In his Beef & Business column, University of Idaho Extension beef specialist Jason Ahola digs into new research that suggests it may be more economical and efficient to develop replacement heifers to smaller weights. Rather than 65% of their mature body weight, which is the traditional rule, studies indicate 53-58% of mature body weight may be sufficient.

At the Padlock Ranch in Wyoming Trey Patterson has been experimenting with this for the last few years and believes it builds better, more efficient range females.

In this age of expensive corn - and even rising pasture rents - perhaps smaller is better.

December is nearly here and for many cattle folks that means calving season is within view. I’m looking for readers input on what you do on your operation to make calving season run smoothly. How do you keep calves warm? Prevent frozen ears? Minimize scours outbreaks?

Growing up on a farm, my dad always had one trick to try and prevent cows from calving at nite. He always fed a bale of hay at about dusk. He believed the cows were busy eating and then ruminating in the nite, so they didn’t go into labor until the morning. I have to admit, it seemed to work pretty well. We didn’t have too many night-time babies.

San Francisco is garnering the world’s attention with their recent ban on plastic grocery bags - the first ban of its kind in the nation.

It was almost three years ago that the city’s Board of Supervisors considered a 17 cent tax on each petroleum-based plastic grocery bag to force supermarkets and drug stores to use alternative materials that would have less of an impact on the environment and landfills. In San Francisco alone, last year there were about 180 million plastic shopping bags distributed — which, according to the San Francisco Department of the Environment and Worldwatch Institute took roughly 774,000 gallons of oil to produce.

It appears that “green” will continue to be big in 2008 with efforts such as this. And, actually it may not be such a bad idea. The world can probably live with a lot less petroleum-based plastic. Look what we’ve done with corn and soybeans in creating alternative fuels, plastics, cleaners, even ink! So perhaps this type of ban will create another boon for an earth-friendly, renewable agricultural product!

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Colorado beef producer Troy Marshall always seems to have an opinion on something. For the past several years he has been sharing his thoughts in BEEF Magazine’s weekly e-newsletter Cow-Calf Weekly.

We will begin to build some of Marshall’s remarks into the American Cowman blog and you’ll have the chance to comment.

Most recently, Marshall is tackling the political front regarding the farm bill and the fight over attachments of an array of pork and amendments ranging from immigration reform to the war in Iraq.

He says, “While activist groups hoping for a more substantive reform of farm policy were extremely slow in getting mobilized politically, their effort seems to be gaining momentum as they sense this may be their best opportunity in a long time to attain their goal. That is thanks to the farming segment’s record commodity prices and income levels.”

He continues: The second big piece of news was the Bush Administration’s threat to veto the bill due to its cost and differences in accounting. The administration’s biggest complaint with the measure as it relates to the beef industry is, of course, the packer ban provision in the Senate bill, which it opposes.

Marshall concludes, Not withstanding some of the marketing provisions and the amendments some are trying to attach to the 2007 version of the farm bill, the measure is essentially a continuation of 2002, just with a whole lot bigger interest on renewable fuels. I suppose the only thing surprising would be if there weren’t a whole lot of political battling over a $286-billion bill.