Intro (00:04):

Angus at Work, a podcast for the profit-minded cattleman. Brought to you by the Angus Beef Bulletin, we have news and information on health, nutrition, marketing, genetics and management. So let’s get to work, shall we?

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Host (00:54):

Hello and welcome to this edition of Angus at Work. I'm Shauna Hermel, your host, and this morning we have the pleasure of talking to Jordan Thomas with the University of Missouri. Jordan does a lot of reproductive physiology research there at the University of Missouri and has been quite active in the Applied Repro Strategies in Beef Cattle symposium. We're going to ask him a few questions related to getting those first-calf heifers, breeding and getting them back into the herd. Jordan, could you give us a little bit of background about yourself, your trajectory and your career so far?

Jordan Thomas (01:33):

Sure. Well, first of all, thanks for having me. It's great to talk with you and see you as always. I've had the pleasure of interacting with you over the years at ARSBC and lots of other meetings. It's always good to catch up. Just for your listeners, I'm a professor at the University of Missouri in our Division of Animal Sciences, which is in our College of Ag Food and Natural Resources.

My focus is on reproductive physiology, specifically in beef cattle. I tend to do a lot of applied type of research. Things involving synchronization systems or artificial insemination, setting up recipients for embryo transfer, things like that. Of course, we do some other types of work as well. I have a lot of interest in grazing systems and heifer development systems.

I'm really, really fortunate to be where I'm at at the University of Missouri. It's a great program for my discipline of reproductive physiology, but it's also just a great place to be in the country. We're way up there in terms of beef cow numbers compared to some other states. We're consistently in that top three to four, and that's just a nice place to be in the country. And then in terms of my actual role there, other than that, I teach some courses as well. I spent several years as our state beef cow calf specialist in extension and then moved into more of a teaching and research role. So now I get to teach a lot more on campus, teach a reproductive physiology course and a reproductive management course, and kind of a business management course for animal science students as well. So really enjoy my role there at the university.

Host (03:02):

Very critical role to state that, like you say, is built on the cow-calf industry. I had a chance to listen to you speak up here at the Missouri Livestock Symposium in Kirksville a bit. You had a very good presentation there. I wanted to share a little bit of that with our listeners if we had a chance. We kind of kicked that off looking at the perspective of where we are in the cattle industry right now and the price of cows, price of replacement heifers. What are you seeing out there in terms of that cow-calf budget?

Jordan Thomas (03:36):

Yeah. Well, it's funny, when I was in Extension ... It's been a few years now that I've left Extension and have been more teaching and research. But when I was in Extension, it seemed like I would always present our state's cow-calf planning budget. That is an Extension publication that we put out through MU that just looks at maybe some of the cost and revenue projections for a typically managed cow-calf operation in the state of Missouri. I always would say, this isn't exactly how I advise you do it necessarily, but I think it represents pretty well what people actually do. So I'd encourage your listeners pull that up and give it a look.

Host (04:16):

We can put that in our show notes too so that people can get to that link easily.

Jordan Thomas (04:21):

Basically I always try to walk through what the cost structure looks like because - like it or not - when we raise cattle, we're raising a commodity. Any time you're in a commodity business where there's not a tremendous opportunity to differentiate the product at the end of the day, obviously we have some of those opportunities in the cattle business and I don't want to denigrate that, but at least for most of us, we raise a commodity product and we sell at commodity prices. And so our main objective is often, how do we get our own cost structure under control because we may or may not get to influence the price we receive at the end of the day, or at least we know we're subject to the whims of the market and black swan events and all sorts of things that can go wrong.

So I say all that to say this, when I was in Extension every single year those numbers were horrendous. I mean, just were negative every single year. It would make it look like, "Who would want to be in the cow-calf business?"

It's really fun now to be in a market situation that we're in right now with very strong calf prices and, actually, fairly affordable input prices (at least on the feed and fuel side of things). And so it's a little bit unusual and a little bit unusual compared to what I remember from my time in Extension. But if you look at that cow-calf planning budget, some projections of several hundred dollars of at least gross margin per cow. Certainly less than that when we talk about real profit when you consider those things that are rusting and rotting and depreciating.

I think the thing I tried to emphasize in that talk was that if you ask people about what it takes to actually raise a commercial beef calf ... I think we all know that the number one cost is feed, right? It's feed-related expenses. Usually we're talking about feed for the cow, not the calf.

Host (06:07):

That, pasture costs and the cost of storing feed ...

Jordan Thomas (06:11):

Absolutely. So, in particular, if you have an operation that is kind of like my wife and I's operation, it's operating on leased land. Those land costs are real. Not everybody's are necessarily an expense that they write a check for every day, so to speak, but at least many operations are real pasture cost. Then that's a piece of that feed cost. Purchase feed resources, stored forage costs, feed, mineral, all of that is usually the biggest cost category to raise a commercial calf. I often will say if you think about it as a pie chart and we're talking about the pieces of the pie to make that commercial calf, usually feed is about half the whole pie, which is a substantial piece of that cost. But at least in most years, I think it's easy for us to forget that the second biggest piece of the pie is the cost of replacing cows.

In other words, sort of the depreciation cost on cows and actually having those cows in our inventory. It's kind of a sneaky cost. Especially if you raise your own replacement heifers, which most operations do, then you don't really write a check for that. And so you don't see that manifest as the real cost that it is. But it is the second biggest cost category for producing a commercial calf. What I tried to emphasize in that talk was in a market environment like the one we're in right now where the cost of cattle is so high and the actual cost of feed is somewhat low. At least compared to some long run averages. Well, in this market environment, for many operations, the cost of the replacement females is actually probably the biggest cost category. So it's a really scary cost if you don't control that cost.

If you don't have that under control, then it's just really hard to actually do a good job there.

Host (08:09):

And for where we are in the cattle cycle, it's pretty hard to hold onto some of those heifers when you know as a weaned calf, you could sell them for $1,500 to $1,800 on the market. Or to go out and buy some of those replacement heifers that are what are you seeing in the market today.

Jordan Thomas (08:27):

Well, I think you're exactly spot on in terms of the cost of a weaned heifer calf. I think when we talk about replacements, there's obviously some range in the quality. So bred replacements, I mean, if we're talking about bred replacement heifers, just range in the quality of what those are and how those are marketed. I'd encourage everybody maybe take a look at our Show Me Select replacement heifer program in Missouri and what those sale averages have been this fall. And they're certainly over $4,000. And so it's not out of the question to be paying that much for a replacement heifer. And that's a really big check for sure. And so what I like to talk about is maybe the value creation side of things. Anytime on an operation where we take a weaned heifer calf, turn her into a bred heifer and, ultimately, a bred cow that's in production, we've created a tremendous amount of value.

And, unfortunately, on many of our operations we don't necessarily do the best job of capturing any of that value because we only sell cows as kind of open cull cows. I talked a little bit about that in that talk. Really what I was trying to emphasize more so in that talk was just what a substantial hit we take any time we have a bred heifer that's in production and she becomes an open three-year-old cow. Just what a tremendous hit it is to not get a first calf heifer bred back to have her second calf. I mean, just really-

Host (09:55):

It basically takes her from being the most valuable animal in your herd to just a cull animal that's maybe escaped that premium value as a fed heifer and taken away her value as a mature cow.

Jordan Thomas (10:13):

So it's a huge depreciation hit that you take. It's not unlike driving a brand new car off of the lot and then driving it right into a telephone pole, right? I mean, without insurance. It's really the worst part of it because, man, you take such a big hit on an animal any time she comes up open compared to what her value was as a bred cow. When we're talking about those young females that are really in their peak value, I mean, we've dumped a lot of capital into them and we let it all evaporate if they come up open. That's just a fact.

Host (10:48):

So how do we try and offset that? I think when we look at some of the numbers and some of the research that's been presented, a lot of times we'll lose 30% of those heifers that calve the first time. We get them in the herd and we've done all the work to get them in the herd, but to get them rebred, we have like a 30% drop off in that first year and then another 30% drop off in the next year.

Jordan Thomas (11:18):

It really can be that severe. Of course, I don't ever want to say plan to have 30% of your first calf heifers come up open because we need to be managing for some better outcomes than that, for sure. One, there's a couple papers out there that obviously do a good job of talking about this and showing us some hard data on it. One that I really like a lot Bob Cushman published several years ago now - about 12 years ago - looking at just the retention rate of heifers in the herd over successive years. And he looked at it as a function of when they have their very first calf. So if they have their first calf in the first 21 days of their first calving season, well, they have a much better breed back that first year. Interestingly, also, that second year and so on.

And so they really are at an advantage because essentially it comes down to giving them more time postcalving to actually successfully begin cycling again and successfully breed back. That's one of the things I emphasized in that talk. I tried to emphasize three things. One is just don't start from behind. If you keep a bred heifer that is bred to calve really very late into the calving season at all, she's really behind from the get-go. And I would say, do everything that you can to have super, super short calving seasons in yearling heifers because just setting up a first calf heifer to go into her next breeding season without having a lot of time to recover postcalving is a recipe for disaster. We know that the postpartum interval in those animals can easily be 80 days or so.

You sort of do the math ... If gestation is 283 days and a year is 365 days, even if she calves ...

Host (13:09):

She doesn't have that wiggle room.

Jordan Thomas (13:10):

... any wiggle room. And so really, if we are calving heifers later than the first day of the calving season, they are actually kind of behind. And so that's a really high bar, but I always try to emphasize that because I think we got to realize where the bar really is and probably allow that to shape our heifer development programs. We probably ought to be breeding more heifers than we need and we probably ought to be willing to sell some heifers that don't breed up really, really early.

Host (13:36):

So that can be a little bit of a decision point on which heifers we want to keep and retain and which heifers we want to find another way to market, whether that's as a fed heifer or as a replacement heifer to somebody else.

Jordan Thomas (13:53):

And they may be a perfectly good heifer for somebody that calves just a little bit later than you, right? So it's not like those animals that breed up later are junk. Some of it's just randomness and some of it's just maybe she was a little bit younger herself going into her first breeding season. It may not have to do with the merit of that heifer for fertility, so to speak, or at least her genotypic fertility, right? But if she's going to calving late in your calving season, she's just not going to work that well. And so being honest about that and saying, "Hey, I've created a lot of value here, but maybe that value is actually for somebody else's operation. Maybe I want to actually get paid for that and market this as a bred female and not try to have her essentially just wind up being an open three-year-old cow."

Host (14:40):

One of the strategies that you mentioned was possibly calving those heifers first - two to four weeks ahead of the cows - in order to give them a little bit more time to fall within the calving window in that early part of the calving season. We can buy them easily enough to fit that window of time. If we're developing our own replacement heifers, that means breeding them to calve at a little younger than a two-year-old. What suggestions do you have to maybe make sure that they're ready for that?

Jordan Thomas (15:12):

Yeah, that's a great question. And it's not a one size fits all piece of advice to calve heifers two to four weeks ahead of the cows. That's not going to work for every operation, but I've seen it work so many places that I do think it's a good strategy to consider. To do that, obviously that means they're going to be a half a month or a month younger than they otherwise could be when they start their first breeding season. So what does that mean? Well, probably means we need to have our genetics in place that allow for that earlyish puberty attainment, right? And every bit of early maturation ability that we've got kind of packed into the genetics of the herd, of course, that's going to help us. And the second thing is just to have that heifer development program a little bit dialed in.

It's okay to have a heifer development program where maybe we're going to short them some. Maybe they're only going to get to 55% of their mature size before their first breeding season instead of maybe a more traditional target of 65%. It's okay. Just know that you probably want to have the genetics for early maturity, and then you also probably need to have enough heifers that you're given an opportunity to breed because you may not get quite as many of them bred up if you do some of that. So just figuring out how to get that calibrated might take you a year or two in terms of knowing how many heifers you need to give a chance. Then also knowing maybe what your feed investment into those heifers needs to be. I always try to caution though. I'm a lot less concerned about exactly how much we throw at them nutritionally prior to breeding, as long as we're getting them into that 55 to 65% of mature size range.

I think as long as we're kind of getting them there and they're in that 13 to 14 months of age range when they're first exposed for breeding, your results really ought to be okay unless you just really have a genetic problem with late maturity. But the important thing is, once you do get them bred, whoever you do get bred and whoever is staying you really do need to invest in them nutritionally after that point, right? Because from then on, I mean, you have a bred heifer on your hand and if you don't calve her out in great body condition score and at 85% or so of her mature size, that's on you. And that's really my advice. You have got to do the work at that point. Once she's bred, you have got to do the work to invest in actually getting her up to speed body condition wise.

Host (17:38):

And I think you talked about that in terms of packing the calf's lunch?

Jordan Thomas (17:42):

Yeah. I always like little catchy rules of thumb that maybe we can remember. That's the wanna be pastor in me, I guess.

Host (17:54):

I'm learning something I didn't know about you.

Jordan Thomas (17:57):

So you got the maybe don't start from behind rule of thumb, which we just talked about. And the other is pack the calf's lunch. Which is to say that if you really think about what she has to do once she has that first calf, she's got to lactate obviously for the first time, and she's also going to still be growing herself. She hasn't reached her mature size and she's got to maintain herself just with her maintenance energy requirements, just like any other running age cow would. So she's kind of got an extra burden of not just nursing a calf and not just maintaining herself, but also growth. And that's just a weird situation to be in as an animal.

That means that basically the quality of her diet needs to be a little bit better than the quality of the diet on offer to mature cows.

Host (18:42):

She's got a smaller rumen as well.

Jordan Thomas (18:46):

She's got a smaller rumen. And then also we're going to suppress some potential feed intake, particularly late into that first pregnancy that she's carrying. So her feed intake really at a pretty critical time goes down. So both postcalving and most importantly, prior to calving, we need to be throwing the groceries at her. It's going to depend on where you're at in the country, what that looks like, but you need to be thinking groceries, groceries, groceries. How do I get it into her? Because the goals are pretty high. The bar's pretty high in terms of she really needs to calve a full condition score better than a typical running age cow would. And we typically see cows achieving their optimal breedback around a body condition score of six. So we normally say five minimum and six is kind of ideal. Heifers need to be at a minimum of a six because they need those resources kind of packed on them.

And I shared some results from an experiment that a master student in my program that was co-advised by Eric Bailey at Mizzou, our state nutrition specialist, had just recently completed. And in that work, one of his findings was basically that when we supplemented first calf heifers very, very aggressively postcalving or not at all, and they were just grazing stockpile tall fescue pastures or just moderate quality hay, basically the supplementation had virtually no impact on keeping them where we wanted them to be energy balance wise. Or some of these metabolites that we might look at or their breed back performance or how they respond to a synchronization protocol. It just modestly kind of changed how much weight they lost in early lactation and they moderately, moderately, moderately just weaned a slightly, slightly heavier calf.

And so the takeaway from that, just to make it really practical is if you calve out a heifer a little bit behind in terms of how much condition she has, and then you try to fix that problem with groceries after calving, you just about can't fix the problem because what happens is she'll just dump that energy into lactation and she doesn't really put any of that into building up her own energy reserves again, unless we really throw a tremendous amount of nutrition at her.

Host (21:09):

Quite a bit of nutrition in that, wasn't it? Wasn't that like 10 pounds or something a day?

Jordan Thomas (21:15):

Yeah, very close to 10 pounds of just kind of a commodity blend type of supplement a day, which most producers, it'd be hard to talk them into supplementing first calf heifers that much. That's why we kind of use that target to illustrate the point of, hey, postcalving supplementation of first calf heifers is the wrong way to go about it. That's not saying don't treat them pretty good after they calve, of course you should, but think about managing going into calving. Pack the next calf's lunch, get those animals in that body condition score six to seven range when they have that first calf. They really need to be if they're going to have good breed back.

Host (21:52):

Does it help to flush those first calf cows a little bit before breeding?

Jordan Thomas (21:57):

Yeah, I would actually discourage people from trying that. This whole flushing effect is a real phenomenon that happens, especially in litter bearing species where, if you sort of moderate their nutrition a little bit and kind of rough them and then throw energy at them, you can get this maybe greater ovulation rate or they ovulate a greater number of oocytes and maybe their litter size goes up or in sheep, their twinning rate would go up. In cattle, since we're talking about single ovulators, we don't see those big dramatic effects of like a quote-unquote "flushing" effect, but we see these effects of are they in positive energy balance or are they not? And we know that if they're not in positive energy balance, we see some reduced oocyte quality, we see reduced blastocyst rates in our embryos and things like that. So we know that we can affect them nutritionally, but we don't really have the same type of opportunity to use this classical flushing effect, at least not with as dramatic of a result as you would see with, like, a small ruminant.

So I always think it's actually playing with fire because really what I want those first calf efforts to do is be treated pretty well postcalving, go into calving with all the condition that they need and then just get taken care of through that first breeding season so that we can keep them growing, we can keep them lactating appropriately and we can keep them in good health and all those sorts of things. So I wouldn't worry, I wouldn't spend a minute thinking about a flushing effect. I would just chase that kind of pack the next calf's lunch, send them into calving in good shape and then just manage for their nutrition after that.

Host (23:35):

And then you also talked about some synchronization as an opportunity to make sure cows are cycling and even in a natural service situation. Can you expound upon that a little bit?

Jordan Thomas (23:48):

Yeah. I think an unfortunate thing is sometimes we chase a conception rate that we think is ideal when we talk about AI. So we get really disappointed by some sort of rate that's 50% or less even sometimes in first calf heifers. And I can certainly appreciate why it would be discouraging to use a sync program in heifers and then maybe not get 70% of them bred AI. I guess where I like to start on this is just think about what you're accomplishing with an AI program when you do get X% of them bred at the very start of the breeding season. You are setting those females up for lifetime success in a lot of ways of just really keeping them as early conceiving females, right? And so it's just hugely important. If you can get 30-40% of them to do that, I'm really tickled by that.

So I don't discount just what a big impact it makes to get all those animals bred on the very first day of the breeding season with a synchronization AI program because you kind of get that very next opportunity just three weeks later. So you've kind of had two opportunities in the first 21 days when you do AI. That's really, really powerful. So don't be afraid of a low-ish conception rate in first calf heifers. I know it's a more challenging age class. I know that sometimes we don't get the conception rates that we think we ought to get in cows, but don't get too down in the mouth. Even if it is somewhat poor, you're really still moving the needle. But that aside, it is possible to get great conception rates in first calf heifers, especially if they're in good body condition score and the previous calving season was reasonably short and we're taking care of them nutritionally after calving.

It's certainly possible to get these high rates in cows too. But I do think an underused opportunity is just synchronization in general. So even if you're not willing to AI and do the cost and the labor associated with that, think about a pretty simple progestin-based ... So, we're talking about a CIDR-based program in first calf heifers that would set them up for bull exposure because those animals are really the animals that could really benefit from some progesterone in the form of the CIDR because it just helps to get cyclicity stimulated again after calving. And particularly late calving cows or cows that maybe are struggling for some other reason, like maybe a little bit more marginal body condition or something like that, or cows that are just younger cows that we know have a longer postpartum interval to start cycling again, they really benefit from a CIDR.

So don't be afraid to use synchronization in those first calf heifers, even if you're going into a natural service program. And you wouldn't exactly want to use the exact same protocols that we would use for timed AI because they'll be a little bit too tightly synchronized, but there are some great resources through the Beef Production Task Force on all these protocols and all the recommendations for them. There's a section of those specifically designed for natural service and they're usually pretty simple. Most of these protocols I would be talking about would involve only the CIDR, no additional shots. Just only a CIDR treatment for a specified period of time and then you turn in bulls on a specified date.

So very simple to follow, relatively affordable, just one product being used and just can do a lot even in just a natural service setting.

Host (27:16):

And now when we look at our bull-to-cow ratio in those breeding systems and a natural service. What do you recommend? Do you recommend maybe increasing the number of bulls to cover a certain number of those first calf cows or ... ?

Jordan Thomas (27:33):

Yeah, if you have some questions on that, maybe just reach out to somebody in your state that does some Extension work and get some individualized feedback on where you're currently sitting and whether they think you ought to bump your bull numbers up. My personal philosophy is just that I think a lot of times bull-to-cow ratios that you see from Extension folks are on the conservative side already. Like, maybe, we're talking about one to 25 mature cows. One mature bull to 25 mature cows or something like that. To be honest, that's very conservative already. And so in a typical sync program that's designed for natural service, I don't get very worried about those type of ratios. The only times that I maybe advise folks to really up the bulls is if they're actually leaning the other direction already. Like, they're running one bull on 50 cows or something just a little bit riskier already.

They could benefit in a natural service setting by bumping those bull numbers up if they are going to use some synchronization. We'll just have cows more tightly synchronized and there's only so many cows that a bull can cover in a day. So that's one takeaway. If you're already on the conservative, typical Extension end of what you would see recommended, you're probably fine. If you're already kind of taking some chances, then maybe we need to reconsider that if you're going to use the sync program. The one thing I do advise, though, is maybe think about the age and experience level of the bull before you turn them into a synchronized estrous situation. I generally would not do that with a yearling bull that has never bred animals before. That can just be a little bit overwhelming and you just sometimes don't get the coverage that you really would like to see.

So mature bulls or, at least, age advantaged bulls ideally.

Host (29:34):

You bet. The environment might have an impact on that. We don't like to turn bulls out on fescue in July in Missouri if we don't have to. Range conditions in Montana are a lot different than the paddocks we have here in Missouri generally for running cows with bulls, too.

Jordan Thomas (29:53):

So reach out to somebody maybe in your state if you are starting to think through some of these synchronization in natural service settings and see if there are some recommendations that maybe they would make specific to your environment. We don't have a ton of folks in Missouri breeding cows in the peak heat of summer, of course. Whenever we do, then I always recalibrate some of the advice accordingly.

Host (30:16):

Are there any other tips you might want to give to producers on getting those cows bred back for the spring?

Jordan Thomas (30:23):

Yeah. One thing I always try to remind folks of is so much of this stuff is really under your control. I don't say that to be mean, but take a look in the mirror and go, "Hey, a lot of this is really on me and a lot of this is under my control." Now, one thing I think I worked into that talk was some wisdom from Ed Deming, who is a great systems thinker and an MIT guy from years and years ago. He is really, from a process engineering perspective, the guy that helped post-World War II Japan rebuild and become the Japan that we know today in terms of its manufacturing ability. He would always talk about systems and how we look for what he called 'special causes of variation', which is these things that are kind of outside of our system or outside of our normal things that we control.

We kind of look for those causes as managers every time things go wrong or every time we're thinking about what really drives all of our variation and outcomes. My time at Extension taught me that. People look for things that are a little bit odd. The number of calls that I would get about, oh, I don't know, aflotoxins and maybe estradiol-like compounds, phytoestrogens or something like that in forages. These kinds of things that are just a little bit wild. Most of the calls, it seemed like were these wild kinds of things. Very rarely would somebody call about what I would maybe call the blocking and tackling, the fundamentals of the game. What Ed Deming would call 'common causes of variation'. And those are the things that are just inherent to our system that are under our control. If we really invest in them, we can control them and point them in the right direction.

That is how you've got to think about first calf heifers. It's like, "How can I do all the big things? How can I control the things that I can control?" Because, yeah, the fact of the matter is that if you have some kind of phytoestrogen thing pop up in some given year and it lowers your preg rates, there wasn't anything you could do about it. I mean, that's so far out of your realm of control that it's almost not even worth giving a lot of attention to. The main thing that drives whether you are going to get first calf heifers bred back, in the grand scheme of things, is how long of a calving season did you have as heifers? Did they start from behind? That's the main thing. Second main thing is, did you have them in great body condition score? If you do those two things, you're controlling a lot of it.

Then you've got another little opportunity there with synchronization and trying to just do some things to help stimulate cyclicity. So control what you can control, focus on the big things, the big buckets, these big common causes of variation. That drives ... I think Ed Deming's language is that it drives about 90% of the variation in all the outcomes is these big common causes ... Only 10% of the time or something is a special cause really influencing it. But what you'll see is that our tendency as human beings is we go look for a special cause to blame something on 90% of the time.

Host (33:41):

It's not us, right? We don't want to take to blame ourselves.

Jordan Thomas (33:45):

You know it's true when you think about anytime you're running late for something, it's always the traffic. It's the weather. It's whatever. It's never, "Well, what time did I leave the house?"

Host (33:58):

Exactly.

Jordan Thomas (33:59):

So taking that honest look in the mirror and going, "Hey, how much of this breed back in my first calf heifers is really me and my management decisions and what can I really do to change those?" Those are some things you can do to change it. Don't start from behind, pack the calf's lunch and think about using those protocols.

Host (34:17):

Well, thank you, Jordan, for joining us today and sharing these tips. I appreciate that we're getting so close to Christmas and we appreciate you having time for us to do a little Angus at Work podcast. One of the things that we always like to try and do is to end our podcast on an up note. I want to ask you: anything really good to share in your personal or professional life?

Jordan Thomas (34:44):

Yeah. One thing that I'm really excited about, we've been fortunate to get some great funding at the University of Missouri grant-wise and receive some new awards from USDA. One of those is some sex-sorted-semen-related research that kind of layers on genomic testing and how you can optimally use some of those technologies. That's some work that Jamie Courter at Mizzou and I are working on together.

Host (35:10):

Well, that sounds interesting.

Jordan Thomas (35:12):

Yeah, really excited to work on that. Another thing that's been really fun is to delve into some of these regenerative ag-type spaces. And so we've got a lot of work with our Center for Regenerative Ag on grazing systems and playing with some virtual fence collarrs and things like that. I've been really enjoying having virtual fence collars actually on our own cows this year and sort of figuring out some fun ways we can use that technology even to make our breeding management better. It's fun to delve into those disciplines a little bit. So, yeah, it's going to be a great 2026.

Host (35:51):

It sounds like we have a couple more podcasts to do in the future.

Jordan Thomas (35:55):

I think so.

Host (35:57):

Well, great. Thank you for joining us and we hope you have a merry Christmas and happy New Year!

Jordan Thomas (36:03):

You, too. Thank you.

Outro (36:10):

Listeners, for more information on making Angus work for you, check out the Angus Beef Bulletin and the Angus Beef Bulletin EXTRA. You can subscribe to both publications in the show notes. If you have questions or comments, let us know at abbeditorial@angus.org and we would appreciate it if you would leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and share this episode with any other profit-minded cattlemen. Thanks for listening. This has been Angus at Work!