Given bull sale season is underway, addressing a few Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) might prove helpful as you begin to consider what bull(s) to buy this spring and the tools you use to select them.

1.       I keep my own replacement heifers but also retain ownership on cattle through the feedyard. How can I keep cow weight down but ensure that hot carcass weights do not go down?

Determining how much pasture is needed for summer grazing can be difficult. There are many factors that affect pasture productivity including current year precipitation amounts and timing and previous year growing season’s conditions. The drought conditions that much of the U.S. experienced last year limited the amount of energy plants were able to store, especially if they were heavily grazed. It is important to consider this when developing a grazing plan for this year. This will aide in understanding how to set stocking rates and prevent further damage.

Nebraska Extension will host a price risk management workshop for cattle producers in Ord from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. on Feb. 23, at the Valley County Extension Office, 801 "S" Street, Suite 1, on the fairgrounds. Cattle producers will learn strategies designed to reduce risk exposure to achieve a profitable outcome in uncertain times.

Current issues facing the cattle industry will be discussed to help producers to make more informed decisions facing the industry.

Two-day workshops will be held in January and February that will provide a hands-on learning experience for producers to learn how to calculate a unit cost of production for a cow-calf operation.

Having information to make effective business decisions is important for ranch success.  Enterprise analysis and unit cost of production (UCOP) are tools that can help ranchers identify where value is being created on the ranch, where costs are occurring, and what changes could be made to improve profit.