Shaye Koester (00:00):
Hey, Hey, it's Shaye Koester and I'm your host for Casual Cattle Conversations, where we talk about all things related to ranching, through sharing the stories and practices of different ranchers in their operations.
Shaye Koester (00:17):
Alrighty folks, thanks for tuning in again, to start things off, we're going to hear and thank today's sponsor. The Red Angus Association of America.
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Shaye Koester (01:13):
Alrighty, thank you to the Red Angus Association of America. And with that today, we are going to visit with Rick Funston. Now Rick comes from a strong ranching background in North Dakota, but he's currently in Nebraska where he helps different ranchers understand how to utilize nutrition for optimal reproduction performance. Now he has a lot of experience, background, and insight on this area and he shares some different action items that you can apply to do the same for your herd. I really enjoyed visiting with Rick and got a lot out of the conversation. Now, before we get on with the episode, remember that if you like something, make sure you comment on one of my social media posts, what you learned, that quote, um, any other questions you had that way you can really build up a discussion and community with other listeners and myself. You can do that on my Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.
Shaye Koester (02:10):
And if you're interested in contributing to this podcast and ensuring that I can keep putting episodes out for you all, please go become a patron. Now that is on my website, casualcattleconversations.podbean.com. So with that on the sidebar, you'll be able to find all my links to patron merchandise, anything. Um, if you are also interested, if you're on my Instagram, if you hit my link tree in my bio, it's just that one link that's in the bio that will, there will also be a link to that program as well. There's also links to my merchandise and website as well. So with that, let's get on with the episode.
Shaye Koester (02:51):
Hey Rick,
Rick Funston (02:52):
Can you hear me?
Shaye Koester (02:53):
I can hear you
Shaye Koester (02:55):
So well, thank you for joining me today. I really appreciate it. And would you just get started with your background in the ranching industry?
Rick Funston (03:04):
Yeah, so Rick Funston, uh, interestingly I'm good friends with Shaye's dad and uncle used to rodeo with their uncle and from North Dakota grew up on a farm & ranch, which is North of Sterling, not far from where she's from, um, I had a few cows with my grandpa growing up so always farmed and ranched with my dad and my grandpa. And, uh, I became interested in it. I was the first one to go to college. I ended up going to NDSU for bachelor's and continued on to Montana State for a master's in animal science. I was an educator for awhile at, uh, Scobey, Montana. And then went back to school at Wyoming and did a PhD at the University of Wyoming and then a postdoc at Colorado State and biotechnology, I guess, a lot of work with embryos and embryo transfer and some more molecular things, and then went to Chadron State College and taught and coached the rodeo team.
Rick Funston (04:17):
And, uh, then went to Montana to Miles City and was the first off-campus beef specialist at Fort Keogh, but with Montana state. Then I had a couple of friends on faculty at Nebraska and they said, this position is open in North Platte. I said, I'm not interested and whatever 16 years later here I am. So I've got a small place out of town and, um, buy some heifers and breed them and been selling bred heifers. And then within the university, we have about 700 breeding females in the Gudmundson Sandhills lab up in the middle of the Sandhills and then feedlot down here at North Platte and I purchased some more heifer calves out of the Sandhills and do heifer development work and re-breeding first-calf heifers, which seems to be a challenge as well as the second calvers. But yeah, we're about to start calving. We had a great winter going and tell this week, Oh my gosh, we got 12, 14 inches of snow and it's supposed to be 25 below on Saturday, but there's hopefully light at the end of the tunnel. Later next week, it looks like it's going to get above freezing finally, so
Shaye Koester (05:40):
Well. So you have maintained a solid background on the production and hands-on side outside of the research you do, but when you're working in that position at North Platte, how closely do you work with ranchers?
Rick Funston (05:54):
Oh, very close. I go to a lot of bulls sales. I go to a lot of, uh, industry events and people call me directly. We have educators in not every County, but an educator responsible for every County and that's supposed to be the frontline. But I get a lot of direct calls from ranchers in Nebraska and a lot of other States toobecause you know we are fortunate to have a strong extension system and several faculty that are having an extension appointment. I don't know how many, we probably have seven or eight, but most States have one. And that covers all, all the disciplines. I'm reproduction. We have a nutritionist here. We have a feedlot specialist on campus. We have a couple in the panhandle out at Scottsbluff. So we have a lot of great resources that, um, a lot of other land grant universities don't have. So, doesn't take long to quickly to find someone. I get a lot of contacts over the internet that they search for something, and my name comes up, but hopefully it's all good.
Shaye Koester (07:12):
So what is it about reproduction that makes you so passionate about it? Or why did you decide to go down that route?
Rick Funston (07:22):
Well, it's the number one trait, um, for profitable production. The only time a beef female can possibly be profitable, that doesn't conceive is one that's never conceived. So there's a lot of yearlings, that are heifers that never see a bull and that can be a profitable enterprise. But if we get an animal pregnant, we have to do everything we can to get her pregnant in a timely manner every year. Oh, there's a webinar on beef.unl.edu on increasing production efficiency and not only the importance of pregnancy and having animals conceive, but when they conceive has a huge impact on profitability, on a ranch. That whole webinar discusses factors that influence that event of when they conceive. I'm not promoting necessarily calving in January, a lot of ranches have gone to later calving for essentially two reasons: labor and weather. We don't have a lot of facilities, um, to put animals in a case of inclement weather. So, you know, people move to later calving, we've done a lot of research at Gudmondson on time of calving and some of the consequences or unforeseen concerns. If we calve later and later, that calf independent of age is going to be lighter because nutrition is actually going against when that calf is growing a lot. So a lot of the later calving systems lend themselves to yearling systems. So those consequences have to be obviously discussed with your banker, because you're not going to have a cattle sale that fall like you normally would. So you got to have someone working with you if you're using the banker, which the most ranches are.
Rick Funston (09:56):
The other consequence. That is not unforeseen, but maybe a surprise because a lot of times when people shift calving date, they allow for a longer postpartum interval and they think everything will breed really well quickly. Well, they're breeding on a declining plain of nutrition, oftentimes like August, September to Kevin, what may or April. I was a bit surprised when we started doing the heifer development work on these different calving systems that at least initially those heifers in the later calving system that came from genetics that was reared in an earlier calving system, had a much lower pregnancy rate. Now over time it appears, it appears that, uh, they've gotten close to what March calvers are, but there's something to be said for adaptability. We talked about that somewhat from I know they did some studies back in the day with Miles City and Florida, where they exchanged genetics. And one way it worked one way didn't and they say, you can move cattle, whatever North to South, not South to North. And that may be not right either, but I don't think it's absolute, but there's definitely some adaption.
Rick Funston (11:21):
I worked with the rancher that moved from Billings actually, and moved to set a Hereford cows from the billings area and a set of Red Angus cows from the Lewistown area, which is much lusher environment. The Hereford cows bred fine and the Red Angus cows, not so much. So I haven't heard vinyl on, uh, on a preg check but I was working with them to help them to try to get those animals pregnant.
Shaye Koester (12:13):
Okay. So with your work, when you're working with different producers, what are some of the biggest mistakes you see them make when they're trying to improve their conception rates?
Rick Funston (12:25):
Well, yeah, good question. I get a lot of calls from veterinarians and producers after the preg check and it's, "we had a wreck, we had 15% open." Well that's not a wreck, but it might not be ideal. So you go down a list and, um, pre and post-breeding management. A lot of times we might do too much of a good thing, especially with our heifer calves, with $3 corn, we get them too fat. We get them, you know, cycling and bred in a confined system, but then they go to a post-breeding environment that won't sustain that level of gain. And if they're declining and gain, even though you may not see it there's metabolic signals that actually says older data says causes more embryonic loss. So post-breeding management, when we handle cattle, the nutrition, and those types of things is often overlooked.
Rick Funston (13:34):
And then we go down the list. "Oh, we'd done it the same for years and years and years." And so sometimes it ends up in the final question of "I'm assuming these are straight Angus cattle that have been bred Angus on Angus for generations." And most often the answer's yes. So not taking advantage of heterosis can cause these issues. Crossbreeding hybrid vigor is the most beneficial to lowly heritable traits, which reproduction and disease resistance are. So these crossbred animals have an inherently, a higher pregnancy rate and also less sickness. So there are a lot of things. There's some papers at our state of beef conference that covers a lot of these, um, considerations for the breeding season. But, you know, genetics is one that can't be overlooked along with, cow size, is milk production going up. Um, these are all things that steadily over time.
Rick Funston (14:48):
If we don't change the resources available reproduction is going to fail. I've got people telling me, well, genetics hasn't changed and I said, "well, it has in a feedyard." I mean, if you look at the EPDs from the USMARC data for yearling weight and,my gosh, that Angus cow, that was in the 1970s. I mean, there's a steady trajectory where it caught up with all the major seven breeds, including the Continentals. So we run 40 pair on a section, often times is a stocking rate used. That same 40 pair isn't the same 40 pair of 10, 20 years ago. So, over time, I guess we want performance out of our animals, but if we don't have the resources, we're going to have more open cows.
Shaye Koester (15:54):
Yeah, absolutely. And it's neat how you really talked and talked about how reproduction, nutrition and genetics, they're all tied together and impacting performance
Rick Funston (16:08):
Definitely, they all have to be considered together and how much can your resources withstand? And I don't think it's rained since July here. We did get this snow and how much moisture is it? I don't know, but there we weaned weaning weights and pregnancy rates are pretty good. We luckily had moisture going into the grazing season and that saved us quite a bit. Uh, up until this last week, we weren't looking like we were going to have any moisture, but a foot 14 inches of snow and more, more possibly coming. So, and then hopefully a warm up next week and I am not living in North Dakota for a reason (chuckles).
Shaye Koester (17:06):
Well, on the topic of, you know, a lack of moisture, what are some mistakes you see producers make when managing reproduction during drought times?
Rick Funston (17:19):
Um, not intervening soon enough, maybe. I've worked with a lot of ranches on trouble shooting reproduction here. Interestingly, some of the worst conception rates were in some real wet areas, which we had up in the centered and North central part of the state. So if we grow a lot of washy grass and nutrient demands, obviously are pretty high in some of these high-performance herds and they aren't being met and along with high growth and high milk, um, well look at it this way. You know, and your grandpa, and I don't know if your dad tells you, but you don't wean the heaviest calves on a wet year. And you don't necessarily have the best reproduction on a wet year. And I think the yearling gains and stuff kind of tell you what's going on and calf gains.
Rick Funston (18:23):
Back in 2012, we had a terrible drought. And, uh, if we didn't run out of grass, pregnancy rates and weaning weights were fine, pretty good, but some of the repercussions were seen after that. And we've done quite a bit of work along the, uh, area of fetal programming, looking at the effects of nutrition during gestation and how that impacts, uh, maybe not the female itself, that's losing weight, as long as she's on a positive trajectory from calving to breeding. She will probably breed fine, but we're seeing repercussions and postnatal growth and development of that steer calf and the heifer fertility. So some consequences of things short term that ended up not being realized until later on.
Shaye Koester (19:21):
Well, absolutely. And I think that's interesting from the research side to look at, you know, those impacts later on that we sometimes maybe don't see right away that sometimes get forgotten about or not thought of right away until it's too late.
Rick Funston (19:35):
And, and sometimes, you know, I don't know retained ownership or some vested interests, post weaning is probably more common than it was 10 years ago or whatever, but somebody knows where them cattle come from. I use an example of a feed yard over by Cozad that I gave a talk at for Dawson County Cattlemen, I think quite a few years ago now. And they're like, well, we see that we see calves from different regions, ranches, whatever, perform differently. And we think it's all genetics, but possibly it is not. Possibly it's management. So today that feed yard wants to know how that cow herds managed, because they know if they're run rough, they probably don't get the carcass weights and they have more sickness in those cattle and they're not worth as much to them if they don't perform. So, yeah.
Shaye Koester (20:39):
Yeah, absolutely. So going back to you, I mean, we've touched a little bit on mistakes producers make, but what are some of those mistakes you see made right after calving? When we're looking at getting that cow ready, she's taken care of a calf now, but she's going to have to breed up again in a few months. So what mistakes do you see there?
Rick Funston (21:00):
Well, obviously nutrition is pivotal and we tend to think about nutrition as supplementing protein. Um, but post calving yeah protein Is important. But due to an animal's intake, the percent protein in a roughage generally doesn't have to be that high. If they're fed too close to ad libitum or what, what they will eat. So energy, energy, energy, energy oftentimes is the one thing that is overlooked. And it is difficult, especially in a younger female to meet energy requirements on a hundred percent roughage. And we think sometimes that our higher protein hays are higher in energy, and they're not that much. So we need to make sure we're meeting energy requirements and oftentimes if we made protein, we can do it with, with about anything starch corn used to be the by, uh, distillers is pretty darn expensive lately, you know, corn, gluten feed. Um, there are some other energy sources that potentially, uh, wheat meds, depending on the region, even wheat and barley. Oats is not high in energy. So, uh, yeah, balanced diets, but just putting out something with protein in it. And then the other thing I think that becomes somewhat of an issue is when we purchase products that are low intake, some of the self-feds and things just don't provide much energy at all. So post calving, you know, you gotta meat protein, but you gotta understand that energy can be limiting
Shaye Koester (23:12):
Well. Awesome. Thank you very much for that. And I'm kind of going to switch gears here. So I did watch that webinar that you were talking about. I know you sent that to me. So with that, would you talk a little bit about the value in synchronization programs?
Rick Funston (23:29):
Yeah, we do not only research with animals within the university system, but with cooperators. And I think that's a huge benefit to our producers that we can leverage a lot of animals that we don't have to own. For example, we did a study with a ranch North of Sutherland. Last year, we bred 900 heifers. My gosh, we don't have those resources in the university. I mean, I breed a hundred, a hundred, a heifer calves every year here at North Platte, but 900 heifers looking at a variation in the synchronization protocol. So we're going to do another study, hopefully with them this spring. I don't know how many heifers we will breed, but at least four or 500. So that is a tool that we have to front load the calving season. And, you know, I don't know who said it first, but I repeated often. Half of the value of an AI program is the fact that those cattle are synchronized.
Rick Funston (24:34):
So one thing we've been doing, we AI some at the Gudmundson, but traditionally not much. This last couple of years, we've done more, but, uh, we, we synchronize with natural service and you can get a lot of the benefit and it doesn't have to be costly. So for us, you know, especially with your heifers, my gosh, there's no excuse not to synchronize, even if you're not going to AI. Um, because you set that animal up. So Bob Cushman and you saw it, uh, has a lot of data. 14,000 head or something shows that when an animal conceives its first time has a huge impact on its lifetime productivity and longevity. So I know you saw the slide on when an animal was born and how important that is to production of both the heifer and steer, but Bob Cushman looked at when they conceived the first time, uh, admittedly age, isn't a hundred percent correlated with when they will conceive there's a high correlation, but some of those younger animals breed early too.
Rick Funston (25:53):
But what we've done at Gudmundson for a number of years is synchronization with natural service where we turn the bulls in and then five days later give prostaglandin and had a guy from, uh, Oregon. My, uh, good friend that was on the Rex ranch years ago, wanting to know about breeding animals on small traps, on irrigated grass. And I said, do you ever consider synchronizing? And he says, well, this is what we used to do. We used to give him a shot and then turn our right heat's on them and AI, and I says, turn the bulls in. And five days later, give prostaglandin. And if you want to AI those that come and he'd find if not, just leave the bulls. And so the other tool and that's, I shouldn't say it, that system only works in cycling animals, but I've been told it works in a higher risk animals too.
Rick Funston (26:53):
And the only way I think that's possible is because if, if they don't have a CL they're not going to respond to prostaglandin. And right, the only way I think that I got a rancher North of town here between here and try-on says it's helped my two year olds pick back up and, and uh, the later calves, I see that don't make sense, but the only way I think it could is that some of those will respond. Um, some of them are going to have a cl. So you're likely going to have more animals cycling, even in a high-risk population, um, using that protocol. And if we look at the pheromone data, Bartonelli data in Miles City, where they looked at, uh, gomer bulls, um, uh, jump-starting animals, androgenized, cows, that potentially could be a mechanism that works, but a more sure-fire if you got late calvers, take that late set and manage them where a week before you can't get your hands on them and put a CIDr in them.
Rick Funston (28:05):
But a CIDr in. Seven days later, pull it. Give prostaglandin and I've got ranchers that will testify. They move cattle up two to three cycles. The most I've moved a cow up in one year was 56 days. So huge people say, Oh, I don't want to pay for a $10 or $12 CIDr. Well, what's a days weight of calf worth? You know, and we figure what two pounds per day of age. So if we moved them up, even a cycle, my gosh, that's 40 bucks return on, uh, I don't know what CIDr are worth today, but $10 investment or a little more and a shot of prostaglandin which isn't much. So yeah, very underutilized tool. At beefrepro.org you can find all of the, uh, all of the, uh, synchronization protocols that are recommended. There's a couple of new ones out there today that aren't on the sheets that there's some preliminary data on.
Rick Funston (29:08):
Um, don't know that they're better than the ones on the sheets, but with higher risk animals, potentially there's one out of Missouri that in Missouri has done a lot of the research on different sync protocols that potentially has some benefit, but I don't know if in animals that are cycling any better than the seven days CIDr. So simplicity, there's two sheets of protocols. If you are confused as heck, which one do I pick? For heifers, I like the longer term protocols. The MGA or the 14-day CIDr. I do not like the seven day or the five day on heifers. And there's quite a bit of data to support what I just said. So that's the end of this story. MGA is cheaper if you can get it in them, right. They got to eat it every day. If you risk that you can't, then the 14 day CIDr is the way to go. For anything, that's had a calf the seven day co-sync CIDr is, I mean, you look through all the data out there. It's as good as anything repeatedly.
Shaye Koester (30:23):
Well, that is awesome. And those are some amazing returns or that can just come from the change from putting a synchronization program into your herd. With that you also mentioned earlier about shortened breeding seasons. So would you expand a little bit on that and the impact on profitability for producers?
Rick Funston (30:44):
Yeah, and it, it depends on what the value of a later bred animal is. I got a neighbor based on our recommendations where my calves are, that's going to breed every heifer. You don't need them all, but he says, boy, you guys have had a real profit center in selling bred heifers. And I said, yeah, I'm mostly. But then I got a rancher where we read those 900 head last year. They're not going to turn a bull with them because the opens were worth just as much and they could market them earlier. You didn't have to use all their grass up. Um, so they could find out what was pregnant. They've done that last year was the first year they put bulls out as cleanups. And he says to me, he says, you're getting us 60% timed, AI pregnancy rate. My gosh, those stock or heifers are worth a lot of money and they're worth more early than when everything hits the markets.
Rick Funston (31:42):
So, yeah. Anyway, uh, uh, but generally I say have a long breeding season and a short calving season because potentially those pregnant animals, even pregnant later, that don't fit you, fit someone else. So let your vet find the ones that breed early. You keep those and the others are marketing opportunities. We've gotten down to a 45-day breeding season at Gudmundson for gosh, used to be 60. And then we went with synchronization and, uh, even without 45-day, we are in the nineties, most years, so you don't need a long, but if the environment is, um, questionable, sometimes the longer breeding season will improve pregnancy rates. But when you saw the slide, um, from Missouri that showed beyond 70 days to, gosh, what was it here up to 150 days? It didn't change pregnancy rates, something else was limiting, you know, the, the, uh, overall pregnancy rate, not, not breeding season.
Rick Funston (33:06):
I wish we could identify them bulls that were superstars, but sadly the best we got some breeding soundness examine it. Um, no way advocating not to use that. It's the best tool we got to sort out, you know, potentially bulls that aren't fertile at all. But it does. It does not tell us very much about how many calves that bowl will sire. I use a example of the largest ranches in the Sandhills. They did a study and they had the parentage there. They were all yearling bulls and they had to parent each back to know who the sires were and then a 50, what was it? 55 day breeding season. They had a bull that sired over 70 calves and they have five bulls that pass to breeding soundness exam that didn't sire a calf and they passed. They passed a breeding soundness exam.
Shaye Koester (34:10):
Well, that is very interesting. And yeah, I mean, those BSEs they'll tell you which ones are infertile, but it definitely doesn't tell you which ones are getting the job done. But like we said, still a good tool. With that you have answered all the questions I have and you have put out resources already and I'll make sure to include those links when this gets published. But is there anything else that you would like to share before we wrap up this interview?
Rick Funston (34:42):
Oh gosh. Um, invite you. If you're not using the beef.unl.edu website, it lists everybody's expertise. Use the resources you're paying for them, I guess is a big one. There's a lot of really good resources. I don't need to be on every ranch in Nebraska this year, but I have never, I have never went to a ranch and spent any time that I haven't made them money. So that's, if you're willing, willing to maybe change, maybe not change. Um, we get caught up in some of the crazy things with technology and shiny things. Get back to getting animals pregnant early. Um, I'm doing a webinar for England in a couple of weeks. And you know, the big issue over there is 35% of their producers don't breed their heifers unit they are two.
Shaye Koester (35:52):
Oh my gosh.
Rick Funston (35:53):
How much money is that lost?
Rick Funston (35:55):
I had a young lady come over. That works for the, I guess, some part of the government and a big rancher here she'd been consulting with. And they said, you need to go talk to Funston. Okay. I've got time for whatever. So anyway, now she wants me to do a webinar telling producers, I mean, who, who does that, but I've got a 50,000 acre ranch that I've been contacted through their lender that don't breed their heifers till they're two, there's an older paper Shaye that Bob Short wrote about those in great detail about calving as two or threes and what the economic impact of that is. So my gosh, crossbreeding is not forgotten, but there's a really good producer crossbred sale coming up Saturday here in North Platte. Um, my first PhD students had a really good sale after the storm last Saturday, all, not all, but mostly crossbred bulls so they can breed more cows, fertility, Bob Bellows.
Rick Funston (37:09):
Uh, you guys are all way before your time, but the three Bobs were the founders founders, but big instrumental scientists in the area of reproduction. Bob Bellows was Bob Stagmiller and Bob Short, all careers at Miles City, and they had a CGC herd. It was a composite three, three way across and Bellows used to tell me that if that bowl was going to fail a BSE, he would do it before we ever looked into microscope, meaning it was going to be something that culled him, whether it was structure, lameness, whatever, some, some physical defect, but semen quality was never, I mean, can't say never, but seldom ever did they cull a crossbred bull for that.
Shaye Koester (38:07):
Well, awesome. Thank you very much. And well, folks, that's a wrap on that one. Thank you for tuning in and thank you, Rick, for sharing your experience, advice, insight, it was amazing to visit with you, have you on the show and really share your passion with the rest of us. I know I got a lot out of the episode and I hope you listeners all did too. With that remember to comment your favorite parts on my social media. Let me know what you think. Let me know what topics do you want. You have been absolutely outstanding with that. Have a great day.
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