This textbook provides an integrated view of beef cattle production with a systems based approach, discussing the interrelationships of a broad range of aspects with the overall goal of optimising cattle production. This book provides the background to allow cattle producers to match their production environments with genetic, management, and marketing opportunities for sustainable beef production globally. This logic and resulting considerations can then be tailored to address specific regional challenges and opportunities worldwide. Considerations and examples for extreme situations will be provided, such as very small herds, very large herds, communal-group situations, and minimal artificial input systems.

This book relates the modern development of the Kansas beef cattle industry, combining both the history of production—including specific business problems and the significant work in upbreeding—and an examination of the marketing aspects of the industry that became so important during the twentieth century. Sharpest focus is on the period 1890 to 1940, after the Western beef industry had passed through the transition from using the expansive, open-range method of beef production to the more rational and organized methods of today. Wood presents a detailed discussion of the history of upbreeding. He points out the little-known fact that the fine-blooded animals—especially Herefords—that moved out from the Midwest were probably more important in stocking the ranges of the Plains and the Southwest than the many thousands of Longhorns driven from Texas. He emphasizes the interregional aspect of beef production and the unique role played by Kansas. On the threshold of the Great Plains, Kansas received cattle from both the Midwest and the Southwest for many years—upbred cattle moving South, and stocker cattle moving from the South or Southwest into Kansas for additional maturing before being shipped to the Midwest for fattening or for slaughter. Wood also looks closely at the relationship of cattlemen to government and to big business—railroads, stockyards, and packers. He sees the cattlemen as agricultural producers and business managers, rather than as romantic, self-reliant giants of the earth. Taking issue with the popular myth that cattlemen were and are ruggedly individualistic and disdainful of outside help, Wood discusses the cattlemen’s repeated demands for aid, especially during the 1930s. Included in the book is the history of the Kansas Livestock Association, which the author credits as being one of the most significant stock associations in the West during this century. Wood sets the KLA’s growth within the context of the larger organizational revolution in the nation’s business world. A concluding chapter surveys major developments after World War II, including the development of feedlots and irrigation, the new cross-breeding, decentralization of packers, and the advent of trucking to replace railroads. There has been scant information on these topics in the general literature of the Great Plains.

Beef Cattle Production and Trade covers all aspects of the beef industry from paddock to plate. It is an international text with an emphasis on Australian beef production, written by experts in the field. The book begins with an overview of the historical evolution of world beef consumption and introductory chapters on carcass and meat quality, market preparation and world beef production. North America, Brazil, China, South-East Asia and Japan are discussed in separate chapters, followed by Australian beef production, including feed lotting and live export. The remaining chapters summarise R&D, emphasising the Australian experience, and look at different production systems and aspects of animal husbandry such as health, reproduction, grazing, feeding and finishing, genetics and breeding, production efficiency, environmental management and business management. The final chapter examines various case studies in northern and southern Australia, covering feed demand and supply, supplements, pasture management, heifer and weaner management, and management of internal and external parasites.

Whether or not you are a beef consumer, are you satisfied that you know all you should about this product? Usual sources of information might, to a very large degree, not give adequate information about beef. Some of these sources might be biased—either f

An overview of the present beef industry. The consumer and the beef industry. The retailer-purveyor and the beef industry. The packer and the beef industry. The Feeder and the beef industry. The stocker-yearling producer and the beef industry. The commercial cow-calf producer andthe beef indutry. The purebred breeder and the beef industry. Integrated beef cattle operations. Beef cattle management decisions. Beef cattle reproduction. Beef cattle genetics. Beef cattle breeds and breeding. Beef cattle nutrition. The retail product of beef. Growth, development, and behavior of beef cattle. Beef type, form and function. Marketing of beef cattle. Herd health programs of beef cattle. Range, pasture, and other grazed forage management. Facilities and equipment for the cattle producer. Keeping up-to-date in the beef industry. Beef industry organizations. The past and future of the beef industry.

"By the late nineteenth century, Americans rich and poor had come to expect high-quality fresh beef with almost every meal. Beef production in the United States had gone from small-scale, localized operations to a highly centralized industry spanning the country, with cattle bred on ranches in the rural West, slaughtered in Chicago, and consumed in the nation's rapidly growing cities. Red Meat Republic tells the remarkable story of the violent conflict over who would reap the benefits of this new industry and who would bear its heavy costs"--