The Moos Room™

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Joe: Welcome to The Moos Room, everybody. It is not the OG3 I am sad to tell you. Dr. Bradley J Heins, PhD tenured professor, cannot be here today so you're stuck with the Gruesome Twosome today.
Emily: [barks] Gruesome Twosome.
Joe: [chuckles] Today, another Gruesome Twosome episode is coming at you and we're going to continue a similar conversation that we were having last week when we were talking about early weaning, early weaning being a strategy because we're still dealing with drought and it has not gotten better still.
Emily: Yes, I believe we, in Minnesota, we've been upgraded to D2 now, which is not good.
Joe: It's not good if you were wondering.
Emily: Yes, it's not good.
Joe: So far, crops appear to be okay. Row crops are looking okay. Gotten some rain at some critical times in certain parts of the state, and they're looking okay but that is not the same case for hay fields and pastures. We're really talking about running out of grass and all sorts of other things. Now, we covered early weaning last week and today we're continuing some discussions about drought but we're going to be talking about things and some strategies that some people don't necessarily think about right away when we're talking about drought. The big thing, you know, we got to talk about it because Emily is here, is we got to have a safety component. Emily, tell me some of the things that you worry about when we see really hot drought years like this.
Emily: The first one that pops into my mind, which is one that is shared pretty universally across the country when we're in drought, is fire risk. It's dry. It's kindling out there. You have to be careful because on the farm you're welding or you're doing something with the electrical and a spark comes out, it can just be doing a regular daily task that you could spark a fire, and with it being this dry, that's a very real risk.
Joe: Traditionally, we think about fires being out west, an out west thing, but I know when I've spent some time in Montana, you have to be so careful. We're getting to that point in Minnesota here as well, where even driving your pickup truck across the pasture can be an issue. Any spark could be an issue at this point so it's a real risk.
Emily: It's more prominent out west because we think about the forest and the trees, but when the ground and everything-- I look out at my lawn, it is brown. Everything is dry so there's plenty to fuel a fire. Just a spark could ignite pretty quickly.
Joe: It's just something to keep in mind as you do every task on the farm. A good reason to double-check where do you have a fire extinguisher and how available they should be in different areas of the shop. See how old they are, maybe is a good thing to check too, right?
Emily: Yes. Your farm should have more than one fire extinguisher as well. There should be one in every building and one with every tractor. No such thing as being too safe.
Joe: It's a super boring tool to have around until you need it. You really do need it when you need it.
Emily: Right. You could use it as raccoon deterrent as well I guess. You can shut that out. [laughs]
Joe: I've maybe seen a couple of those used that way.
Emily: Yes.
Joe: All right, safety-wise, we talk about fires. Something to keep in mind on every activity you're doing that we don't necessarily have to worry about as much every year, but this year it's a concern. What else for safety? There's got to be something else that we worry about, especially, probably, every summer, but this one in particular.
Emily: Well, of course, me, I'm safety and health, so I'm going to flip over to the health side here, and that is the human component of drought. Drought impacts people, too. Like you were alluding to, Joe, in the summer, of course, we see an increase in heat-related illnesses in farmers. Especially in a drought year, the air is drier, everything is drier so we're more dehydrated and thus more susceptible to getting a heat-related illness a lot faster. That is a very real concern.
Add to that, too, just the general stress of being in a drought, physically, environmentally, what's happening to you, mentally, what might be going on with you, of course, all those things come together. I think just being mindful that this is a stressful time and it's stressful on your body, too, so really taking care of that mental and physical pieces of your health, for sure.
Joe: The mental side, I think, is a big deal as we move into further stages of this drought. If it doesn't get better, knowing yourself, knowing how to cope, leaning on your neighbors, friends, family to help you through that period, it's going to be real. Hopefully, we'll get some rain and it won't be as bad. It's bad right now. At a certain point here, we're getting to a point where rain isn't necessarily going to help us all that much for this year. It'll be helping us for next year, but we're going to run out of grass, and at some point, there's not going to be any coming back from it.
Emily: If we could just have a nice slow rain that was 12 hours because you don't want to downpour. That's not going to do anything. We'll keep our fingers crossed here for a nice long, good soaking.
Joe: We've covered fire risk, some health, some mental health. What else is there to think about?
Emily: Well, staying with the health theme, but flipping back to the farm, animal health, livestock health, and safety. Of course, just like with us, it's a lot drier for them. They're likely more dehydrated. We're dealing with if you rely on natural sources of water or surface water to water your cattle, that may be gone. Just making sure that you're also managing, of course, management for heat and for heat stress in cattle. Part of heat stress is inevitable, but really making sure they have access to water, access to shade whenever you can do it, those things are really critical, too, on the safety and health side when we think about drought on farms.
Joe: Water for cattle is going to become a huge issue. There's a lot of people that depend on surface water to get water for the cattle, drinking water for the cattle, and some of those are drying up. That poses a couple of different issues. First of all, like Emily said, your cattle need to drink water, and they can't be without it. The options when your surface water does dry up are fairly limited, to be honest. If you have a live tap there, then you have the ability to fill tanks or stock tanks or get something going that way. That's one option but not everyone has that option at all.
Then you got to decide, are you going to haul water out to those cattle, or are you going to move those cattle out of that pasture to a dry lot situation where you have water available? Now, hauling water is, I think, in my opinion, a short-term option, depending on how many cattle you have, because they drink a lot, especially when they're hot in the summer like this. You're talking about a cow drinking 20 to 25 gallons a day and calves every calf also drinking 5 to 8 gallons a day so hauling water would be a lot of work every day. Keep that in mind when you're making a decision. Are you going to haul water into those cattle or are you going to move them to someplace where water is a little more accessible?
Now, the other thing to think about when we're talking about the surface water, and this is something that I think we've seen a couple of times already this year. When those surface water areas dry up, the cattle still want to go back there because that's where they've gotten water in the past. Especially for calves that are a little more curious and don't know what areas to avoid, they can get stuck in the silt in the bottom of these ponds and these other areas. Definitely a danger for the cows as well but the calves especially, they'll wander and they'll frolic and get into areas they shouldn't, just like everybody knows from having cattle for a while, that they do that.
As you see these surface water areas dry up, you might want to think about fencing them off just to keep the cattle from getting trapped and getting into those areas, especially in the middle of those surface water areas that are all silty and basically quicksand basically. Keep that in mind as you're looking at those areas potentially drying up.
Emily: That ties back to some of the livestock safety stuff that we were just discussing, too, one of those things you would not normally think about that we need to be more mindful of. Another thing that we had already talked about on the previous episode, it was about feed-related things like early weaning and how that can put less pressure on the cows. Is there anything else related to what we talked about last week that you want to expand on?
Joe: Yes. The big thing is that we've got all these different options to take pressure off the pastures, like early weaning, like creep feeding but really the biggest thing that can take pressure off the pasture is having less cows. I think now is the time when we get into these situations before your grass is gone, you need to make these tough decisions on who can stay and who needs to go. Really, there's a bunch of different things to think about. You need to think about making these decisions early to get rid of cows before you're out of grass, that's number one. For me, the easiest way to identify who should stay and who should go is if you bred early, like a lot of our people do, they breed early because they calve early, you can get in there and preg check early as well.
Certainly the opens, the opens need to go. They're mouths that you don't need to feed and they're not going to produce a calf for you, so they should go. Then anybody who's really late in your calving window can also go. Those are going to be your least profitable cows. Anybody who's really late in your calving window because they have the least chance to catch up. They're also probably going to have the lightest calf when you sell them if you were to keep them because the calves are younger. Those are the two populations right away that I think you need to identify if you can. If you bred early enough to do that, you should get in there, preg check, get rid of opens, and get rid of your late-bred cows.
After that, you start looking at the herd and really make choices based on age for the most part. Your favorite cow, maybe keep her in the first round of cuts but after that, you need to be really looking at your older cows because we know they start to decline. There's some studies that show us that around that eight-year-old mark, that's where we start to see profitability maybe decrease, and the big thing to think about is that your most profitable cows are your three to six-year-old cows. Also, your younger cows have more genetic potential, hopefully, if you've been selecting your breeding correctly.
I don't like getting rid of old mature cows that have proven themselves, but if you are looking for cutting down the herd and you've already gotten rid of your opens and your late breds, then it's time to start thinking about those older cows, maybe checking teeth, doing it that way if you feel like that's a good way to do it. Make sure that you're getting rid of all your gummers. If they don't have teeth, it's hard for them to eat, so they can go first. Then after that, it's really tough to make decisions after you get rid of your opens, your late breds, and your old cows.
Emily: Well, hopefully we don't make it any farther than that, so we don't need to know what's next.
Joe: I hope not. Personally, I would avoid selling pairs. I just don't think it's going to go well. There's too many people that are in the same boat that can't feed anybody else. Selling pairs is just not going to work, I don't think this year, but definitely selling old cows is a big option that can help you.
Emily: Yes. I know for some people that can be so hard to think about downsizing the herd and that, but again, it's a management piece and it's about responsible financial management but also resource management. When I think culling cows, I think, wow, that's putting a lot less pressure on that pasture or on what little surface water is still available. Taking those pieces into consideration as well because, also, if your pasture gets destroyed this season, it's not going to be back next season or at least not very well. I think being mindful of what you have available and how you can manage that responsibly is super important in this too.
Joe: That's spot on. Culling cows now is going to help you this year but it's also going to help you next year because this drought is going to affect us next year as well. It's a good time to do it and do it early and save yourself a little bit of headache as we move forward. The one thing I'll say before we wrap up here today is records are key to this whole process, especially when we're talking about culling cows. If you have good records, you can see who your most profitable cows are, you can see who's really producing for you, you can tell who you should keep and who needs to go. Records are a huge piece of this now.
Again, if you're going to go through and really age everybody and check mouths, write everything down. This is valuable information that you're collecting. It's a lot of time that you're spending to do it so if you're going to do that, write it down, and make sure that you keep track of that. If you don't write it down, you can't use it later and it might be valuable next year. It might be valuable the next year after that. Keep records of all this stuff that you're going to collect.
Emily: We support data here on The Moos Room, all the data you can get.
Joe: Absolutely. As much as you can get. All right, we've covered safety. Wwe've covered mental health a little bit as well. We've covered surface water today and considerations for keeping your cows hydrated and people hydrated. Then we also gave you one more thing to think about on how to take that pressure off that pasture by culling cows, starting with your opens, your late breds, moving to your oldest cows, and using your records to help guide that. That's all we got for today. Short, sweet episode, just the Gruesome Twosome and--
Emily: Gruesome Twosome strikes again, baby.
Joe: Strikes again.
Emily: [barks] [laughs]
Joe: We will wrap it there. Thank you for listening, everybody. You can catch us on Twitter @UMNmoosroom and @UMNFarmSafety. If you have questions, comments, or scathing rebuttals, you can send those to themoosroom@umn.edu.
Emily: That's themoosroom@umn.edu.
Joe: Thank you again, everybody. We'll catch you next week.
Emily: Bye.
Joe: Bye
Emily: I'll say it more eloquently than that. Oh, I promise.
Joe: Oh, you do whatever you want, but--
Emily: [laughs] You can edit me to make me sound better, right?
Joe: Sometimes.
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Emily: Gruesome Twosome.
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