I saw something new to me on the internet the other day. A snowplow. Not just your ordinary snowplow, but a snowplow pulling a full trailer.

Stress on cattle is inevitable, but producers know the goal is to manage and mitigate the stresses animals experience, including transportation, weaning, parturition, dietary and nutritional changes, predation, commingling, vaccination, diseases and infections. 

The journey from pasture to plate is fraught with challenges, particularly during the initial receiving period when cattle are most vulnerable. The receiving phase, typically encompassing the first 45 days after cattle arrive at a feedlot, is critical for ensuring their health, well-being and subsequent productivity.

Although there are many skills and tasks required to successfully get beef cattle to market, special attention must be paid to the days just prior to slaughter.

Blaine is not a truck driver. Yet somehow, here he is on Christmas Eve, grinding the gears of a not-as-new-as-it-looks Peterbilt pulling a recently emptied livestock trailer.

A cattle operation's feeding and nutrition program is the single-largest ongoing production expense and the one that may require the greatest amount of time, focus and planning to manage. It may also be the most variable, depending on the region and operations themselves.

“Shrink, the unpaid loss of weight, is essentially an important cost of marketing,” says Chris Bastian, a professor in the department of agricultural and applied economics at the University of Wyoming.