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📋 Record Smart Cattle Data, Not More

📋 Record Smart Cattle Data, Not More

Bull Sale Sustainability, Winter Prep Checklist, A Deep Dive Into Cattle Business Systems and Mini Merry Meatball Recipe from Ranching.com by CattleMax.

December 10, 2025

Welcome to the 99th edition of Ranching.com – the leading cattle management resource for a community of 96,000+ ranchers and farmers.

IN THE NEWS

📋 Record Smart Cattle Data, Not More

Corey Lewis - Ag Proud

📋 Record Smart Cattle Data, Not More - Keeping records is critical, but too much unnecessary detail can bog you down and distract from the data that actually drives decisions. Focusing on what matters — like reproductive performance, costs and gains — makes your record system a useful tool, not a time sink.

🤖 Smarter Ranch Tools - Ranchbot is teaming up with Texas A&M AgriLife to bring satellite-connected monitoring tech to research and on-ranch demonstrations — helping producers track key things like water, livestock and land conditions in real time. The goal is simple: take the guesswork out of everyday decisions and help ranch operations become more efficient, resilient and data-driven.

🐂 Bull Sale Sustainability - The article stresses that herd sustainability starts at the bull sale — choosing the right bull for your environment and your market can pay dividends in calf performance and long-term profitability. Matching genetics to your operation and keeping an eye on structural traits helps set up your cowherd for success year after year.

📊 Cash Market Focus - In a recent Q&A, NDSU livestock economist Tim Petry advises producers to keep their eyes on the cash market and cattle fundamentals, rather than getting swept up in futures swings. With volatility still in play, steady stewardship and grounding decisions in real cash bids helps keep your ranch strategy steady.

🧠 AI Tackles Heart Risk - A University of Wyoming student built an AI model that can spot and score risk factors for heart disease in cattle hearts with about 92 % accuracy — a big step toward faster, data-driven health decisions in beef. By training the system on hundreds of scored images from processing plants, this tool shows how technology could someday help producers and processors identify animal health issues sooner and more consistently.

Next week marks a big milestone for Ranching.com — our 100th newsletter! To celebrate, we’ll be giving away a special industry bundled prize to one lucky subscriber out of our 96,000 readers.

We also want to feature ranch life from our readers in upcoming editions and on social media. If you’d like your operation highlighted, send your favorite ranch photos to [email protected] — we always love seeing what ranch life looks like where you are.

RANCHING KNOW-HOW

Winter Prep Checklist

Farm Journal - Drovers

This Drovers checklist from a K-State specialist lays out key fall tasks — from forage testing and body condition scoring to planning mineral programs and prepping facilities — that help set your cow-calf herd up for winter. Getting these basics handled now keeps stress down and gives you a stronger start when cold weather moves in.

BEHIND THE MIC

Deep Dive Into Cattle Business Systems

Still guessing when it comes to cattle weights?

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* This is sponsored content from CattleScales.com