Water system design, infrastructure costs, and winter systems | Ruminating with RealAg, Ep 43

A cow coming home thin doesn’t necessarily mean she belongs on the cull list. Sometimes, she may have done exactly what was asked of her. As cows come home from summer pasture and winter feeding costs move to the forefront, producers have to decide which animals have earned another winter’s worth of feed — and... Read More

More protein might sound like cheap insurance heading into winter, but there comes a point when that extra scoop is doing more for the feed bill than the cow. On this episode of Ruminating with RealAg, host Amber Bell is joined by Eric Bailey, state beef extension specialist and associate professor of animal science with... Read More

Host Amber Bell chews on the latest in beef production as she sits down with Sean McGrath of Round Rock Ranching to discuss designing, building, and adapting reliable watering setups for grazing cattle. In this episode of Ruminating with RealAg, McGrath breaks down how to manage cattle water requirements and work with effective rainfall dynamics... Read More

While information about grazing management is readily available online, producers still benefit from getting together to learn from neighbours facing the same conditions and challenges. On this episode of Ruminating with RealAg, host Amber Bell is joined by Tatyana Pavlovets, executive director of the Central Alberta Forage and Livestock Association (CAFLA), and rancher Jim Bauer,... Read More

The grass always looks greener on the other side of the fence; this old adage seems to be more true in the spring than at any other time of the year. Just because it's green, though, doesn't necessarily mean that it's ready for cows. So what do we do when feed supplies are getting tight,... Read More

Time is a constant pressure point on cow-calf operations, but where it actually goes — and how well it’s understood — is often less clear. In this episode of Ruminating with RealAg, Brenda Schoepp, mentor and industry veteran, and Kathy Larson, agricultural economist with the University of Saskatchewan join host Amber Bell, to unpack how... Read More

Profitability in the cattle business often hinges on understanding the real cost of production, something that can be difficult to pin down when labour, land, and opportunity costs aren’t always clearly accounted for. For many producers, taking a closer look at the numbers behind everyday decisions can reveal insights that influence everything from heifer retention... Read More

In the demanding world of beef production, success during the calving season is often determined by management decisions made long before the first calf hits the ground. Dr. Lacey Fowler, a beef technical services veterinarian with Elanco Animal Health, understands this timeline well. Drawing on her years in mixed animal practice and her work with... Read More

Regenerative agriculture is one of those terms that can spark a debate faster than a coffee-row chat about tillage, but on this episode of Ruminating with RealAg, host Amber Bell sits down with Joel Williams of Integrated Soils to keep things grounded. Williams, an independent plant and soil health educator who works with farmers around... Read More

Winter feeding is one of the largest and most complex management decisions cow-calf producers face each year, touching everything from cost of production to cattle performance and land stewardship. On this episode of Ruminating With RealAg, host Amber Bell is joined by University of Saskatchewan researchers Kathy Larson and Dr. Bart Lardner to dig into... Read More