Volume 15, No. 10 – October 2012
The monthly dinner meeting of the
Granville County Cattlemen’s Association will be Thursday, Oct. 11, 2012. Join your fellow cattlemen at 7 p.m.
for dinner and a business meeting, to be held at the Granville County
Cooperative Extension office in Oxford. Supper is $5. The program will be on
cattle feed and cattle-handling equipment.
News, Views, and Mostly Other
Matters
By Paul Westfall, Extension
Livestock Agent
There are two items that beef producers should be
aware of and make special effort to participate in coming up soon. The first of these happened a week ago
- the North Carolina Cattle Assessment Referendum. Voting took place from 8:30 am to 5:00 pm at the Granville
County Cooperative Extension Center.
Each beef and dairy producer had the opportunity to stop at the office
and vote. This referendum will
determine if this assessment on cattle sold will continue for another three
years. Proceeds from the
referendum are used to fund beef and dairy cattle research projects, youth
education programs, issues management, adult education programs, and promotion
of the cattle industry in North Carolina.
The next event is the Beef Bull Breeding
Soundness Exam (BSE) Clinic. This
has been set for Thursday, November 1, 2012. We will start at 9 a.m. and stay as long as we have bulls to
run through the exam. The location
is the Granville County Livestock Arena located on Cannady’s Mill Road. Call the Granville County Cooperative
Extension Center at (919) 603-1350 to schedule an exam for your bulls prior to
the breeding season. This is a
good check-up for the big boys on your farm. The cost will be $10 per bull. Dr. Mark Alley from the NC State Veterinary School will be
in charge of conducting the exams, and he will be overseeing an outstanding
group of vet students, so this is a good clinic for farmers and for the
students to receive training. This
clinic is made possible through sponsorships from Granville County Farm Bureau,
the Granville County Cattleman’s Association, and E. B. Harris Auctions, Inc.
It’s time to make a bit more hay, and I’ve seen
several fields with hay on the ground or being baled. It has been reported that the yield and quality has not been
that great this fall, but if it looks like there isn’t enough hay in the barn
to get through the winter, a fall cutting can get a farm through the whole
winter, cutting out the need to buy additional hay or supplements. Remember, though, that if the yield and
quality are not up to par, it is time to review the soil fertility
management. Get some fresh soil
samples, apply lime if needed, and update the fertility program. Grasses and legume grow better and are
of higher quality when the right amounts of nutrients are available. Please note that the turn-around time
at the soils lab is much faster in the fall than during the spring rush.
Thanks go out to Sandy Gabel, Sherby Slaughter,
and Steve Walker for hosting meetings at their farms this summer. I think those meetings were very
informative and that we all learned something to use in our operations. Steve Walker has said that the freeze
brands are working as advertised, and lots of folks were able to try their hand
at applying a number to one of the heifers.
Enough rambling. Here are the October management tips: Continue
to monitor supplemental feed prices. Corn and by-product feeds like cottonseed
are usually cheaper in the fall.
Cottonseed is least expensive in October and November at the
peak of the ginning season. With corn and soybean prices at pretty
high levels, use of by-product feeds can be a very good option. Keep checking the mills for
availability of by-product feeds.
Folks with spring-calving herd - wean the calves,
if they are still on the cows.
Check the replacement heifers.
They need to weigh about two-thirds of their mature weight at breeding
time in March. That means they will need to 1 to 1 1/2 pounds per day after
weaning. Watch the body condition
of bred heifers. It’s a good idea to separate them from the older cows, and to
provide supplemental feed as the quality of fall grazing declines. Identify the thin cows and separate
them from cows in adequate body condition. Supplement the thin cows at a rate that will allow them to
reach moderate body condition at calving.
Fall herd managers need to get ready for calving.
Move the cows that are due to calve to clean pastures and check them
frequently. Bulls will be turned
in with heifers in
December and cows in January. It is time to evaluate bulls, and line
up a breeding soundness exam or decide on buying new bulls. Ask your veterinarian about
pre-breeding vaccinations for cows.
Start feeding high magnesium mineral supplement 30 days before cattle
start calving, or right about now.
**********
Upcoming events:
The North Carolina State
Fair is set for Oct. 11-21. Check the NC Department of Agriculture’s website
for information about buying your tickets early and for the complete schedule
of events. NCStateFair.org.
Bull test – Nov. 1 at the
Granville County Livestock Arena on Cannady’s Mill Road.
$10 per Bull tested.
**********
From the President’s Pen
This has really been a busy October so far – and
it’s not half over! On Oct. 4, the cattlemen prepared the meal for Leadership
Granville out at Sherby Slaughter’s farm. Special thanks to Thomas Boone for
using his grill and cooking hamburgers, and to Phyllis, Paul Westfall and Janet
Slaughter for getting it together to make it a successful outing for GCCA.
Then on Oct. 6, the cattlemen sold concessions for
E.B. Harris’s cow sale at the livestock arena. There was a pretty good crowd
for the sale, which featured about 200 cows and calves. Special thanks go to
Haywood Faucette for bringing his grill and cooking burgers and ‘dogs. Thanks
also to Paul Westfall, Joyce and Jimmy Morgan, Janet Slaughter, Phyllis Stark,
Charlie Easton, Laura and Sandy Gabel, Casey West and Jean Gill for all the
hard work that day. E.B.
recognized the cattlemen’s association at the beginning of the auction and gave
us a plug. He mentioned our commitment to helping sponsor young people in
school activities and our scholarships, as well as our mission to promote the
cattle industry. He asked us if we would
handle concessions for his upcoming sale on Nov. 10. We made $400 on
Saturday, which I think is pretty good for our first try.
Come to the meeting on Thursday – we need your
input on the Christmas supper, as well as input on the possibility of changing
the date for Earth Roast. There has been some discussion about a mid-April
date. We need to decide so we can set it on our state calendar. Don’t forget –
bring a neighbor and a friend!
- Kay
**********
September Meeting Minutes
The
Granville County Cattlemen’s Association met at 5 p.m. on Sept. 13 at Steve
Walker’s farm near Bullock. Gary Gregory, director of the Butner Bull Test,
demonstrated freeze-branding and then gave interested participants a turn at
freeze-branding. (See pictures below).
Dinner
and a business meeting followed the demonstration. The August minutes and treasurer’s
report were accepted.
It
was moved and seconded that GCCA sponsor Casey West’s trip to the upcoming
national FFA conference. It also was decided that the GCCA provide concessions
for the October cattle auction that E.B. Harris will have at the Granville
County Livestock Arena. Charlie Easton agreed to spearhead this effort, with
help from volunteers before and during the event. We will have coffee and
biscuits/doughnuts for the breakfast crowd, then grill hamburgers and hotdogs
and have chips and soda available for purchase.
The
October meeting will be held on Oct. 11 at 7 p.m. at the Cooperative Extension
Service Office.
Respectfully submitted,
Laura S. Gabel, for Jean Gill, secretary
**********
GCCA Classifieds
Fall is time to
plant!
Fall plant sale
– 25 % Discount!
Tell a friend.
Backyard
Plantation Nursery
Charles
Easton
**********
Casey West,
above, tries his hand at freeze branding.
Larry Medlin, below,
gives it a try.
**********
Officers:President, Kay Stark
Past President, Joy Morgan Marshall
Vice President, Larry Medlin
Treasurer, Sandy Gabel
Secretary, Jean Gill
Newsletter, Laura S. Gabel
Directors:
2012: Jimmy Morgan, David Owen
2013: Sherby Slaughter, Steve Walker
2014: Linda Currin, Wendy Lane
