that has raised 3 or 4 generations of the "parents" could help you with your selection. I suggest that you cultivate those relationships, remember what is important in the selection process and ignore the "scenery".

Oh well, sometimes you just have to say something . . .

Johnes Disease: Testing Alternatives (Part 2) - William Shulaw, Extension Veterinarian, Cattle and Sheep, Ohio State University

Over the last thirty years, a number of test methods have been developed in an effort to provide producers with a better diagnostic test. The current culture method available at Ohio's Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory (ADDL) in Reynoldsburg uses liquid culture media and is perhaps the most sensitive method yet developed. Herd culture results are available in six to seven weeks, and individual positive cultures can be detected in as little as two weeks. This is a significant improvement over the previously used technology that took up to 12-16 weeks to complete. Culture of manure and tissue is still the "gold standard" for diagnosis of infection with MAP. Blood tests for Johne's disease can be completed in less than a week and are much less expensive than culture. The current method used in most laboratories is referred to as an ELISA, and this test has been markedly improved in the past decade. However current research, including our observations in our demonstration herds, suggests that it is much less sensitive than culture. The ELISA only identifies 70-80% of cows that are heavy shedders, and perhaps only 10-30% of light and moderate shedders compared to manure culture. This test may help a producer determine whether they have Johne's disease in their herd, but testing and culling based on ELISA results may leave animals remaining in the herd to contaminate the environment.

Culturing pools of five individual animals is now a well-accepted technique for detecting an infected herd, and it can be used to estimate the number of infected animals in a herd. In Ohio, veterinarians can now pool the manure samples from individual cows in their offices and submit them to the laboratory. (A recommended procedure is available from the ADDL) Of course, if one wishes to identify the infected animals in a culture-positive pool of five, the individual animals have to be cultured. However, in herds with a low prevalence of infected animals, or a herd with an unknown disease status, pooling can significantly reduce the cost of testing the herd. The work done with this technique in our demonstration herds suggests that it is much more sensitive than blood testing and reliably allows detection of pools containing heavy and moderate shedding cows and most pools containing one or more light shedders.

The current culture method in use at the ADDL provides results in the form of a number which reflects the number of days of incubation before a positive culture is detected. If they are not detected before, cultures are incubated up to 42 days at which time they are examined by staining and further testing if the stain is positive. Samples from cows which are positive in 25 days of incubation or less are considered "heavy" shedders, and those positive from 26 to 42 days are considered moderate to light shedders. The work we have done with culture of pools of five individual cow samples suggests that there is a close relationship between the days-to-positive of the pooled sample and that of the individual animal in the pool having the shortest days-to-positive. In the previous example in the herd just mentioned, the fecal sample from the two-year-old classed as a heavy shedder was positive at 16 days of incubation. The pool of five cows containing her manure actually had two positive cows, the second at 36 days, but the pooled sample was positive at 18 days of incubation. Another pool also had two culture-positive cows, each at 39 days-to-positive on their individual sample cultures, and the pooled sample was also positive at 39 days of incubation. Pooled sample culture allows the producer and the veterinarian to better characterize the extent of the infection in the herd than with blood testing and to determine if there are individual animals that should receive further testing to identify infected ones. This would also be a more sensitive, and a cost-effective, method of screening newly purchased animals to find infected animals than using blood testing by current ELISA.

Another observation that has emerged from work in the Demonstration Project herds is the need to carefully consider the timing of any diagnostic testing, especially in beef cattle herds. Prior to their enrollment in the project, both of our beef herds had been testing annually for several years using blood samples and fecal culture, however they collected the samples in the fall, and the older method of culture took 12-16 weeks for results to be available. This meant that by the time the results were received, the cows were near calving or had already calved. At that point, if there were fecal culture-positive cows, the calving area was already contaminated, and it was difficult to change the situation by culling or segregation of infected cows. If herds are interested in making meaningful progress toward controlling or eliminating Johne's disease, we would advise using the most sensitive test, culture by individual or pooled sample, and scheduling the sample collection such that results will be available with enough time before calving season begins to cull or segregate infected cows and to remove potential contamination from the calving area before the new calves arrive.

Next week in Part 3 we'll look at Control and Elimination of Johnes.

* A table illustrating current diagnostic tests available at Ohio's ADDL and their potential uses, advantages, and disadvantages is available on our website at: http://vet.osu.edu/1985.htm

In The Cattle Markets: Beef Demand (February 11, 2009) - Dillon Feuz, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Economics, Utah State University

Based on the recently released USDA Cattle Inventory report that showed a declining beef cattle inventory and the last several months Cattle on Feed reports that have shown declining placements and declining numbers of cattle on feed, one would expect that we would be enjoying very favorable cattle and beef prices. We are not. The main reason we are not is Beef Demand. The general price level in the market place is determined by both supply and demand forces. While declining supplies would lead to higher prices if beef demand were stable, beef demand has not been stable. Beef demand decreased about 3.5 percent this last year relative to the prior year. On the other hand, even though we have a smaller cattle inventory and reduced numbers of cattle on feed, beef supply was actually larger last year due to heavier carcass weights and an increased beef cow slaughter. With beef demand declining throughout 2008 and a beef supply that was larger, prices for cattle were lower than a year ago. Looking forward, because of continued problems in the general economy, beef demand is not expected to strengthen and will likely decline, at least in the first half of the year relative to the first half of 2008. That will continue to weigh down on cattle prices. Beef supply is expected to be reduced this year, and that should help support cattle prices. There may be times throughout the year when supply is tight enough to generate nice price rallies. These are likely to be short lived, as overall demand gloom will keep the markets defensive for most of the year.

Marketing Cattle Today - David Dugan, OSU Extension Educator, Brown County

Just a couple of years ago, you could read about things that cow/calf operators should do to gain value in their calves. At that time cattle were selling well, and the time and effort may not have seemed worth it. Selling bawling calves that had just been weaned that morning, bull calves, horned calves, and maybe various sizes of calves (the ones that you were able to get in) were being sold at about the same price as those calves pre-weaned, steers instead of bulls, dehorned, and uniform groups of calves.

The market for cattle has been like a yo-yo in the first two months of 2009. Things are not near as good as they were a couple of years ago and we are starting to see some differences in prices for calves that are weaned, calves that are steers instead of bulls, and groups of uniform cattle. You can consider it being docked for not doing certain practices, or a premium for doing them, it does not matter which it is, it is the difference in the check that does make a difference.

Weaning, dehorning, and castrating are all fairly easy to manage. It just takes a couple of days to do them. I say a couple of days, because if you did them all the same day, that is putting more stress on calves than most would recommend at one time. The less stress the better for the health of the calf, and healthier calves gain better, so spread out the stress. If you are following the recommendations for blackleg vaccinations alone, you will need to work the calves twice anyway when you give the booster. The easiest thing to take care of is dehorning. Using a homozygous polled bull will take the horns out of the calves, so dehorning is not needed.

The hardest management part of this whole idea is getting groups of calves. Now if you have 200 cows, putting together 20 steers that match up close may not be too difficult. However, if you have 50 cows that calve year round, you may not find that to be so easy. Grouping the calves is much easier when you have a calving season. I used 20 steers, but bigger groups of uniform cattle are even better at market.

If the cows are only exposed to the bull for a two month period, the calves should come in a two month period. The hardest part is taking the cows that calve year round and converting them to a calving season. Two months is close to three heat cycles for a cow (21 days on average). Making the change from year round to two months should not be done all at once. You will have too many cows without calves (your income) for way too long.

In addition to being able to market the calves as a group once you get the cows converted to a calving season, there are other advantages that you will find. If the calves are all within two months of age, you can vaccinate all of the calves at the same time and castrate the bull calves all at once. If you did not take care of the horn problem with a bull, you can even dehorn all of your calves the same day of the year.

From the money side of things, calves that are weaned, dehorned, castrated, and in a uniform group tend to be bringing about a dime more per pound at this point. Well wow, a dime!! OK, do the math. Ten cents per pound on a 500 pound calf is $50, and you have 20 cows that is a $1000, or you have 50 cows and that is $2500. In addition to more money for your calves, how about feeding the cows more cost effective? If the cows are all going to calve at about the same time, how much more efficient can you use your feed dollars? You can feed your best hay just a few weeks before and after they calve, you can supplement the cows with grain when the cows most need it, and you can save on feed by not supplementing the herd when their nutritional needs are lowest, normally after weaning the calves until a few weeks before the next calving season starts. If the cows are calving year round, you are feeding them all the same, regardless of their nutritional needs. So you are underfeeding some, while you are over feeding others. Stored feed, regardless if it is grain or hay, is one of the most costly parts of the operation.

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BEEF Cattle is a weekly publication of Ohio State University Extension in Fairfield County and the OSU Beef Team. Contributors include members of the Beef Team and other beef cattle specialists and economists from across the U.S.

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