- Good morning everyone.

I'm Lyndall Stout.

We have a great show lined up for you today on Sunup.

We're talking with Dr. Roslyn Biggs about rabies and whether your pets or livestock need an updated vaccine.

Then we meet with an Oklahoma County producer carrying on the family ranching tradition on behalf of his in-laws.

Plus results from OSU Wheat variety trials around the state are now posted online as you make planting decisions.

We'll have these segments for you plus much more.

Is that coffee ready?

Because an all new Sunup starts right now.

We begin this morning with Dr. Roslyn Biggs, OSU, extension, veterinarian and beef cattle specialist, and today we wanna talk about rabies, which is something when we were chatting before the interview, we heard a lot about as kids, but it's not quite as much in the regular conversation anymore, but it's still around.

- You know, we have a lot of promotion, certainly from our companion animal veterinarians for vaccination of cats and dogs, right?

But here in Oklahoma this year, we've actually had cases in cattle, in horses, goats, and dogs as well.

And so it's a concern beyond just just our pets.

- Right.

And talk about kind of how it happens and, and what the risk is for these other animal groups that you mentioned.

- Well, our main wildlife reservoir carrier here in Oklahoma is gonna be skunks.

In fact, as a, I've been a veterinarian over 20 years, every skunk that I have ever submitted for testing, unfortunately, has been been positive.

The disease itself is caused by a virus, and there are no treatments, no cure once an animal or human becomes infected.

And so vaccination is our key for prevention.

- How does transmission occur between the wild animal and say cattle in the field?

- The virus is typically carried in secretions, predominantly in the saliva.

That's kind of the classic, you know, furious mad dog that that bites, bites an animal.

Same situation with, with a skunk.

Cattle are curious by, by nature, they interact with wildlife, get a bite, and unfortunately can contract the disease that way.

- You talked about those, you know, the, the kind of mad dog symptoms, but it doesn't look that way in every animal.

- It doesn't.

And so we have to be, those are the classic signs we're all familiar with.

But anytime we have an animal with neurologic disease of really any kind, change in behaviors, in coordination, those kind of things, rabies has to be on the list of possibilities.

We can also see paralysis.

That's why we see the saliva or drooling difficulties swallowing, for instance.

And really any neurologic type sign can, can develop because of rabies.

- And there's no treatment, - No treatment whatsoever.

And so that's why it becomes important to have vaccinations.

And although in cattle, it's not something that I would generally recommend for the entire herd.

For instance, I do have certain groups of animals, particularly when it comes to livestock, large animals, certainly our, our pets we wanna vaccinate.

But when it comes to large animals, I wanna think about animals of high value and really two types of value there.

Either high economic value bulls, for instance, right?

We're spending a significant amount for, for bulls or donor females, or show animals.

So that also leads to animals of high sentimental value.

Those sentimental value animals also typically have a lot of interaction with humans, many times children.

And so we want to make sure that they're covered with rabies protection.

- What is the risk for humans with your horses or cows that you're around?

How can that transmission happen too?

- Transmission can happen, although the risk is relatively low, but again, because it is a virus that has no, no treatment, any human that would be exposed to a positive rabies animal would have to go undergo rabies prophylaxis.

And that's something that we really would like to not have to deal with at all.

- How often do our, our pets need to be vaccinated and our, our high value or - Sentimental livestock?

Sure.

So it, it depends upon the species and it depends upon the type of vaccine used in our pets.

There are one year and three year vaccines that are utilized and you have to go through your appropriate boosters in order to be covered.

That needs to be administered by a veterinarian.

In most cases, the vaccines for large animals are gonna be annual vaccines.

- And the documentation is really important too.

And working with veterinarian on all of all of those needs, right, in case there is some, - In case there's an exposure, - Right?

In case there's a need to look back at all of that, - We want those vaccinations administered by a veterinarian.

We wanna keep documentation those rabies vaccination certificates that most folks are familiar with, with their companion animals.

And we need to have those, we need to keep those vaccines current and keep 'em handy if you find yourself in the event of an exposure.

- We don't wanna panic, but these are some really, really good reminders about our, our responsibility as animal owners.

- Absolutely.

It, it is absolutely no reason to panic, but we probably wanna double check where, where animals sit with the rabies vaccination status.

And if we have some that haven't been vaccinated, we may need to visit with our veterinarian on what we might, what their recommendations would be for that.

- And I think any questions, any, any clarity that people have, their local veterinarian in their community is really the place to start.

- Absolutely.

They're going to be able to assess risk for that individual animal and get you covered there.

- Okay, Dr. Biggs, thank you very much.

- Thank you.

- And just a quick reminder about the upcoming Panhandle Crops Field Day.

This event will be held on August 21st at the Oklahoma Panhandle Research and Extension Center near Goodwill.

This is a great opportunity where producers can learn about irrigation, cotton, regenerative agriculture, and much, much more.

If you would like more information on this event, just scan this QR code right here, or you can always go to sunup.oK state.edu for more information.

- Hello, Oklahoma.

This is Emma White here with your weekly Mesonet weather report.

This past week had a surprising twist with much appreciated precipitation, which helped soil moisture conditions, but that rain focused on specific areas rather than statewide precipitation.

Let's dive into where the water went and what has changed.

This is a map of the plant available water as of August 12th for the top 16 inches of the soil.

Plant available water is related to soil moisture, for example, when it rains and soil moisture increases, so does plant available water.

I am going to add circles on here to look at places where that plant available water has improved or not improved since August 5th.

The blue circled areas in north and south central Oklahoma are where soil moisture has increased.

Thanks to the rains last week, the gray circles indicate that not much has changed, which is more in the central and eastern parts of the state.

The steady numbers indicate that the recent rains may have helped these numbers a bit to prevent significant decline, but not enough to cause large increases of soil moisture.

The blue and the gray contrast with these black circles, the black circled regions are where the soil moisture and the top 16 inches has gotten lower since last week.

Broadly, we want these numbers to stay above 50%.

Just as a general guideline, so many parts of the state, particularly the areas and the black circles, would greatly appreciate some more rain.

Even some parts in the gray circle, though, those numbers are holding steady.

Some are quite low, particularly in south and north central.

What does this mean for crops?

Well, the crops planted at this time of year generally appreciate water.

We do not yet have the crop progress report for Oklahoma.

That would include the implications to progress from last week's rains.

But as of early August, peanuts, cotton and sorghum are making fairly typical progress.

Soybean and corn are lagging just a bit.

Gary McManus is up next with your state climatology report.

- Thanks Emma, and good morning everyone.

Well, we got some pretty good rains over the last week since we last spoke, but it was pretty hit and miss.

So some folks got some really good rain.

Other folks, not so much.

Did that impact the drought monitor?

Let's take a look.

Well, as you can see, we have more yellow color on the map.

Unfortunately now it's not drought, it's still that abnormally dry conditions or D zero, but it is the gateway to the D one or moderate drought category if we don't get rainfall.

So now it's mostly just in the northeastern corridor down into central Oklahoma.

Here's the culprit right here.

You can see on the consecutive days with less than a quarter inch of rainfall map from the Mesonet, we're up to basically a month since we've had good rainfall there as we go.

Nor from Northern Logan County up into Osage County, and then down into the southeastern part of the Oklahoma City metro area just a bit, but also over there in east central Oklahoma, Southeast Oklahoma, northeast Oklahoma.

So every place has a little bit of a a, a little bit of a, a ding in in this map, unfortunately.

Here's the culprit number two.

So over the last 30 days, departure from normal rainfall from Oklahoma Mesonet, we have a lot of deficits on this map, but especially from central over into east central Oklahoma, and again, up into north central and northeast Oklahoma.

So deficits of two to three inches are widespread in those areas, and that's abnormally dry even for this time of year.

That's it for this time.

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

- Wheat producers making planting decisions may wanna check out results from this year's OSU Wheat variety trials.

Our researchers set up plots across the state to see how different varieties respond to local growing conditions.

Also, producers can have detailed information to choose the very best variety for the highest impact on your bottom line.

Those results are now online.

So you can compare performance qualities like yield test, weight, protein concentration, disease resistance, and key traits like shattering lodging and heading date.

Scan the QR code on your screen to see the variety trial results.

We also have a link for you on the Sunup website.

- It's that time in the show to check in on the livestock markets with our livestock marketing specialist, Dr. Darryl Peel.

And Darrel, we still have a, you know, a little bit left this summer, but let's go ahead and look into the fall in regards to calf marketing.

So what can producers expect with calf marketing this fall?

- You know, normally we expect to see seasonally lower prices in the fall.

Calf markets are generally lower in the second half of the year.

That certainly hasn't been the case this summer.

We've actually gone up through the summer through July to new record highs, and I think that's indicative of the underlying market that we're in.

So, you know, we're, we're probably not gonna see the, the normal seasonal pressure.

I expect these calf prices to stay high through the fall.

They may flatten out a little bit.

That would be the seasonal pressure being offset by these strong markets.

So I don't look for the normal seasonal decline this fall.

- So should producers, you know, market normally or change anything?

- Well, you know, we've got record high prices.

Producers obviously are tempted to just sell everything right off the cow, but in fact, there's really no reason to do anything differently.

Weaning still has a lot of value.

Calf hef calf health is very important in the industry.

You know, unweaned calves will be discounted relative to wean calves in the fall, especially in the fall of the year when we have a lot of health problems anyway with calves.

And so even longer weaning periods actually pay more.

We have research that shows that now.

So, you know, it, it's, there's reasons to go ahead and do the weaning that you would normally do and other things, even though it's tempting to just, you know, kind of take the easy way out and, and sell 'em right off the cow.

Are - There, what about preconditioning programs?

Are those gonna pay - Off?

You know, same question.

I mean, a lot of producer, you know, a lot of times we think, well, gee, at these record high prices, you know, there won't be a premium for, for preconditioning, which would be weaning plus all those other things you should be doing with these calves, right?

And, and, and yet past research shows that there will, you know, they will pay.

If you think about it from a buyer's perspective, the we're paying such record high prices for these calves, the value of that health insurance, it really, that you get from a preconditioning program is worth even more.

So we expect to continue to see those pay preconditioning programs, pay premiums.

- So what about, you know, even with high calf prices, what about retaining some of those calves as stalkers?

- Well, you know, right now in the market, obviously that buy sell relationship between the value as a calf and their value as a heavier feeder animal, the value of gain right now for those, you know, for those pounds are, is about half what it is for selling calves.

So there's less market incentive right now to put additional weight on these calves.

But at the same time, if you've got the feed resources, you know, maybe that long we weaning program is a way to put a little bit of weight on 'em and take advantage of that.

But at the same time, you know, whether or not you should devote forage resources to, to wean calves or to retain calves, the market's really telling you that your forage has more value if you can use it for calf production.

So, you know, if you're thinking about cows or heifers or something that would add to the herd in the future, maybe that's where you wanna focus your attention.

Or may, you know, maybe you wanna sell the steers and keep the heifers either for yourself or to sell as breeding animals for somebody else.

So think those things through in this, in this kind of market.

All righty, - Thanks Daryl.

- Dr. Daryl Peele, livestock marketing specialist - Here at Oklahoma State University, - OSU Extension's, popular ranchers.

Thursday lunchtime series is back.

Join the OSU Beef Cattle Experts, experienced ranchers and scientists to learn and share production management and marketing tips.

The Zoom webinars are all on Thursdays at noon and they're free, but you do need to register so you can receive the zoom link and more details.

Just scan the QR code on your screen, contact your county extension office or go to the sunup website for a direct link to registration.

- I'm Mark Turner wildlife extension specialist here at OSU.

And today we're gonna be talking about native weeds for wildlife.

It's that time of year that a lot of folks are looking out at their properties and things are starting to get a little bit grown up, especially with all the rainfall that we've had.

And a lot of folks are starting to hook up the bush hog to, to clean things up and, and although there certainly are objectives where that can be important, don't overlook the value of native weeds or broadleaf plants that we commonly refer to as Forbes for various wildlife species.

For example, here I've got, I've got several species here, I'm gonna talk about the first one being common ragweed.

There's several species of ragweed that are native here to Oklahoma, common ragweed being one of them.

Ragweed, of course, a lot of folks know it because it produces pollen.

That can be problems for folks with allergies during the the fall.

But from a wildlife perspective, this is one of the best species that we have to produce food and cover for several native wildlife species.

For example, this is high quality forge for whitetailed deer that's highly selected during the time that bucks are growing antlers and are lactating with their fawns.

It also produces a seed that's relished by several species of birds, including Northern Bob White Partridge Pea is another one.

You can identify that with those showy yellow flowers.

That's really common.

It's common in areas that have been recently disturbed or disked or sprayed.

Partridge pea is an excellent deer forage plant.

And again, based on the name you might infer that it's eaten by birds, one of those being Bob White.

This is one that during the wintertime is an important food plant for Bob.

White.

Croton is another species of native weed or native forb that's really readily used by several wildlife species.

It produces a seed that's commonly used by several species of, of birds.

Another name for this plant is actually dove weed.

And so, as you might infer, based on that name, doves actually really readily use these seeds.

And so if you're interested in dove hunting and you find a patch of crot on your property, you might consider leaving it until dove season.

And after it's matured, then go ahead and mow it.

And obviously at that point, doves are gonna be readily using it.

And then finally, des odium is another weed that that's commonly used by wildlife that's really common.

Several systems in Oklahoma, it's more commonly known as beggar's lice.

And, and oftentimes if you're out walking in a field and you end up getting those, those seeds stuck to your pants that, that have that Velcro like feel to them, those are actually most of the time seeds of beggar's, lice beggar's, lice.

Although it can be kind of frustrating if you have a bird dog or, or it's getting stuck on your pants.

Those seeds are readily eaten by quail.

And this is also a very high quality deer forage plant.

So again, when you're out there considering management of your property, don't overlook the value of native broadleaf plants for wildlife.

For more information, check out several of the resources on our website if you're interested in learning more about plant identification and managing native plant communities for wildlife.

- Good morning, Oklahoma.

Welcome to Cow-Calf Corner.

Our topic this week is, what is the value of hay right now in Oklahoma?

And so we walked back through a little bit of history, but it's interesting how we got here addressing this question of what is hay worth in August of 2025.

If we look back over the last three years, it's been kind of a bumpy road.

That big drought in 2022 didn't leave us with a lot of hay inventory as we go back and forth from there.

And just taking a look at what has happened in 2025, hay was actually at relative to the 10 year average price on a national basis across all types of hay, hay was more expensive than normal.

In January, we actually saw that seasonal increase up until May go up by 20 some dollars a ton.

Since that time, there's been ample moisture.

Mother nature's cooperated with us, probably seen a few more acres that became Hay meadows this year.

And as a result here in Oklahoma when, when we finally got into hay fields in the past month, the reports of yields have been good.

And we're all asking that question from both sides of this equation.

Whether we have hay to sell or we need to procure it and buy it the way it looks right now, some of those early forecasts for hay being more expensive this year, probably overestimated.

It looks like average hay price for the year is gonna be down.

That is the report from most all around the country now, as we look out west where they're still in a drought about the only higher prices of hay we see in the past couple months are coming from some of the Western states.

So bottom line, what can we expect?

It looks like a good year for end users.

We anticipate seasonal declines and probably follow typical trends from here to the end of the year.

Looks like inventories are up and probably as compared to last year, producers or hay buyers should expect to be paying about 10 to $20 less per ton as opposed to last year.

I hope this helps.

And as always, thanks for joining us on Cow-Calf Corner.

- Finally today we meet with a producer who's decided to pick up ranching to carry on the family legacy Sunup's.

Kurtis Hair takes us to Oklahoma County for our story - 83 degrees, and it's not even 10 o'clock in the morning yet.

And up in the hay barn you can tack on a few degrees for Oklahoma County producer Todd Thomas tossing out square bales for morning feeding surrounding by ranching relics of the past is the dream.

- If I understand correctly, this is a 4H project, my mother-in-law and my wife's uncle made as kids for a float in a parade or something like that.

And here it is here, probably 40 plus years later - It may appear as though Todd has brave many a summer feeding mornings in an unforgiving Oklahoma heat since he was a kid.

But this is all still somewhat new to him.

- I always wanted to be a cowboy when I was a kid.

I'm, I'm from, from here, I'm from, from Jones, Oklahoma.

I was not raised around livestock or agriculture, but I married into this family and, and found myself where we are today.

Yeah, we have a multi-generational family farm here in Jones that started in 1945 by Ralph and Ruth Wilson.

And so here we are four generations later where we are able to try to continue what they started.

- The farm belongs to Todd's wife's family and it didn't take long for Todd to dip his toes into that cowboy dream.

- When we, we moved home from college and began living on the family farm, I asked if I could bring a horse out here and - Todd and Rachel, along with her three kids live, literally a stones throw away from Rachel's parents on the farm around the time they moved back.

Production on the farm had progressively slowed.

Rachel's parents were not involved in the operation and her grandparents, John and Ruth Ann were in the process of scaling down.

- They wanted to keep cattle on the, on the farm, but they were not growing their herd or bringing in new animals.

It was just coasting.

And, and then we, we saw an opportunity to get involved - The opportunity grow and sell beef directly to the consumer.

But an opportunity is just an idea until you take advantage.

And starting a cattle business isn't easy.

So Todd started off small buying cattle within their budget, then putting back earnings into the operation to buy breeding animals.

But he still needed help.

- A lot of risks that are associated with those first five to 10 years of, of trying to carve out an operation.

- Josh Campbell is the beginning farmer and rancher program coordinator for OSU extension.

Todd met Josh while getting his hay tested and Josh was able to get Todd involved in the program.

- We kind of have formed a relationship over the, the last couple of years.

He has reached out for a number of different things, whether it be better understanding how to utilize forages for, for his, his cattle.

- The beginning Farmers and Ranchers program has many resources to assist aspiring producers, including online courses for topics such as selling meat directly to the consumer.

- What we do as a program is, is help people identify what those biggest obstacles are and try to mitigate those risks.

Josh - Came up with a outside opportunity through Texas and Southwest Cattle Raisers Association for a leadership grant that they have.

And through that we've been able to purchase more cattle, put in a, a shop that houses a walk-in freezer so we can manage our beef more efficiently.

Prior to that, I stored beef on in several different homes on our family farm and deep freezers in their garages.

Yeah, well we we're grass fed and grass manage so we don't be - Our and r cattle company is currently in its fifth year of operation and Todd has two local stores where he markets his beef.

He says he's proud of what he's accomplished so far, but staying true to what this farm represents is the most important family.

It's even in the company's name, r and r as Todd said earlier, his wife's great-grandparents, Ralph and Ruth Wilson started this farm in 1945.

And that legacy is important - And we reintroduce Herefords to our farm, which a little side note, when this operation started in 1945, they were predominantly operating with Hereford cattle.

The prior generation of our family that was operating this, this family farm is in their eighties.

I understand that age, at age 35.

I'm part of 8% of the population of farmers in Oklahoma.

I think the, - The new normal for agriculture for many people is, is figuring out how to graft back into those family operations in a way that's maybe a little bit innovative and different than the way things have been done before.

- Although the family farm skipped a generation in regards to management, Todd says his in-laws are a tremendous help and proud of what he and Rachel are doing.

And he always has John and Ruth Ann to lean on for advice or help around the farm, particularly John, like Todd.

John married into this farm almost a lifetime ago, and though he might be a man of few words, you can tell there's a lot of pride knowing this farm and its legacy still has a lot of life left in it.

- Hopefully one of my children will pick up where we leave off and continue what we, what we have here, which is so rare in, in our communities and it's something I'm really proud of that we're doing - In Oklahoma County.

I'm Kurtis Hair.

- Thank you Kurtis.

And on the subject of livestock, the industry lost a true legend this past week.

Rancher and CattleWoman mini Lou Bradley passed aay on August 5th, born in Hinton, Oklahoma.

She was the first woman to graduate from then Oklahoma, a and M's.

Animal husbandry program.

And the first woman on OSU livestock judging team.

Another first for a woman president of the American Angus Association.

Bradley and her family owned Bradley three Ranch in Childress, Texas.

She received many accolades in her career, including for advancing the Angus breed and successfully cross-breeding herford and Angus cattle.

And in 2014, her portrait was unveiled in the saddle and sirloin gallery in Lexington, Kentucky.

Among the most distinguished in the industry, mini Lou Bradley will be missed.

And that'll do it for our show this week.

A reminder, you can see sunup anytime on our website.

Follow us on our social media and stream us anytime on our YouTube channel.

youtube.com/sunup tv.

I'm Lyndall Stout.

Have a great week everyone.

And remember, Oklahoma Agriculture starts at Sunup.