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Floods Continue With a Wet Outlook
As April unfolds, major flooding continues along the Eastern rivers. The James River is at crest in Brown county the first week of April and will slowly recede while maintaining flood level for much of April.
Drylotting Cow-Calf Pairs
Whether because of reduced forage production caused by drought, or increased competition for grazing acres, feeding lactating cows in a drylot is being at least considered as an option by more ranchers.
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.
Delayed Planting Challenges: Alternative Forages
With the excessively wet planting conditions much of South Dakota is now experiencing, many producers are looking for “Plan B” to meet forage needs for their livestock, or as a commodity that can be marketed to livestock producers.
Delayed Planting Challenges: Cover Crop Considerations
High waters and saturated soils across many counties in South Dakota have producers worried about getting their crops planted in a timely manner this spring. In many areas, typical cash crops will not be a possibility. Producers may need to develop alternative plans.
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.
Planning for a Muddy Breeding Season
Early calving spring cow herds have wrapped up calving and are preparing for breeding season. If you are having flashbacks to breeding in the mud of 2018, try approaching this year with an open mind and review breeding season protocols with a “mud” backup plan.
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.
Flood Insurance
The higher amounts of snow this year will increase the chance of flooding and the potential water damage to homes and residential properties. Now is the time to consider purchasing a flood insurance policy.
Managing Flooding Around Home Structures
As South Dakota and our surrounding neighbors begin to deal with the consequences of spring snowmelt and the dramatic flash flooding that came about from the region’s most recent winter storm, we can only hope that conditions begin to improve quickly.