Ozarks Farm & Neighbor Newspaper – written for, by & about farmers

Ken Douthit has rhythm, and he shows it while caring for his seven-day-old turkey poults. Turkeys are naturally curious animals, which sometimes results in their piling up while looking at something or trying to reach something. This can lead to large death loss. To avoid this, Ken Douthit always pauses to clap and herd the turkey poults back up the rings before he leaves his barns. The poults have been following him questionably to the end of the ring, where they started bunching together, until Ken started his display of rhythm.

In the early 1800's, as Henry Schoolcraft explored the Ozarks, he wrote frequently of the abundant stands of thick grassees, such as big bluestem, Indian grass, switchgrass and Eastern gamma grass. He was amazed that often these grasses grew so tall and thick that they would hide a man on horseback. However, as the area was settled more heavily, overgrazing, crop rotations and competition from non-native vegetation nearly wiped out these native grasses.

The North Central Arkansas Beef Cattle Conference is scheduled for Aug. 3, 2009 at the North Arkansas Livestock Auction in Green Forest, Ark., according to Mark Keaton, Baxter County Extension agent with the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture.

Will the future of cattle production include fenceline weaning? “I would hope so,” University of Missouri Extension livestock specialist Dona Funk told Ozarks Farm & Neighbor. “I really see that it works a lot better than some of the other methods, and (the calves) don’t seem to get as sick… The people that I have that are trying it really like it, and many of them won’t go back to anything else – unless, of course,” she added with a laugh, “something happens.”

Throughout most of our adult lives we have been told to drink eight glasses of water to maintain good health and well-being. But what water rules apply to our livestock as scorching summer temperatures rise throughout the Ozarks?

Times are as bad for dairy producers as many of them have seen in their lifetimes; federal and state governments and producer associations are scrambling to find ways to keep the farmers in business, but nobody sees a quick turnaround.