Health_Nutrition

Sample Submission

Here’s how to take, preserve and ship samples for DNA, BVD or pregnancy testing.

As beef industry technology tools continue to advance, collecting blood and tissue samples for cattle DNA, bovine viral diarrhea or pregnancy detection is becoming more common. At the 2019 Range Beef Cow Symposium in Mitchell, Neb., Nov. 19, Kelly Heath offered insights into these tests, along with tips for successfully collecting, preserving and shipping samples for analysis. Heath is the director and attending veterinarian of the Institutional Animal Care Program at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.

4Ry, USDA, Texas A&M AgriLife to develop innovative spraying technology for cattle fever ticks.

4Ry, the USDA Agricultural Research Service and Texas A&M AgriLife Research have signed a collaborative research agreement to develop a means to more efficiently and effectively spray cattle and kill cattle fever ticks, according to a 4Ry Inc. announcement.

Cattle fever ticks are vectors of pathogens causing bovine babesiosis, also known as cattle tick fever, and are the focus of the U.S. Cattle Fever Tick Eradication Program.

Podcast discusses establishing treatment protocols with veterinarian for winter illness.

Commingling of cattle and winter weather both increase the odds of sickness in the herd. Kansas State University’s Beef Cattle Institute professor Bob Larson offers strategies for managing cattle illness for positive outcomes for both the animal and the producer.

If you’ve never tested before, this is the year to do it, says NDSU livestock specialist.

Color, smell, texture, leafiness and harvest date can all offer clues about forage quality, but “sensory evaluation doesn’t cut it when it comes to feed analysis,” says North Dakota State University (NDSU) Area Livestock Extension Specialist Janna Block, who is based at the Hettinger Research Extension Center. Block shared comments during a hands-on breakout session at the 2019 Range Beef Cow Symposium hosted Nov. 18-20 in Mitchell, Neb.

Setting up newborns for success means making sure they consume colostrum meal in first four hours of life.

“In my opinion, colostrum is the most important meal of a calf’s life. There are many factors that influence the success of the transfer of colostral immunity, and proactive management can have a big impact on the transfer of colostral immunity.”

“Crooked calves” may result when pregnant cows eat toxic plants.

Calving season sometimes brings unpleasant surprises. In certain regions and situations, some cows give birth to deformed calves with fused joints and twisted limbs. A common cause of these congenital defects is ingestion of certain plants by the pregnant cow during early pregnancy. Kevin Welch, research toxicologist with the USDA Agricultural Research Service Poisonous Plant Research Laboratory in Logan, Utah, says that in some regions, lupine can be a problem by causing deformed calves with fused joints.

Experts recommend monitoring body condition and manure consistency.

The Near Infrared Reflectance Spectroscopy (NIRS) and the Nutrition Balance Analyzer (NUTBAL) system were developed by Texas range scientists for the purpose of monitoring whether the diets of grazing cattle are adequate to meet nutritional requirements. The USDA’s Natural Resource Conservation Service has offered NIRS/NUTBAL as an option for monitoring nutrition among cattle of producers enrolled in the Conservation Stewardship Program.

ANGUS BEEF BULLETIN EXTRA