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Hot Weather Challenges Beef Cattle
Hot weather conditions create challenges for grazing beef cattle.
SDSU Extension offering livestock water testing across state
June 18, 2025
South Dakota State University Extension is encouraging producers to take advantage of its free, on-site livestock water testing services across the state.
Livestock Risk Protection for Cattle
Price rallies, general price volatility and concern that prices may move lower could lead producers to insure livestock prices. Livestock Risk Protection is an insurance program that covers the single-peril or risk of lower prices on fed cattle and feeder cattle.
Cattle Behavior
Working cattle is an essential part of management. However, it can be stressful for the livestock and humans involved. The more we learn and understand about cattle behavior, the less stress these handling events will cause.
A Disaster-Ready Strategy for Cattle Operations
Cattle producers can minimize risk and maximize resilience. Having a written emergency action plan and routine exercise of the plan helps ensure animal welfare and business continuity.
Water Usage Increased by Dietary Phytase Incorporation in Growing and Finishing Swine
Total water usage is an important consideration in sustainable pork production. Recent research at the SDSU investigated water usage of growing and finishing pigs fed diets without or with phytase included in the diet.
Freeze Branding Cattle
Freeze branding is a low-stress way to add permanent identification to cattle that will elicit minimal hide damage.
Healthy Guts Make Healthy Cattle
Feed additives, including probiotics, prebiotics, and postbiotics, can be incorporated in beef cattle diets to help improve animal health, increase performance, and reduce antibiotic use.
How Does Cold Stress Affect the Energy Needs of Cattle?
Most beef producers understand that when the weather gets colder their cattle need more energy for maintenance. The questions are when do cattle start experiencing cold stress and then how much more energy do they need? Both the actual temperature and the wind speed interact to determine the effective temperature.
Treating Lameness in Cattle
Successfully treating most cases of cattle lameness usually involves more than a simple injection of antibiotics. Knowing the best intervention for a particular animal starts with a good diagnosis of the problem.