Cattle Conversations

This week, Shaye welcomes back Jacob Sebade, founder of AtTheYards and part of a 6,000-head family feedyard in Emerson, Nebraska, and Jim Akers, COO of the Bluegrass Livestock Marketing Network in Kentucky, about maximizing cattle exposure through better pre-sale information. They explain how the AtTheYards app helps sale barns collect standardized consignment details, videos, documents, and health/gen...

This week, Shaye Wanner interviews Shane Maddock of Mattock Ranches about holistic/regenerative management, shaped by his father’s practices since 1992. Shane describes their North Dakota commercial cow-calf operation with backgrounding, yearlings, heifer development, and some row crops and small grains near Maddock. He explains rebuilding degraded soils by reducing reliance on outside inputs through frequent moves, adequate ...

This week, Shaye welcomes back Chris Sherman, CEO of Tech Support Farm, to discuss fall cybersecurity and fraud threats facing farms and ranches. Sherman highlights RFID tag swapping in cattle sales, emphasizing vigilance and real-time verification to prevent animals being sold at incorrect values.  

He also warns that busy seasons increase bank fraud and vendor-payment scams, advising producers to ver...

Today on the Casual Cattle Conversations podcast, Shaye interviews Corteva pasture specialist, Rachel Walker, about prioritizing fall weed control to maximize usable forage and extend grazing days. Walker explains that winter-emerging weeds like plantain, thistles, and poison hemlock should be treated in fall when young, using options such as DuraCor and UltiGraze.  

She describes DuraCor’s ...

Today on the Casual Cattle Conversations podcast, Shaye talks with veterinarian Dr. Paige Schmidt-Rios about bovine respiratory disease (BRD), its impact across the cattle supply chain, and key prevention strategies for ranchers. Dr. Paige explains BRD (also called pneumonia or shipping fever) as a complex syndrome involving multiple viruses and bacteria, often triggered when stress and environment compromise immunity; she lists co...

This week, Shaye Wanner interviews Haley Potter from the Ambrook team about how artificial intelligence can support ranch profitability and long-term continuity when used responsibly. Potter, who has North Dakota ranching roots and splits time between ranches in Dell and Alder, Montana, says AI fits best for producers who need help with information gathering and admin tasks while keeping humans in control of decisions and fact-chec...

This week,  Shaye sits down with Chance, a ranch manager at the Noble Research Institute, about extending grazing seasons to cut winter feeding and hay costs. Chance describes Noble’s 5,100-acre native-grass operation running about 200 cows, using intensive rotational grazing (moving daily to every few days) and aiming to remove only the top third to half of forage during the growing season so enough standing grass remai...

This week, Shaye Wanner welcomes Chris Rawley of Harvest Returns to discuss what makes ranches “investable” and why it matters for operators seeking outside investors or bank financing to expand herds, land, or infrastructure. Raleigh explains Harvest Returns’ model of pooling investor capital and investing as a single partner via loans, notes, or equity, and says investable operations have a solid plan, clear fin...

This week, Shaye Wanner interviews NDSU livestock development specialist Jon Biermacher about the economics of buying weaned/backgrounded heifers in spring, breeding them, and selling them about a year later as long-bred heifers or as pairs, using an Excel-based enterprise budget tool developed from a student producer’s plan.  

The model includes key costs (heifer purchase, pasture/feed/hay/mineral, health...

In a solo episode of the Casual Cattle Conversations podcast, host Shaye Wanner shares her background growing up on a ranch that evolved into a registered Red Angus seedstock operation and now living on her husband’s centennial family farm, to frame three key transition planning tips.  

First, she urges producers to honestly ask whether they truly want to be on the family farm or would rather farm/ranch in...

Today on the Casual Cattle Conversations podcast, Shaye Wanner talks with ag tech consultants Chelsea Good (Good & Associates) and Jared Wareham (Horizon Venture Management) about how cow-calf producers can decide which technologies are worth adopting. They stress that many tools enter agriculture from outside the industry and may be “solutions looking for a problem,” so ranchers should evaluate technology like a to...

Today, Shaye Wanner interviews Jamie Courter, a University of Missouri assistant professor and genetics extension specialist, about research and producer use of cattle hair shedding scores. Corder explains hair shedding’s link to heat stress—especially in the Southeast with endophyte-infected fescue—and summarizes findings that earlier-shedding cows wean heavier calves, including Simmental data showing hair shed s...

Today on Casual Cattle Conversations, Shaye interviews Devlon Ford, a regenerative ranching advisor at the Noble Research Institute, about managing drought in cattle operations. Ford explains drought-stress indicators producers should watch for, including forage color and condition, lack of rainfall, and cattle manure consistency as a signal of declining forage protein.  

Reactive options discussed include early weaning, ...

Today on the Casual Cattle Conversations Podcast, Shaye interviews Jasper Oeltjen of Heritage and Horizons about why ranchers feel overwhelmed financially, mentally, and operationally, and how those areas intertwine. Jasper shares her background in education, IT strategy, and a 14-year cow-calf operation, describing how constant hustling led to plateauing and reactive decision-making that created domino effects in nutriti...

Today, Shaye welcomes back Nebraska rancher, Jaclyn Wilson to discuss how extensive international travel has shaped her ranch management and views of global agriculture. Wilson describes how travel began through the Nebraska LEAD program and expanded into regular international speaking and industry visits, leading to operational changes at home such as organized team planning with whiteboards and calendars and greater delegation. S...

On today's show, Shaye Wanner interviews Saskatchewan ranchers John and Deanne about using Vence virtual fencing on their 400 cow-calf commercial operation near the Bronson Forest. They explain how virtual fencing improves utilization on rough, boggy forest lease country where conventional fencing is difficult and expensive, while saving labor, supporting planned/rotational grazing, and helping soil health by controlling stock dens...