 Hi, I'm Lisa Peterson. I am the extension livestock and extension beef quality specialist at the Central Grasslands Research Extension Center, which is NDSU's facility in the south central part of the state near the town of Streeter. Today I'm going to talk to you about five tips, beef quality assurance tips, to help you improve your cow herd. Most of these tips is to develop a herd health plan with your veterinarian and other management partners like your nutritionist or county extension agent. Within this herd health plan, we would encourage you to talk about herd goals. What are the things you want to do with your herd? Is your goal to retain ownership on those cattle through slaughter to sell replacement quality heifers, to sell purebred bulls? What is the goal of that herd? Next, we would like to identify any issues or problems that the herd currently has or are imminent. We would call those emerging issues. Next, we would like to develop a prevention plan for those issues and then a treatment plan for any issues that may arise. And finally, develop an overall management and marketing plan. The second tip is to keep good herd health records. These are so vital to identify any issues that are within your herd and help you market your cattle better. These should include a vaccination record, should also include an individual treatment, along with a group treatment. So anything like an insecticide that you would give for lice prevention, for example, we would like to keep in group treatment records. Then we should use those records to help us market our animals and we should look at any diagnosis or testing and results that have come from those. Third, we would like, I'd like you to think about culling your animals beyond what I call the 3-0s. I call this strategic culling, culling beyond the opens, olds and honorees. And so I encourage producers to keep record and to measure and record utter quality, foot quality, disposition, body condition score, and mouth. Mouth those cattle occasionally. So I encourage producers to look at the feet and udders at calving time. That's an easy time to keep those records when you're already writing in a calving book, some calving details. Keep those body condition scores at calving and then at timely times throughout the year. And then we would like to mouth those cattle. So probably either at turnout time in the spring or at winning time in the fall when we're already moving cows through a working facility. Use those records to help you ultimately cull your animals to improve your herd. And what I would like to say is strategically target those animals for culling. Identify those cows before you turn out bulls that you would like to remove from your herd. Then strategically do not place them with a bull. You do not want them bred. Wean those calves early and you can market those cows in July or August typically when you might be able to reach what we would consider to be a historically higher market cow or cull cow market. Finally, I'd like you to monitor your cows. Look at those cows throughout the year. Start checking for things like lameness that's going on in the herd, cows that are becoming thin, maybe have some disease issues. And so monitor and manage those and market them in a timely fashion. We know that thin and or lame cows become thin lame cows on a truck in auction markets and in packing plants and become the black eyes of our beef industry. And finally stop the truck. Before you market animals, check all animal health records and make sure that all withdrawal times have been met. Be sure that all of your animals are a body condition score two or higher. Be sure that all animals can stand and walk on all four feet and legs. And ask yourself, would I feed my family what I'm going to load? And if any of those are answered, no, don't market those animals. And finally, don't forget to shut the gate. So with that, I'm Lisa Peterson, the Extension Beef Quality and Livestock Specialist for NDSU Extension at the Central Grasslands Research Extension Center.