Educational Resources from Our Events

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Cattle: Successful Winter & Year-Round Grazing

  • Strip Grazing

Planning for Successful Winter Grazing

Feeding hay is fairly simple, but all of the tasks that come with growing, harvesting, transportation or acquisition and feeding come with a price. To achieve year round grazing successfully the livestock demands and forage supply must be balanced. Successful planning must include stockpiled forage that can be strip grazed or allocated, an available, reliable water source and fencing to control access must be part of the plan. Nutritional needs [...]

  • Jim Gerrish closes his Topeka Ranch Management for Successful Winter and Year Round Grazing workshop with a presentation on “What is Time?” to make ranchers realize the value and importance of how they choose to use the time they have.'

Integrating Crops and Livestock: A Return to the Past or Moving into the Future?

Prior to the latter part of the 20th Century, mixed crop and livestock operations were the norm in the US. As mechanization increased crop diversity decreased and fewer farmers control the land. Prior to this change, animals provided an important part into crop rotation and nutrient recycling of the ecological system cycle. Biological activity within the soil has decreased with this change. Tillage is an enemy to organic matter and [...]

  • Jim Gerrish closes his Topeka Ranch Management for Successful Winter and Year Round Grazing workshop with a presentation on “What is Time?” to make ranchers realize the value and importance of how they choose to use the time they have.'

How Do I Know It Will Pay?

Knowing that there is no such thing as a free lunch, ranchers continually ask “How much will this cost me? and… Is it worth it?” Putting together a figure for the cost of an improvement to the ranch is fairly simple. The more difficult thing to figure is the value of the return the improvement brings to the ranch. The time that it takes the ranch to recover the cost [...]

  • Strip Grazing

Getting in Control of Cow Costs

The top five most expensive line items are addressed using 2013 figures provided by Kansas State University Farm Management Services. The most expensive cost for livestock producers is winter feed mainly hay, followed by summer pasture costs as second. In third place is the cost of replacement breeding stock and cow depreciation. Fourth is interest paid on borrowed money used to purchase breeding stock and finally in fifth place is [...]

  • Strip Grazing

Fence & Stock Water Development for Winter Grazing

This article discusses the two approaches to grazing cell design: Fixed using permanent fencing and water sources or temporary that utilizes temporary fence and moveable water tanks. In either situation attention should be given to layout, functionality and ease of use. There are many choices of fencing products and materials; attention should be paid to select ones that perform well in the cold weather of winter. Water is critical to [...]

Pasture-Based Sheep & Goats

  • Jim Gerrish closes his Topeka Ranch Management for Successful Winter and Year Round Grazing workshop with a presentation on “What is Time?” to make ranchers realize the value and importance of how they choose to use the time they have.'

What is Management-intensive Grazing and what can it do for you?

Management-intensive Grazing is the intensifying of management of the ranch and forage resources not the grazing. Plants capture solar energy. MiG balances grazing, rest, and consumption of various plant species to harvest and turn the solar energy into a salable product of meat, milk or fiber. These products are critical to human survival. With MiG it is possible to improve plant, soil, animal and financial performance of grazing lands. MiG [...]

  • Goats and sheep on pasture.

Grassroots of Grazing: More Sheep Tips

When selecting the species most suited to a grazing situation, producers should answer a few questions as to how their personal goals play into a proper choice. Are they interested in bottom line profits, fun, value added products, as well as evaluate the other responsibilities that come with that choice? Factors include: How hard do you want to work? Do you want to have to shear the animals and then [...]

  • Goats and sheep on pasture.

Grassroots of Grazing: Why Mixed Species Grass Farming Pays

Many small scale family operations struggle with the decision to add an additional type of animal enterprise and if it has economic returns. This article addresses the returns of four possible animal scenarios for a 50 acre farm; 1) cow/calf taking calves to finish, 2) Yearlings purchased and grass fed to finish, 3) Yearlings to finish with an added ewe-lamb to finish operation, 4) strictly a ewe-lamb to finish operation. [...]

  • Goats and sheep on pasture.

Grassroots of Grazing: The Sheep Advantage

For a small farm, sheep have several advantages; biological, physical and economical. Sheep can provide meat, wool and dairy. The amount of forage needed to support one cow will raise eight ewes. Eight ewes are much cheaper to purchase than one cow. Sheep do not need as much to survive and rebreed as a cow and most often have multiple births. Sheep require less facilities and are easier to handle [...]

  • Goats and sheep on pasture.

Pasture Management based on Four Ecosystem Processes

Carbon dioxide, water, soil minerals and solar energy combine to grow the plant that animals consume to produce meat, milk and fiber. The four key ecosystem processes should determine a producer’s grazing management. Ranchers should strive to build a better solar panel of plants to turn sunlight into forage for animal consumption, bare soil is lost opportunity and a allows for unwanted weeds, appropriate ground cover facilitates the capture of [...]

Livestock Water Development & Electric Fencing

Electric Fencing for Serious Graziers

Electric fencing offers two major advantages over other types of fencing. One is cost. The cost to install a four-strand, barbed-wire fence is about $5,000 per mile. The cost to install a typical, single-wire, electric fence is about $1,600 per mile. If necessary, additional wires can be added to an electric-fence for about 10 cents per foot. There could be additional costs to install electric fencing in certain cases. For [...]

  • Missouri NRCS specialist Mark Green answers waterer questions following his workshop on electric fencing and livestock watering options in Topeka on September 9.

Watering Systems for Serious Graziers

Water is commonly the weakest link in grazing systems because it is the most overlooked and neglected nutrient on farms. Many people do good jobs ensuring that the pasture, hay and grain they feed to livestock is high quality and of sufficient quantity, but they ignore the quality and quantity of their herds’ drinking water. The key to animal health, grazing distribution, and forage management is readily available, adequate supplies [...]

Emergency Preparedness for Livestock Operations: When Disaster Strikes

VIDEO…Emergency Preparedness for Livestock Operations: Morning Panel

Dr. Charles Barden, Kansas State Forester – K-State Research & Extension; Todd Barrows, Kansas State FSA Office, Agriculture Program Specialist; and Dr. Justin Smith, DVM Kansas Department of Agriculture Division of Animal Health, take questions from the crowd during the morning roundtable discussion.

VIDEO…Emergency Preparedness for Livestock Operations: Afternoon Panel

Presenter panel answers attendee questions. Panel members: Ken Powell, KDHE Bureau of Waste Management, Solid Waste Permits Section Dr. Joel DeRouchey, KSU Department of Animal Sciences and Industry, Livestock Nutrition and Environmental Management Specialist Anthony Ruiz, Central Kansas Extension District livestock agent

Goat and Sheep Dairy Enterprise Exploration: Getting the most from your milk

  • Guide to Starting a Commercial Goat Dairy Cover

Guide to Starting a Commercial Goat Dairy

This guide is meant to provide basic information to those interested in looking at starting a dairy goat farm as a business. Other books cover the detailed management of dairy goats while this guide seeks to touch on those topics [...]

  • Charuth's dairy goats.

Medications Commonly Used in Goats

Helpful table listing medications commonly used with goats and the required withdrawal time. Medications Commonly Used in Goats Patty B. Scharko, DVM and Terry Hutchens Clemson University Download Publication PDF 59 KB

  • Dairy goats on pasture.

Managing the Barber Pole Worm

Part 2 of a six part series on Worm Control in Goats This article develops understanding of the biology of the worm, how sheep and goats become infected and using that knowledge to develop management practices to help control the [...]

Meat Processing and Marketing for Optimal Sales

  • Meat Charts and Cutting Card

Meat Charts and Cutting Card from Melissa Wahl

Melissa Wahl provided participants at the February 4, 2015 Meat Processing and Marketing for Optimal Sales workshop a set of carcass meat cuts for beef, pork, sheep and goats. Many of today's consumer's have no idea where many of the [...]

  • Stop the Meatball Slingin'

Stop the Meatball Slingin’: Meat Producer-Processor Relationships

Rosanna Bauman’s USDA-Inspected poultry processing facility serves the majority of direct-marketed poultry producers in NE Kansas and her family markets their own birds to restaurants, grocers and area co-ops. Rosanna provided insight on how to be a good partner with [...]

Meat Processing Tips from Brad Dieckmann

Brad Dieckmann brings more than 25 years experience as owner of a processing facility and provided tips on improving relationships with processors by explaining the processor’s experience during the February 4, 2015 Meat Processing and Marketing for Optimal Sales workshop. [...]