Earlier this year, Senior Farm and Ranch Broadcaster Ron Hays talked with Bob Weaber of Kansas State University about being intentional with heterosis. This is the second part of the conversation; the first of which can be found here.

Both small and large herds can be improved with intentional heterosis, or mixing different breeds of cattle, but the methods and sophistication depend to some extent on the operations’ infrastructure.

Weaber explained, “There may be a number of operations that use a two-breed rotation to build their replacement heifers. Once cows reach a certain age, they may be moved to another division of the ranch to get mated to terminal bulls.”

Those operations would have the physical capacity to move animals around and the infrastructure to hold them in different areas.

“The one I grew up in was a two-breed cross system. We divided cows up at branding time into breeding groups, so the Hereford-sired cows went with an Angus bull, and the Angus-sired cows went with a Hereford bull to get the flip-flop. After breeding season, we put all of the cows back together so we could manage them effectively in the grazing and range environment,” Weaber shared.

He advised that thinking thoroughly about how the breeding pastures are managed to ensure that correct bulls are bred to the correct cows is key regardless of the operation.

He mentioned that the pork industry is already very coordinated in its breeding systems and is already breeding specifically for males or females intended for certain purposes. They have lines of genetics that are maternally focused to build replacement gilts and sows optimally suited for production circumstances. Then they breed the optimized females to boars that target end-product quality – meat attributes, feed efficiency, and the like.

He said that pressures on the beef industry to produce larger beef carcasses have resulted in substantially larger cows. Only forty or fifty years ago, mature cows weighed 1,000 to 1,100 pounds, which is around the size of modern-day heifers which will mature to be fourteen-to-sixteen-hundred-pound cows. Bigger cows require more resources.

“That changes stocking rates and a lot of things in sustainability and production capacity stances that a lot of people are starting to rethink,” Weaber stated.

This way of thinking in the beef industry isn’t new, and several large operations are already implementing intentional heterosis, but modern technology makes it possible for smaller operations to do so as well.

“Even if you have a hundred or two hundred cows, today it is possible to do this with advanced reproductive technology. The creation of gender-sorted semen is a magical thing,” Weaber explained. “In many of the crossbreeding systems where we are trying to build the really optimal maternal component, the drain on the system is the decreased value of the maternal line male calves. By using gender-sorted semen to build the replacement heifers, we can really constrict the number of females allocated to the maternal production line without producing very many maternal steers.”

The Beef Buzz is a regular feature heard on radio stations around the region on the Radio Oklahoma Ag Network and is a regular audio feature found on this website as well. Click on the LISTEN BAR at the top of the story for today’s show and check out our archives for older Beef Buzz shows covering the gamut of the beef cattle industry today.

The post Enhancing Cattle Herds: The Benefits of Intentional Heterosis first appeared on Oklahoma Farm Report.

Senior Farm and Ranch Broadcaster Ron Hays talked to OSU Extension Livestock Market Economist Dr. Derrell Peel after the latest USDA Cattle of Feed Report was released on Friday afternoon and reflected no surprises. They talked about the pressure on cattle and bull prices in this second part of the conversation. The first part was posted yesterday and can be found here.

Dr. Peel said that the pressure on those markets is seasonally expected albeit a bit stronger than expected at this time. He said, “Beef cow slaughter is running sixteen percent down on a year-over-year basis. Total cow slaughter is down about fifteen percent, because dairy cow slaughter has also been down.”

Dr. Peel will watch the markets for the normal fall run of cull cows, but suspects that many may have already been moved. The October Cattle on Feed Report will provide the quarterly breakdown on steers and heifers on feed.

“We are still looking for some indication that the heifer numbers are dropping,” he said. “Heifer slaughter, so far this year, is down about 2.1 percent. Which is about what it was last year, for the whole year. It is down more than steer slaughter is, so far this year, but it isn’t down enough to suggest that we are really holding heifers. We will watch pretty keenly that heifer on feed number that comes out a month from now.”

Dr. Peel predicts that the markets will pick up again in the last quarter of the year, pending the outcome of current drought conditions in Oklahoma and across the U.S.

“It certainly has gotten drier nationwide and the prospects are threatening going forward,” he cautioned. “That is something that producers will keep an eye on, not only for the rest of this year but more importantly, as they make plans for next year.”

He predicted that cowherds will still be down in 2024, and the prospects for herd growth in 2025 are also very limited. He’s hoping at least for stabilization if producers will save heifer calves this fall so that they may produce calves in 2026 and demonstrate herd growth.

The Beef Buzz is a regular feature heard on radio stations around the region on the Radio Oklahoma Ag Network and is a regular audio feature found on this website as well. Click on the LISTEN BAR at the top of the story for today’s show and check out our archives for older Beef Buzz shows covering the gamut of the beef cattle industry today.

The post Dr. Derrell Peel Analyzes Pressures on Cow and Bull Prices first appeared on Oklahoma Farm Report.

Senior Farm and Ranch Broadcaster Ron Hays talked to OSU Extension Livestock Market Economist Dr. Derrell Peel after the latest USDA Cattle of Feed Report was released on Friday afternoon and reflected no surprises.

The September USDA Cattle on Feed Report pegged August Placements at 98.6% of last year; Marketings in August were 96.4% of last year, and the on-feed total as of September 1, was 100.6% of last year.

“Placements is always the wildcard in this. It’s hard to know the timing of what’s coming in,” Dr. Peel said. “This time, at least collectively, the average trade guess was right on the money.”

Because of that, he doesn’t expect the report to impact the market much. “If you looked at the cattle futures trade last week, it was stellar. We’ve kind of been in the doldrums since about the first of August, with the stock market shock that hit all the markets.”

According to Dr. Peel, the markets are moving past that event as both feeder and fed cattle were very strong last week in terms of futures trade.  He expects a rise in the cash markets as well.

As is usual, in Oklahoma in September, the outlook depends on rainfall. There are small amounts of wheat sprouting across the state, but less than Dr. Peel would like to see. Adequate rain will sprout any dry wheat that was planted and may encourage producers who are waiting to go ahead and plant their fields.

“We still have a chance to do it,” Dr. Peel said. “We are cutting into the grazing window with every week that passes dry, but if we can get some cooler temperatures and moisture, we still have a chance to see some wheat pasture for this winter.”

If there isn’t adequate winter wheat to graze, the market rate will certainly be affected. Lack of demand and the young ages of the calves generally seen this time of the year have already caused some weakness in the local calf auctions.

The Beef Buzz is a regular feature heard on radio stations around the region on the Radio Oklahoma Ag Network and is a regular audio feature found on this website as well. Click on the LISTEN BAR at the top of the story for today’s show and check out our archives for older Beef Buzz shows covering the gamut of the beef cattle industry today.

The post According to Dr. Derrell Peel, the Latest USDA Cattle On Feed Report Lined Up With Pre Report Guesses first appeared on Oklahoma Farm Report.