Beef Cattle Research Council (BCRC)

This article was originally posted on the Beef Cattle Research Council’s website on October 9, 2024. Often hidden hazards in beef cattle diets, mycotoxins can create a variety of problems including impaired immune response which can lead to secondary infections, compromised growth rates, reduced reproductive performance, lameness and gangrene. Illnesses caused by mycotoxins can be difficult to…

This article was originally posted on the Beef Cattle Research Council’s website on October 31, 2022. If starch (from grain) is the fuel in a feedlot diet, fiber (from a roughage like silage) is the engine governor that slows digestion. A backgrounding diet might contain 60 per cent silage to moderate animal growth so that…

This article was originally posted on the Beef Cattle Research Council’s website on February 22, 2024. Alternative or non-conventional feeds, such as grain screenings, cull potatoes or distillers’ grains, can be an economical means for beef cattle producers to supplement forage and grain inventories while continuing to meet animal nutritional requirements. However, due to variability…

The literal act of completing ‘hands-on’ body condition scoring (BCS) is often thought of by commercial beef producers as a procedure done strictly in academic trials, research studies, or by seedstock operations. Many bypass the practice altogether, choosing instead to rely on experience, assessing their herd’s degree of condition from the feed truck or tractor…