Producer Features

You don’t get to choose your family, but you do choose how you communicate and work with them. Read one Oregon family’s story.

At 13 years old, Nicholas Gutierrez not only has a winning smile, he also has winning alfalfa hay.

Often dubbed the “nemesis of the livestock industry,” grazing toxic tall fescue can be an “eat or get eaten” proposition. You either choose to spray and plant an endophyte-free variety, rotate crop species, supplement your animals or take a loss where it counts the most … your cattle’s production.

Summer slump presents a problem to many producers, but when faced with a few hot, empty weeks and hungry cattle, it becomes a real issue.

Cultural missteps: The Got Milk? slogan is translated in Spanish as “Are you lactating?” The Chinese translation of KFC’s finger-lickin’ good slogan was translated initially as “Eat your fingers off.” It can be tricky working with other languages and cultures.

Eckenberg Farms "plays in shades of green" as they negotiate hay cube sales in the foreign marketplace. With 50 years of pride behind them, Eckenberg Farms in Mattawa, Washington, works with export markets to place hay cubes containing 18 percent protein in the hands of cattle feeders worldwide.