- Good morning everyone and happy fall.

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

As a government shutdown looms in Washington.

Our ag policy expert here in Oklahoma helps us understand what a standstill could mean for Oklahoma producers.

Then another dollars and cents topic, mapping out the costs associated with raising a cow, and its land grant week at Oklahoma State University.

Why that mission is fundamental for our state.

We'll have all that plus a look at the cattle markets and your Mesonet weather report.

Grab your cup of coffee because an all new Sunup starts right now.

We begin this morning talking with Dr.

Amy Hagerman, our OSU extension AG policy specialist about the latest in Washington, which of course is all over the news, the potential for government shutdown.

What is the scenario this - Year?

So every year in September, we get to have this conversation about will we get a government shutdown or won't we, we, what would the length of that look like?

And you know, in the past it's maybe just been over a weekend, very minimal disruption.

This year, this scenario does look a little bit different.

So as you know, there are 12 appropriations bills and they can pass in segments, which could keep portions of, for example, the Department of Justice or the military active and in place, even as other government agencies like the US Department of Agriculture would shut down because of a lack of appropriations.

So we are in a situation this year where agricultural appropriations have not passed at this point.

Now, the house did pass a continuing resolution that would fund the government through November and, and what this means for agriculture is that we would be able to continue operations while these appropriations discussions are ongoing.

However, the Senate did not pass that measure, which means that with house in recess until October 7th, we are probably looking at a short term government shutdown unless something unexpected happens in the Senate.

If that scenario happens, which it kind of seems like we're headed that direction, it's just a few days away.

What does that mean for Oklahoma producers?

So that would mean you wouldn't have access to those offices, those USDA offices in that window of time.

So any kind of business that needs to be done with USDA in those first few days of October, you would wanna make sure you've made your appointment, gotten into that office and taken care of that business before that date.

Because if you show up in that window of time, the office is not going to be open to be able to service, - Okay, what, what is the likelihood they will get an actual budget in the next couple of months or whatever timeframe that would be reasonable.

- So we have seen these movements kind of happen quickly in the last hour in the past.

And so that is a possibility, probably a, a low probability possibility at this point.

But seeing something happen in the next few months, the next few weeks, hopefully a continuing resolution being in place and that continuing resolution would take us forward a couple of months to be able to finalize these appropriations is more likely now we've seen these continuing resolutions carry us forward to November and December, even March and April of the next year before appropriations are in place.

If these offices are shut down, it is not like, oh, I'm out of office on vacation, I may be checking email.

They truly have to stop working.

So legally they have to stop working.

They do not have authority to work without these bills in place.

And so that means they can't answer emails.

However, there is an exception here.

So if you are considered a mission critical employee inspectors being an example of that, then they can continue to work.

I think it's important to understand that they're not guaranteed that they will be paid for working in that window of time because we don't have a budget for the government for that window.

But generally speaking, once a budget has passed and we're back in business in those offices, they will be paid retroactively for their time.

All right.

Let's switch gears a little - Bit, but on a related note, the Farm Bill, what is, what does this mean for the farm bill, this this time period?

- Kind of where are we at and what are you telling producers?

So there were some discussions and maybe some hopes of having what was called a skinny farm bill by September 30th, which is the expiration date for the latest extension of the 2018 Farm Bill.

Now in July we had the one big beautiful bill act, which extended the authorizations for key programs in the farm bill, the commodity programs, crop insurance, nutrition programs, conservation.

These all got deadlines that extended out our authorizations that extended out until 2031.

And so for those programs, we won't see any disruptions from this September 30 deadline.

Any kind of program that is still under those authorizations that end on September 30th, 2025, they will be halted until that skinny farm bill can be extended further or adjusted in a new bill passed.

With these scenarios - That you described that we're, you know, dealing with right now, what does it mean for the rollout of programs with the - Reconciliation bill that came out earlier this year?

So USDA needs time when a big bill like this rolls out to put together the official guidance in how they're going to implement the changes required by Congress.

We've already seen some of those changes roll out in crop insurance for the next crop insurance year because there are critical deadlines coming up for that.

But for other elements of the one big beautiful bill changes, we haven't seen the official USDA guidance come out.

This could slow down those changes.

It's a lot for you and - The team to kind of sort through, but you're here to help kind of keep, keep the communication - Open and tell us what you can when you can, right?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

We're planning some meetings with USDA when they are open and have their official guidance to be able to jointly share some of that information for these new programs, the changes in the programs, and what those could mean for Oklahoma agriculture.

And of course, we'll keep you updated as new programs come online.

All right, - Amy, thanks a lot.

I'm sure we will see you again very soon.

- Are you a livestock producer and wanna learn more about waste to make your production more successful?

Then come on over to OSU Extension's Livestock and Range Field Day.

This event will be October 9th at the Willard Sparks Beef Research Center in Stillwater.

Topics will include cattle and forage management, beef production, parasite control, and much more.

For registration or more information, just scan this QR code.

- Talking cattle now and your bottom line.

Sometimes a little historical context can help in understanding the true day-to-day cost of raising a cow.

Here's Sunup's Kurtis Hair with Dr.

Dave Lalman.

- Well, we're joined by our OSU extension beef cattle specialist, Dr.

Dave Lalman.

And Dave, you know, about 10 years ago when I pretty much started at sunup, you did a segment about, you know, the cost it takes to run a cattle on some land.

You know, what's changed since then?

Good - Question.

A lot to answer your question actually, Kurtis, we did one 16 years ago.

Oh yeah, it was the first time I went through these numbers and so yeah, it's fascinating to think about, you know, the context of, of what has, what has changed prices for cattle, obviously dramatic change and then, and then the cost to run a cow has changed quite a bit.

- So let's dive right into what's been the biggest kind of change.

I imagine it's probably feed, am I right?

- Yeah, I mean that's, that's certainly one of 'em that still is the biggest portion of the budget each year.

The the cost to run a cow, of course, pasture and external feed costs.

But when I arrived at OSU, I remember Dr.

Sally Northcutt always used to say it costs about a dollar per day to run a cow.

So $365, not so much.

No, no, the good times 2010 it was $615 per year to run a cow.

Now that includes all of the costs, fixed variable costs.

The only thing we didn't include in that is, is the operator labor.

If you were gonna pay yourself and you had the good fortune of, you know, owning the operation or being the primary manager of it, 2024, so about 67 ranches summarized in 2024, that cost was 1348.

So within $2 of being exactly double of what it was back in 2010.

So that's, that's pretty interesting.

- Yeah, - You asked about feed in 2010, feed was about $360 of the annual budget, again includes pasture and purchases or harvest feed.

In 2024 it was $684.

So if you do the math, that's not quite 50% or not quite double.

- Yeah, - Right.

And so actually the pasture and feed costs hasn't gone up as much as all the other expenses have.

Now they've gone up a lot, don't get me wrong, but you know, double would be 720 and it's 684 right now.

- And what about pasture?

Is it pasture conditions at all like that are in that are, you know, impacting this?

- Well they, they will, I mean, in drought years you're gonna have higher feed expenses, which includes pasture and purchase, harvest feed, you know, because you, you may have to go buy hay to get your cows through or, or concentrate feed or whatever.

But it's interesting if you break out the pasture portion of the budget since 2010, the pasture costs, if you're leasing pasture to graze, haven't gone up as rapidly as the other feed costs and interests and labor costs and machinery costs and so on.

So that's interesting.

It seems like the leasing rates are maybe a little bit behind the other, the other costs associated with cow calf enterprise.

Now here is the real shocker, I think in 2010 average weaning weights and back then they had about 107 operations in the dataset.

So it's a nice big data set.

The average weight of calves sold now that includes steers and heifers that were sold right around the time of winning was 576 pounds.

In 2024, the average weight of calf sold was 5 53.

- Hmm.

- So they've gone down, gone down, maybe not much because they've bounced around from year to year.

But if we look at the data over time and you plot every single year calf weaning weights in many parts of the country, particularly our part of the country, they're not increasing at the, at the ranch level, if you just look at phenotypic weaning weights.

- And why is that?

'cause I'm, I'm, you know, obviously even with high feed costs, that doesn't mean that producers aren't gonna supplement feed and get their cows to the weight that they need to be at.

So what, what do you think is happening?

- We have more and more data over time that that wrench environment is limiting the genetic expression of growth, at least at weaning.

Now I think the buyers know that when those cattle get to the feed yard, they just explode in terms of growth because you've taken the lid off of the environment by providing them with a high quality diet 24 7.

- Well, you know, there's a lot of change as you said, and a lot of it's just kind of seems somewhat negative, but there are some positives as well.

- Well, of course.

And, and price would be the number one.

Absolutely.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

- So we, here we are, you know, dealing with that.

- I'm thinking 10 years ago I should have got myself some cattle.

- Yeah, I mean, shouldn't we have, we have all, yeah, but yeah, that, so yes, or last week at OKC West and if we average the steer heifer price, much like these, these largest data sets I'm telling you about, the average price last week would've been $412 per hundred weight of calf weaned.

In 2010 that was $110 So they nearly quadrupled in, in calf price.

And then in 2024, just last year, they were only two 80, so four 12 today.

So, you know, obviously, you know, we're, we're sitting right here at, at all time record high cattle prices, but this will not, this will not go on forever.

- Yeah.

- And so I, I think Kurtis, one of the big take home messages is for people to know what's going on at their operation, know your cost of production, know if your calf weaning weights are going up or if they have stabilized and if your calf weaning weights have stabilized over time, it's probably time to shift your focus more to controlling cow costs rather than focusing on trying to swim upstream and increase calf weaning weight because that's gonna be more - Expensive.

Yeah.

And of course there's so much to get into and you're actually gonna be part of, you're gonna be starting a new series about this topic and we'll have you on in a couple weeks and this will be hopefully something that just like kind of can continues on just to help producers, right?

- Yeah, you bet.

It's time of the year.

We're starting to think about what are we gonna do to supplement our cows and try to hold those feed costs down.

So you bet.

And happy to, happy to get into that.

- All thanks Dave.

Dr.

Dave Lawman, OSU extension beef cattle specialist here at Oklahoma State University.

- Crop research fields like these behind me are fundamental to the land grant mission of Oklahoma State University, which was celebrated this week on the Stillwater Campus.

Here's a look at some of the highlights from Land grant week activities.

This depends on the county and whether sun's own Emma White showcase the impact of the Mesonet program on our state with a hands-on educational demonstration in front of the library.

AG careers were also a focus as well as this stop in Ag Hall, giving faculty, staff and students a chance to write down what land grant truly means to them.

Quite a variety of responses.

Yours truly chose the word everyone to represent the OSU extension and AG research mission of Sunup.

To bring a show like ours to everyone in the state, OSU is one of more than 100 land grant universities in the United States established through the moral acts of 18 62, 18 90, and 1994.

To provide an accessible and affordable college education in agriculture, mechanical arts, and other fields.

And to extend scientific information to the people of the state.

Oklahoma is the only state in the country with all three types of land grants, OSU, Langston University, and the College of the Muskogee Nation.

Hello, have you heard of the - Hello Oklahoma Emma White here with your weekly Mesonet weather report.

Last week we discussed the ideal conditions for planting an emergence of winter wheat and this week we'll spend a few moments discussing how to navigate the Mesonet to find winter wheat monitoring tools.

Even just monitoring weather conditions is important throughout the growing season.

If you go to mesonet.org, you can change the location to one nearest to you and see the weather for that area.

More weather information can be found under the tab weather, which includes maps such as rainfall and temperature and forecasts can be found under the forecast tab.

From this page, if you click the tab, agriculture at the top and then click crops, you'll see the wheat icon.

Within wheat, there are several products for decision making.

These tools include a degree day calculator, which is an accumulation of temperature throughout the growing season.

This product is important to indicate crop development.

Another tool is drift risk, which helps compare weather conditions with chemical product labels to decide if chemical drift could be an issue.

First hollow stem is a tool to monitor when the winter wheat has developed enough that cattle should be removed from the grazing of those fields.

First hollow stem occurs in the spring after winter wheat is no longer dormant.

Finally, the irrigation planner can provide information on the estimate of daily evapotranspiration from the winter wheat crop.

Gary McManus is up next with your state climatology report.

- Thanks Emma and good morning everyone.

Well, another chance of rain came through and we did see some improvements on the drought monitor.

We also saw a little bit of worsening in some areas.

Let's take a look at that new map.

First, let's take a look at the change map.

So anywhere you see the green, that's where we improve the drought monitor by one step.

And if you see yellow, we worsened it by one step.

So some good improvements down in southwest Oklahoma and also up a little bit in north central Oklahoma and a little bit of worsening up in north central Oklahoma, very close to where the improvements were.

So that's the way it is with Oklahoma rainfall.

This is what the actual map looks like.

We still have those areas of moderate drought in north central, central and southwest Oklahoma.

Again, most of the areas shrunk, including those yellow, abnormally dry conditions in those regions.

But we still, we still do have drought in Oklahoma unfortunately.

Let's take a look at this 10 day rainfall map from the Oklahoma Mesonet and we can see where those conditions improved, especially across southwest Oklahoma.

Their first substantial rainfall really in over 40 days, so great for those folks.

But you see up in the Payne County area, Logan County, that region, Pawnee County, we do still have areas that didn't get enough rainfall and that's where we saw the worsening of the drought.

That's it for this time.

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

- We are here now with Dr.

Darryl Peele, OSU extension livestock marketing specialist.

And Darryl, you just got back from Canada.

How was your trip?

- It was a great trip.

We got to see a lot of country, a lot of Canada as well as the northeast part of the us.

- Awesome, well we're glad to have you back here in Oklahoma.

You bet.

So looking at Oklahoma, we're kind of moving into fall now.

What's the fall run of stocker calves gonna be like?

- You know, I think we've changed the timing a little bit this year.

We kind of got an early start.

We had such high prices record high prices for cattle this summer, so we started seeing some larger volumes at least in Oklahoma.

And so I think we've probably moved some of the fall calves have already come to town.

Producers want to take advantage of this market.

They're nervous that it might not be there a couple months from now.

So they've, they've gone ahead and marketed these calves a bit early.

- So what does this mean for calf and stocker prices going into the fourth quarter?

- Well we, we already know that feeder cattle supplies are very tight.

Numbers are limited.

We've moved some calves early it it appears.

So I think probably we're gonna see a smaller than than expected fall run even smaller than we would've seen otherwise.

So I think that's gonna keep prices high.

There's still a lot of demand for both stocker and you know, feeder cattle, so I don't expect to see as much seasonal pressure on these prices as we move through the fourth quarter.

- We've had a lot of good rain so it seemed like we were gonna have some good wheat pasture, but then we've been dealing with armyworms, so how's all that playing out?

- Well it's always a challenge in the fall when you do early planted wheat army worms is an issue, so producers have to stay on top of that.

But the prospects are that we're gonna have a pretty good wheat pasture.

So I think there'll be quite a bit of demand, maybe more wheat pasture available than there really is cattle to place.

So it'll be interesting to see how things play out this fall.

- So speaking of pests, there was an announcement that the new World Screwworm was found about an hour south of the Texas border.

How is that gonna impact us if it makes it into the U.S.?

- You know, we've been watching this for many months now, concerned the threat is there, it's getting closer and closer.

So we're trying to be prepared.

There's a lot of actions nationwide in the states that are most likely to be affected, including Oklahoma.

So you know, we're trying our best to be as be prepared for it.

You know, market impacts are probably not really the biggest issue.

It's gonna be mostly a man, a management issue.

It costs a lot to deal with this pest.

It takes a lot of labor and a lot of attention on these cattle and you know, to monitor for the pests and so on.

So at all levels from producers all the way to the federal government, it's a continuing threat.

We'll have to keep a close eye on it going forward.

- Yeah.

So what should producers be doing in the meantime?

While they're kind of waiting, - Obviously, you know, keep an eye on things.

If you see something suspicious, you need to to to follow through with that and and see if, you know, make sure we don't inadvertently find it in places we're not expecting it.

- Yeah.

Well hopefully we have a good update in a couple of weeks, Darryl.

Okay, we'll see you then.

- A reminder for you about the upcoming 2025 Cowboy Stampede, which is OSU'S Annual Rodeo.

This event is October 2nd through the fourth at the Payne County Expo Center in Stillwater.

Each evening's performance features nine events with students from different universities competing as individuals and as teams.

Tickets are $10, but kids get in free.

For more info about the Cowboy Stampede, just scan the QR code on your screen or check out the sunup website.

- Good morning, Oklahoma.

Welcome to Cow-Calf Corner.

Our topic this week is anaplasmosis.

I've had a couple producer calls in the last couple weeks.

Some people have lost some cows and so we go back and revisit this topic.

Anaplasmosis is a disease that gets carried by flies and ticks.

Those that take a blood meal off one cow and potentially go take another blood meal off, another cow can spread anaplasmosis.

In a best case scenario, we're gonna see outbreaks where our cows begin to get sick, maybe have abortions, maybe act lethargic.

We could potentially bring them back with some antibiotic treatment.

And a worst case scenario, typically we know that we've got anaplas outbreak when we start seeing dead cows.

On the upside, PL typically only impacts cattle that are two years of age or higher.

But there are several best management practices that we can effectively use to control this disease and prevent any death loss.

And with the value of cattle right now, protecting our investment, avoiding that risk of PL and making sure that our inventory stays intact is very important to our bottom line.

So what can we do as far as best management practices to control anaplas?

First thing is talk to your veterinarian.

You're gonna need a vet client relationship in order to get a VFD prescription written in order by anaplas control mineral supplement.

A low level of antibiotic incorporated into a mineral effectively controls anaplas and cow herds.

Cows consume that mineral, gets that low level into their blood system and they are effectively immune with consistent intake of that.

You've gotta have that vet client relationship, that script that's gonna have to be written and sent to your vendor wherever you're buying mineral is a very important step in that.

What else can we do from a standpoint of management to prevent pl?

Don't share needles as you are working cows.

If you are castrating, dehorning, anything where you've got metal instruments or syringe involved where you're potentially transferring blood from one animal to the next is a bad way, or I should say a very effective way to spread pl.

And so swapping needles, animal to animal, making sure we don't do anything to permit that blood from moving one animal to the next is a very important step in controlling anaplas.

So effectively, mineral control.

Don't, don't share needles or change needles, animal to animal.

And we can go a long way toward preventing anaplas.

As we think about holistic management year round, we do gain some upside by burning pastures.

That's gonna help to control ticks, especially on those spring burns.

And anything we can do to rotate pastures and just use pesticides to keep flies and ticks off of cattle is gonna work to our advantage as well.

As always, thanks for joining us this week on Cow Calf Corner.

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

Remember, you can see us anytime on our website and stream us anytime on our YouTube channel, youtube.com/sunup tv.

We leave you today with some sights and sounds from the start of the Tulsa State Fair, captured by our chief photographer, Mitchell Alcala.

I'm Lyndall Stout and we'll see you next time at Sunup.