CALF_News_June_July_2018

35 CALF News • June | July 2018 • www.calfnews.net He pointed out that a good nutrition program to fit a ranch’s environment is also needed.“A cow’s body condition score can provide a window on what’s going on inside the cow,” he explained. Feral hogs spread leptospirosis Dr. Peter Armstrong, DVM, who practices out of Jacksboro, said cows can acquire the abortion-causing disease if they’re not vaccinated against it. Lepto sheds from the pig urine and is picked up by cattle. Producers may need to vac- cinate against lepto twice a year. In other health matters, Armstrong said ranchers should monitor for calving difficulty and intervene if there is no progress in calving within one hour. noted that even though a bull may have what appears to be excellent EPDs, he may not work well in a particular environment.“That complicates our decision making,” he said.“When you’re looking at a bull sale catalog and you’re making decisions based on the actual birth weight of the animal, you’re not counting for environmental differences, so that makes your selection decisions less accurate.” Remember that an EPD applies to the average of large numbers of calves sired by a bull.“It doesn’t predict the perfor- mance of one calf,” Decker said.“The term ‘expected’ is front loaded. We’re dealing with randomness.” forage needed to meet cattle nutritional needs throughout the year, and from year to year. Forage should also help develop and protect wildlife habitat; sequester carbon from the atmosphere; reduce soil loss from wind and water erosion; protect water quality and quantity; and protect animal health and welfare, animal product quality and safety, Olson said. While many areas in central and south Texas have knee-high and taller grass, ranches in the southern Plains were strug- gling to see any green in early spring. Rain remained scarce. But no matter what type pasture a ranch has, it’s important to graze only what’s available without hurt- ing growth patterns down the trail. It gets down to the proper stocking rate for grazable acres, said range special- ists Stephen Diess and Kalissa Garland of the Natural Resources and Conserva- tion Service (NRCS). They noted that a 1,000-pound cow with a calf will eat 26 pounds of forage per day, or 9,490 pounds per year. Of course, larger cows will eat more. They encouraged producers to work with their local NRCS service to deter- mine the amount of grass their pastures yield per year and work out a formula to determine a stocking rate. Rotational grazing is the best way to reduce the need for supplement forage, they said. That requires access to good water and good fencing. Since many ranches also count on hunting as a profit Peter Armstrong, DVM from Jacksboro, Texas, warned that feral hogs can shed lepto bacteria that can be picked up by cattle and cause abortions. He added that with wet weather seen in much of north Texas in 2017, foot rot has been a problem for many produc- ers. It’s water caused and often occurs around ponds or tanks. As the banks dry up, cattle can get abrasions in their hooves, which allows the foot rot bacte- ria to cause inflammation. Armstrong said several products are available to help treat foot rot, such as Draxxin®, Nuflor®, Excede® and LA- 200® and Noromycin 300, and new products are being developed for pain relief of foot rot.“Getting that cow to walk on that foot tends to make the process go faster,” he said. Make genetics work for you Jarod Decker, Ph.D., professor of beef genetics at the University of Missouri, He suggested that producers also consider the Economic Selection Index along with EPDs when selecting a bull. Different breeds have different indexes and there are different indexes for differ- ent marketing end points. Also, look at percentile ranking to determine how an animal ranks among others in the breed. “No. 1 is the top, 50 is the average and 99 is the lowest ranking,” Decker said. Different environments, different forage availability Vanessa Corriher-Olson, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension forage specialist, said a forage system’s goal should be to provide quantity and quality amounts of University of Missouri beef genetics professor Jarod Decker said a bull’s EPDs apply to the average of large numbers of calves sired by a bull, not “the performance of one calf.” Kalissa Garland, NRCS range specialist, encouraged producers to know how much grass their pastures yield before setting a stocking rate. Continued on page 36 