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Bringing Home Your 4-H Goat Project
Sales and transport is a stressful time for any animal. Reducing stress factors due to transitions start before the actual purchase of your new project. Managing proper nutrition and disease management are just a couple factors to help your project get off to a great start.
Why Tattoo Your 4-H Livestock?
Proper identification of animals helps create an honest record keeping system. With current DNA blood typing procedures animals can be identified through parentage, but when it comes to everyday practices on the farm or ranch a good tattoo can be a huge time saver in the event of a lost ear tag.
4-H Youth Experience in Animal Projects – Purposes
4-H Youth Development must place an importance on developing “youth experience” versus “contest participation and competition."
July 2019 Climate Outlook: Challenges Continue
This year’s seasonal pattern of wetter than average conditions is projected to continue through July and the rest of the summer season. The latest climate outlook, released June 20, 2019, shows an increased chance of wetter than average conditions in the next one to three months for the state of South Dakota.
Sheep Breeds
Everyone has heard the fairytale “Baa Baa Black Sheep Have You Any Wool?” but what about the double-coated California Red, the multi-colored Katahdin sheep with hair, or the East Friesian dairy ewe that produces over 1,100 pounds of milk a year? Sheep come in different shapes, sizes, and colors and all of them provide different functions and uses for producers. These can range from meat, wool, and milk production or a combination of characteristics.
National Sheep Improvement Program: Performance-based data you can rely on
Sheep producers continually look for opportunities to improve their flocks through the introduction of genetic traits that will contribute to both improve the performance and physical appearance of the offspring. For hundreds of years, producers used the phenotype or physical appearance traits to select replacement stock, followed by performance trials and wool testing to quantitatively define the traits a specific animal may possess.
Cover Crops & Livestock Integration: A Profit Opportunity for S.D. Farms
Cover crops have been gaining a reemerging acceptance over the last decade, with very few producers disagreeing about the potential soil health benefits of adding cover crops to their farming operation.
Promoting Dung Beetles on the Range
In South Dakota, dung beetles help regulate rangeland health through dung dispersal.
Natural Resources: The Ranch Foundation During Drought
Just as every factory needs a sturdy and healthy foundation to be sustainable, a ranch manager must keep a watchful eye on the natural resources of the ranch during drought.
Recommended Soil Sampling Methods and Instructions
Proper collection of soil samples is extremely important as the accuracy of the soil test depends on the quality of the soil sample provided to the lab.