Cattle Handling Points

What follows is an excerpt from a great article on cattle handling from Texas Agrilife Extension. You can find the full text of the article HERE and it is certainly well worth the read.

"There are five basic principles of cattle behavior that when used properly can improve the ease and speed of working cattle while reducing stress and increasing efficiency. Those principles are: 

1. Cattle want to see you.
Understanding how cattle see is basic to getting cattle to respond to your position. Cattle can see everywhere but directly behind them or a small blind spot in front of them. When working from behind, it is important to keep moving side to side to prevent cattle from turning in an effort to keep you in their line of sight. 

2. Cattle want to go around you.
This allows you to position yourself such that, when they do go around you, they are pointed directly at the gate or destination you had in mind. They’ll think it was their idea to go there! 

3. Cattle want to be with and will go to other cattle.
A herding instinct is natural among ‘prey’ animals. As stockmen we can take advantage of this natural instinct as we work from the front of cattle. If you start the front the back will follow. 

4. Cattle want to return to where they have been.
The natural instinct of a cow is to return to the last safe or comfortable place they were. The simple principle of the return box or “Bud Box” helps capture and use this principle. It also works great in sorting and moving cattle from one corral to another. 

5. Cattle can only process one main thought at a time.
If cattle are thinking about anything other than what you are asking them to do you will need to change their mind first before putting pressure on them.

There are three basic means of communicating with livestock. Very simply they are:

􀁸 Sight
􀁸 Sound
􀁸 Touch

Cattle prefer to communicate through line of sight. Sound coming from a human for the most part is stressful and marginally successful in getting the desired result. Sound should be used as a secondary method and only used when sight is not adequate. Sound can often lead to distracting the line of sight away from the desired direction. Touch is really only useful in situations where animals are confined and additional stimulus is needed to get cattle to move or respond. Touch does not refer to use of driving aids such as hotshots or sorting sticks or paddles.

British White Cows & Heifers for Sale

British White Cattle for Sale in Colmesneil, Texas

J.West Cattle Company now has a selection of British White Cattle for sale ranging in age from weanlings to older bred cows that have several more good breeding years to add to add fine stock to your herd.  Here are photos of a few of the bred cows available now.

DAR'lin Lil Diamond

J.West's Maude Rae

J.West's Nova

J.West's Olivia

J.West's Birdie

  Please visit www.TexasBritishWhiteCattle.com for additional information.........

Cattle and other Animals Slaughtered for Human Consumption Deserve the Benefit of Modern Technology .... just like we Humans do.

This lovely cow is J.West's Nell Opal, sired by J.West's Bounder, an English Woodbastwick Turpin sired bull, and Nell Opal has never missed a calf. Her calf at foot is sired by J.West's El Presidente. I really enjoy this video from a year and half or so ago, gives me a quiet happy feeling. Yes, the calf looks muddy with the August summer sand turning to mud with the fluids of birth . . . but look how very alive and curious he is, how grand and milky and beautiful his dam, my Nell Opal. I've just about finished, only in the last hours, a silly struggle to keep her image from being used for a purpose that I found abhorrent and totally at odds with this breed's history, it's docility -- the joy the breed conveys to it's owners on a regular basis -- yes, they are beef cattle -- but they do feel pain, keenly, they feel the loss of their calves, they sense the injury and distress of their herd mates -- and they do deserve the benefit of modern humane treatment at slaughter, rather than their throats being slit and a painful and unconscionable wait for them to cry and struggle and bleed out and die. We accept the furtherance of technology that benefits humans -- yet some wish to hold the slaughter animal back to Biblical days. Astounding.

Newborn British White Heifer!

Have a look . . . a rather long look, at J.West's Doc's Gal with her newborn heifer sired by J.West's Milo.  The heifer is still wet from birth, and her dam is trying her best to lick her dry in the chilling wind.  My dog, Lucky, is creeping around in the yaupon grove and that puts her on high alert, then you see a nice little bull calf coming to check out what's up, and he happens to be her maternal brother, my J.West's MsRae's latest calf.  Doc's Gal is out of MsRae and Mazarati, both sired by my first herd bull, DFTX 'Doc' Watson, chosen by the late Bob Stanley as the bull to start his herd with. Doc was my first British White to hit the pastures some 14 years back.  J.West's Doc's Gal was flushed for embryos that were exported to Australia for use at Shrublands Estate cattle farm.  I do hope they have heifers from Doc's Gal bred to calve later on this year . . . and even more hope they express the incredibly milky and beautiful udder of Doc's Gal.

British White Cattle are an Excellent Fit for Commercial Production

Four Top Commercial Producers Talk About Beef Production

Burt Rutherford

The following are excerpts from an interesting Beef Cattle Magazine article.  Click the link above for the full text of the article: 

“Our breeding program is really focused around a maternal composite,” says John Maddux with Maddux Cattle Company of Wauneta, NE, this year’s BIF Commercial Producer of the Year Award winner. “We stress maternal traits and making sure we’re focused on fitness and convenience traits as opposed to the traditional production traits that are represented by EPDs.”

“ . . . For most breeds out there, we have more-than-optimum levels of production,” he says. That means having a high-growth calf is relatively unimportant to them, he says, because it’s relatively easy with moderate growth to make a nine-weight steer at 16 or 17 months of age. . . "

" . . . So, while the most efficient cow size will differ depending on the environmental constraints you run in, all four say a moderate cow size is something to shoot for. “It may not be for everybody, but for our program, we want moderate size, a 1,200-lb. cow max,” Maddux says."

J.West's Vincenzia & Heifer Calf

Rare 3/4 British White - 1/4 Nelore Heifer Born in the USA to J.West Cattle Company

My stunning half Nelore and half British White heifer, HBW Daisy, calved yesterday evening a pretty little heifer!!  Daisy has proven to be very easy-keeping.  She grew that magnificent frame while on the same hay and alfalfa as the BW heifer herds she has run with since I brought her home. Daisy has shown clear tolerance, or perhaps lack of desirability to biting flies and lice, excellent heat tolerance.  Basically, this gal never misses a beat.

My goal . . . a gentler version of my beautiful Miss Daisy.  Tomorrow I'll be dashing out to get a birth weight on her new heifer calf, and will cross my fingers I can get a tag in her ear before Daisy pounds the earth to get to me!!!  While she's let me touch her, comes readily to me offering alfalfa, she clearly has extreme protective maternal instincts and does not trust me as my BW girls do.  Her heifer calf was very laid back about me having a look at her, popping up her tail to confirm she was a heifer. She didn't startle at all, I was thankful for that as we were close to the state highway fence.  That said, I wasn't going to pop her up on her feet and take a chest measure so close to the highway; if she dashed thru the old highway fence I've no doubt Miss Daisy would have simply taken down all the barbed wire and headed after her newborn heifer on US Highway 69. . . .

HBW Daisy and her newborn 3/4 British White and 1/4 Nelore Heifer Calf

 

J.West's British White Cattle.

American British White Females in Texas Available for Lease for Embryo Flushing . . . 

The topic of embryo flushing has come in to conversation this past week, and I thought of this fine photo of Colombian BON calves the product of embryo transfer. If you are interested in embryos of the British White breed, or using one of my females for flushing to the BON or another breed, please let me know. I will certainly make available my superior females for flushing and export on a lease basis as I've done in the past. It's an excellent approach to introducing desirable genetics around the world. I think the combination of the beefiness of the American British White and the BON's documented excellent tolerance to heat and biting insects would be a great joining for tropical areas in pursuit of greater beef production in tropical environments.  One day it will happen!!!   

Blanco Orejinegro calves in Colombia

"Nice set of embryo calves of the Blanco Orejinegro breed in Colombia. A road to more rapid improvement and expansion of any small breed is the use of embryo flushing of the superior females."Embriones Agropecuaria Pacaraima -- Pacaraima livestock embryos (Translated by Bing)

Embriones Agropecuaria Pacaraima

Tis the Season of Peace and Good Will -- let Americans be at Peace in their Continued Role in this Great World in Furtherance of the Good

Excerpts below are from the 1896 publication "A Man's Value to Society", preface to Chapter 8 "The Enthusiasm of Friendship".

"He that walketh with wise men shall be wise"   Solomon

"The only way to have a friend is to be one."  Emerson

"A talent is perfected in solitude; a character in the stream of the world."    Goethe

"It is certain that either wise bearing or ignorant carriage is caught as men take diseases, one of another; therefore let men take heed of their company."  Shakespeare

"Beyond all wealth, honor or oven health, is the attachment we form to noble souls, because to become one with the good, generous and true, is to become, in a measure, good generous and true ourselves."  Thomas Arnold

"Cicero said:  'Friendship can make riches splendid.'  Friendship can plan many things for its wealth to execute.  It can plan a good winter evening for a group, and it can plan an afternoon for a hundred children.  It can roll in a Christmas log for a large hearth.  It can spread happiness to the right and left.  It can spend money most beautifully and make gold to shine.  Civilization itself is of the heart."  Shelby

My niece, Taylor, with her sweet young one, Lexie, that she babysits on her days off from her Target job that is restricted to a mere 20 hours because of current laws.  Let the both of them always be as happy in the years to come as they were today..............

This excerpt struck me as pertinent tonight from "A Man's Value to Society", Copyright 1896:

 "Disobedience is slavery. Obedience is liberty. . . . disobedience to the law of morals gives waste and want and wretchedness. That individual or nation is hastening toward poverty that does not love the right and hate the wrong. So certain is the penalty of wrongdoing that sins seems infinitely stupid. Every transgression is is like an iron plate thrown into the air: gravity will pull it back upon the wrongdoer's head to wound him."

Let their be peace . . . and faith in our civil system, for each of us. Obama says: "Understandable reaction?" Hardly. Gun shots, rocks and bottles thrown, police cars attacked, fires and .... whatever else. Absurd. Shameful. Hardly Understandable. Burden falls on the baiters and the mainstream media and the rabid liberals who regularly lay waste to the the old Christian laws of morals that has  lead to waste and want and wretchedness" . . . among some other rather significant others of influence.

Newborn British White Calves Caterwauling

Fussy newborns!  They are a bit indignant and confused as their dams abandoned them for fresh hay. It went from a peaceful easy morning of measuring and tagging them all (don't think I've ever tagged that many at once) to chaos as soon as Mike put out the first bale.

An excellent article from the Lampasas Dispatch Record examining the cost and value of raising your own replacement heifers vs buying them in today's market environment.  

Ranchers weigh replacement heifer options

By BLAIR FANNIN

Texas A&M AgriLife Extension

When it comes to replacement heifers in beef cattle operations, producers are faced with a dilemma: Raise them, buy them or sell them and “take the money and run,” said a Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service economist.

It’s becoming an all too familiar situation among Texas ranchers, said Stan Bevers, an AgriLife Extension economist at Vernon who recently presented a study at the Texas A&M Beef Cattle Short Course.

Where's the story?2 Points Mentioned

“We looked at what the market is right now for replacement heifers,” he said. “We were targeting heavy bred heifers, and they were anywhere from $1,650 to $2,300 a head. The second number was what it was costing the rancher to raise them themselves.

“One operation we tracked were heifers weaned in 2010 and 2011, what those heifers were and what their accumulated expenses were over the two years to the point where they were heavy bred. Their expenses totaled $1,100 to $1,400 a head. That ranch was pretty efficient and did a good job of reducing their expenses.”

Bevers said since this ranch was located in Oklahoma, one would need to add $300-$400 a head to that for Texasranchers and regional market prices to develop replacement heifers.

“That comes out to $1,400 to $1,800 to develop replacement heifers in Texas,” Bevers said.

He said if you look at the current market price, it shows it’s cheaper to “raise them yourself if you are a pretty efficient, cost-reducing type operator.”

“The final number we looked at is if I have to pay much over market cost for them or if I choose to raise a heifer on my own, what is she going to return me over her life?” he said. “We started with a twoyear old heifer that’s going to be having her first calf and added eight years to that. That means we’ve gone out 10 years into the future, so now she is 10 years old, and we came up with what I can pay for her, which was $2,301 a head.”

Bevers said that leaves three numbers to consider.

“We know the market is $1,650 to $2,300, and it takes $1,400 to $1,500 to raise her, and now she is worth $2,300 in my herd economically.

“What do you do with those numbers? Well, if nothing else, it illustrates how complex this decision is right now,” he said. “It’s not right or wrong. It’s based on what type of operation you have and your costs. You finally have to decide to pull the trigger and say this is what we are going to have to do.”

Bevers threw in a fourth number – what feedlots are paying for commercial heifers destined for the beef market. Right now, it’s about $1.93 to $2.03 a pound, he said.

“You are talking about a heifer in the 750-pound range that’s worth $1,500 on the market, and that’s for beef,” he said. “So, if you don’t keep her as a replacement heifer, you now have a floor price of about $1,500 a head. If you don’t want to take her and put her back in your operation, the feedlot is going to take her for $1,500 and turn her into beef later down the road.”

Jimmie's Observations on the 2nd Annual MN British White Cattle Sale

I spent some time the past few days watching online auctions of registered cattle, reading through the trade magazines for the results of commercial sales as well as registered, as I'm getting ready to put a group of females and some bulls up for sale. So, I much appreciated Kim Hilty's reporting of sales results at the latest British White auction in MN a few days ago. 

B&B British White Heifers at the MN 2nd Annual Sale

As with most items, live bovines, or goods, the price ultimately reflects the quality of the product, the visual, and of course the demand, and not to be discounted is the sales platform, whether it be the individual or an auction -- presentation and attitude and information are paramount.

You can see in the sales results the buyer's desire for bred heifers or cows vs open ones. I would also say the prices for Fall bred cows are disappointing, perhaps more would have been realized at a sale barn, but as Kim says here, you have to remember that those that were Clean, Good Quality, and halter broke (not my thing, I prefer tail breaking  ) brought the highest dollar and it is just the 2nd annual auction, so the buyers could pick and choose - not so different from a Lowline sale I watched this weekend online. Had there been more buyers, I've no doubt the results would have been greater at that Lowline sale in Athens, Texas.

That said, Kim's reporting of fall bred cows, coupled with what the 8 young bull calves sold for, some of which were weaned upon sale -- not so bad at all. Combine the top fall bred cow with the top bull calf, you've got $3300 in value for the pair, combine the bottom fall bred cow at $1300 with the bottom bull calf at $900 for $2200, again not bad, presumably it was quality and conformation that made the difference. 

Compare these results with the Bohaty sale this last spring, where the base price was I think $2500 for bred heifers But then the Bohaty's have spent years supporting their buyers after the sale, provide 100% of the information a buyer needs to make a decision. . . Visit them on Facebook here:https://www.facebook.com/BohatysBritishWhites . 

Briarstone bull calves at the 2014 2nd Annual MN British White Cattle auction

See www.whitecattle.org for additional information on the ABWPA that has for many many years provided registry and primary focus on the British White bovine, and gives their full support to the new Minnesota British White Cattle organization.

My best to all British White breeders here in the USA and across the world..........

Foggy Morning Pastures & British White Cattle

My apologies for being out of pocket for some months now. Here's a look at my British White cattle early morning a few days back in a heavy fog, rather peaceful I think. I hope you enjoy it as well. . . .

British White Cattle on Display for Australia's Beef Week at Shrublands Estate in Thornton, Victoria

This Texas gal went down under to the beautiful southern state of Victoria in Australia.  Besides the utterly beautiful scenery, excellent coffee available every where one looked, bird life that was captivating, and so much more . . . I also saw some very grand British White cows!

It was the occasion of Australia's annual Beef Week, and for the first time ever the British White breed was showcased on beautiful Shrublands Estate which is primarily a Black Angus stud, but with a keen interest in developing a top herd of British White cattle.  

ET Heifer Calves at Shrublands

Shrublands had a couple dozen British White calves on the ground for visitors to delight in.  Much of the folk dropping by were there for the unusual opportunity to learn more about the British White, as for most, it was their first introduction to the breed.

ET Bull Calf at Shrublands, Sired by J.West's Elvis from J.West's Doc's Gal

The British White calves are all the product of Embryo Transfer and the embryos were collected from several females from the herd of J.West Cattle Company, and variously sired by J.West's Elvis and J.West's El Presidente.  Shrublands has a particularly promising young 5 month old bull calf sired by J.West's Elvis that draws everyone's eye and leaves one saying "Wow!"  

Shrublands Estate is located alongside the beautiful Goulburn River in Thornton, Victoria.  Being located in close proximity to Lake Eildon upstream, the Goulburn waters are incredibly pristine and icy cold.  The Eildon Wier (dam) releases waters from the vastly deep man-made Lake Eildon this time of year, Australia's summer, for use in agricultural croplands that rely on the waters of the Goulburn for irrigation.  

Goulburn River at Shrublands Estate

The Goulburn is fully at its banks this time of year, but in the winter the water level of the Goulburn can be so low in this same area that cattle oftentimes stroll across to adjoining pastures on the other side for a visit!  









This slideshow of my visit is a nice overall look at the Shrublands Estate in Thornton, Victoria.  

What will 2014 bring to American Cattlemen?

The article below is provided in its entirety.  Somehow I was not even shocked to see the Mother Jones headline . . . 


Should We Fight Climate Change By Taxing Meat?

Decreasing the global cattle population would reduce emissions of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.

—By Adam Vaughan

| Sat Dec. 21, 2013 3:00 AM GMT

ChameleonsEye/Shutterstock

This story originally appeared in the Guardian, and has been reproduced here as part of theClimate Desk collaboration.

Meat should be taxed to encourage people to eat less of it, so reducing the production of global warming gases from sheep, cattle and goats, according to a group of scientists.

Several high-profile figures, from the chief of the UN's climate science panel to the economist Lord Stern, have previously advocated eating less meat to tackle global warming.

The scientists' analysis, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, takes the contentious step of suggesting methane emissions be cut by pushing up the price of meat through a tax or emissions trading scheme.

"Influencing human behaviour is one of the most challenging aspects of any large-scale policy, and it is unlikely that a large-scale dietary change will happen voluntarily without incentives," they say. "Implementing a tax or emission trading scheme on livestock's greenhouse gas emissions could be an economically sound policy that would modify consumer prices and affect consumption patterns."

There are now 3.6 billion ruminants on the planet–mostly sheep, cattle and goats and, in much smaller numbers, buffalo – 50% more than half a century ago. Methane from their digestive systems is the single biggest human-related source of the greenhouse gas, which is more short-lived but around 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide in warming the planet.

Emissions from livestock account for 14.5% of all human-caused greenhouse gases, according to the UN. It estimates that this could be cut by nearly a third through better farming practices.

Pete Smith, a professor of soils and global change at the University of Aberdeen, and one of the authors of the report, said: "Our study showed that one of the most effective ways to cut methane is to reduce global populations of ruminant livestock, especially cattle."

He said methane from livestock could only be reduced by addressing demand for meat at the same time.

The scientists say not enough attention has been paid to tackling greenhouse gases other than CO2, especially in the ongoing UN climate talks, which last convened in Warsaw in November.

The only way the world could avoid dangerous tipping points as temperatures rise would be by cutting methane emissions as well as CO2 emissions from sources such as energy and transport, they argue. Reducing livestock numbers, they point out, would also avoid CO2 emissions released when forests are cleared for cattle farms.

William Ripple, a professor in the College of Forestry at Oregon State University, and another of the authors, said: "We clearly need to reduce the burning of fossil fuels to cut CO2 emissions. But that addresses only part of the problem. We also need to reduce non-CO2 greenhouse gases to lessen the likelihood of us crossing this climatic threshold."

The farming industry said the tax proposal was too simplistic. Nick Allen, sector director for Eblex, the organisation for beef and lamb producers in England, said: "To suggest a tax is a better way to cut emissions seems a simplistic and blunt suggestion that will inevitably see a rise in consumer prices.

"It is a very complex area. Simply reducing numbers of livestock–as a move like this would inevitably do–does not improve efficiency of the rumen process, which takes naturally growing grass that we cannot eat and turns it into a protein to feed a growing human population."

Allen said reducing emissions was an important goal for the industry. He added: "Grazing livestock have helped shape and manage the countryside for hundreds of years. They bring significant environmental benefits that can significantly mitigate the negative effect of emissions. It is unfortunate that in recent years they have become an easy scapegoat for emissions, despite the fact that the livestock population is generally falling."

 

My belated Happy Thanksgiving wishes to everyone and my best wishes for a very Merry Christmas!!