Animal Welfare

We shipped two loads of fat cattle this past week and will ship another this week. Two of these loads were sold cash, and for the first time ever, we sold cattle for more than $200 per hundredweight.

We have completed the shop renovation project we started a year ago and got the heaters installed. This overdue improvement is a game changer.

The weather hasn’t presented too many challenges this winter, so far, but we know better than to celebrate just yet. We are still in a near-desperation need for runoff rain.

A pair of activists with the animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals were arrested while attempting to dump a truck’s worth of manure outside the Manhattan offices of a rival animal welfare group.

Agricultural students at Belvidere North High School learn a variety of skills, including how to raise and care for quail and chickens.

The Purdue Animal Sciences Department is celebrating its 125th anniversary during the 2024-2025 school year.

We need your help in convincing Congress and the administration to help reverse the decline of our nation’s cattle and sheep farms and ranches, and your calls and letters to Congress will certainly help.

Dairy cattle in Nevada have been infected with a new type of bird flu that’s different from the version that has spread in U.S. herds since last year, U.S. Department of Agriculture officials said.

The highly pathogenic avian influenza has been detected in Jay, Allen, Adams, Jackson, Shelby and Randolph counties, with emerging cases in other counties, affecting more than 400,000 birds so far.

Now is the time to plan your day — or days — at the National Farm Machinery Show Feb. 12-15 at the Kentucky Exposition Center in Louisville.

With U.S. and Illinois pork producers being some of the first to be impacted directly by news coming out of Washington, D.C., Jennifer Tirey is ready to arm producers and allied industry with timely information.

Bird flu is forcing farmers to slaughter millions of chickens a month, pushing U.S. egg prices to more than double their cost in the summer of 2023. And it appears there may be no relief in sight, given the surge in demand as Easter approaches.

Formerly called the Million Meals program, the rebranded Hoosier Hogs to Homes program is on a mission to fill Indiana food pantries with ground pork.

I have said it many times: farming is not an easy life’s work and certainly not for the faint of heart. Farming can push you to your physical and emotional limits. It can nearly kill you. It can save your life.

When you do the same task day after day, month after month, it’s easy to overlook the small signs of a bigger problem, especially when it comes to bovine respiratory disease.

The National Dairy Farmers Assuring Responsible Management Program is seeking applicants for its animal care, environmental stewardship and workforce development task forces for the July 2025 to June 2028 term.

Every year, the U.S. egg industry kills about 350 million male chicks because, while the fuzzy little animals are incredibly cute, they will never lay eggs, so have little monetary value. That longtime practice is changing.

It’s cold outside, so it must be meeting time. Besides the meetings I talked about last month there is the Northern Indiana Grazing Conference on Jan. 31 and Feb. 1 at the Michiana Event Center in beautiful Shipshewana, Indiana.

We took a little break from the basketball season to celebrate Christmas and the New Year with a bunch of gatherings of family and friends. Cow work gets sandwiched in where a little time and help allows.

December was not very kind to us as we closed out the year. The last two to three weeks we started receiving those winter rains a few days apart and you know that quickly leads to muddy conditions.

AgriNews has followed the Rahn family throughout the year. This is the last in a series of updates about the family members and the decisions they make on their farm.

Dairy replacement heifer numbers have fallen almost 15% over the last six years, reaching a 20-year low, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The 2025 Indiana Farm Bureau Book of the Year educates children where the food they eat daily comes from in an informative and fun way.

The policies that impact our daily lives are often shaped at the local level. Yes, state and national policies are very important, but I cannot help but notice that sometimes we lose sight of what’s right in front of us in our communities.

Optimal cow and bull management will produce a uniform calf crop that is born in a 60-day window or less for most commercial herds.

An outbreak of often-fatal epizootic hemorrhagic disease afflicted more than 500 white-tailed deer in Indiana’s Allen, Porter and Wabash counties last summer.

Focusing on comfort and nutrition for a few weeks before and after calving will help dairy cows with a smooth transition into lactation.

Cattle and sheep graze on permanent pasture, cover crops and crop residue on Pasture Grazed Regenerative Farm in northern Illinois.

Registration is open for the 2025 Indiana Dairy Producers Forum, which will take place Jan 28-29 in French Lick.

Even amidst the ever-present challenges that are part of farming, we have so much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving season.

Activist-driven ballot measures were shot down by voters in Colorado and California on Nov. 5.

The best option for adding sheep or goats to an operation is to purchase from a reputable breeder.

The National Dairy Farmers Assuring Responsible Management Program released Environmental Stewardship Version 3 supporting the dairy community’s efforts to achieve greenhouse gas neutrality by 2050.

Benzimidazoles, or white dewormers, are an important tool for managing internal parasites in cattle, but it’s essential to use this dewormer class correctly.

Kipster, the nation’s first carbon-neutral egg brand, won the 2024 Good Egg Award hosted by Compassion in World Farming.

For more than 30 years, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association has offered the annual Redbook to help cattle producers effectively and efficiently record their daily production efforts.

What a great harvest we had, huge crop and great weather to harvest in. Aside from the dusty road conditions, I do not recall an easier harvest ever.

Once again, no shortage of things to do on the farm and couple that with the planning and office work that continues to be done, there won’t be much time for rest or slacking.

Prairie Farms Dairy Inc. took top honors in the National Milk Producers Federation’s annual cooperative communications contest, winning five categories and the competition’s Best in Show: Writing award.

The Beef Quality Assurance training and certification program will be offered at 11 sites in Indiana.

The focus at Schoepp Farms LLC is to keep soil and nutrients on the land.

Multiple research projects focused on making a difference for cattle producers has earned Lizzie Schafer the honor of being selected a finalist for the American Star in Agriscience award.

For more than 30 years, Cattlemen’s College sponsored by Zoetis has provided cattle producers with valuable information to help improve their herds and businesses.

We have all but finished our harvest for the year. Corn chopping went extremely smooth with no rain delays and to my recollection only one truck needing pulled all season long — surely a record.

Who would have thought that hurricanes would impact Illinois weather so much, but that is what has happened. Not just one, but two of those storms made their way to southern Illinois with ample amounts of rain.

Dairymen can reduce the methane produced by their cows with the addition of the feed ingredient Bovaer to the ration.

Farmers are increasingly turning to high-moisture corn silage, specifically earlage or snaplage, due to its high energy content and easy digestibility.

A cow’s ideal herd management cowcard has just four events — fresh, bred, confirmed pregnant and dry.

A team of nine people from Huntington University traveled to serve local communities through sustainable agriculture projects to Momostenango, Guatemala.

Every day, rain or shine, farmers rise to do their jobs. Whether we’re tired or stressed, we press on. If we disagree with a family member, we find a way forward. We don’t stall on planting or harvesting or caring for our animals.