← Ranch It Up Radio Show & Podcast
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Is it too early to think about calving season? Absolutely not. Plus your chances to win some Ranch it up gear. That's what Beck says. Crew, let's ranch it up.
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Good day everyone and thanks for riding with us on this all new episode of the Ranch it up radio show. I'm Jeff Tigger Earhart.
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And I'm Rebecca Warner, AKA Beck.
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A big thanks goes out to our partners for today's episode. I'm a Gene Ingredients bringing us Farm a tan the Keller Broken Heart Ranch their Elite Heifer sale coming up December 10th Thomas Ranch their Mature dispersion and cow herd reduction sale December 11th Moose Creek Red Angus their dispersion sale coming up December 22nd and 23rd. Ranch Channel.com and Westway feed Products Cow Country News. You know the cow stuff.
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Beef production by major global producers is expected to remain sluggish next year, according to analysts at the Dutch financial services cooperative Rabobank. The recent contraction in beef production is expected to affect major producers in Brazil, Canada and the United States, with New Zealand being likely to see the sharpest percentage drop in beef production, the Bravo bank report predicted. Several issues are contributing to the 2025 decline and the expected drop next year, especially in light of limited cattle herds ready for slaughter in both the United States and Brazil, the report added. The long term contraction of available cattle is being blamed for significant price hikes for retail bee the last few years, Rabobank noted. Canada is experiencing a tighter pattern that has resulted in a decline of 41,000 metric tons of beef available for export in 2025 versus levels in 2024, according to the report. Canadian beef output in 2026 is expected to be more limited compared with this year for reasons also being experienced south of the Canadian border in terms of the available cattle herd. There's a new way for producers and other stakeholders to track the fight against the new World screwworm, a parasite that threatens live cattle herds. The USDA has launched a dedicated website with up to date information on the spread of the screwworm, which so far has been confined to cattle in several Mexican states near the U.S. border. The site includes resources for livestock producers, veterinarians, animal health officials, wildlife experts, healthcare providers, pet owners, researchers, drug manufacturers and the general public. Reports in Mexican cattle prompted the US to halt cattle imports from Mexico back in May 2025. USDA also committed $21 million to boost sterile fly production in Mexico as part of its response. The new website pulls together information from multiple federal partners including the fda, the Department of Energy, Homeland Security, the EPA and the state department. The link to this website is available in the Show Notes for this episode@ranchitupshow.com have you noticed any black nightshade in your corn stalks that you are grazing or plan to graze? If these fields have too much black nightshade, be careful, it might be toxic. Black nightshade is common in many corn fields in the fall, especially those that had hail damage in the summer or any situation where the corn canopy became thin or open. It usually isn't a problem. But if the density of nightshade is very high, there is the potential that it could poison livestock. Almost all livestock, including cattle, sheep, swine, horses and poultry are susceptible. Black nightshade plants average about 2ft in height and have simple alternating leaves. In the fall, berries are green and become black as the plant matures. All plant parts contain some of the toxin and the concentration increases as plants mature, except in the berries. Freezing temperatures will not reduce the toxicity. It is very difficult to determine exactly how much black nightshade is. Risky guidelines say that a cow would need to consume three to four pounds of fresh black nightshade to be at risk of being poisoned. These guidelines, though, are considered conservative since there is little data on actual toxicity of nightshade plants. Fortunately, even though nightshade plants remain green fairly late into fall, cattle usually don't appear to seek out nightshade plants to graze. However, green plants of nightshade might become tempting toward the end of the field's grazing period when there is less grain, husks or leaves to consume.
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So sale barns across the country are either gearing up or have begun hosting their annual bred heifer and bred cow sales. This time of year is historically very popular for marketing bred females. Those reports are just starting to come out from this past week. Now last week Friday, Fort Pierre Livestock in Fort Pierre, South Dakota kicked off their bred female sale with a big run of bred cattle that saw a packed house full of buyers and a very strong market. Well, get your checkbook out boys and mark them hot. Here is a rundown of last week at Fort Pier Livestock. Capturing the day was the Jen Henriksen family of Vivian, South Dakota just south of Fort Pier. The coming two set to calf in mid March. All black came in at 5200 bucks. Ahead the 46 black first calf heifer pen mates that were aied set to calf in mid February. 5075 a head all the way down to 10 black broken mouth cows set to calf in mid March selling for 31.50. Now the Casper's ranch sold 88 head of black threes and 56 head of black twos bred to calf the 1st of April right in between 504850 a head. Now let's put this into perspective. That $5,000 bred female may be a tick hard to justify. However, if the market holds through 2026, you can pay for half of her by simply selling that one calf come fall if if the market holds. That's the key. Now I'm not telling anyone what to do on this. We're weighing those decisions ourselves. Coming up. Is it too early to think about calving season? Absolutely not. Let's set your cows up for success. Kick scours to the curb, making darn sure we sell that calf come 2026. You're listening to the Ranch it Up radio show and we'll.
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Hi, I'm Chase Keller. A little about farmer tan products on.
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My operation here I feed farmer tan products year round. Have for two or three years now and I have not had to treat a single calf for scours. Haven't lost the cap of scours. I believe fully in farmitan products and helping my profitability on my operation. For more information go to pharmatanusa.com Keller Broken Heart Ranch, a leader in Simmental and Simangus Genetics, invites you to their first annual Heart of the Herd Fall Elite female sale. Wednesday, December 10th at the ranch in Mandan, North Dakota. Selling 86 registered bred heifers, eight breed leading donors and 12 elite young cows. Literally the absolute top of the herd. Bid and buy online at dvauction.com catalogs, videos and sale information available at KBHR semitol.com and and ranch channel.com don't miss this exciting Simmental and Simangus event. Wednesday, December 10 Keller Broken Heart Ranch.
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Looking for a Christmas gift that really rocks? Surprise your friends and family with tickets to the world famous Miles City Buck and Horse Sale. Not only will they experience world class rodeo action, parades, shopping and classic western fun, this year's concerts are bigger, louder and more unforgettable than ever. Featuring Corb Lund, Kenny Fiedler and the kickoff concert with Trey's Atkins. Give the gift of live music, music, dancing and memories that last long after the lights go down. Get your bucking horse sale tickets today@buckinghorsesale.com and ranchchannel.com and make Christmas legendary.
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Cattle battle.
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Welcome back to the Ranch It Up Radio Show. The most information packed into a 30 minute program that you can find. It's your all things Ranching newscast and so Glad to be hanging out with y'. All. Questions, comments, concerns, criticisms, rants, it doesn't matter. You can call or text. That phone number is 707 Ranch 20. That is 707-726-2420. Our email, ranchitupshowmail.com and prowling around social media at Ranch it Up show. Is it too early to think about calving? Spring calving anyways? I know that's hard to maybe think that way with calves being shipped right now and marketing bred heifers and cows and obviously getting ready for the holiday season. But as we have said for years, setting your cows up for success. And one of those ways is to reduce or virtually eliminate scours in the calves. We've talked many times about farmitan from Imogene ingredients becoming more and more popular. It falls in that category that we call offering solutions to problems here on the Ranch it Up radio show. Paul Mitchell, come on in. Let's talk about getting formitan into the cows diet 90 days prior to calving. You know, we've talked many different times, Paul, of all these different scenarios of having pharmatan in the diet. Let's just talk the cow side. You know, we talk about pre calving, we talk about pre breeding, we talk about having it in the diet prior to those stressful times in a cow's life. Right. And it seems like so many times when we have a conversation, I hear from guys, gosh, I'm behind the eight ball. I should have been doing it here, should have been doing it there. So really, I mean, the best time to just start is to start. And I wanted to get a hold of you. I know, I know. Here we are in the fall time of the year, we're talking about fall runs. But before you know it, winter is going to be on us. Guys are going to be Calvin. And if they're having a problem with scours or have had a problem, problem with scours, it's now is the time to start getting pharmatan in the diet because you're going to be having those residual positive effects regardless of what that stressful time in that cow's life is.
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I was with our technical leader from, from Europe here this, this last week and he made a comment about when a cow calves, she, you know, she's, this is an open wound. You know, she's created a wound in her body. And so it's incredibly stressful period for a cow to go through that calving process. And so by definition, you know, the immune system's under Huge stress. And then we know about ketosis and we know about, you know, that negative energy thing. You know, that can happen when a cow goes off feed before she calves, and then does she have the energy to kind of come out of that transition period and that all goes back to immune status before she calves. So the sooner you can get it into her, the better her immune function begin to function. Take clostridia out of her system, get the inflammation out of her system clean, try and get the coccine, crypto and other numbers reduced in her manure. So there'll be great positives for the calf, but there'll be excellent positives for her. And we can see in our dairy studies and all the dairies that we have on pharma, 10, very good. Even three weeks before calving, we'll see an increase in colostrum and we'll see about between 12 and 15% consistent increase of antibodies in the colostrum. And so that's all coming from the immune system of the cow. If she's not feeling well, she's going to have pretty poor quality colostrum and not much of it. She's feeling well. If she's feeling good, then she wants to produce a good quality colostrum for that calf. So you're absolutely right. You know, pharmatan is not magic. It is a. It does a couple of things really well. It binds with protein and helps slow down the degradation of protein in the room, and so you're not getting as much ammonia and inflammation in the body. And it also is a high antioxidant. So it complements the likes of vitamin E and selenium and manganese that are in the mineral and it improves the uptake of those. So there's, there's a, there's two main things that it does over and over and over in the cow to multiply what you're trying to do. But the, what the producer is putting in front of her with that mineral, you know, now it can't counteract terrible feed, it can't counteract lack of feed. But if you're doing the basics right, it's going to help you get over the line in terms of that cow's immune status and then that tees are up for a good recovery after calving, good milk production and then ultimately good breed back. And with the national cow numbers the way they are, every, every, every cow that's open is a problem. So let's get them bred back and let's make sure that she, she's she's teed up right for the next gestation.
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You know, when prices are depressed, it's really easy for us to sit and have conversations and about changing management. Right. Or when we have a train wreck. It's. But those are all reactive versus proactive types of scenarios. And it's really easy when that happens to say, okay, we need to address this and we need to look at those things. When you have prices being so darn good, it starts to, in my opinion, come down to really managing risk. And like you said, every single cow that's out there is. She's a premium right now, and every single open one is a detriment. And talk about setting those cows up for success because especially with the projections that we're seeing that 2026 could be another good year for feeder cattle prices, for fat cattle prices, that the rebuilding of any cowherd is extremely, extremely slow. So now, I mean, those cows are so darn valuable going through the long term of their lives and of what they are as a factory on that ranch. So have you had kind of pushback from guys where when it's so darn exciting right now, they aren't even thinking about this. They're thinking about selling calves and they're. They're looking at prices. Have you had people be open to. No, we need to start be thinking about calving in February and March already.
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Oh, you know, I think that when we started this with pharma 10, going back seven, eight years ago at that, at that time we'd say, look, if you can save, you know, if you have a death class of 5 or 6%, if you can drop that down to, you know, 2% or 3%, you're going to more than pay for the program. Well, that's when prices were back at, at the prices they were at. I mean, at today's prices, you're looking at if you can save 1% difference just on death loss, that doesn't have anything to do with the cows, you know, any other benefits that we've discussed just on pure, you know, can, can you get that calf outright? Can you get that calf, Keep them alive for as long as you can. If you can prevent those early first three, four weeks of, of scours. It used to be that you'd have to save quite a few calves to pay for anything new you put in your mineral. Now if you can save a couple, you've paid for.
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Absolutely.
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It actually becomes a simpler, a kind of a simpler thing. The other thing that I remember had a gentleman with 980 cows. And he was reordering. He called and I said, why are you on the program? You know, why are you doing this? He said, paul, number one, I got more calves alive than I've ever had before. But number two, he said I couldn't grow without adding a bunch of help in the past, said, I can, I can keep adding cow numbers. Now he says I don't have to have a whole bunch of guys chasing cows and calves because of problems. So he goes, it's letting me expand without having to have as much manual work of treating sick calves and pulling them, etc. Etc. So, you know, there's, there's big advantages for a big operator, but it's the same principle. Whether you got 10 cows or a thousand, it's the same principle.
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It has been a crawl, walk, run scenario for the crew with Pharma 10, just a few of you, and you have literally grown case by case, outfit by outfit. And they all say, all the producers say this once that they're on the program, they would never go without it again. And the key is to keep the cows on that program, keep it going. Kind of a regiment, just like us. Drink more and more water and keep drinking more water. They say, get on the program and stay on the program.
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You're absolutely right. You know, consistency is kind of the key to it, but it is a basic ingredient. However, it's got over 100 years of research. It's not a new thing. It's new to, you know, relatively new in this market, but it's been in Europe and where it comes from and Melania Trump's hometown in Slovenia, they've had this ingredient there for generations. And then when you begin to look at US Universities, they've all done some papers on it, but its mode of action is unique in that it goes down directly, creates a kind of a layer on the intestine because it has an affinity to the proteins and the surface of that intestine. And you get this mucus response. So you're creating this physical type barrier, but it's permeable, so it allows nutrients through. But it's sticky and it's not allowing a lot of the pathogens to make their way and get embedded in that, in that animal. And so there's a really unique mode of action with it. It is what it is. We make it available to people, we explain it, and if it's, if it works for their operation, great. It is available in the likes of salt blocks. C19 now does a great salt block with it have done for a couple of years. Ridley make mineral blocks with it in there. And I said, as I said, most of the tub makers will make, they either have it in their lineup or they'll make a custom mix for a guy so you can go through tubs and then for like calves, it pellets excellently. It comes out of a high heat process, you know, so it's, it's excellent to go into a pellet pelleted feed for creep feed. And it can be fed with or without Rumensin. If a guy wants to keep rumensin in his program, it works in a different mode of action. So it'll complement that no problem. And then we've got lots of folks that are on all natural or ABF type programs and they see good success with it. So just simplest thing is get a hold of us and tell us about what you're dealing with and we come up with a way of doing it.
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Paul Mitchell with Imogene Ingredients, the distributor for Pharmatan. You can check out pharmatanusa.com for more information or you can call Paul directly at 515-745-1639. That's 515-745-1639. And they have a long list of producers using the product and are more than happy to get you in contact with them to hear how it's working with their particular operations. Now coming up, market reports, how you can get some ranch it up gear and more of the cow stuff when we come back right here on the Ranch it up radio show. You can call it a dispersion if you want. We're calling it a once in a lifetime opportunity. For over five decades, the Moose Creek Red Angus cow herd has done what you ever do. And that's quietly shape a program that stood the test of time. And now is your chance to build that legacy. The Moose Creek Red angus dispersal sale Dec. 22 and 23rd at the ranch His Bee, Saskatchewan, Canada. Selling a thousand head of elite purebred Red Angus cattle. All sale information available@moosecreekred Angus.com and ranch channel.com this isn't just a sale. It's an opportunity. A chance to bring home the kind of cattle that built a legacy.
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Are you looking for the best way to raise healthy, productive beef? Look no further than Westway Feed products. Westway's liquid supplements support increased forage utilization, efficiency, convenience and sustainability. With Westway Feed, scientifically formulated liquid feed, your cattle will gain weight faster and stay healthier, ensuring you get the best return on your investment. Visit westwayfeed.com or call 800-875-17 to learn more. Westway Feed Products raising the four bar and beef production one supplement at a time ranch channel.com I'll give you just a few seconds to head there on your phone. Ranch channel.com your farm and ranch network on demand Bull sales, Western events, product information right at your fingertips on the ultimate cowboy friendly platform. Want to follow up to date markets ranch channel.com no need to dig for information on all these different websites. It's all right there on ranch channel.com y' all are loving it now aren't you?
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Welcome back everyone to the Ranch it up radio show. It's that time in the program we check in with Kirk Donsbok, Stonex Financial Incorporated. Recap in the markets from last week. So Kirk numbers, what do you got for us this morning?
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Good morning Tigger. As of Friday, November 28th, January feeders closed the week at 323.05. That's up 875 on the week and $23.52 off the lows. So some pretty bullish action. But there is some other concerning data to go with the bullish action. The CME feeder index was $20.96 lower at 318.76 on very lightly tested trade on Wednesday before the holiday. That Left the basis versus January speakers at a negative $4.29. December live cattle closed the week at 215.30. That's up $1.05 on the week and 1075 off of the lows. Cash traded 215 in the south early and then 220 on late Friday. The north traded 208 to 210 early in the week. That left the five area weighted average down 8.23 at 209. 34. The late 220 trades would not be in the five area weighted average. The basis versus the five area in December futures was negative 596. Choice boxes were down 466 on the week to close at 366.82. Weekly slaughter was 501,000. That's down 84,000 from the prior week, but it was a holiday shortened week and 32,000 below the same week last year. Breast weights were up 2 pounds at 892 which is record high and 22 pounds over last year. Yearly slaughter came in at 7.1% less than last year and yearly production was 4.4% less than last year. Wrap this up. March corn closed the week at 4:47 and 3/4. That's up 10 cents on the week. Export sales have been very very positive. Doesn't make a lot of sense with the USDA's record high production estimates. There is another report that the USDA will release on December 9th.
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Have you ever wondered how to get the most out of the genetics you purchase? Hey hey. I'm Shea Wanner and I host the CA Casual Cattle Conversations podcast. I recently visited with Kelly Saunders from Westway Feed Products about what fetal programming is, how it works, and what steps ranchers can take to reduce instances of nutritional insults. Kelly dives into how nutritional insults at different points during gestation have different impacts on calf health, growth and performance on the ranch, in the feedlot and on the rail. He also shares how the liquid feed and proper mineral programs year round can have an exceptional impact on cow herds when paired with knowing your natural resources and the nutrient needs of your cow factory. You can listen to the full conversation on the Casual Cattle Conversations podcast after you finish listening to the Ranch it up radio show.
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I tip my hat to you from.
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One legend to another.
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Before we say fare thee well. We said we would give away some Ranch it up gear. Could be apparel and or caps. This is the first question. Are you ready? What livestock trailer manufacturer was the first to offer an all aluminum trailer?
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I got a guess again.
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What livestock trailer manufacturer was the first to offer an all aluminum trailer? Now the second question. What trailer manufacturer was the first to introduce an all aluminum gooseneck livestock trailer?
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Oh, so they're two different yes.
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Oh, I got a guess for that question. So the second question was what trailer manufacturer was the first to introduce an all aluminum gooseneck livestock trailer? We will take the first correct answer and bonus, if you get both questions correct, call or text your answer to 707 Ranch 20. Again, that's 707-726-2420 or you can always email ranchitupshowmail.com can you read those two.
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Questions one more time?
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First one which trailer Livestock trailer manufacturer was the first to offer an all aluminum trailer? Question number one. Now question number two. What trailer manufacturer was the first to introduce an all aluminum gooseneck livestock trailer?
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I said I gotta guess. I think I'm gonna get them both right on this one. And now that's gonna wrap it up for today. A big thanks goes out to our crew. Paul Mitchell with Farmitan, Kirk Donsbach with Stonex Financial Inc. Shea Wander with Casual Cattle Conversations and the boss lady, Rebecca Wanner AKA Beck.
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A big thank you to our partners for today's episode. Farm a Tan by Imogene Ingredients Keller, Broken Heart Ranch, Thomas Ranch, Moose Creek, Red Angus, RanchChannel.com, westway Feed Products, Wrangler, and this fine radio station and crew.
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So glad you all came with us. Wonderful. More time as we Ranch it up. Be sure to follow and like us on Facebook at Ranch it Up. Show our email, as Beck said just a little bit ago, is ranch it up showmail.com and the phone number that Beck said just a little bit ago is 707-Ranch-20. That's 707-726-2420. Spread the good word and join us again next week where it's always Tigger and Beck approved.
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Stay ranchy and Ranch it Up.
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It.