Cold Cattle

This week s weather is leaving producers wondering how their livestock will be affected While we have the option of putting a coat on when extreme cold temperatures hit cattle aren t so lucky NDSU animal scientist Greg Lardy says the sudden weather change may reduce performance and could cause frostbite Greg Lardy Animal Scientist I would not recommend trying to second guess the weather Stay on top of your feedcalls especially with your finishing cattle and backgrounding cattle and just observe If they cut back on intake you just kinda try to follow them up and ride it through it because we are going to get back to some better weather here in about three or four days and those intakes will come back Lardy says good bedding and windbreaks are key to keeping cattle healthy