Everyone knows a livestock producer who’s lost animals to bloat. Because of the risk, some folks flatly refuse to graze their stock on dense stands of clover or alfalfa. Others kind of shrug, saying they’ve rarely lost animals and don’t worry about it much. So … what gives?

Alfalfa is a high-quality forage providing a high concentration of protein as well as energy. However, this is also what makes grazing alfalfa a bloat risk.

We weaned our calves in October. It’s a transition period for the farm, a literal metamorphism as the juvenile animals prove themselves to be an independent entity. They were weaned, branded and weighed, and they entered the record as the baseline of our future herd. We are always hopeful that these animals will thrive, but like anything, there is no guarantee no matter how well we attempt to manage the variables.

Cover crops, soil health, extended grazing and 13-way mixes are all buzzwords in the agronomic world today.