 Welcome everybody to our final webinar in the Navigating Drought series. Before we get started, I'd just like to cover some housekeeping. If you have questions throughout the webinar, please submit those through the Q&A or chat, and we'll be sure to catch those and address them at the end of the webinar. And I think this will be recorded for viewing later on and posted through our YouTube site. With that, I think we'll just start with some introductions. First off, I'm Zach Carlson. I'm the Extension Beef Cattle Specialist located out of Farville. I'm Carl Hoppe. I'm the Extension Livestock Specialist here at the Carrington Research Extension Center. I look forward to visiting with you today. Our next introduction would be Jana. Hi, Jana Block, Livestock Specialist based out of the Headinger REC. This is Jerry Stucka. I'm the Extension Veterinarian and Livestock Stewardship person here, housed on campus in Fargo. Thank you. So today's discussion is going to be a bit different than from previous webinar, the Navigating Drought series. We're more focused today on kind of looking at winter, wintering your cow herd and kind of maybe some health concerns associated that and then maybe some of the conditions that the drought has caused with your livestock production systems and how we may need to address those here this coming winter. So with that, and then of course any questions that you may have and then gearing towards calving season as we know that's right around the corner. So thank you for all those that submitted questions and the registration. And if you have any, again, feel free to put them in the chat or the Q&A and we'll address those. And I think we'll get started. Thank you, Zach. Our first speaker is going to be Jana. I am going to ask Jana questions. So Jana, many of our operations had reduced hay production this year across the state. It's been a horrible drought and just not having enough hay. Some producers have salvaged crops for feed or source low quality forages like some of our CRP hazer or even corn stover, that type of thing. What do you think producers need to think about when it comes to feeding these alternative sources? Well, I think we just, can you hear me okay? Good. I think we need to be really honest with ourselves about what we have in terms of diet quality. There's obviously a lot of consequences when we are thinking about feeding some lower quality forages. And, you know, again, like you mentioned, a lot of people, I mean, if they were lucky they got some CRP hay or salvage some forage from somewhere but we might not have the alfalfa grass mix that we might count on in a normal year and things like that. So we need to make sure that we've got appropriate supplementation when we're using those lower quality forages to avoid, you know, negative consequences on pregnant cows losing body condition. And then consequences on our, you know, next year's calf crop. And so, you know, when cows are in poor condition we're going to have issues with colostrum quality, colostrum production, milk production, immune response of the calves. There's lots of things that kind of carry through. And so, you know, we're obviously facing a protein and energy shortage in many conditions. And then we also have to think about vitamins and minerals potentially being deficient, even more deficient than they would be in a normal year. And so making the making sure those things are supplied. So the only way that you can really know exactly what you've got is to sample and submit that sample to a lab, a certified lab for analysis so we'll just kind of talk through. You should see some slides on your screen and I just want to talk through a couple of these briefly. The best way to sample is to use a hay probe. The hand sample is not adequate. So in the graph on the right, it's a little bit kind of confusing to read but essentially the grab samples are in the yellow bar on the top, compared to 20 core samples in the blue bar on the bottom. And so, basically, the grab samples are under representing the quality of the forage. And that's simply because you're likely just grabbing a lot of stem and not representing the amount of leaves that are in that sample and so, the hay probe is the best way to collect the sample. Many of our extension offices have a pay probe that you can borrow. If you'd like to get your own, then you would have it on hand for future sampling because it's not only drought year where this is important. It's every single year, understanding what your forage is supplying to your cow herd. The rule of thumb is about 10% of each lot of hay. And a lot is defined as same species taken off the same field in a 48 hour period. Obviously you have a larger lot of hay. You don't have to collect a full 10% say you have six or 700 bales you would not need to collect 10% just get at least 20 core samples and and composite those to send into the lab. If you are looking for your own hay probe, I just have some recommendations down here, the National Forage Testing Association has a website and I'll show you the link to that website here in a couple slides, where they also have some recommendations on different hay probes and what to look for. I would definitely recommend a drill type you do not want to be pushing a hay probe into bales a lot of times the density is up pretty high and it's really hard to get those push types in so get a drill type bring lots of extra batteries. And that's the way to go. Anything less than three eighths in diameter I would not recommend because it simply leaves out the stems and over represents the leaves. And so that three quarter inch diameter is really kind of the best way to go 12 to 24 inches in length going any further than that really isn't necessary because at 24 inches. You're going to be representing the majority of each bail and just making sure that you've got a really sharp tip regardless if that tip is serrated or non serrated. So just a kind of a image here from the noble foundation that just shows why the length of the probe is important. And so in that outer six inches around 33% 26% of the bail and that next six inches and so on. And so if we've got an 18 inch probe we are representing right around 80% of the bail. If you went to a 24 you'd be almost representing over 90% of the bail. So just depending on your preferences there but that's kind of how density stacks up. So our recommendation get those 20 core samples. It's, it's much handier if you can just put them in a five gallon bucket. So take your probe, dump it into the bucket and then just mix that and fill a quart size or you can send in a gallon bag with a forage you should end up with around half a pound to one pound of a sample. Depending on the moisture content of your forage. If it's just if the hay has already gone through a sweat and and it's kind of just dry hay. So really refrigeration isn't necessary but we do recommend sampling close to the time of shipping. Just to make sure that we're not having changes in that forage in the bag as far as moisture content. And then many people have used laboratories in the past and they might have a lab they're they're used to working with if you're not sure. I recommend just choosing a lab that's been certified through the National Forage Testing Association, and that is their website there you can click on certification, and then click on list of NFTA certified laboratories and each laboratory will have a grade, as far as either a wet chemistry analysis or the near infrared analysis types of evaluation. And so you can look at the labs and how they performed in their certification procedure and choose a lab that you're comfortable with. Many of them have prices listed on their website, but sometimes you have to contact them to get those updated prices. Also, many times you can just check with your extension agent and see what lab they prefer to use and go with that. So I guess I would just kind of wrap up by saying, once you have those analyses, we can really have more efficient use of our forages by looking at the requirements of our livestock based on stage of production weight, and kind of try to allocate our different forage lots with these different production groups and so you can see here, obviously our gestating cow that's in about mid gestation can get by with some fairly low quality roughage. And honestly, this is what a lot of our forage is looking like I know for myself on our operation we we harvested a lot of CRP hay that had that had been in the program and came out of the program last fall. So we were able to harvest it fairly early. It looked really good. It had green, it smelled good, but there was a lot of old dead stuff and when we got our hay analysis results back. We're looking at right around 7% crude protein and around that 50 to 53% TDN. And so that's going to be fine for us in the gestation, but it's obviously not going to meet requirements as that calf continues to grow in the third trimester, and then obviously really going to be deficient for that lactating cow, especially when she reaches peak lactation at around 60 days post calving. So we also have to think about if we've got replacement heifers on hand, heifer calves. You know, maybe maybe we've kept some calves around and we and we're trying to wean them get them ready to sell. Everybody's just going to have a little different requirements and so understanding the nutrient value of each of your lots of forage is really going to help you use that forage the most efficient way that you can and supplement appropriately. Thanks, Jenna. That was very informative on the nutrient requirements for for our cattle and knowing just what we have what we need. Are there other things that we can look at in our that we should have tested with in our forages for nutrient content. And I'm thinking along the lines of nitrates. Can you talk on that. Yeah, we definitely had a lot of people that are harvesting annual forages. And so with most of our annual forages. You know, this can be a potential risk. Our forages. Any of the small grains, corn, a lot of people were in a grazing situation. So we are recommending testing prior to grazing. We do have a nitrate toxicity publication that's available on our website that, you know, that that producer would need to analyze their forage for nitrates that's a separate test from the forage quality test, but it's usually relatively inexpensive anywhere from $10 to $12 for the most part. Excuse me, my phone's ringing there in the background. So you can use that publication to determine how much of that forage you can include in the ration and mix that off with forages that are non nitrate containing some other things that you might want to think about evaluating is mineral content, especially this year drought can drastically change the mineral content of the forages which I mentioned earlier. And so getting a wet chemistry analysis for minerals is probably a good idea, and making sure that that your supplement is meeting those needs. The other thing that we might see. I did notice in some of our samples that I submitted the ash content was a little bit higher this year probably just due to soil contamination. And so if that's extremely high. That's an overhead of 12 to 13%. That could potentially know those cows are going to be consuming quite a bit of soil with their forage, and that can actually drive down the energy content of the forage so it's just a good idea to take a look at that. If you need help interpreting your forage analysis contact your extension agent or one of the specialists to help you work through that. So there are just a couple other considerations when it comes to evaluating the quality of the forage. Yeah, I'd like to provide a follow up question to you, and that is over the summer people have tested some of their feeds that are stelt in the field and the nitrates are quite high. But recently we've had some rains, and they've gone out and retested them and the nitrate level is quite low now is, is that a good reason to keep testing or what are your thoughts about that. The things happen that fast. Yeah, I mean so kind of the general idea is, if moisture is available that plant is going to, you know, the metabolism is going to pick up, whereas it's been pretty stagnant throughout the growing season. So, essentially, what should happen is that plant will be better able to utilize the nitrate that's present and convert that more efficiently to amino acids and protein. And certainly there's no formula that's going to tell us how efficient that is in different situations just based on differences in soil types plant species and all those other fertilization and all those other factors that that drive those differences to begin with so testing is really truly the only way to know if you're going to have an issue or not. I would say, oh, it's, you know, we received this much moisture and now we should be out of the danger zone, because it's still entirely possible to have high nitrates in some situations while others may not. Test and test again. Thank you. So, Carl, kind of along those lines, Janna mentioned feeding, you know, maybe that hey looks good, but it might not test good so we're dealing maybe with some lower quality for just maybe sourcing some crop residues and things like that. What are some concentrate feeds or maybe some off farm sources of feeds that producers can find here in North Dakota and might be available this year or at least kind of search out and seek those sources. And yeah, are there are there any resources, you know, for pricing and trying to find those. Yeah, we're actually pretty lucky in North Dakota. When you go to other beef cow states they don't have the amount of milling capabilities that we have in North Dakota and we have a wide variety of feeds available to mix in with our cow herd. A lot of these feeds are processed grains. We can use grains of course as a concentrate source whether it be corn barley or Milo or wheat or it oats whatever pencils in cheap and that certainly does fit into your ration. We have other sources out here to things like ethanol by products like distillers grains a wheat middlings that come out of wheat mill plants. If you need protein it can come out of our oil crushed plants across the state. Sugar as sugar byproducts the beat pulp and the tailings are available as well as potato waste from potatoes, we have a lot of different feed resources and most of these have the sugar removed from them. So, they're not much good in our monogastric industry but when it comes to our beef cattle mobility for them to ferment fiber and make that into digestible feed. We have a lot of feed available for us in North Dakota. And so you've seen the map out in your screen right now. And if you look close you'll see a lot of our productions concentrated in the Red River Valley area. That would be because of that's the sugar beets and the potatoes and the crushes and the mills are located up there as well. We even have a high fructose corn refining plant down at Wapiton, North Dakota. So there's even even more capabilities on the eastern part of the state than there is in the western side. If you look across, you see those yellow dots which are ethanol plants that are producing ethanol. They also produce distillage grains, both dried and modified distillage grains, modified being about to present moisture. And some of the plants produce a wet product which is more like 60% moisture. Sometimes they'll produce a corn syrup. That's what they call it. It's really condenses to your solubles. And it has about the same feed value as the dried or wet distillage grains on a dry matter basis. As you can see as you start drifting out to the western part of the state, the opportunities for these different co-products are a little bit farther and fewer between. And demand consequently has increased in those areas too. So since demand is up, price is up also, and it's difficult. It becomes a game. You either pay for freight or you pay for a local higher local price. Anyway, we talked to your local extension agent and they will have a price sheet as well as a directory with phone numbers of who to contact in the state. If you're looking for these co-products out of these plants, prices change hourly. So even though you might see a price, you always need to call the plant and find out what the plant's available. This is visiting with local plants earlier this week and they needed to get rid of some product right now. And their price is about 50% to two thirds what normal price was because they needed to move it this week. Some train cars hadn't showed up in time so consequently they're just having a production issue. So my point is be sure to if you can utilize some of these feeds by all means please contact the plants to find out where to what's available and where to get them. My point is, most of these co-products have removed about two thirds of their starch. Excuse me, they removed the starch was about two thirds of the product. So in other words, everything else in the co-product has tripled. So the phosphorus is higher. The protein is higher. They're nice protein feeds. But when you look at, they don't have starch, but all the other things are higher. When you start looking at different balancing rations, you need to consider that some of the minerals are higher in those two. Okay, so if we think about, Janet had a nice table outlining maybe where requirements are right now for a spring calving herd and maybe we can meet those with some lower quality forages. But what do producers need to think about or start considering when incorporating these concentrated grains into that into a cow's diet? Well, the first thing is always cost, right? It's always an issue of how much can we expend if you'd a cow. I had a producer call me the other day asking about, so my banker and I were looking at three and a half dollars ahead to feed a cow this winter. Is that right? And when you start doing the math and yard each, those numbers get pretty high. And if you look at the price of corn this year, it's double compared to last year. So all of a sudden, money is a big deal. The cost of these feeds is a really huge deal. So the only way to really compare different feeds and the value of them is on their energy content. And this particular graph shows up here. We've got both two different feedstuffs. One is corn, which is a constant grain, easy to haul between locations. Another one we used as an example is bromhate, which is just a long stem hay. It's really easy to feed cows bromhate. It's a little more of a challenge to feed them corn. It should probably be processed and feed in a feed bunker and a total of mixed ration. But let's just figure out which one's a cheaper buy. Dry matter content is about the same, 85% dry or 15% moisture. Cost per pound of dry matter, if you do the math, you take the 230 per ton for the corn and divide that by the 85% dry matter or 0.85. And then divide that by 2,000, you'll end up a cost per pound, which is on this example, 0.136. You can do the same thing with bromhate. Now, there's the differences between these two feeds, and that is the total digestible nutrients or what I call the energy content of the feed. Corn is what we call 90%, and bromhate is quite a bit less because it's a fiber source feed, so it's at 53%. When you do the math again, you take that cost per pound of nutrient, excuse me, cost per pound of dry matter, that 0.136, and divide it by the TDN content, which is 0.9, you'll end up with that 0.15%, which is the cost of energy for corn. Okay, you compare, do the same thing for the bromhate, and you find out the bromhate is 0.166. So actually, for a few pennies cheaper, you can buy the corn. Now, freight's included, so you got to add freight into the corn price. And the other thing is that I noticed, even though I use this price at 150 a ton, if you try to go out and buy around bills for $75 or $80 a ton, all of a sudden, excuse me, $70, $85 a bail, that you may not find it. You may have to pay $100 a bail or even more, so do your math again, you might find out that that grain is actually a cheaper source of energy for our coward than what the hay is. Excellent. So we kind of touched on requirements and things like that, how they may change. Can you elude a little bit more to that? Oh, yeah, we talk about protein, cows need protein. Now, usually people, everybody always talk about protein needs. We need to have a certain level of protein on our feeds, and when we talk about protein, they need energy too. That's why the first example is talking all about energy, but we need protein in our feeds, and we need to have enough protein to maintain the microbes in the room, and so they can digest the feed, the cattle can then utilize. And the protein requirements for the cow changes throughout her stage of production. So when they're lactating, your protein requirements are quite high, and as she gets lactation decreases, and then when she's get weaned, you can see in this map, when she's weaned, that's when the protein content drops the most, and then as the fetus grows, the protein content increases in the ration. But you can see there's that over the year, certain times a year, you can skimp on protein, and other times you need to have more. The same thing actually happens in energy, if we go to the next slide. You know, if you look at energy, the same thing that says in mid-and mid-gestation or right after weaning, that's when the energy requirement for the cow is the lowest. I used to always say, yeah, that's the best time to cheapen up a cow ration, right then is when that energy requirement is the lowest. And I've changed that opinion now because when you're out there and looking at cows and their body condition is foreign, you might talk about that later. You find out that these cows really, really are not in very good condition, and they need to have some gains. So that particular time of the year mid-gestation is a perfect time, but wait on to a cow. So consider where you're at and where your cows are at and know that there's certain times, if you understand this production cycle, when it's best to plot what you're doing. So now I have to ask you, Zach, I kind of led into the body condition score, but could you tell a little bit more about body condition score and how that fits in to our cow herd? This time of year is a perfect time to capture a score as to where we are right at weaning. So maybe some people have weaned and maybe some are looking to do so in November and December. And one condition score doesn't tell you much. You need a direction in terms of where your herd is moving. So if you're able to capture some of those subjective scores over the summer or if this is a new concept to you, really what you want to be doing is monitoring where your herd is moving. So a snapshot at just weaning doesn't tell you too much about where those cows have come from and where they're headed into. You need some direction towards that. So again, there are materials that we provide or have available through extension for scoring. And it is something that I would encourage you if you're new to it or if it's a newer concept, since it takes a lot of repetition in order to get quite familiar with the system, do it with a buddy system and use that to calibrate yourself as you work through. But there is a lot of value in adjusting these scores because body condition is often thought of as the amount of fat that a cow is carrying. But there's also body condition evaluates a little bit of muscling. And we know both are utilized for reserves when that animal needs to in a situation where they're not intake isn't great enough to meet those maintenance or lactation requirements. And so I really think, though, as we think about body condition right now and where we're headed and you alluded to it greatly, Carl, that when we look at those that post calving six, seven months, we're in that mid gestation. So now we know as soon as we wean, we know we're going to come into the lowest energy and lowest protein requirements that that cow will carry. Mind you, that doesn't apply to your first calf heifers or your three year olds. And so keep that in mind as that will change those cows are still growing. Those females are still growing and have a growing requirement. They're not quite at full maintenance yet. But as we as we think about where your cows are here at weaning, I kind of think of if you're having a hard time sourcing some of these commodities, some of these concentrates and and you really want to stretch your hay inventory as much as you possibly can. One thing to consider if you're not looking at weaning for another month or so is actually you could you could almost consider it. I often do that early weaning could be a supplementation. Now we're not really into early weaning, but if you're still looking at keeping those calves on the cows for another month or so, you may want to evaluate where your cows condition are. And certainly if you feel like you can carry yourself through that to that normal weaning period that you do, by all means, but I would encourage you to take a look at considering weaning a little early if if if you tend to wean later here in the fall is almost like a supplementation. You can start that lowest requirements right now by by getting into some weaning or doing weaning now. And so, but if you have already weaned it's it's it's again a good place to evaluate where you are as you head into calving, because one of the most important things that we have to think about is cows condition at calving and how that may actually affect milk quality. And by that what I mean is actually if you look at the influence of body condition scores on both colostrum quality. So right now that top table that you're looking at, as you look from a body condition three which we just saw was kind of is is quite thin on the condition side of things moving all the way over to six and that table. But what those what that calf serum IgM and IgG, what those really are is plasma proteins that the calf is able to consume through milk consumption actually colostrum is really where those are coming from colostrum. And that's actually what starts and protects that calf's immunity system as it develops at such an early age. And, and so if we consider body condition score and how that might impact there's great data. And many more to have shown that lower body condition scores means you're just not that the protein isn't being carried through into the milk, which then isn't transferred to the calf. And so we have to kind of think to that not only are you thinking about the calf that will be coming this spring. But also, you have to think about that cow in the calf following year. So you got to look at this kind of in two separate directions as one is to protect the current calf, and one is to guarantee or better gear your cow towards reproducing it once again for next year. And so it's really important that bottom graph there shows that when cows condition if you, you consider that three and four score being quite thin and moderate being five or six if you look there at the percent of cows that came back into heat post post calving now, and and that interval between her first heat cycle after calving it's really important to understand that there's a lot of signals going on in a cow's body and one of those is if she can support reproduction at that point. And so understanding that again kind of going back to where you are right now with your cow herd as you start looking into calving and being prepared. And so now's the best time to be putting on condition. If you realize, if you take a look at your herd tomorrow or later today and you realize geez maybe these cows are a little under condition. Now's the best time to make most use of those feeds that you may have to bring in. They're going to be expensive, but it's much harder once she has more energy and protein requirements to put on condition than it is right now at her lowest. And so you, I think I encourage everyone you have to know the direction that your animals are headed in order to properly evaluate. And also, there's certainly thin cows that every producer probably has or heavy set cows that do find every single year. And so this is by all means, you have to understand the condition that your cows are in in normal situations and how you manage those cows to the best of their abilities, but how that might have been changed this year due to that lack of forage production and then forage quality as we as we move into the winter. Yeah, thank you Zach as I drive up and down the roads and look at different cowherds from afar, you can say that some are in decent condition and others have slipped condition over the summer because of lack of groceries or the environment. Well, definitely shows that if you don't feed them well enough, you might end up with some open cows next spring. So it's a health issue now. So thanks for talking about the nutritional part of this Jerry, a doctor stuck is on our line or extension veterinarian. And Jerry, can you talk to us on what producers would need to keep on top of our cow health as we move from weeding to calving what needs to be done, which we look at. Yeah, thanks Carl. I just want to back up to a couple comments that have been made already and one is body conditions core was at a ransom number of years ago in South Dakota and 800 cows. And as we went through the herd and looked at them. They're there, I made the assessment there was probably 20% that were thin to thin. So what do you do there was plenty of feet on hand you feed everybody to make up for the 20% that's behind or do you sort them off so it becomes a little bit of a management issue. You're better off if possible to sort off and feed them separately and so that's the part of the reason why we want to condition score cows we don't care so much. Which cow is in in terms of condition but have you got some that are too thin, and just like Zach was saying, it can have an impact on not only quality of classroom but also certainly quantity. The other thing I mentioned to and Carl you alluded to it that used to be kind of a guy that wanted cheapen up that ration during during gestation. The second is okay but third trimester gestation which are some cows, even in third trimester now. We know that this frugal programming becomes an issue. If we start trying to short energy and or protein has an impact on that developing cap that may last with that animal a long time. So, a lot of important issues that you know it. They kind of gloss over someone superficially, but they're very important. These are stewardship issues that we need to pay attention to so I just threw this picture in here but cow that's this in fact this she might have still had her calf on her and it's a good little thing to talk about what condition score and she in right. She's still a good five anyway which is a good thing to see, even with a calf on her and late fall early winter. So, I just want to move to the next slide I got a couple comments I wanted to make regarding health and they're kind of a follow up to what Zach was talking about. We talk about classroom quality. We talked about classroom quantity, how much a cow milks. One of my favorite things to talk about is the is the plumbing does the plumbing worker doesn't it. And I think we've gotten much better at this over the years in assessing other confirmation and tea tea confirmation. It's one thing to birth a calf but can the calf get up and nurse and and actually consume and absorb the amount of immunity that it needs to to stay healthy and. And the other thing that enters into this is calving season. When we have when it's cold and we have when it's muddy that calves ability to get all the immunity that it needs. It can be limited. Number of years ago I came across a data set that measured the gamma globulin immuno globulin in calves that were born. And on these ranches five different ranches approximately anywhere from 15 to 30% of those calves that were born didn't quite have enough. Didn't quite have enough immunity in their system, which goes back to the things that we're talking about here. So this is a really, really important issue so here in this slide I've just got some images of other quality. The other thing and maybe jumping the gun here a little bit to talking about not only health. Of the cow, but getting into the health of the calf and if I'm getting too far ahead of myself I can wait with this slide but so we're not only concerned this time of the year with preparing a cow. And preparing that calf for weaning but we're also thinking about preparing that calf that's yet to be born and so what happens with a cow that's in late gestation is that we start having depending on when she's going to calf approximately five to six weeks before she's going to calf she starts taking immunity offer out of her own bloodstream so to speak, and and concentrates it in the classroom. And we can start talking about things like scours vaccination, for example. So when should I scours vaccinate. We used to be really strict and want to go maybe six weeks for the first dose and then three weeks later, give it a booster dose and we all know what booster doses do they enhance the immune response to the first dose. And the idea was in first calf efforts to make sure we got a big antibody response so that antibody that then gets concentrated in the classroom and calf gets up and nurses and he's good to go. More recently there have been a number of products that are common market that maybe say it's 1012 weeks away from from calving. I won't say that they're the best, but they're probably better than nothing if you've chosen to use a calf scours vaccine. One of the more recent things that I've noticed with trying to manage calf scours so it's changing your calving season. When you change calving season you move it to a later time you don't have cows concentrated one spot. The need for calf scours vaccines almost disappears entirely so couple things to think about the timing. What it does for that cow how it concentrates the calf gets up and nurses and gets what it need. And the other thing is if you're continually disappointed with some of these diseases in these calves that are born during inclement weather, think about changing your calving season. So, I guess maybe I'll stop there Zach in case unless you want me to talk about wean calves and wean calf health. We can get there in just a minute. Okay. Meanwhile, I'd like to ask Zach, we're still talking a little bit about nutrition. Could you some producers are looking at corn harvest is is wrapping up and there's a lot of feed sitting out there it hasn't snowed yet. So is there an opportunity for these cows to use this. And since there is what do we got to be careful of what do we need to watch. Yeah. So, if people are interested or thinking about, you know, this year maybe is really ideal for those considering grazing corn residue. So, following up harvest we've actually had a great fall for it. We have had great weather and and as we know if you're looking at a spring calving herd in that March to April or even later, we're in that mid gestation point. And so corn residue, if we think about what it really is, there's about 40 pounds of residue per bushel. And that residue is primarily as you might imagine the stock. Well, that's not exactly what cows consume. If they, as long as they're not forced to consume and we don't really want that because the higher digestibility portions are actually belief in husk. And so when we think about grazing residue that's about 20% of the of the residue that's out there so we're somewhere between 40 to 50% total residue per bushel, about 16 pounds or so you can think dry matter basis would be that leaf and husk so that edible portion. And so, ultimately, when you're thinking about this and looking at it a great way to consider this, especially like I said if you're really limited on your availability of forage resources, and you're thinking about this we've had ideal weather for it. Maybe start with a small group or a nearby area somewhere close to home that you could bring those animals back in because one of those things we always have to caution with grazing is weather right and whether can change on you and can put you in a really tough situation. So, if you're thinking about this, or you have been for a while. This year's a great year to do it the weather's been great. Think about somewhere nearby maybe maybe a neighbor that that has a field and you could work out an agreement with in a common way or if you're planning to do some of this. Simply think of 100 bushels is about one cow month grazing, if you want to think of it that way so for every 100 bushels of yield. And so you can figure out how much that was per acre, even you know in this tough year, and kind of figure out how many acres you might need there's, there's, there's great resources online to to find a calculator for that but about 100 bushels per cow. But it's important to note here that we should really be looking at if you don't want to do much supplementation other than a mineral program that it's a it's a cow that is weaned its calf. So we're at that lowest requirement because we know corn residue is only going to bring seven or 8% crude protein which will meet that need and mid gestation, but the energy will be low as well be around that 50% TDN if we think that. So we need to be in that mid gestation and that's the ideal time to graze residue and we have good weather for it. If there's situations where you think there may be a lot of corn in that field. You have to caution that we always suggest whenever you're turning animals out to any grazing situation that they're not hungry, you fill them up days before on a feed that you have on a on a hay or whatever they're currently on a make sure they're not hungry. A quick way to do this is to go out into the field and walk down a row 100 feet and start counting them number of years that you see on the ground. So if it's an eight inch year, which this year maybe they probably wouldn't be so large but around eight inches. If it's a full cob, then that will eat with grain on it that will equal close to half a pound of grain. And so, as you walk, you go down 100 feet, come back 100 feet in a different row, and then go back up so three rows at 100 feet. And then so count the numbers that you see within those spaces between those and so if it's a 30 inch row, then basically what you do is the number of full years that you see and divide that by two. And I say that because, as I said, a full eight inch year would be about half a pound. So it'd take 112 of those years to make 56 pounds of bushel. And so that will give you an idea of how many bushels might be dropped there. So you don't have to do those rows right next to each other. Space amount you know to try to at least represent the field. And if you're looking at somewhere between eight to 10 bushels dropped once you've done this visual assessment, you want to couple days prior maybe a week or so if you're really worried about drop corn. Start setting those cows up on a little bit corn. Corn is not cheap right now, but really it would just start with a pound and then just go up a pound every single day and do that for seven days or so. And those cows will be adapted to that. And so because we do know cows have grazed it in the past, they'll seek that corn out right away. And so that is something to be mindful of is how much actual grain corn there is down there. But then use the husk as a measurement of when you're ready to pull those cows off. So you, you have an idea of how long they should last but keep a mind of the husk and once you start not seeing husk very often in that field. It's soon time to think about where they're headed to next. Carl, Carl, can I make a follow up. By the way, Zach thanks for that little formula. This this question came to me just yesterday. So thank you very much. The other thing I just mentioned to. And I know in big cornfield it's hard to walk over every scar ranch, but but always be on the lookout for corn that's been spilled during harvest that will kill cows in a hurry if there's any amount of corn laying in one spot. You almost have to go out there with a shovel and get rid of it. Take it someplace else because they'll find it and eat too much grain. That yeah, excellent point wherever that flex auger missed. Yeah, be mindful of those areas. I'm glad you brought that comment up Jerry I was watching somebody the other day unload into a semi and where they couldn't see it was spilling out of the side of the semi so they didn't realize they were losing bushels on the ground. I'm sure they didn't want to but they didn't realize it and you as a cattle guy are going to those cows are going to find that problem the same thing goes with fertilizer. They're spreading dry fertilizer this time of year if it's urea, they need to make sure there's no spoil piles that cows go out and graze and then we have a toxicity because of it that can be a real deal. So with that I'd like to ask Jana question we've been talking about grazing crop residues mostly corn, but are there other ways the producer might consider to stretch their hate further. Yeah, so I guess, you know to go back to what I talked about earlier. The value of understanding the nutrient content provided by your forage can't be understated here. As far as knowing what you're providing, because if you don't if you're it's you're playing the guessing game you're either over or under feeding and so this year in particular when we have we don't have a lot of extra hay supplies it's really important that we're making that hey go as far as we can. So some other areas that you might want to evaluate your operation is thinking about ways to reduce hay waste. There's some really good research out of the University of Wisconsin Madison. They have a website that's dedicated to forage production and forage use. They have some good research, the evaluating storage losses feeding losses. So I guess thinking about how is our hay stored from harvest, you know throughout the winter feeding period, and even some some old hay that might have been carried over from last year. Is it uncovered, is it, you know, sitting directly on the ground and that will result in wicking up moisture through the hay, which can result in dry matter losses. And so thinking about finding ways to cover that stack or obviously too late for this year most of the hay is in. There might be some still out in the field but people are working on that so if there's a way to elevate that off the ground, whether using your, you know, rock or railroad ties or pallets, whatever that happens to be that will really cut down those those dry matter losses and so just evaluating our storage and what we're doing there. Other losses will also occur through feeding, we've all seen it, and I don't know how, how much people are actually accounting for that but it's, it's really important to think about how we're feeding can impact how much hay is lost and so estimated losses for just rolling out round bales on the ground is around 12% and that's in an ideal situation. If you're putting out multiple days of round bales and feeding on the ground. It can be up to 30 to 40% loss just through the cattle walking on the feed laying in it defecating on it. So those are some huge losses that a lot of times aren't really accounted for. And so thinking about using some type of a barrier to reduce waste, even if you're feeding on the ground. Putting up some panels, even an electric fence, if you can make that work in your feeding situation, bunks, tire feeders, something to just avoid the ability of those cows to kind of walk through and trample and waste that hay. Grinding or processing is another way to increase utilization of course they're still going to walk through it, but they will get better use out of those low quality forages we just have to look at the additional costs with that. Dr. Stucka talked about sorting and feeding by production groups that's a common recommendation obviously not, you know, available in every single situation you just might not have enough pastures or pens to do that. But it is something to think about doing, if that's an option for you. Carl you also talked about, you know, thinking about maybe doing a little bit of limit feeding or utilizing some corn or other concentrates in the ration. Again just looking at what you're trying to provide to those cows what nutrient you're short of, and just making the most efficient choice there, looking at that cost per pound of nutrient basis. I guess one more thing I would add that we don't often think about in relation to our beef cow herds is the use of an ionophore. And that's just basically it will help make the cow more efficient by reducing those gram negative bacteria in the room and that produce methane. And so our byproducts are those byproducts gas production is reduced. The cow is just able to more efficiently utilize forages and typically will see cows able to reduce their hay and take by seven to 10% kind of based on the research and still maintain body condition because they're just more efficient and so that can be provided. In a commercial feed, it can be provided in a mineral mixture. There's lots of ways to to get that done in your cow herd and so it's often a very cost effective way to help those cattle utilize forages more efficiently. Thank you Jan I appreciate that now I'm going to let go over to Zach now to ask the next question. Yeah, Jerry, we're ready for you to start talking about weaned calf health and things along those lines. So what should we be worried about post weaning with these calves if we're going to you know producers are going to hold on to them for a little bit before they they leave the operation. Thanks Zach. So let me follow up one thing that Jana mentioned about feeding ionophores to cows. In this case, it'd be primarily rumensin but one of the advantages of doing that is that you end up having fewer coxidia organisms in the feeding grounds. One of the things that we face I know it's a little bit off topic, but whether it's in springtime spring born calves, or even calves coming into the to the lot or grass trap. It's coxidiosis. And so sometimes we'll, we'll utilize coxidia stats whether deckhawks or bow bow attack or rumensin or, or different programs to remove the risk of coxidiosis. And so one of the benefits of feeding ionophores like rumensin during wintertime. It's not only are the cows more efficient but you reduce the shedding of oasis into the environment so just in a kind of an aside from what Jana was talking about. What I wanted to mention here is not necessarily a plug for any program per se, but it's maybe more of a stewardship issue I know that there's a lot of cows calves that are shipped right off the cows, without taking the advantage of being weaned. On the other hand, at this end of the state there are more calves that are probably weaned and then grown for some time before they're sold. The differences can be quite stark actually in terms of health and I'll just quickly mention a few things about a study that was done way back in 2003. We looked at calves that were unknown, unknown health history versus calves that have been weaned 45 days and been vaccinated that's basically the two treatments that were really interested in with this study that's now I guess going on almost 20 years old. One of the things that I want to go to the next slide. One of the things I wanted to point out about this and this is sometimes forgotten, although I think we know what happens when an animal is treated. We think of the antibiotic cost that's, that's known that animal and all the other animals in the pen would know the labor that's involved in treating an animal and so on and so forth but this, this particular study took these calves from weaning. The calves that were unweaned and unknown health history versus those calves that had been weaned and vaccinated and there was a dramatic difference between morbidity which is sickness and mortality which is death loss. One of the things that was also so interested to interesting to me was when I looked at the calves that had gotten sick versus those those that versus those that had stayed well, and just looked at performance throughout the entire feeding period and at the end. Those that had been sick in other words pulled at least one time and treated with an antibiotic versus those had remained healthy at least as far as we know. There was a point for three difference in average daily gain across those groups so it's it's a big deal. It's a stewardship issue. If I could encourage more of our producers to start their calves at home before they leave. I know we still have an industry that values those unweaned calves. But they tend to be a little bit higher risk once they go to the next place and so I just want to make sure we're all on board with what that looks like in terms of cost and loss of performance and and other studies have actually looked at carcass value as well. I don't know if I got another slide in here or not Mary I can't quite remember. I think that's it. So. Anyway, and one more couple more comments that the other thing that we're concerned about is not only respiratory disease. It's not only coxidiosis in the early winning period, but also you seem to have cases that show up after weaning and things like pink eye and foot rot some of the same things that we dealt with with cows and sometimes cows on pasture and so that's more of a more of a pull and treat one at a time type things but usually the environment in the pen. Sometimes even the feed stuffs that were were feeding with their lot of dust, a lot of holes in the feed sometimes and really dry under dry conditions those dust and particles and and old holes can actually get in the eye and cause some pretty serious irritation. Dr stuck a what about parasites and controlling for them is this a good time here. Yeah. Yeah. So now that we've had pretty good frosts across the state. This is the time when you can get rid of internal parasites and don't really have to worry about them again until the cattle go to grass. If you don't it's interesting. A mature parasites can live in an animal for quite some time. We don't care if there's some that actually promotes an immune response. So it's not like we want to get rid of all parasites internal or externals. It's okay to have some but this would be the time of the year when you can especially on the calves. Internal parasites tend to be immunosuppressive. So if you're vaccinating calves, they won't respond as well to a vaccine if they're still carrying internal parasites. Let me make one more comment because this is perfect timing about externals such as lice. I know that treatment for lice and trying to control lice is done at the most convenient time. And the most convenient time is preg checking when they're running through anyway. So we put on lice control at a time especially this fall when it's still pretty nice out. Lice activity diminishes when the weather is nice. Our ability to control lice, both sucking lice and biting lice, especially biting lice is not very good when we put compounds on that are supposed to control lice. They're not very effective when we put them on in warm weather. So I predict we'll have calls later on in the winter that my lice control didn't work. And it's usually because we applied it too early. I use the statement don't apply lice control until you see the whites of their eyes. Not the whites of the cow's eyes but the whites of the lice's eyes. So don't treat until you know you've got them and you'll be more successful. You won't get rid of all of them. There are some animals that carry more lice than others. I've also suggested only treat the cows that have the most lice. It sounds somewhat counterintuitive. But at the same time, I don't want to overuse some of the compounds that we have to control lice because I don't know that we'll have too many more coming down the pipeline so to speak. Thank you, Jerry. I just have to ask for this internal parasite issue we've had a drought this past year. Would you expect internal parasites to be lower because the drought or is that something we should test for or just do? What is your thoughts? You could. It's always hard to interpret a fecal egg count because they're more likely going to be there. And in a drought year, it's probably worse actually because cattle tend to graze closer to the ground. So, yeah, it may actually be worse this year. And even in cows, especially younger cows, I may be a little bit different. I don't necessarily recommend deworming adult cows. Again, it's a little bit of a stewardship of product issue. But younger cows, those first cavers, maybe even second cavers. And certainly the calves, it's a good idea to do something this fall with those girls. And it always depends on stocking rate. You know, how close are those cows grazing together? What's their chances of picking up internal parasites? So that's usually my recommendation in doing things like that. So if you want to save on feed costs, be sure we just feed the animal and out the internal parasites. Yeah, that's exactly right. The thing that we sometimes forget about internal parasites, especially on grass situations, is that they're actually suppressed the appetite of animals. That's why they don't gain as well. So it's an interesting phenomena. Thank you. Appreciate it. Now, as Zach, we've been thinking about wean calves and limited resources now. So what should producers focus on for doing backgrounding rations for their calves? Yeah, Dr. Sucka alluded to some programs in place, the preconditioning. And so for those either looking to wean those calves, but don't want to get rid of them just quite yet or if you've already have a preconditioning program or some type of backgrounding. I think you want to look at these things as two stages. In my mind, there's the starter and then there's the grower. And the starter is really just important in terms of getting animals on to feed quickly. You're going to be removing one of the, I would say, major resources to them. You know, calves start to graze pretty late into the grazing season. That becomes more of their diet, but milk is still an important contribution. And so you have to be mindful of course, all ways of water and checking to make sure your water tanks are clean and cleaning them frequently. And so once you get past that, then we can assume water intake is normal. We can get into feed. And so because if we limit water in any potential way, we're going to limit feed intake. And if we're, and it's critically important, we talk about the health of a calf. There's a lot of nutrition that ties into the health of that calf and maintaining that help. And so if we, when we look at bringing those calves and do an environment where we're now providing the feed to them, the energy, the protein, it has to be just that. So we want to look at a diet that's providing on a dry matter basis somewhere between 14 to 16% protein and has a, if you're in the TDN realm, around 70% TDN. So it's a higher energy diet relative to what the cows are getting or what we're used to providing to those cows. And like I said, the importance there in that starter is intake. Your goal should be within that first two weeks. Those calves should be on a 1.5% of their body weight on intake. And so not only do we want to focus on intake, but uniformity of those bites. And so processing those feeds, having feeds of similar particle size together. So it's, of course, okay to provide some long-stem hay if that's something, but you need to ensure that they're not filling up on that and that you're actually providing some of those concentrates. And we can get around worrying too much about starch with some of those feeds you mentioned, Carl, in terms of those higher fiber feeds. And distillers grains is a great way to incorporate protein and energy through that fiber amongst many other resources available. And so you have to look at it as that first two weeks, you need to really focus on intake at that point. And then from that point on in that growing diet, you can kind of step it kind of back to what you have available for resources, still maintaining high protein levels at that, at least at that 14% in high energy. But it's critical that you focus up front there. And then once those calves are going, it's a little bit easier ride, a little bit less management throughout that preconditioning phase in terms of nutrition. So I've always noticed that sometimes calves turn up their nose at some of the feeds in the feedbunk that we think is succulent and good and just got to appreciate one thing that throws them in my mind is like distillers grains or even field peas or corn silage. What can we do to get calves to want to accept those rather than kind of debate on whether they should eat it for three days before they give in? I'm glad you brought that up. So if we think about the start, if we think about that first two weeks being, if we call it, you know, that really important time where we need to get calves on intake, up on intake at that one and a half, get approaching 2% of their body weight, those fermented feeds and some of those more potent feed ingredients might, you might want to hold off on those, especially the ensiled ones. They tend to not promote intake as much due to that palatability. Like I said, once you get through those first couple of weeks, if you have a lot of silage available, that's maybe when you want to start incorporating that silage into that diet at higher inclusion levels and working towards that. Silage is a great included at even higher concentrations because it's providing a lot of fiber through the corn plant itself and then it's bringing in energy through that corn grain. And so you make a great point. You really do want to caution at least initially some of those fermented feeds in that first couple of weeks to promote intake. And then once those calves are at that one and a half percent or so, you can start kind of bringing in some of those ensiled feeds. So if you're buying calves and bringing them into your feed yard, you really have, that's a challenge to get them to eat out of the feed bunk because you're feeding them things you're not used to. But if you're feeding your own calves and going to wean in background at home, one option I've always seen is to go ahead and feed the cows corn silage or whatever rash feeds it is with the calves before weaning. So the calves, basically the cows teach the calves, this is okay to eat. And then, yeah, they come on the feed a lot quicker. Yeah. And if you're someone to creep feed, look at what you're providing there as those calves will be familiar. It's all about creating a familiar situation for those calves because you're creating so much stress that they want to lean back on something. They're familiar with. And if you're looking at a creep feed, you already are creep feeding them. Consider what's in there and look to use some of those ingredients in your growing and preconditioning diet. Carl, can I jump in here just a little bit? One of the other advantages, Carl, of doing just what you said is that you're bringing pastures together. You're combing calves from different groups. So you're taking the stress out of weaning the entire group all at once and weaning them all at once. Some of the biggest wrecks we have are throwing all the calves in the same pan at the same time and having respiratory disease. And it's because they don't know one another. So feeding cows and calves together has two advantages. They get used to the feed and the calves get used to one another. Thank you, Dr. Suck, and now I have to ask Jana, we've talked a lot about this. Are there any things else we should consider when building rations for weaned calves? I guess just what you mentioned about, you know, enticing calves to eat, I guess I just wanted to add a couple things there. That can be a huge challenge, especially if they haven't been exposed to those feeds previously. Some tips that I've picked up just talking to producers in different locations is sometimes you can, if you have animals on hand that could serve as a training animal, maybe a steer that you're feeding or some other, you know, an older non-lactating animal, obviously, when you're talking about weaned calves that would not be ideal to have in the pen with them. But it also helps calm them down and avoid, you know, when you hear that clattering and animals jumping over feed bunks, that's not a sound we like to hear. They spook really easy, so having maybe a couple trainer animals on hand can be helpful. The other thing that we've done in the past is when we're introducing grain to our weaned calves, use a little bit, something sweet to kind of entice them to get them up to the bunks, some dried molasses, or something that they will readily consume and recognize that you just need to have a lot of patience, and sometimes this takes a couple weeks to get them up on feed the way that you'd like them to be. Zach, you gave a really good overview, I think, of what you need to think about in terms of diet quality, and, you know, understanding that forage is limited. I still think that there's opportunities to feed calves and get them up to the market weight that you're shooting for. You know, Carl, you talked about how even though corn is high priced, it does provide more energy, and so we typically think of a backgrounding ration as, you know, somewhere between 50 and 60% roughage and then the rest concentrate, and we, there's definitely research out there that kind of looks more at maybe a 70% concentrate, kind of flip that, and so it's just a matter of making sure those calves are worked up slowly and adapted to those feeds over time and just getting those nutrients into them, and there's lots of options out there. A TMR is probably the best way to control and monitor intake because many times, you know, we'll have a free choice forage situation and the calves will go to the forage much more easily, and then we're trying to force a certain amount of grain into them and they're not hungry, and so maybe trying to kind of limit that forage or getting it ground and somehow incorporated in your ration or just feeding ground hay and getting that measured out rather than giving free choices is something to consider. Thank you, Janna. I'd like to ask Zach now. Excuse me. When you're backgrounding calves, different people have different ideas of what average daily gain should be. How slow should we grow calves or how fast should we grow calves? Are there any thoughts with that? Yeah. Janna hit it right on the head, I think with, but thank you for that, a TMR is really what you should be focused on, but average daily gain is really in terms of how you're putting your diets together. What are your goals? What's the end keeping the end in mind? What's your market? If you're looking at cows that are thin right now and you'd like to take the calves off right now but you don't normally wean, start considering doing that, but then you're going to be investing some resources, some feed, some labor and especially money into all that into these calves. Having an end in mind will dictate really what your average daily gain goal will be. You can really do a lot of things if you're working with whoever is going to be buying your calves. See what they ideally would like. You know what your markets currently provide you based on if you do any preconditioning or not. You have to take that in consideration as you put a little bit of investment in those calves, you expect to get something back. Keep that in mind and you know your markets better than any of us do. But in terms of average daily gain, you can really play with those levels of concentrate to get, I mean, you can go from anywhere between one to three pounds in those lightweight calves, but you have to keep in mind that putting a lot of, I'll say, fat on early on kind of has some effects later in the finishing period. So you really want to be mindful of who your customers are in that sense and be mindful of that as you look towards putting. And it really comes down to economics and what you want to sell them at when you want to sell them at and work your way backwards to where you are now for gains. Sounds good. Thank you. Yeah, great question. And I think that's going to do it for us here. Thank you all for joining us today. And thank you all, all the panelists for sharing your thoughts. And so today was great. So this is the last of our webinars for the Navigating Drought series. So we appreciate. Thank you for joining us. And of course, this will be recorded and available to watch later on. And please feel free to reach out at any time for further questions to your local NDSU extension agent. And they'll be happy to get you the resources that you need. Thank you.