Schumacher Livestock Day

Twenty livestock producers were able to avoid frozen livestock waterers and got their chores done in time to hear from agriculture industry specialist.

"With the cold weather I knew it was going to be tough for people to get a way, but those in attendance had a great meal and great information," Phillips County Extension Agent Marko Manoukian said.

Starting off was Dr. Megan Van Emond discussing nutrient requirement of cows and heifers in the last 1/3 of pregnancy and post calving. Cow nutrient requirement increase 25% in protein and 20% in energy the last third of pregnancy and 40% in protein and 30% energy post calving.

Pneu-Dart is a method to apply medication or a sedative to livestock with a projectile. Pneu-Dart has several models that use either CO2 or pump energetic to deliver the dart. They recommend that people use the same technique to apply to cattle in the neck area and have different needle configuration to deliver either sub-cutaneous or intramuscular injections.

Mackenzie Johnston of Tristate Livestock News discussed fair cattle markets. Since the Holcomb Kansas fire in August 2019, packer concentrations have profited more per head than any other segment of the industry including feedlot and cow calf sectors. There are several legislative efforts to require the packers to purchase more on a cash market than contracted but the bottom line is congress is unwilling to act on any proposal.

Dr. Vander Ley, University Nebraska Extension Veterinarian Epidemiologist, made the case that the most import meal in a calf’s life is the initial nursing of colostrum from the mother. He suggested that interrupting this bonding for any reason during the first 30 minutes after parturition reduces the chance of perfect transfer of nutrients from dam to calf. The process can be accessed up to four hours after parturition. However, within four hours the esophageal groove begins to close so that colostrum will end up in the calf’s underdeveloped rumen leading to very slow digestion and adsorption. Vander Lay did note that tubing a calf with colostrum is of course preferable to a calf not getting any colostrum at all, but suckling is best for this result. For artificial supply of colostrum make sure that you are using a colostrum replacement and you need to get 120 grams of colostrum in the first meal to a calf.