Fly tagging stockers: Worth it?

Work reported by a team of Kansas State researchers earlier this month followed a set of 267 steers known to be in good health and grazed at a stocking density of 253 pounds of animal per acre for 77 days starting in April. Steers were assigned to one of three treatment groups: no ear tag, one tag or two tags. All calves, including the controls, were treated with a pour-on permithrin before turnout.

When the calves were pulled from the pasture the second week of July, due to drought, the tagged calves were found to have substantial improvements in gain over the 77-day grazing season. However, the improvements were not statistically significant, because the relatively small number of calves in the study combined with the shorter grazing season because of drought didn’t give the researchers sufficient statistical power to prove significance. In addition, the prevalence of pinkeye was relatively light in the study, with only one group (one of the two-tag treatment paddocks) showing five calves that had to be treated for pinkeye.

• What Would it Take to Eradicate Trich?
• Fly tagging stockers: Worth it?
• Does deworming calves on top of vaccination risk weakening your disease protection?
• A look at the high, and increasing, cost of treating feedlot respiratory disease
• Getting to know our true stakeholders
• What We (Still) Have Here is a Failure to Communicate
• The science of beef quality
• U.S. oil glut makes $50 oil a possibility
• Questions continue on EHD
• More Evidence: PI BVD calves wreck their immune systems – and their pen-mates
• Debriefing the drought’s impact on calf health: Where can you go from here?
• Fifteen Minutes to Healthier Calves this Spring
• Fenceline Weaning: Worth the Trouble?
• Can we really rely on beef’s efficiency story to earn us a seat at the ‘sustainability’ table? Another sobering shot across our bow
• Would it pay to try to grow ‘nitrate-safe’ hay? What one study suggested.
• Will we ever see vaccination against cattle worms?
• Have We Gotten a Little Too Smart on BRD Testing?
• Hold still, fellas. This could end up hurting a little
• Quest for my specialty