On the Blog

Technology to make the producer's life easier

 This is the time of year that you should start to track the performance of your beef cow herd’s body condition as pastures mature and forage quality, as well as quantity, start to go down.

The Beef Cow Body Condition Score App is one of our apps that will help you track and manage the body condition of your herd. The BCS App is an app that you simply download, and then head to the pasture and take profile pictures of selected cows. If you are a novice to body condition scoring, you can compare them to reference photos of cows that represent Body Condition Scores from 1 to 9.

 

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Wet weather increases risk of foot rot

The incessant rains have made for a wet summer for many cattle producers across the US. Sometimes, despite our best efforts, cattle have to stand in water resulting in more cases of foot rot. Why should you care? Lame cows won’t eat enough and thus won’t make enough milk for calves. Lame calves won’t graze either, resulting in further reduced weight gains. Lame bulls will not travel to seek out females in heat, meaning more open cows at the end of breeding season. Overall, lameness can be very costly in the long run.

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Don’t gamble: The cost of no supplement

I was recently in Las Vegas for an event with a long time distributor of CRYSTALYX® and valuable customer.  I’ve been to Las Vegas several times and it is a fun place.   Entertainment and gambling as we know is what makes money in Las Vegas.  I often hear stories from people who brag about how much money they make gambling, but they are only the lucky few.  If gambling paid for the gambler, Vegas wouldn’t have much to offer.

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The heat of the summer is upon us

July is here, and with it, some of the hottest days of the summer are just ahead of us.  Self-fed intake of CRYSTALYX® Brand Supplements can be higher in the summer/warmer months.  During the manufacturing process, CRYSTALYX® is packaged in to barrels at a temperature of approximately 150 to 175 degrees.  At this temperature, CRYSTALYX® is very pliable, much like Play Doh® or thick cookie dough.  As it cools, it becomes hard.  Hardness is a primary factor in determining the self-fed intake of CRYSTALYX®.  As you would expect, if CRYSTALYX® warms back up towards that 150 degree temperature, it will become softer again.  That is just the nature of a Low-Moisture Block.

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