The Foundation of Female Fertility with Jason Smith

Females are the backbone of the U.S. cow herd, but how can we as cattlemen do everything within reason to help those females reach their full potential?  

On this episode we visit with a guest I always enjoy chatting with: Associate Professor and Extension Beef Cattle Specialist with Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Jason Smith. Settle in as we discuss female-focused nutrition to ensure the pieces of the puzzle to support and develop long-term female fertility are in place.

A huge thank you to TWG Ranch for their sponsorship of this episode.

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Transcript

Lynsey McAnally (00:00:04):
Angus at Work, a podcast for the profit-minded cattleman. Brought to you by the Angus Beef Bulletin, we have news and information on health, nutrition, marketing, genetics and management. So let's get to work, shall we?

Hello and welcome back to Angus at Work! Females are the backbone of the U.S. cow herd, but how can we as cattlemen do everything within reason to help those same females reach their full potential? I'm Lynsey McAnally, and on today's episode, we visited with a guest I always enjoy chatting with: Associate Professor and Extension Beef Cattle Specialist with Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Dr. Jason Smith. Settle in as we discuss female-focused nutrition to ensure the pieces of the puzzle to support and develop long-term female fertility are in place.

But before we get started, we wanted to take a moment to thank TWG Ranch for their sponsorship of this episode.

Sponsor (00:01:18):
Predictable calving ease, fertility and longevity combined with efficient feedlot performance and end product merit ... That's what you'll find at TWG Ranch. They're building on the strength started in the Woodhill cow herd that they've made. Their own TWG Ranch invites you to join them for their inaugural sale on Saturday, April 12th at the ranch between Mount Carroll and Elizabeth, Ill. Come for lunch at 11:30 and see the uniform set of bulls TWG Ranch has to offer.

Lynsey McAnally (00:01:55):
Well, welcome to Angus at Work! I'm your host Lynsey McAnally and today we're here with someone I always enjoy chatting with - and have enjoyed chatting with for the last few minutes prior to starting this recording - Associate Professor and Extension Beef Cattle Specialist with Texas A&M AgriLife Extension, Dr. Jason Smith. So, Jason, welcome!

Jason Smith (00:02:16):
Thank you very much. I'm honored to have the privilege to be here.

Lynsey McAnally (00:02:20):
I think our audience is going to get a lot of good out of this conversation. You and I have been talking for a few minutes - like I said prior to starting the recording - and I think that we have plenty of content to fill up this episode.

So just to start out, our audience probably heard me talk just a second ago about what Oklahoma and Texas has been experiencing as far as weather already this spring. But here in the Panhandle, the weather's been a bit confused recently ... We are nearing spring or at least I hope we are. We talked about spring turnout in the Beef Bulletin EXTRA quite a bit here recently. And a huge part of ensuring fertility and reproductive success is obviously nutrition. So can you talk a little bit to start the episode off about the importance of nutrition in relation to cow health and ultimately getting females bred?

Jason Smith (00:03:08):
Absolutely. I think maybe a good place to start there has to do with heritability of the fertility trait or traits that influence fertility. And I'm a nutritionist by training. I get excited about nutrition, but inherently I'm going to start on the genetic side. We talk about fertility being a relatively lowly heritable trait, but that doesn't mean it's not heritable. It does not mean we cannot make progress through genetics because we absolutely can. But what it means is that we have a relatively high potential for influencing the animal's phenotype through the environment. Reality is nutrition makes up the majority of the environmental component when we think about the opportunities to influence fertility or factors that influence fertility. And so nutrition is arguably one of our greatest opportunities. We have to promote fertility. It's also one of the greatest opportunities we have to inhibit fertility if we aren't mindful of certain things.

And so I think if I want to talk to something that I think applies to everyone - and we've done it for a very long time - we go back to body condition and using body condition as an indicator of nutritional status of that animal. And really what that means in the context of this discussion is the likelihood of that animal being successful from a reproductive standpoint, body condition is not the end all be all. It is an indicator. It does not tell us everything we need to know about that animal's nutritional status. And you and I have talked about this a little bit, but body condition is really an indicator of energy status in that animal. It doesn't tell us certain aspects of protein, nutrition, or mineral and vitamin nutrition. So we can have cattle that are in good condition that appear to be ready to go to work for us and do everything that we need them to be a positive aspect or contributor to the herd.

But there may be things behind the scenes that we can't see. It doesn't mean that body condition isn't important because for most of us it's something that every one of us can go out and at least gauge some idea of energy status. This group of females is roughly here, yay or nay, they're ready to go or we need to do something to better prepare them for the upcoming calving season or intervene to try to salvage some success in a breeding season. The challenge there becomes nutrition's expensive for lack of better terms, right? I mean we look at our major input costs, whether it's forages making up the foundation of most of our production systems or it's our nutritional interventions that we use in an ideal situation to compliment the forage base. And so going back to your statement and the original question, I think making sure that we are not unintentionally or unnecessarily making nutritional mistakes that influence the fertility or overall reproductive outcomes of those females. We think about getting them pregnant. That's often one of our major goals, but unless we're only selling bred females, there's not a ton of financial incentive in stopping there.

That pregnant female is only valuable to our cow calf herd if we're not selling her as such. If she's able to put a live calf on the ground, which is an important part of the equation, but it doesn't end there. That calf has to make it to the point at which we market it, whether that's as hopefully a weaned and preconditioned calf or we keep that calf and retain him through the feedyard or somewhere in between all of those things. So there are lots of things we can do to influence that. Where we have to be very mindful because of the costs that we might incur in making some of those interventions is finding that optimum balance between intervening. So doing something to influence the environment versus essentially forcing an animal's genetics to fit that environment and selection is the way that we do that. And so yeah, we can nutritionally make cattle that aren't terribly productive look pretty decent on paper from a productivity standpoint. Most of us won't stay in business very long doing that because of the costs incurred. And the reality is over the long term nothing gets cheaper.

Lynsey McAnally (00:08:18):
We were just talking about the price of the mineral; everything is more expensive.

Jason Smith (00:08:24):
Absolutely. And so I think that's the big thing is focusing on nutrition. Using nutrition to provide the level of intervention that you as a manager are comfortable with and using genetics to sort out the rest of it. Using genetics to identify those that aren't going to be successful or it costs us too much to make successful.

Lynsey McAnally (00:08:57):
Exactly. And I think that that is very dependent upon each operation, the type of cattle they're running, where they've purchased those cattle from the kind of background those females have had. There's so many factors that go into it, but we were just talking a few minutes ago about fetal programming, which is something that I get very excited about talking about. Ultimately, no matter who you are, you're putting resources into these females to ensure not only that they get bred, but that they calve, that they keep conditioned through calving and that they wean a calf.

And if you're hoping to either sell replacement females or you're planning on retaining those females yourself, you want to ensure you're doing everything you can to give those heifers the best chance of being fertile themselves down the road. And what I'm hearing from you is fertility is certainly heritable to some degree, but what we're putting into those females is having a huge influence on where they are as mature females or getting bred in the first place.

Jason Smith (00:10:04):
Some of the magic of the cow, so to speak, is what she's able to do in an environment that essentially no other animal, nothing else can do that in that environment. And so it's finding that balance of influencing the environment to where we've not necessarily taking that away from her either, right? Because if we've done that, she's no longer that magical animal that we're here to talk about today. But, certainly, it's not a one-size fits all as you alluded to. There's likely a different level or a different answer for every operation, and it's up to that manager to decide what that level is. That's not for me or anyone else to say that. No, that's wrong for you to do that. That's absolutely situationally dependent. Where I find myself often influencing that decision is helping people to find that optimum balance.

Lynsey McAnally (00:11:04):
What a cool job.

Jason Smith (00:11:05):
It is fun. I'm blessed to have the opportunity.

Lynsey McAnally (00:11:07):
That's got to be like working on a puzzle every single day.

Jason Smith (00:11:10):
Every day. And it's a different puzzle. Even if you didn't complete that puzzle the day before, it might look a little different the next day. But you mentioned fetal programming and I think there's some value in us digging a little deeper into that. It's kind of an interesting, for lack of better terms, buzzword that essentially ebbs and flows in terms of its popularity and whether it's something that is a focus today and it's not a focus tomorrow. And there's been, I'll say a decent amount of research focused on fetal programming in the beef cattle space, probably not nearly as much as we would expect because from a research standpoint, those experiments aren't simple to do and especially when we want to start looking at the long-term consequences of those things. And that winds up being one of the more challenging aspects of trying to understand what the true herd level productivity effects of fetal programming are. Because it's one thing to run a cow experiment that runs for a year to a year and a half ...

Lynsey McAnally (00:12:24):
But you're talking multi-generational.

Jason Smith (00:12:27):
Absolutely, absolutely. And herd level stuff. Most of us don't have - there are a few that do - but most do not have the ability to do 10, 20, 30-year research projects. And there's lots of reasons for that. There's lots of challenges associated with that. The interesting thing for me with fetal programming is - in my opinion - it's some of the most valuable information that we have on fetal programming is older than we are. It's information that we learned a long time ago and just to call some of it out specifically, and I'm sure there's information from before this and there's certainly not my intent to overlook that, but if I think about something that I fall back on and use on a regular basis, similarly, CORE's work from K-State in the 1970s? Some of that initial work that showed when we deprive a pregnant cow of nutrients, we deprive the fetus of nutrients and we substantially alter the likelihood that that calf first survives the birth process but then survives to weaning. And we can talk about weaning weight, we can talk about carcass traits, we can talk about feed efficiency, we can talk about lots of things that are economically relevant. But in the grand scheme of things at the cow-calf level they're a few drops in a big bucket and that calf survival makes up a very large portion of that bucket in terms of what creates value in that animal.

And that's not to discredit any of those other things. I want 'em to weigh as much as they can at we time

Lynsey McAnally (00:14:20):
In order to get them there, they have to live to that point. And that was one of the things that I was going to ask you was do you mind, we've talked about it a good bit already, but do you mind speaking to that importance of health and nutrition when it comes to programming that potential into those calves?

Jason Smith (00:14:41):
Absolutely. Absolutely. You know what, and if we look back at some of the data that I mentioned and it shows that we can make some small changes in weaning, we might influence marbling development, we might influence muscularity. And so ribeye area and yield grade, so whether you're on the seedstock side or the commercial side, there's something there that's probably of interest to you. But when we look at, and especially for energy, but also it applies to protein nutrition as well. When we start depriving that, especially during late gestation, we deprived that pregnant female of nutrients, some of that data supports upwards of 30% pre-weaning calf mortality. That's huge. And so when we think about, look at our national commercial cow herd. If the weaning rate is 82%, we've got opportunity. There's room on the table, there's opportunity there for us to make change. Is it likely, is it realistic for us to get to 100, 99, 98%? Probably not, but a lot of us could certainly make it into the nineties. I believe how we manage pregnant cows influences that, but take it a step further. So they do survive through weaning. What about those replacement heifers and what we've done from a programming?

Lynsey McAnally (00:16:16):
Clearly they're valuable, they've always been valuable. Replacement females have, but at current prices, doing everything we can do within realistic expectations to ensure that we're making sure that they have all the opportunity to be fertile replacement heifers, I think is something that most people would be willing to invest in.

Jason Smith (00:16:37):
Absolutely. And we look at the data on that through some, what I'll say in the grand scheme of things, some fairly minor protein and energy deprivation on the pregnant cow side that has real implications to replacement heifer fertility. So those little ones that were still cooking in the oven when that mama was under fed, we substantially influence their fertility as heifers going into that first breeding season. If we influence fertility going into the first breeding season, first and foremost, we've affected that profitability equation, right? Because we have fewer of those that are likely going to be successful that we'd have probably been better off marketing or sending to feed early on. Doesn't mean they're not salvageable at that point, but then how do we influence fallout of those females later on and their ability to rebred. Because I think for a lot that's probably as big, if not the biggest challenge is not necessarily developing the replacement heifer and getting her pregnant during the first breeding season. Lots of different ways to skin that cat ...

Lynsey McAnally (00:17:53):
But getting her to rebred ...

Jason Smith (00:17:56):
What happens a year later that winds up being oftentimes the difference between a female being a profitable addition to a herd or a female that others have to cover the cost of.

Lynsey McAnally (00:18:12):
And I think one of the things that has been ... I've talked about light bulb moments with you previously, but I think one of the quotes from, and I can't even remember who I heard this from initially, but they said, "Think about everything we're asking a first calf heifer to do. We're asking her to breed hopefully early in the season, we're asking her to catch. We're asking her to, while she's still growing and still trying to put on body condition, still going through all of these changes, we're asking her to have that calf, raise that calf and rebreed. That's a really tall order. And I know there are people out there that may disagree with that and they have a really high level of expectation for their females, I do as well. But I also have to feel for first calf heifers too, because so much of their success is dependent upon how we manage them.

And then also just there are some things that are out of our control. We've talked about the weather quite a bit, how weather impacts forages, how weather impacts that calf actually living. I've seen, you may not know this Jason, but one of the things I enjoy doing is watching sales online and the number of females that I've seen come through sale barns here recently that say good cows lost their calves. And it makes you sick to see that because so much of our weather here recently, it's just been out of everyone's control to manage mortality on these babies with what they've gone through. But anything we can do to set those first calf heifers up for success, getting them bred initially and then helping them to rebreed that second year, I think it's a lot to take into account, but it's something that we can't skimp on.

Jason Smith (00:20:02):
Absolutely. I agree with you 100% on that statement. And that's where I think for everybody finding that balance that's sustainable for their operation from an input and an output standpoint. And that's not one size fits all as we mentioned. The one other thing I'll say to that is, and I'll include myself in this, we're really good at making excuses for cattle. It's always our fault. And that's not easy to hear sometimes that's not easy to think about for ourselves, but we've put that animal in an environment that we have assumed responsibility for. That's true. If we've got a couple acre pasture, that's true. If we're talking about running cattle on large pieces of federal ground that we have put them in an environment that we've assumed responsibility for them. And I say that because it's always our fault, whether it's a freak weather deal, whatever it is, it's always we put them in that environment, but we have this expectation that they're able to be successful in that environment. There's a genetic component to that. And so the question I will ask the listeners to think about is how many times have you made an excuse for a cow? And I'm thinking about myself in this,

Lynsey McAnally (00:21:32):
They can't see, but I'm smiling as well because I'm guilty of this, too.

Jason Smith (00:21:36):
How often have we made an excuse for a cow and decided to keep her, whether it's a first calf heifer or however old, that counts. How often have we made an excuse for her and not regretted it? So made the active decision of, "I know I should sell her, but I'm not going to," for whatever reason ... How many times have we gone further than two, three years down the road and not thought, "There was a reason why I thought I should have sold this one?" And I say there's lots of different levels of that, but at the end of the day, that's one of the means through which we make genetic progress: identifying those that work in our environment, propagating those and then finding other careers for those

Lynsey McAnally (00:22:28):
That that's a good way of putting that! "Other careers ..."

Jason Smith (00:22:30):
There's lots of different career opportunities in this industry, right? Love that for cattle. And I'm including myself, I'm not pointing fingers at anybody. I'm including myself in that because I've got some animals to make a decision with whether I make an excuse for them and probably regret it a few years down the road. And there may be situations where it makes sense to do that. What's the risk versus the reward in doing that? But especially at the young animal level, I think we need to be careful about that and we need to be very mindful about if we do keep those, they need to go on a list. And those are probably not mama-making mamas. We probably don't want to retain replacement females out of those moving forward if we want to make genetic progress.

Lynsey McAnally (00:23:23):
No, that makes perfect sense. So one of the questions I have down here is what would you suggest our listeners focus on when it comes to the nutritional management differences of mature females versus first calf heifers versus those potential replacement females? And I know that's a pretty broad question.

Jason Smith (00:23:43):
It is. It's a good question. It's a broad question. It's a really difficult question to answer because from a conceptual standpoint, it's very simple. From a practical standpoint and actually doing something with it, that's a little different situation because the simple answer is they're different. If we look at, we'll call her a yearling replacement female that we're looking at sending into her first breeding season versus the year prior female that just calved that we're looking at sending her into her second breeding season versus a five to 10+ year old mature cow? Physiologically they're different and they have different nutrient requirements. And by different, I really mean that especially for those young cows, their nutrient requirements are higher. They require to oversimplify it, roughly 10 or so percent more protein and energy is what it takes to meet their requirements. And so this goes back to that, how do we strike an optimal balance between management and what our environment can support on its own because we can feed those physically, we can feed those first calf cows and ensure that a large portion of them are going to be successful. How many of us can afford to do that? There's a reason why most of our culls or market cows come out of that really young and really old portion of the age distribution in the herd. That tells me we can do that, but we generally won't do that. And that's because of cost. And that's not me saying, shame on you. By no means am I.

Lynsey McAnally (00:25:42):
Well, we were just talking about the price of a bag of mineral had come up a $1.50. And that's not me picking on anybody, but the cost of everything has come up. And so I think it makes it, and you and I had talked about this earlier, it makes it very difficult for people to make those decisions because we have to balance finances with management decisions.

Jason Smith (00:26:07):
Absolutely. Absolutely. So I think that the ideal situation if we can do it is we manage those females accordingly as separate groups. And that's my recommendation is that if we have the ability to do that, we do some version of that. And that may not be as simple as, "Well, my replacement heifers are here and my (we'll call them) very young cows are here and my mature cows are here ... For our average operation across the country, that's not feasible to do. Right? I recommend, yeah, we do it if we can. Most can't or are not going to. That's just the reality of it. That's what history has told us. And so if that describes you, if you're in that situation and I found myself in that situation at times, I don't have the ability to manage three separate herds. We have the ability right now to manage two separate herds.

So I find that's the sweet spot. What's the opportunity for me to do that where I'm maximizing the reward or the fruit of that labor? And so if we're in a situation where none of that's an option and I'm going to run or manage one herd, that doesn't mean we can't be successful doing that. But it goes back to making excuses. We need to recognize that I am shorting those young cows, especially from a protein and energy standpoint unless I'm overfeeding the others. And most of us aren't doing that, right? Most of us are not. We have not set up our management to overfeed mature cows. And so we need to recognize going into it, we are going to short the young cows. We need to be very judicious, very strategic from a selection and a calling standpoint if we're going to do that. And we're not going to cause problems in doing it down the road.

We need to commit to making career changes for those that are not able to work in that environment. That can work and that can work very well. And it's been successful for a lot of people. Where we run into the problem is when we don't do either of those things, we either don't manage them separately or we don't commit to. They've got to work in this system. And if they don't, they don't meet my expectations for the first breeding season through every other following breeding season, they need to go somewhere else, whether that's sold as a return to ranch or that's sold as a packer market cow. But I think the big thing is if we actively make the decision not to intervene from an environmental standpoint. We can't make genetic excuses for them, otherwise we're not going to make the progress that we need.

Lynsey McAnally (00:29:08):
You said something a little bit ago that I'm tucking back in my brain for later. But you said cattle are magical ... And I think when I wrote this next question, I said, Cattle do something pretty remarkable, but I like magical better because I think it really does. It tells the full story, but cattle do something that very few other creatures on the planet can do: They turn forage, which is something we cannot utilize into a protein source that not only is pretty good us, but it's pretty delicious as well. So can we talk a little bit about the importance of managing those forages when it comes to nutrition and then just from a land stewardship perspective as well as a ranch finance perspective, what sorts of decisions and thoughts we need to be keeping in mind?

Jason Smith (00:30:00):
For most of us, probably the place to start there or in its most simple form is forages make up the base of the environment in which we manage cattle. And so that doesn't mean there aren't situations where we've got a confinement cow-calf system or a backgrounding system where cattle are not managed grazing forges, right? There's certainly a lot of those situations that work really well for those operations. But if we look at our average or our representative cow-calf operation or even stocker operation, forages make up the foundation of that environment and of that nutritional management program. And so many of our operations have evolved into that situation because it is often the most economical means of meeting the protein and energy requirements or the bulk of the protein and energy requirements of that animal throughout at least a large portion of the year. If we lose sight of that, things can get expensive very quickly and we certainly only have some degree to which we can control that unless I have access to irrigation. And I don't, most of us, we don't have the ability to control when it starts to rain.

Lynsey McAnally (00:31:25):
Wouldn't it be nice if we could?

Jason Smith (00:31:27):
Or how frequently? I'm sure we'd find some other challenge to deal with then, but we can't influence that change. And so we have to be good stewards of that environment and of the land because if we aren't, we may be able to reap some short-term benefit. We are not likely going to be very successful over the long term if we lose sight of those things. And most of us, I think are in the business for the long haul that is not by any means meant as an insult or to downplay the role that short-term cow calf operations play in the industry because stocker and cows, there's opportunity there.

But where I'm going with that is if we're not good stewards of the environment, we're not going to grow grass. We don't grow grass and it gets very expensive to feed cattle. Most of us are not in situations where we can feed cows year round cheap enough, even for six months, cheap enough to justify that. I know here in the southern Plains, if we look at what harvested roughage (for most of us, we know that as hay) we look at what that costs. It's pretty darn hard for me to pencil in feeding hay to a cow for much of the year if any of the year except when we're snow covered. And that would be the common practice here is that in most situations, we're only feeding hay if we're snow covered because of what that hay costs. And if I start adding up feeding that throughout the entire year, well, I've equaled almost the entire value of that calf pretty quickly, not to mention the other input costs that we incur throughout that cycle. So certainly going back to the initial point though is I want encourage everyone to think about what that looks like for their operation. And for a lot of us, a starting point is some form of a grazing management. .

Lynsey McAnally (00:33:44):
And I've heard you talk several times about grazing management plans and just making the most of those forages. And I feel like every time I come away with some new little tidbit that I hadn't thought of before ...

Jason Smith (00:33:59):
Well, that makes me glad to hear. And I'm not a grazing specialist. That's not my area, that's not what I do. But it's an important, it plays a very important role in managing grass. I don't want anyone to misunderstand what I'm saying with, I'm recommending that everyone has some form of a grazing management program that is not one size fits all. That is something that needs to work for your operation. And it may not be the same as the neighbors or the person a mile or two miles or 30 miles or however far down the road. And it doesn't need to be fancy. We hear a lot of buzzwords thrown around in the grazing space, and if you're not doing it this way, you're doing terrible things to the environment. And I don't subscribe to that. What I do believe in is being very mindful about not overgrazing doing whatever. We need to avoid that. And there's different ways to do that.

Lynsey McAnally (00:35:12):
One of the groups that I've put a lot of stock in here recently has been the experts at the Noble Foundation. Working with some of the gentlemen over there, just me, myself and I, we transitioned some ground from pretty continuous wheat production for decades over into native grass. And there are many questions that I've shot over to Hugh Aljoe at the Noble Foundation over the last year ... One of them being, "Can you just tell me this stuff is going to come up?" Because it takes a while ... But in the conversations that I've had with him, I've had the chance to interview him for several stories. It's making that groundwork for you and making that groundwork for your cattle because at the end of the day, I don't think anybody, there's a lot of stress that comes along with the cattle industry. We talked a little bit about that earlier just with the weather that we've all gone through. So if we can eliminate or at least decrease the amount of stress that we're feeling from a nutrition aspect by managing that ground, I think it would be hard to argue against that.

Jason Smith (00:36:20):
Amen. I agree 100%. It's not easy. It's not an easy business to be a part of, and most that are a part of it are in it for a reason other than making money. Certainly a business enterprise has to be economically viable to continue. That is arguably one of, if not the most important pillars of sustainability is that it's economically viable. It is not easy.

Lynsey McAnally (00:36:49):
It's a legacy that so many of us have lived or so many of us want to be a part of. Obviously, we have to turn a profit. We have to make this work out. I think probably now more than any time in history ... Cattlemen are working off farm more now than ever. And I think that, not that I'm saying that we use our off-farm income to subsidize the cattle, but I do think it helps us make a living so that the cattle can at least pay for themselves in that situation. But there are very few industries that I think you could think of where your profession or your vocation is ultimately who you are as a person, like the cattle industry.

Jason Smith (00:37:37):
I think that describes the industry to a T. I think that's absolutely true. You mentioned a few names and people in that grazing space. There's a ton of resources. There's a lot I use ...

Lynsey McAnally (00:37:52):
Find your team.

Jason Smith (00:37:55):
 Absolutely. So I use, I'm part of the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service and part of the Texas A&M University Department of Animal Science, but we have a phenomenal internal resource in the Center for Grazing Lands and Ranch Management and Jeff Goodwin leads that group. It's a phenomenal resource. If you're not familiar with any of those that we've mentioned, start with your extension network.

Lynsey McAnally (00:38:21):
That's great advice.

Jason Smith (00:38:22):
And your network may be different than the state next door, whether it's county-based, a regional system or whatever that looks like. But you have resources. I work with a lot of other Extension specialists across the United States, and we are almost always happy to work with one. We don't know a lot of state boundaries in that if somebody from Oklahoma or New Mexico or Kansas, Virginia where I'm originally from, California ... Whenever somebody calls and needs help, I want to do everything I can to help them. And I think that describes educators as a whole, whether it's in this grazing space that we're talking about or it's somewhere else. And sometimes that help is connecting you with the right person in your state's organization or maybe that's somebody completely different in a different state. But that's one of the things we try to do is if we don't have the answers, try to facilitate the connections to get them to you. And grazing is a prime example,

Lynsey McAnally (00:39:32):
And that's something that I love to talk about because I think that so many people have a veterinarian that they lean on to ask questions. So many people have either a nutritionist or a salesman for a nutrition company that they can lean on to ask questions. So when I think about trying to come up with a grazing management plan, I am by no means an expert in this area. So why would I try to do it myself? Why would I not lean on people that are out there and willing to help or willing to help answer those questions? Why would I not lean on them? And we'll talk a little bit about water quality testing, soil testing, forge testing. Why would I not lean on that data to make decisions? And so as much of a dumpster fire as it can seem to come up with these plans, I do think that, like you mentioned, there are so many opportunities out there to talk to people that know way more than I do about these topics that can help nail down what we need to be doing on our operations. It is different for every single person and every single ... Even in our area, I think it could be said that it can be different within an operation depending on where ground is at, what cattle you have running on particular pieces of ground and what forge is out there, or how that ground has been managed in the past. So there's just so many variables. Why would you try to tackle it by yourself?

Jason Smith (00:41:03):
Absolutely. And it doesn't have to be complicated. I think that's something we often lose sight of is it does not necessarily .. Especially at a starting point, it doesn't need to be elaborate, it doesn't need to be complicated. Start with something that is potentially actionable and is realistic for us to achieve at the ranch level. For many of us, that's starting with, "Okay, if I am continuously grazing and I have one pasture, what can I potentially do to do a better job at land stewardship and as a consequence of that likely improve forage quality and improve forage abundance?" And because of that - from an economic relevance standpoint - increase carrying capacity. Because right now I think most people want to be able to produce as many calves as they can because of how valuable they are. So what can you do to put yourself in that situation, whether it's in this current high of the cattle cycle or it's when the next one comes.

Lynsey McAnally (00:42:12):
And I think that segues so well into the next question: Every cattle producer I have ever met wants to do absolutely everything they can do within reason to ensure the success of their cattle and therefore ensure the success of their operation. But I don't think it can be argued any longer that a good mineral program is vital. And so what's your recommendation when it comes to developing that mineral program and what issues have you seen when there are mineral or micronutrient deficiencies within a herd? I will say I think that just like you were talking about body condition, I think it can be really easy to assume that because those cattle are breeding back and having calves that you're where you need to be. But it's something as simple as you and I have talked about on our operation, having a handful of retained placentas ... Digging deeper into that and realizing that we did have a micronutrient issue. So where would you recommend people go when either developing that program or identifying those issues?

Jason Smith (00:43:24):
I think that the starting point for most is committing to some form of mineral and vitamin supplementation program. And it's just like everything else we've talked about. It is not or does not need to be one size fits all. There are a lot of different product options that can work in different situations. So it's not necessarily it has to be this is the only one that will work. Right? There's a lot of perception that we need a custom mineral supplement because my situation's unique. Well, a custom might work really well and at a certain herd size, you might be able to get somebody to make it for you and you might be able to feed through it fast enough to where that's a means through which we can shave some dollars off of a mineral supplementation program. Most of us don't need that. Most of us, that starting point is some complete mineral and vitamin nutrition program.

And so to try to take something that's not one size fits all and simplify it as much as possible and make it for most of us, that is often a loose bagged, complete mineral and vitamin supplement. That's not trace mineralized salt, that's not salt only. It is a complete supplement. There's different forms. I mentioned a loose bag because I think that seems to be the most popular, the most manageable by most people. That does not mean it's the end all be all. That doesn't mean it's the only option. There are block forms of mineral supplements, there are tub forms of mineral supplements that may work in some situations. There are probably more product options and more easy access to a complete bagged mineral supplement for most. So you asked where to start.

Lynsey McAnally (00:45:33):
A loaded question.

Jason Smith (00:45:33):
Started somewhere, but it's one I really like because it is one I have a lot of interest in because I've seen, whether it's myself or working with other producers, I have seen the consequences of mineral and vitamin issues I get to look at. And historically I've looked at a glot of forage analysis and what that has told me is to expect forages not to meet all mineral and vitamin requirements all the time. I've not found a single one that would meet all mineral and vitamin requirements or a single one where trace mineralized salt alone was going to be enough to not result in some substantial hit to productivity. And so what the forage analysis has told me is that mineral and vitamin supplementation program needs to be viewed as an essential component of our operation. That doesn't mean that it's cheap,

Lynsey McAnally (00:46:43):
It's an investment.

Jason Smith (00:46:44):
And in many situations, for me, a cheap mineral supplement is a red flag because I've got a pretty good idea of what it costs to manufacture them in terms of taking individual ingredients and putting together custom formulations and knowing that it's pretty darn hard for less than upper $20s to $30 a bag to check all the boxes we need to with a mineral and vitamin supplement. You asked what are some of the consequences?

Lynsey McAnally (00:47:17):
I always find this an interesting question.

Jason Smith (00:47:20):
What's economically relevant to your operation? So start on that list and I'd be willing to bet there are mineral and vitamin implications to every single one of those things that influence production, economics and value of your cattle. Fertility is one that we often think about mineral deficient. Cattle have fertility issues, they have calf survivability issues at birth ...

Lynsey McAnally (00:47:50):
Which is something I think that we place such an importance on here in the High Plains. Everyone needs a calf that gets up and goes, but when they're mineral deficient or mama is mineral deficient, I feel like we run into more issues with that lack of vigor.

Jason Smith (00:48:09):
Absolutely. Absolutely growth. There are weaning weight implications to mineral nutrition and in many situations by going from a trace mineralized salt alone to a complete supplement, there's often enough additional calf weight output to cover the majority of that mineral program's cost. I'm often asked question to compare products, compare different mineral supplements, and they're pretty similar, but I can save $3 to $5 a bag to make this decision and go with this cheaper one. Well, what's the risk associated with doing that if that results in some production failure? So if I go a $5 a bag cheaper mineral and we're talking about a four ounce per head per day - so a quarter pound per head per day consumption - mineral and one out of a hundred cows comes up open because of that, was that a wise decision? No, that decision cost me more than it saved me if we look at current calf value.

And so I think that's something to be mindful of. We mentioned calf survival, but calf health resilience when they're stressed because that's when they get sick. So the ability to make it through a weaning and preconditioning program without issues, and this has been my experience. If you have an issue come weaning time and you're having to treat a lot of calves in the weaning pen, there's probably some mineral imbalance basis to that in many situations. We can correct that through addressing mineral nutrition. Pink eye, using a prime example, I've been in a number of situations where the solution to fixing pink eye wasn't most of the things we see marketed as silver bullets for pink eye. It was fixing mineral.

Lynsey McAnally (00:50:13):
That's interesting.

Jason Smith (00:50:16):
We can go down a whole rabbit hole, a list of different things there. But I'm a believer from my experiences from working with others that having a sound complete mineral nutrition should be viewed as an essential component of a nutritional management plan.

Lynsey McAnally (00:50:37):
I do think that rolls really well into the next question: Do you recommend soil, water and forage testing - or the flip side of that - blood tests on cattle for micronutrient issues?

Jason Smith (00:50:49):
I'm a proponent of forage analysis. Especially if I want to understand the forage base and what I need to do to be most strategic about complimenting that forage base. Whether we're talking about protein and energy or we're talking about minerals and vitamins. I think there's value there. The reality is most aren't going to do it. That's just the simple truth. That's been my experience. Some will, most will not. So in a situation where we're not doing some testing, and for me the ideal situation is we're doing some forage profiling throughout the year and pairing that with water analysis. That's an ideal situation that gives me or any other nutritionist the information they need to help a producer make an informed mineral supplement decision. Okay? If we don't have that, that doesn't mean we can't necessarily make good recommendations. It's likely that we've left opportunity on the table really in the form of we could have potentially decreased mineral supplement cost, but now we're not going to do that because most of us are going to be risk averse and we are likely going to recommend a program that results in slightly over overfeeding mineral.

I'm going to err on the side of caution and assume that they're getting less out of the forage than they potentially are and over supplement. Probably not going to be an issue associated with that. Other than that, that cost us more than it needed to. Now if we're small operation, our options are limited to what's available to us and likely what's floor stocked at wherever we're purchasing feed from, right? If we're a larger herd that can move through a couple tons of mineral in a preferably no more than a three month period of time, the opportunity or the options are really endless. We can do whatever we want, whatever we need to within the bounds of legality because there are some minerals that are regulated. Use selenium is an example. What drugs go into that, whether we're talking about an ionophore or something else.

There are limitations to what we can do and in some situations how we can feed those. But your question was about testing. And so forage and water, I'm a proponent of it with the understanding that most aren't going to do it. Soil sampling. I am a proponent of soil sampling to make agronomic decisions off of not to make nutrition or supplementation or cattle feeding decisions off of, because there are a lot of factors that influence movement of nutrients from the soil to the plant that we don't know just based on a soil analysis. So for me, a soil analysis provides me with no additional information from a designing or refining a mineral supplementation program standpoint than forage profiling does. Or a simple hay sample or a simple one-time forage analysis. Does blood samples or liver biopsies would be the other one I commonly receive questions on.

My answer may not be the most popular among certain realms or even in the veterinarian community that are believers in liver biopsies in most situations, they're unnecessary. And at least that's been my experience because through answering a few questions, most nutritionists are going to be able to tell you the results of the liver biopsies. And they're at times a valuable veterinary diagnostic tool to identify that this is the problem that we need to fix. In most situations, we're far better off to prevent that problem in the first place. And we generally don't need liver or blood samples to establish the plan to prevent the program. So there's certainly merit in certain situations from a diagnostic standpoint, let's just prevent the problem on the front end. I don't want to incorrectly imply that mineral nutrition is simple because it's far from it, because of the interactions that occur among minerals and what might happen to certain components of that mineral supplement during storage or if it's abused or how it's managed from a feeding standpoint. So it's certainly not simple. It doesn't have to be complicated either.

Lynsey McAnally (00:56:05):
Well, is there anything that we've forgotten?

Jason Smith (00:56:08):
We're at a really, I guess for lack of better term, historical time in the cattle market. And that's certainly an exciting time, but it's also a time of uncertainty. And so I want to encourage everyone just to be mindful of that and the risks associated with it. And so what opportunities do you have to protect value in cattle? Because at some point in time, they will not be as valuable.

Lynsey McAnally (00:56:39):
The cattle cycle, it's going to come back and bite us.

Jason Smith (00:56:42):
The cycle will come back around at some point in time. Now, I'm not going to pull out a crystal ball and try and guess when that is because most people's guess is probably better than mine is. But be mindful of that. And there are tools or products available to help regardless of the size of the operation to help mitigate some of that financial risk. Be mindful of the production risk. And we really talked a lot on the production risk side today. The last thing that I'll mention, and it's something it's in the back of my mind any time I'm talking about management ... It's something my brother would always ask me when we were talking about a management decision. Is the juice worth the squeeze? And I think that's something that we need to be mindful of is everything has continued to get more expensive.

Lynsey McAnally (00:57:37):
Nothing's getting cheaper. Seemingly.

Jason Smith (00:57:39):
Cattle are worth a lot, but we're also historical highs for cost of production. And so that's something we need to be mindful of. And as we look at opportunities to add value or capture value in an animal, just be mindful of whether or not the juice is worth the squeeze.

Lynsey McAnally (00:58:00):
That's good advice.

Jason Smith (00:58:01):
And if it is, it probably makes sense to do it. If it's not one, have we calculated those things correctly or adequately? And if we have, it probably doesn't make sense. And that's it simplified.

Lynsey McAnally (00:58:15):
Love it. We always end Angus at Work asking what is one good thing that's going on in your life right now?

Jason Smith (00:58:25):
Absolutely. My family, I've been just tremendously blessed with my relationship with my wife, my kids, my parents, brother and sister, my in-laws. I've truly, truly been blessed with my family and a tremendous number of other people that I get to interact with and that are part of my life. So I have truly been fortunate and blessed in the people that are a part of my life, and they're certainly near and dear.

Lynsey McAnally (00:59:02):
Awesome. That's awesome. That's always a good way to end it. There's so many bad things going on out there in the world, and I always just thoroughly enjoy asking that question because it varies by who we're talking to. But I would say more often than not, we go back to kids, to stockshowing, to family, and what a better way to kind of quantify this industry than by that value.

Jason Smith (00:59:31):
Absolutely. Just so special. I don't know many other circles of people where consistently those are the things that are people are most thankful for. And I think that says a lot about the type of people that we're blessed to surround ourselves with.

Lynsey McAnally (00:59:46):
 And thank you so much for joining us today!

Jason Smith (00:59:49):
Thank you.

Lynsey McAnally (01:00:13):
Listeners, for more information on making Angus work for you, check out the Angus Beef Bulletin and the Angus Beef Bulletin EXTRA. You can subscribe to both publications in the show notes. If you have questions or comments, let us know at abbeditorial@angus.org, and we would appreciate it if you would leave us a review on Apple Podcast and share this episode with any other profit-minded cattlemen. Thanks for listening, this has been Angus at Work!