- Hello everyone and welcome to sunup.

I'm Lyndall Stout.

We join you today from the Range Cow Research Center where fall calving is well underway.

We'll have much more from out here in just a little bit, but first we're talking about horses with our OSU extension equine specialists and about some viruses that have been spotted in both animals and people.

- Hi, I'm Dr. Chris Hiney, the equine extension specialist for Oklahoma State University.

And today we're actually gonna be talking about West Nile Virus and Eastern equine encephalitis.

You may have heard about these diseases, especially Triple E, our equine eastern encephalitis in the news because there's actually been some human cases on the East coast.

So West Nile and Triple E are both transmitted to horses by mosquitoes, but there's no possibility of humans getting the disease from horse to humans.

So this is strictly a mosquito to an end host.

So a mosquito to human, mosquito to horse disease.

Now the nice thing for the horses is that we have vaccines for West Nile and Triple E, unlike for people.

So because we are in a state that can experience both, we've actually already had a few cases of West Nile and horses diagnosed in Oklahoma.

We encourage all Oklahomans to consider West Nile virus and eastern equine encephalitis as part of your core vaccines.

So we typically recommend that all horses are vaccinated for these diseases a annually, and if the disease is higher or as mosquitoes maybe don't die off in the winter.

We may also consider every six months, but for now, we definitely make sure that every horse is vaccinated in the spring.

Both of these diseases actually share some similarities as their neurological diseases.

Horses will be off feed lethargic and can show neurologic symptoms such as hind limb, weakness, stumbling, et cetera.

If your horse shows any sort of neurologic symptom, it is highly recommended to contact your veterinarian immediately.

While there is no treatment, only supportive care is needed.

The earlier that treatment is provided, the better the outcome for the horse.

Finally, one of the other alternatives that you may seek as far as prevention is to try to prevent the mosquito load on your horses.

So reducing any standing water, turning horses out in optimal times, not when mosquitoes are feeding, bringing them in during a dusk or dawn when mosquitoes are feeding or using insect repellents can all help.

Try to minimize your horse's risk of exposure to West Nile and EE.

For more information on either of these diseases, you can go to the sunup website.

Another great tip for horse owners, if you worried about diseases in your area, equine Disease Communication Center has disease alerts for your state.

- Welcome to the Mezzanine Weather Report.

I'm Wes Lee.

The Oklahoma Mesonet has been in operation now for over 30 years.

The first goal of the system is to report on current weather information.

The second goal is to store all the historic weather information collected for later use.

Users have access to that data at any time on our website @mesonet.org.

Here is what the past data section looks like.

Let's focus on what is inside the Mesonet resources section here.

There are several different data sets that can be accessed.

The first icon takes you to the long-term averages in graph form.

In this example, I've graphed both the long-term average high temperatures, and this year's daily highs for the entire state.

You can graph just about anything weather related here in the map section.

You can map anything that is already completed.

Here I have mapped the high air temperatures for the summer of 2012.

The third option is daily data from an individual site.

Shown here is May data from Stillwater nine years ago.

There are two tools you can use to get access to daily data, such as when shown here for ADA in April of last year.

The last tool gives you either five minute, one hour, or daily data via email.

Data retrieval is free to all Oklahomans.

Now here's Gary with a focus on rainfall and drought.

- Thanks Wes, and good morning everyone.

Well, I'm gonna start with some good news thanks to Tropical Storm f Francine coming up over far southeastern Oklahoma.

We actually had some improvements in the drought monitor the rest of the state.

No such luck.

Let's get right to the new map.

So we did have the change down there in Mccartin County.

Now we just went from ex severe drought down to moderate drought.

However, it was an improvement now for the rest of the state.

We saw a larger area of that extreme drought down in southwest Oklahoma.

A little bit of an increase up in north central Oklahoma.

A little bit of an increase up in northeast Oklahoma.

So lots of increases, very little improvement.

Let's take a look at this 30 day rainfall map from the Oklahoma mesonet.

Quite a few sites had less than a 10th of an inch of rain for that 30 day period.

Nobody had a lot again, except for down there in Mccartin County and far southeast Oklahoma.

Otherwise, a little bit up in far northwest Oklahoma.

Some popcorn style thunderstorm amounts scattered about the state, but by and large, just a, a big deficit for the last 30 days.

If you look over the last 30 days, going back a hundred years for southwest Oklahoma, they had a average over that area of about two tenths of an inch.

So that's the second driest such period in the last a hundred years down in that part of the state, south central Oklahoma, the fifth driest.

And for statewide, it's the third driest August 18th through September 16th on record, at least going back to at least 100 years.

So I know everybody says it's always dry in August and September, but it's not this dry.

This is historical dryness, really getting up there in the historical record.

We just need rainfall.

It's pretty simple.

That's it for this time.

We'll see you next time on the Mesonet Weather Report.

- We're continuing our coverage of the study abroad trip to Scotland this week, professor Darryl Peele with the history lesson on economics.

- So you see me on sunup a lot talking about markets and prices, and we're here in a city full of statues and history.

But to economists, this particular statue is very, is very important.

This is a statue of Adam Smith, a 17th or 18th century Scottish philosopher who is considered by many the father of economics.

He wrote a book, the short title is The Wealth of Nations, and it basically described how markets work and people pursuing their self-interest will lead to increases in wealth based on trade and markets.

And so it's the basis for most of our market economy.

So yeah, this is just one more, you know, one more thing we're seeing here in Scotland.

We're here learning about agriculture and, and, and taking students on a tour and study abroad around, around Scotland and enjoying this opportunity.

- The bread has been broken this past week.

OSU leaders, Cindy Clary, Jason Lusk, president Casey SHRM and Regents chair Jimmy Harrell officially opened the new state-of-the-Art Agricultural Hall building on the OSU campus.

The grand opening capped off land grant week celebrating the university's three-part, teaching research and extension mission.

By the way, milling and baking specialist Renee Nelson, made the bread baking it at Cindy's pizza in Stillwater in a custom loaf pan fabricated by students in the Biosystems and Ag Engineering Department.

We're here at the Range Cow Research Center with Dr. Dave Lawman, our extension beef cattle specialist.

And, and Dave, over the years we've met up out here to, to talk about some of the research underway.

Why don't you kind of give us an overview of a, a couple of studies that, that you and the crew and the students are working on out here.

- Sure.

So, you know, we've made some progress, I think since the last time you were out and we've been studying cattle that are efficient utilizing forage.

I mean, that's the bottom line.

You know, ruminants have a special place in the world because they're really good at converting what winds up being sunlight, carbon dioxide and water into a high quality human edible food product.

And so we're trying to find animals that are better at that.

Meaning, you know, obviously the photosynthesis allows plants to grow and ruminant animals can utilize those plants.

So we've, we've got some neat data over the last couple of years where we've tested contemporary groups of both heifers and cows and we, we do see tremendous variability in not only forage intake but also animal performance.

- So there's two studies we wanna talk about.

Briefly tell us about the first one and what that, how that's set up and kind of what some of your initial observations are.

- Yeah, so Emma Briggs is a recent graduate PhD graduate student.

She's now on the faculty at Kansas State University.

But Emma did a really neat study where she tested three groups of heifers, one group each year.

And so she had a set of 55 replacement heifers last year.

And in this group of replacement heifers, again, you see tremendous variation among those heifers in forage intake and average daily gain.

In, in this set of heifers example, I thought I would share ola, there's one heifer that's consuming 17 pounds of hay a day on average over about a 70 day period after a 21 day adaptation period.

So long period of time.

But this heifer's consuming 17 pounds, which is about the group average.

Okay?

But she's gaining 1.4 pounds a day, consuming nothing but grass, hay and mineral.

Another heifer in that group is also consuming 17 pounds of hay a day and she's losing weight.

So tremendous difference.

And we think that the heifer that can gain a lot of weight and still not eat very much forage is going to be an efficient cow.

- So talk about this second study and kind of how that, what you're looking at there, it's involving, it's involving milking from time to time, right?

- Absolutely.

So we also, not only do we test a group of heifers each year over a long period of time, we also test a group of gestating cows each year and then a group of lactating cows.

So just another example, one group, Sam Talley, a master's student, just tested here this last winter, a group of contemporaries, and we found one cow in that group.

And, and yes, we do milk those cows about every three weeks, and so we know how much milk they're producing and we know the chemical content of the milk, you know, protein, fat and so on.

Anyway, in this group of cows, we, we found one cow that is not producing a lot of milk.

She's actually losing weight, consuming hay in mineral, but she's eating a lot.

So it doesn't get a lot worse than that, right?

She's not, she's not a very efficient cow.

In the same group, there's another cow that is producing a lot of milk far above the group average.

She's gaining weight.

And so, you know, if you think about that, producing a lot of milk consuming hay and gaining weight at the same time, that's a big deal.

And she's eating about, as I recall, about six pounds below the group average in hay intake.

So she's not eating a lot and she's very productive.

I mean, and it doesn't get much better than that.

- So this is very specific research, a lot involved in, in the structure of it.

In all the things that you all observe over a long period of time, how does this translate to average producers?

What, right, what are the takeaways at this stage and kind of some of the best practices to keep in mind in general for your herd?

- Yeah, so our goal is to, and that's one of our big objectives and and things we work on every day, is finding a method to identify those differences in forward utilization, efficiency in animals without having to go through an expensive and labor intensive test like we're doing here.

That's our job is to figure out ways to, you know, identify animals like that to make, you know, make agriculture more efficient.

- One of your very successful programs over the years has been the ranchers lunchtime series.

We've heard a lot about that, but you have a special edition coming out that our viewers may be interested in.

Tell us about that.

- Sure.

We do, on October 10th, we are going to have the opportunity, you know, if, if everything goes well, we'll have the opportunity to interview a legendary livestock producer.

And that is Mrs. Minnie Lou Bradley.

She is 93 years old this year, and I contacted her and asked her if she would mind if we shared some of her history and just absolute legendary accomplishments through our rancher Thursday lunchtime series.

And she's pretty excited about doing that.

- And she of course is a, a trailblazer for OSU, absolutely first woman to do a lot of things and, and really be great to have a conversation with her.

So - Yeah, - We look forward to that.

Dave?

- Yes, thank you.

- Well, thanks for having us, having us out to the North range today.

It's a, it's a beautiful morning to, to talk about our favorite subject.

- Yes, I agree.

- Thanks a lot, Dave.

Thank you.

And for information on the upcoming ranchers lunchtime series with Mini Lou Bradley, go to sunup dot OK state.edu.

We are talking about fall calving here at the North range, but before we know it, it will be weaning time.

So this week, sun ups Curtis Hare talks with Dr. Paul Beck about making weaning go a little bit more smoothly.

- I don't know about you, but I can't believe it's already time to start thinking about fall weaning.

But Paul, that time is almost here.

So what are some things that producers need to consider as they get into fall weaning?

- Well, weaning or even receiving, you know, high risk calves from a sale barn if you're a stocker operator, can be extremely stressful.

Just a little bit of pre-preparation, getting things ready ahead of time can really take care of the stress on, on you, your crew that's working, 'em and the calves that you're, you're processing.

- And I imagine one of the big things is just kinda the facilities, what you have working with on your area.

So what, talk a little bit about that.

- Yeah, you know, the first thing I do is we look at facilities, make sure our pens are, are back together.

If we work cows earlier in the summer, fixing the fences that they tore up, making sure the gates are all still swinging and, and just taking care of those built up weeds that may have grown through the summer.

All those things can be tripping hazards or just make it harder to work the cattle through.

And another thing that we don't think of, but that can really shut down the progress of weaning or cat working cattle is coming up on some hornets or, or bumblebees, you know, everything shuts down once the first person gets stung.

So go through police those areas and, and make sure that, you know, those hives are taken care of before you start, because there are always some that, that do come in and, and nest, you know, through the summer when you're not using your facilities.

- So when it comes to like things in regards to medicine too, I bet that's obviously pretty stressful when it comes to the calves.

- Yeah, I always think of facilities, pharmaceuticals, feed and equipment.

- Yeah, - So facilities, you know, is important.

The other thing that can really shut you down and slow you down, you know, is running outta medicine or not having the right medicine, having expired vaccines, you know, we can really shut down progress if we have to send somebody into town.

We're trying to get things done during the cool morning and anything that delays our, our getting cattle worked and processed in a timely fashion gets us working into the heat of the day.

Cattle start getting angry crews, start getting angry and you know, it's just really disruptive on the whole process.

- And you mentioned feed, talk a little bit about that.

What are some considerations there?

- Feed is, is really important, especially with high stress calves and, and when we wean calves off from the cow, if they're not familiar with the feeding facilities or, or milled feed, we can't just go get a just a cheap sweet feed or something like that, even though those are palatable, we need to get a designed receiving feed that is made for their nutrient requirements.

When we wean calves or bring in high stress calves from a sale barn, for instance, intakes feed intake will be very low or it can be, you know, half as much as what we would normally expect.

So the concentration of the nutrients in our receiving ration need to be higher than what we would normally look for from a, just a regular supplement.

So, you know, higher protein, 16% crude protein instead of a a 12 or you, you know, like that standard five weight, 500 pound calf higher in minerals because, you know, our normal mineral pack in a, in a supplement will be set for cattle that are consuming adequate feed.

If the intakes are low, we want a higher quality and higher concentration of a lot of those important minerals and trace minerals in those diets.

Clean, good quality, palatable hay is also extremely important.

We need to get those calves back to eating as quickly as we can to really get their, them healthy and and ready to respond to the vaccines and any, any other immune challenges that they will have.

And one thing to consider with calves that were weaning from cows, if they're unfamiliar with the water sources and the feed sources, they're gonna have to go and search and find those feed stuffs and everything.

So they're, they may not even know what dry milled feed is, so you know, have your feed bunk set perpendicular to the, the, the fence.

So when they circle the fence and they're walking around looking for feed or a way out or whatever, they'll come to the feed bunk and stop there and they may like get a smell and taste of the feed right off.

Another thing you can do is in the weeks leading up to weaning is get those calves prepared and used to those facilities.

Bring the cow herd and the calves in and feed them in the facilities you're going to wean in.

And that gets those calves familiar with where they're going to be so it's not such a shock and not such a new environment whenever you bring 'em in and separate 'em from their dam - Alrightyy.

Thanks Paul.

Dr. Paul Beck, OSU extension beef cattle specialist here at Oklahoma State University.

- Good morning Oklahoma and welcome to Cow-Calf Corner.

This week's topic, we re, we revisit a best management practice we refer to as fence line weaning.

If we haven't yet, we'll be weaning those spring born calves soon.

What are we talking about whenever we get into the concept of fence line weaning?

Basically we know that when we wean, we're gonna separate cows from calves.

If we can fence line wean calves, we are trying to permit dams and calf to still have some nose to nose social interaction across a fence and it will reduce the amount of stress on those calves.

At weaning, we're typically talking about doing this for about four to 10 days.

When we fence line wean, we know that calves will tend to eat more, drink more, and gain more weight and basically stay healthier short term and long term.

If we can fence line wean, now what do we need in order practice this?

We need some kind of a fence that's sturdy enough and strong enough to permit that social interaction without actually permitting the calves to nurse.

Typically a five strand barbed wire fence can do the job we want to, if possible, leave the calves in the same pasture where they've been raised and actually move the cows across the fence.

This comes with the added advantage that the calves already know where water is, where shade is or potentially where feed is in that particular pasture.

And so just as a means of reducing stress on calves, getting 'em off to a quicker start at that point that we do wean, if we can fence line wean it is always a positive and pays dividends and we wanna make our fence, sure our fences are good when it's not possible to leave the calves in the same pasture when they've been raised.

If we're actually gonna be moving the calves across the fence and they're gonna have to find feed and water and shade.

It is good if possible to orient water sources, feed sources, some sources shade along that fence line.

We know the calves and cows are gonna interact there.

They're gonna be more likely to find those things and get off to a better start and avoid more stress.

And along the lines of avoiding stress, we want to, if at all possible, avoid castration dehorning and giving that round of vaccinations at the point we actually wean those calves.

If we can wait a week or two down the road, or potentially have done that a few weeks prior, we're gonna make the weaning process itself less stressful.

I hope this helps and as always, thanks for joining us this week on Cow-Calf Corner.

- Today I thought I'd share a little bit of info about refractometers.

Refractometers can be used to measure the concentration of solutes in solution.

However, each refractometer is specifically designed to measure the concentration of a particular item.

In other words, refractometers are product specific.

For example, refractometers measure the concentration of sugar and aqueous solution in units called bricks.

It's important to note that some types of refractometers only operate within a specific range, therefore it is extremely important to choose the correct type.

So measurements will be accurate and meaningful.

Temperature can influence the accuracy of a refractometer.

It is often recommended that samples be allowed to come to room temperature before measurements are taken.

Unfortunately, room temperature may vary season to season as well as location.

Therefore, purchasing a refractometer that has automatic temperature compensation is a good way to minimize temperature induced variations in measurements.

There are two styles of refractometers commonly used in food processing.

Portable handheld refractometers and benchtop refractometers.

Portable refractometers are less expensive and can easily carry it into the manufacturing environment to take measurements.

However, they will usually only cover a limited range.

Therefore, it may be necessary to purchase several portable models to ensure all of the desired concentrations can be measured.

For example, measuring the sugar and fresh apple juice might require a refractometer with an operating range of zero to 18 degrees.

Bricks.

However, measuring the sugar concentration in apple jelly might require a refractometer with an operating range of 40 to 70 degrees.

Bricks, benchtop refractometers are more expensive.

However, a single unit can typically be used to measure degrees, bricks across the entire range of possible values.

Benchtop models are also available that automatically measure and display concentration readings.

The units can help reduce the variability between measurements taken by different operators since the measurements are read electronically rather than interpreted by a particular operator.

So just a little bit of info about refractometers.

For more information, please visit sunup.okstate.edu or food.okstate.edu.

- That'll do it for our show this week.

A reminder, you can see sunup anytime on our website and also follow us on YouTube and social media.

We leave you today with a few highlights of the recent OSU Turf Grass Field Day.

I'm Lyndell Stout.

We'll see you next time at sunup.