Working cattle during the summer isn’t ideal due to the additional stress the heat causes for people and cattle, but sometimes it still needs to be done.

There were recently 2 articles published about handling cattle and the importance of keeping them calm.

In “Keeping cattle calm increases productivity”, Dr. Temple Grandin, cattle behavior expert, shares tips for low-stress handling.

“Large animals can seriously injure handlers and/or themselves if they become excited or agitated,” Dr. Grandin says. “Reducing stress on animals has been demonstrated to improve productivity and physiological changes.”

Dr. Ron Gill shares his experiences with handling cattle in the article “Cattle Expert Models Low-Stress Handling”.

“Gill emphasized that better handling of beef animals not only leads to better public relations, but it also puts less stress on the cattle and the cattle handler.”

What are your tips for handling cattle? Click the comments link below and let us know.

The summer heat brings challenges to cattle production. A few weeks ago, there were several articles about helping your cattle handle the heat.

You’ll also want to be sure your cattle have access to plenty of quality water. In a recent article by Chel Terrell, it’s mentioned that research at the University of Georgia showed:

Water requirements double when temperature increases from 50 to 95 degrees F. Cows and bulls will need 15 to 20 gallons of water per day during the summer months.

Read the complete article “Don’t Overlook Water as an Essential Nutrient” to learn about the water requirements of cattle, including the importance of keeping water sources clean, and the positive impact pasture rotation and supplementing with salts and minerals can have.

Are you having a problem with fly control in your cattle herd? Some years in my area, the fly problem is not bad because we’re normally very dry in the summertime, but this year, because of abundant spring rains, the flies are present in large numbers.

The experts tell us it doesn’t take a large number of flies on cattle to be a detriment to production – as few as 100 to 200 flies per side. In fact, they say flies can have such an impact on weight gain they can offset any weight gain achieved through the use of growth implants. If you see more than a hand-sized bunch of flies, mostly behind the shoulders, there are enough flies to be a problem to your cattle.

In my years in the cattle business, I’ve tried a lot of different methods of fly control, pour-ons, sprays, fly tags, rubs/dusters and finally a feed through additive. The pour on and sprays didn’t typically last very long, so I was constantly having to spray the cattle to keep the flies off.

Ear tags worked well, but the main problem I had with those was the necessity of removing the tags in the fall to keep from building resistance to the chemical in the tags. And, it is recommended to change the active ingredient from year-to-year. In a small operation like mine, the removal of the tags meant having to gather the cattle and put them through the chute an extra time. The problem with the rubs/dusters was having to move them every time the cattle were moved to another pasture and finding a suitable place where the cattle would walk under the rub.

The past three summers, I have used a mineral formulation tub containing Altosid® IGR. The IGR is a feed through fly control which is an insect growth regulator and does not have any effect on adult flies. The first year I used the mineral tub/fly control, the use of the product began a little late, so I had to spray a couple of times to get rid of adult flies. Since that time, I have begun feeding the tubs in mid-March, prior to the time flies generally appear in our area. As long as my cattle are some distance from my neighbors’ cattle, I have very good fly control and seldom have to spray. But, that is one of the disadvantages of the feed through control, unless your neighbors are using a feed through, or keep very good control of their flies, the migration of adult flies from their herds may make it necessary to use a spray to control flies in your herd because the feed thru has no effect on the adult flies.

But, so far, the feed thru fly control has worked very well for me and my cow herd. One of my neighbors tells me I shouldn’t work so hard controlling flies on my cattle. “That’s why God gave them long tails, so they can swat the flies,” he says. I just like to see my “contented” cows, leisurely grazing along, not having to swat or sling their heads trying to shoo away those pesky flies – and I think they do much better, weight gain wise, when the flies are not bothering them.

What kind of fly control program do you use?

I was able to attend the Temple Grandin presentation in Abilene on Tuesday, March 9. She is a pretty amazing lady who has much insight into the behavior and handling of animals. Of course, my main interest was in beef cattle, as was most of the attendees.

The presentation was sponsored by Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association and Pfizer Animal Health.

Dr. Grandin spent about an hour talking about animal handling, how they react to humans in their “space,” and the best way to get them to do what we’re wanting. She talked about the best way to move cattle from pasture to pasture, how to get them into a pen, then finally how best to handle them in the chute. 

She pointed out things people working with cattle should “watch out for,”  such as different colors of fences in the crowding pen or run to the chute, shadows and different light intensity in different areas of the working pens. “Cattle react to different light, shadows, etc.,” she said.

Another thing Dr. Grandin mentioned is “animals will tend to move in the opposite direction of the handler movement.”  The point of balance is at the animal’s shoulder. All species of livestock will move forward if the handler stands behind the point of balance. They will back up if the handler stands in front of the point of balance. Many handlers make the mistake of standing in front of the point of balance while attempting to make an animal move forward in a chute.

“The best way to get animals to move forward is for the handler to walk in the opposite direction of desired movement,” she says.

The second hour of her presentation was devoted to design and use of handling facilities for cattle.  One of Dr. Grandin’s points in this area of her presentation was that a crowd pen should only be filled half full (I always thought a “crowd pen” was just that – crowd them in).  And she is a great believer and promoter of  curved races and working pens.

She says, “Cattle will move more easily through a curved race system with solid sides because they can’t see people or other distractions.”

Her main point in the presentation was the humane treatment of animals-recognizing when they’re in a “stress” situation and reacting to that stress in the correct way. Also, making the handling of the animals safe for them, as well as the humans working with the animals.

If you ever have the chance to hear Dr. Grandin in person, I’d certainly recommend it.

Visit Dr. Grandin’s website

For the month of December, we already had two online workshops designed for those just getting started with CattleMax CS or still evaluating the trial version to take a guided tour and have an opportunity to ask questions and learn from each other. Both workshops were successful, and our evening workshop boasted the largest attendance yet.

We still have four more opportunities for you to learn with the CattleMax Team through our free online workshops this month.

Next Friday, December 19^th, we’re hosting two workshops on Basic Reporting in CattleMax CS. It’s designed for producers who want to learn about using the reporting features in CattleMax and will give a basic introduction to the different reporting features and how to use them.

Then on Monday, December 22^nd, we’ll have two opportunities for you to learn how to use the extensive AI (Artificial Insemination) and ET (Embryo Transfer) inventory and breeding records in CattleMax CS. We’ll cover everything from entering your first semen or embryo inventory records to using clean-up bulls to reporting your AI success.

View the schedule and register today!

If you have ever wanted to “get under the hood” and work directly with your CattleMax records, the CattleMax Access Companion is exactly what you have been waiting for.  Sometimes it’s as simple as tweaking a report created in the Report Wizard… other times it’s incorporating data into a complex accounting system.  Either way, you now have this flexibility with CattleMax and the CattleMax Access Companion.  The Companion can be found on the Reports tab of the CattleMax CS ribbon bar.

We spent some time updating our Microsoft Access Resources page over on the CattleMax website. This list contains links to books, software, and communities where beginners and pros can learn more about using Microsoft Access.

If anyone is currently using the CattleMax Accesss Companion and has a story they would like to share, let us know over at the Power Users forum.

VMWare just released VMWare Fusion 2.0 for the Mac, so I wanted to take the time to let everyone who is currently using a Mac or considering a Mac learn how you can use CattleMax.

Penny and I moved over to MacBook Pro laptops earlier this year and have been very pleased.  Of course, CattleMax uses Microsoft Access 2007 technology so we still needed Windows.

We get a lot of questions from customers who aren’t sure if they can use CattleMax on a Mac, so we wanted to mention the available options, and share what we have found to work best.

I evaluated VMWare Fusion and Parallels and found the best performance with VMWare Fusion.

Setup is fast and easy with the step-by-step wizards.  Several retailers even sell VMWare pre-installed when you by a new computer.  Using VMWare is easy and requires no rebooting to use – just open the application and click the Run button.  The speed and performance are great and we haven’t come across any compatibility issues with CattleMax during the past six months.

Is anyone else using CattleMax on their Macs?  If so, let us know.

CattleMax on VMWare Fusion