Cattle.com

Blog Archive April 2011

"Groups debate who should perform reproductive services"

Consider the source when reading but it's a good discussion on efforts to make it legal for non-vets to perform tasks such as ET and pregnancy detection...


Dr. Vince J. Collison would not be in favor of hiring a nonveterinarian to perform ultrasound pregnancy diagnosis or embryo transfers in his practice.

"It's just hard to go out and do some pregnancy diagnosing without talking about some herd health issues related to vaccinations, diseases, and management," Dr. Collison said. "And the same goes for embryo transfer: If I go out to collect embryos on some donors, there will always be some donors that require some medical attention."


Full Article


Ideal Video Blog Added to Blogroll

I've added Wade Fisher's video blog to the blog roll.  You should remember, but as a reminder, he's the guy who did the actual work on the Denver videos this year.

His blog is certainly different in that he's doing an actual video blog, check it out at...

http://www.idealvideo.co/

0

Dear Breeders' World,

You've used your ad campaign that claims "Breeders' World and Breeders' World Online Sales are the Most Visted Sites in the Online Sale Industry" quite a few times this spring.  It's been included in both print and web ads as recently as last night.  You seem to either believe it's true or don't care if it's not.

I won't waste time showing how your continued claims simply don't hold up to deeper scrutiny once again.  I simply do not understand why a company that has become so sucessful in a specific niche has to keep making statements that cannot be backed up (or are flat out proven false when attempted) when simply telling the truth would be more than enough.

However, I have one small request regarding this claim if you insist on continuing to make it.

Prove it.

Regards,


Jeff


Top Open Heifer Sires by Median Sale Price

This is sorted by median sale price instead of average sale price because those silly Angus guys like to mess everything up by trading cattle between themselves (hence the insane difference between average and median sale price for Predestined).  By using the median, we're able to drop the $100,000 bogus sales from it.

Sire - Median Sale Price - Average Sale Price - Lots Counted

  1. Yellow Jacket- $3,300 - $4,916 - 25
  2. Monopoly- $3,000 - $3,913 - 75
  3. Alias- $2,750 - $3,308 - 43
  4. Carnac- $2,700 - $3,597 - 32
  5. G A R Predestined- $2,400 - $13,114 - 22
  6. SVF/NJC Mo Better M217- $2,400 - $2,798 - 25
  7. Heat Wave- $2,250 - $3,273 - 151
  8. Unforgiven- $2,250 - $2,817 - 24
  9. EYE CANDY- $2,250 - $2,398 - 23
  10. Milk Man- $2,200 - $3,488 - 21

A total data set of 2,600 heifers (only opens) sold in 126 sales over the past two years.

Only bulls with at least 20 head in the group were counted.  There were 14 bulls that met that criteria.

SLC Sooner 101M was two head away from meeting the 20 head requirement and would have topped the list at $6,500.


Backhanded Compliments

Have you ever wondered what people mean when they say certain things about show steer prospects?

“Well, he’s nice and growthy”

He’s got way too much leg.

“He looks like he’ll be an easy feeder”

Put him in a feedlot where he belongs, he doesn’t have enough style or power for a show steer.

“He looks to be awfully sound”

It depends on the circumstances and there are times when this is a good thing.  However, if it’s the first thing a person comments on in a show steer, it’s because the calf is common. 

“Will he class Angus?”

Put simply, your calf has absolutely no power.  But he’s black and polled, so that might be okay.

“Will he class Red Angus?”

Put simply, your calf has absolutely no power.  But he’s solid red and polled, so that might be okay.


Videotaping Cattle in Iowa

You know those bull stud pictures that people used to post on Steerplanet?

Well, ever since March, it might be a good idea to think twice about doing that in Iowa…

House File 589 – “An Act relating to offenses involving agricultural operations, and providing penalties and remedies.”

That bill outlaws videotaping on farms without the consent of the owner. 

If you took pictures of bulls at an Iowa stud without the permission of the stud owners you could theoretically be committing an aggravated misdemeanor which typically carries a minimum fine of $500.

Video taping a calf at a labor day sale without telling the owner?  You could theoretically do jail time.

But don't stop at jail time, throw in treble damages if the bull owner can prove your picture cost them money.

Obviously this bill wasn’t put in place so people wouldn’t take what in my opinion are completely unfair pictures of bulls in their working clothes.  It was put in place to protect CAFOs as Iowa is the king of pork production.  Unfortunately, in reality, it’s just another example of agriculture going after the messengers.

This kind of foolishness is why all the “your ag stories” and #agchats in the world are a waste of time.  When you ACT like a big industry trying to keep something hidden from the public you are going to be TREATED like an industry that has something to hide from the public because you ARE an industry trying to keep something from the public.

On another note, do you see why I have a rule about talking about animal rights issues on here?  Have I run off enough readers with this stuff yet?  Can I get back to posting generally useless charts and stats that only a dozen or so people in the entire nation care about?


Submit Bulls to Directory

http://www.cattle.com/semen/new_bull.aspx

You can use that page to submit bulls to the AI sire directory.  Uploading bull pictures is not currently available but will be later today.

Once submitted, each new bull will be checked by our editors within 24-48 hours for approval and additional info.  The ability to add semen for sale will be up soon as well.

There's no charge for it, thanks for helping us with the info.


Kirt Espenson Interview

Special Report E6 Calf Ranch by Loos Tales

It should have been posted earlier in the week as it's now three days old.  Ignoring the obvious, he seems like a pretty stand up guy, frankly, more so than some of the people who are blindly trying to deflect blame for what happened.

It is of worth noting that he was given two opportunities in the interview to claim the Humane Watch employee ‘coerced’ or encouraged them to use the hammers (getting him to say that seemed to be the goal of the interviewer) instead of the gun and did not take them.

Regarding the policy his manager mentions in the original video about not giving the calves antibiotics, he cites the withdrawal time for veal calves.  That's unfortunate but "humane treatment of cattle" and "veal" aren't exactly synonyms in the first place.


Average Steer Price by Sire

Average price of steers from sires with at least ten steers sold in the system over the past 12-months.

  1. Walks Alone - $6,377 - 32 steers
  2. Ring of Fire - $5,720 - 15 steers
  3. Monopoly - $4,728 - 123 steers
  4. Rotten Cotton - $4,441 - 12 steers
  5. Milk Man - $4,320 - 24 steers
  6. Heat Wave - $4,141 - 132 steers
  7. Unforgiven - $3,747 - 16 steers
  8. Eye Candy - $3,382 - 30 steers
  9. Jakes Proud Jazz - $3,377 - 11 steers
  10. Warrant - $3,240 - 10 steers

This data is raw averages and not adjusted for the average price of the sale.  There were 1,259 steers in the data set.


Dairy Industry Response

I’ve deleted my long rant about wasting time ‘telling your ag story’ and spinning PR bull **** as a response to videos such as the one from yesterday in favor of something short and sweet.  I'm sure I'll eventually get fed up enough with the folks blaming the activists to post it but it's a bit harsh for now.

Why did it take an animal rights activist to put a stop to it?

Let’s be honest for a second, this isn’t an isolated incident, it happens every few years.  If you people cared half as much about putting a stop to this stuff as you do about telling the public that it doesn't happen it would have been caught a long time ago by somebody that wouldn't have used it to support veganism.

Where are the teams of undercover dairy industry reps doing sting operations to catch it before one kid with a camera does orders of magnitude more damage than you’ve ever done on the positive side?


The New Animal Cruelty Video

I saw this pop up on Twitter several times this morning.  I wasn't going to post it because frankly I find this video quite disturbing.  There are also a very small set of rules I have for this blog and "don't mess with animal rights issues" is one of them but I'm going to make an exception.

So watch it at your own risk.

Texas Sheriff Investigates Animal-Cruelty Video Rattling Cattle Market
-Wall Street Journal

The Video - Warning, it's graphic, by just about any standard.


Wednesday - April 20th

Twins

They’re both nearly 5 ½ pounds @ 34 weeks.  Holly is now “measuring” 50 weeks pregnant (I would have guessed 52-53).

There was a baby girl outfit in the dryer the other day.  I just put it to the side and finished the load of laundry thinking it must have been misplaced in Luke’s bag at his Mother’s Day Out class or something.

Directory

Thanks to Katie, our new data entry staff member, we finally got the 100+ site backlog of the directory taken care of.

Trausch Farms

Low blow.  Texans read that stuff.

More Blogs Added

As mentioned yesterday, Tony Austin's blog was added.  We also started checking Chat Holtkamp's blog today as well.


Blogging Activity

How big has blogging gotten?  When Tony Austin went on a blogging spree about 5-6 AM this morning, April set a record for most blog posts in a month with 923.  That passes the record of 922 set just last month.

Prior to that the record was 592, in February.  Matt Lautner has passed that up in the past 30-days.


Blog posts per month.

How many people are using the blog roll on the right hand side of this site?


Visitors per week sent by blog roll over time.

Over the past month we have sent 20,658 visitors to a combined 23 different blog sites.  We sent over 1,000 visitors to the following blogs…

  1. Matt Lautner – 7,309
  2. Wade Rodgers – 3,220
  3. Brad Hook – 2,528
  4. Trausch Farms – 2,118
  5. Diamond G – 1,446
  6. Mittag Show Cattle – 1,314
  7. Lautner Farms – 1,185


Heat Wave Semen Price Progression

Based on public auction data...

On another note, I really need to start thinking about stuff more interesting than this in my spare time.


Google Cow

Have you seen the Google Cow?  You can't use the site with IE but it's about as good a way to learn about what's inside the skin you can find...

http://bodybrowser.googlelabs.com/moo.html


Cattle Slang Dictionary

I meant to do this a long time ago but I've added a dictionary portion to the site...

http://www.cattle.com/dictionary/

It allows you to add terms or definitions as you see fit (it will be moderated).


No More Flip Camcorders

The rather popular and convenient Flip mini camcorder is going the way of the frame score 9 show heifer…


Cisco on Tuesday announced that it will stop making the Flip camera, a popular pocket-sized video camera it bought only a couple of years ago from a company called Pure Digital. The reason? The company said it is strategically realigning its business to focus on selling its core products.

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-30686_3-20053337-266.html#ixzz1JPUVXdtb

Sure, it may have been on the road to being obsolete but it seems crazy to just get rid of it.  Most new smart phone have the ability to shoot high definition video built in.  But, as we all know, women are crazy and if they’re like my wife they need a separate camera from their phone.

I still don’t understand why big businesses shut stuff like that down instead of spinning it off.


Commonly Misspelled Show Steer Words

“Chris Black”

It’s Kris, with a K.

“Heatwave”

It’s spelled all sorts of ways and commonly just one word.  It’s actually two words or as Lautner has become fond of spelling it, four words, as in “Heat Wave or Clone.”

“Brimmer”

“Brimmer” and “Braymer” may be how it’s pronounced in some (most) areas, but it’s spelled Brahman.

"Troubadore"

I had to look it up myself to figure out which of the half dozen spellings is correct but it's "Troubadour."

“Hoo Doo”

You know it as “kick ass Charolais genetics that cross well with Heat Wave and Habanero lines.”  In reality, it’s just another way for a huge oil company to maintain their ag exemption and make a few pennies on land they’re holding until they can exploit the mineral rights.

It’s most commonly spelled “Hoo Doo,” but I’ve seen it “Who Doo” numerous times as well.  If you go to the source, it’s spelled “Hoodoo,” one word.

“Schrader”

No, not me, the real Schroeder’s up in Taylor.  I saw it spelled “Schrader” in three different ads for other people this spring.

It’s supposedly pronounced that way because it’s a German name.  Unfortunately, for what I said every day on the first day of school for 15 years, a Schroeder was president of Germany a few years back and pronounced it like it’s spelled and not with the "a" sound.

“Seman”

It’s spelled “semen.”  I have a feeling a “seman” would have a pretty low conception rate.

"Receipts"
[Suggested by Catherine in the comments and too big of one to not put in the post.]

It's short for "recipient" so "recips" or "recipts".


Blind Side Mature Pic

Sent in by Raymond Gonnet..

For more info...

Visit Diamond G Blog or call 780-288-3255.


Cattle Brucellosis Testing Complete

Adjacent Herds Test Negative

Austin – After a small beef cattle herd in Starr County was diagnosed with Bovine Brucellosis (Bangs) in early January, testing of all adjacent premises within a one mile radius of the index premises has been completed.   There were a total of 54 adjacent premises identified. Twenty three of those premises had no cattle on them. The remaining 31 premises consisted of 836 cattle and all tested negative.

This was the first time in over five years that a positive Brucellosis cattle herd had been detected in Texas.  Routine surveillance (blood testing) at a livestock market led to the discovery of the infected herd. Six cows were tested at the market and three of those tested positive for Brucellosis. 

 During the herd test, six animals tested positive for Brucellosis. The affected herd was depopulated with indemnity. “All cattle that left the herd were traced and no additional Brucellosis was found. The exact source of infection was not identified. The final investigation revealed, however, that the herd had most likely been infected for several years. The herd had probably gone undetected because very few test eligible cattle had been sold over the years,” Dr. Andy Schwartz, Assistant Executive Director, said.  

Despite the recent Brucellosis diagnosis, Texas did not lose its Class Free status as designated by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA.) Brucellosis is a bacterial disease of cattle that can cause abortions, weak calves and low milk production. Humans can also catch Brucellosis (undulant fever) most commonly by consuming unpasteurized milk products or handling contaminated birthing material when assisting with difficult calving situations in infected cows. Brucellosis is contagious to cattle and other ruminant animals such as bison.

The TAHC reminds Texas producers, marketers and veterinarians that maintaining a Brucellosis-free Texas requires constant awareness and vigilance. Producers/ranchers should make sure all adult cattle being purchased have a negative test and any cows that abort should be tested for brucellosis. Cooperation is needed to ensure a Brucellosis-free state and healthy cattle. 

 Producers seeking more information on Brucellosis may call the local TAHC office at 361-358-3234 or visit the website at www.tahc.state.tx.us.

Founded in 1893, the Texas Animal Health Commission works to protect the health of all Texas livestock, including: cattle, swine, poultry, sheep, goats, equine animals, and exotic livestock.


D4 Is Back

The D4 or “exceptional” level drought is back in Texas.  “Extreme” drought has become so common that I don’t even start thinking things are bad until it gets to that D4 level.

 

I added the A&M logo to the maroon to make it look like it’s just pride over the A&M women’s basketball national championship bleeding over to the east.  I really do think that will make the cattlemen in that area feel better about their sitaution.

Something a bit more likely to make them feel good is the La Nina has weakened for the third straight month and is predicted to be done by June.  Unfortunately that also means its going to be around for two more months.

Here’s a page that should be added to your favorites if you are anywhere south of Oklahoma…

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/ensodisc.html

On a side note, this has become quite a tricky situation at church.  The high school tennis coach in my Sunday school class, who keeps praying for ‘continued good weather’ so he can finish the tennis season, has become my prayer nemesis.


Minor Pet Peeves #183,230

The level of these pet peeves ranges from “hehe, no biggie, I understand” to “would you please fix that before I hire a hacker to break in to your server and fix it for you”

Not Adding Title to Blog Posts in our Blog Roll

Hehe, no biggie, I understand.  But seriously, come on guys, add a title.

Flash Splash Pages

Have you noticed that if somebody includes a Flash splash page on a website that Google automatically adds a [ Skip intro ] link next to your listings in their results

That’s because Google decided that Flash splash pages are so useless they actually added functionality to their site to help people get past the annoying part of your site.

Music

People still do this.  There’s no need to comment on it further than that.

Non-Working Forms

This one I’ll just point out the offending site because quite frankly, it was done better before and this blog post still irks me (you didn’t add any new features, you copied the old ones and removed some).  To see what gets to me follow these steps…

  1. Go to http://www.theshowbox.com/points_species.php
  2. Switch to steers (you have to use the drop down box even though there should be a link)
  3. Click any of the breeds
  4. Now click “previous page” or the back button in your browser to see another ranking

Oh wait, it errors out?


Twittering from the tractor

Via FWSSR...


As he rolls across the wheat fields of his Nebraska farm, Steve Tucker often has his hands not on the wheel of his tractor, but on a smartphone.

He sometimes posts a dozen messages per day on Twitter, commenting on everything from the weather to the state of his crops to his son's first tractor ride and even last night's cheeseburger


http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/07/02/twitter.farmer/index.html


Wednesday - April 5th

“Running the Table”

This ad from the Donors Unlimited sale just doesn’t make sense to me.  First, let me be clear, I wouldn't even comment on it this if I hadn't seen it half a dozen times now.  Share the Future is easily one of the top five sales in the entire country each year and if there’s a sale that doesn’t need a marketing gimmick, it’s that one. 

That being said, what the heck kind of table has Austin on it but not San Antonio or Houston?

Except for a small handful of calves, Austin is nothing but the stuff that didn’t find a hole in one of the real majors.  After a multi-decade expansion process, it’s just now becoming open to the entire state of Texas.  I'd dare to say that San Angeleo belongs on whatever hypothetical table was run before Austin.

Schroeder Sale

I missed it because the *** of ***** flower **** *** * *** that I was going to ride with no showed on me.  It was supposed to be my last opportunity to drive more than an hour away from home for the next two months, and I didn’t go, because you didn’t show up.

Any way, from what I’ve been told, the prices were absolutely insane pushing $20k on the top end of the Americans.

Hiring

I’m looking for somebody interested in doing some part time data entry, moderation, and editing work.  It’s a work from home kind of deal, $10/hr, with no more than 5-10hrs a week.  You need to have a basic understanding of both commercial and show cattle.  If you’re interested, contact me via e-mail.

Interesting Auction Feature

Have you seen the new feature on Liveauctions.tv that allows you to listen to the broadcast from that lot?  It's pretty snazzy.

It's not on all sales, but is on Gardiner..

Gardiner Angus Sale Report on Liveauctions.tv

Basketball

I guess you guys have laces on your basketballs up there in the mid-west.


Huh?

What's wrong with this picture?


Online Show Entry

Myshowentry.com is trying to get an online show entry system going.  I'm not sure who's behind the site, it's designed by EDJE and the phone number tracks to a Keith Ikels.

It's not a new idea, I actually tried making a good run at starting a similar service in 2005 or so.  Clubcalves.com has attempted a similar service.

The problem?  There's no money in it.

Even taking the 3% cost of credit card processing was too much for the shows I spoke with to pay.

That doesn't even take into account the little fact that most shows depend heavily upon late entry fees.  Paying an online service to reduce the amount of late fees they get was a preposterous idea.

The only way an online show entry service will work long term is if it's required by the TCCA or another sanctioning body.


What does a steer cost? Spring 2011 Edition.

Based on 589 steers sold through 30 online and 4 offline sales held between January 1st and March 31st 2011…

Percentile

Fall 2010

Spring 2011

90th 5,750 6,500
80th 4,200 4,440
70th 3,000 3,360
60th 2,500 2,740
50th 2,000 2,250
40th 1,750 1,800
30th 1,500 1,500
20th 1,200 1,200
10th 1,000 1,000
Average 3,043 3,361
Calves 648 589
Sales 43 34


Genetically modified cows produce 'human' milk


The scientists have successfully introduced human genes into 300 dairy cows to produce milk with the same properties as human breast milk.

Human milk contains high quantities of key nutrients that can help to boost the immune system of babies and reduce the risk of infections.

The scientists behind the research believe milk from herds of genetically modified cows could provide an alternative to human breast milk and formula milk for babies, which is often criticised as being an inferior substitute.


The Telegraph


Poor Calving Ease

4lb 9oz on the boy and 3lb 14oz on the girl at 31 weeks.


I was a ten pounder myself, our son was 7 lbs 4oz at just under 37 weeks.

Fullblooded German genetics.

Just another example of the stuff that works with cattle applying to people.


March 2011 Cattle Forum Activity

For the time period February 28th to March 30th...

  1. Cattle-Today 35.1% (2)
  2. Steerplanet 33.6% (1)
  3. Ranchers.net 20.8%
  4. Advantage Cattle Services 7.1%
  5. 5BarX 1.8% (6)
  6. Clubcalves 1.3% (5)
  7. Breedersworld 0.2%
  8. EDJE 0.1%
  9. The Final Drive 0.0%

Overall activity was down 11.8% to just about the January level.


Past Posts