Air October 11, 2000

Thank you Mark, and good morning everyone. Something more than just a little frost on the pumpkin since our last visit. Record lows on Sunday and Monday were not totally out of line, although the records did date back to the early 1950s. Our first killing frost was a couple weeks earlier than normal this fall, but our last killing frost last spring was a little ahead of normal also, so we ended up with an almost average length growing season.

As a cattle producer, you need to be developing a war plan for the next several months. Feed supplies may be tight, for many producers they will be very tight. This is going to be a good year to get aggressive in your cow herd culling. Anything that’s open needs to go. Even cows that aren’t open, should go. Check your records and search your memory. Think about those cows that are always contrary or late calving, or just anything that isn’t good about them or frustrates you. Mooove ‘em out. We could be looking at an early glut of cull cows as many other producers do the same thing so either move early, or wait until after the first of the year. One thing that may sound strange is that you may want to hold back some of those open cows and feed them for awhile. A skinny open cull cow isn’t going to be worth much and grain is fairly cheap right now. Take a couple weeks to get those cows up to full feed and then feed ‘em for about 60 days. It won’t work for everyone and every cow, but as cheap as the gain is right now, it’s something to consider. If you have really low quality hay, consider ammoniating it. To avoid problems, that hay has to be under 5% crude protein. I have several good articles on how to ammoniate forages, so stop by and pick that up if you’re interested. One other thing that could be real critical as we move through the winter is vitamin and trace mineral management. If you are using up old hay, you know, that stuff that’s been sitting around for more than a year, you really need to watch the Vitamin A intake. Hay over one year old, especially if it has been sitting around outdoors, will be very deficient in Vitamin A. Talk with your vet about a good supplement. And trace mineralized salt can sure be a bargain when you are using a lot of crop residue for feed stuffs and feed stretching. There’s a lot of things we can do to stretch that food supply, we just may need to be a little creative.

This is Chuck Otte, Geary County Extension Agent, with Ag Outlook 2000.

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