Livestock

Bird flu has delivered another painful blow to the egg industry, this time at a large Illinois laying operation. There is no clever upside to losing nearly a million birds. By the numbers: Federal officials confirmed highly pathogenic avian influenza affecting 934,600 laying hens in Clinton County, Illinois. Local officials identified the premises as a Rose Acre Farms site near Germantown. Rose Acre ranks among the largest U.S. egg producers. What happened? The affected flock

American sheep producers have a bone to pick with lamb imports, and this time they took the argument straight to Washington. At an October 16 hearing, domestic producers said imports are squeezing their ability to compete, while Australia and New Zealand argued they are helping fill a gap in American supply. Sheep have entered the courtroom. Feeling fleeced: Industry testimony put the U.S. share of its own lamb market at 21.1% in 2025, down from 27.6% in 2021. The American Sh

Federal grazing just got a fresh push, and ranchers holding Forest Service permits got the memo in actual letter form. Very vintage. Very Washington. Roundup request: Brooke L. Rollins, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, sent a letter to livestock ranchers with grazing permits on U.S. Forest Service allotments, telling them to put the June grazing directive to work. The policy aims to streamline and expand federal-land grazing while staying inside existing law and regulations. Op

Michigan’s cage-free egg law survived its latest court challenge, proving the legal system can still put all its eggs in one basket and then argue about whether the basket is constitutional. Scrambled suit: A federal judge tossed the Trump administration’s challenge to Michigan’s egg sales law, which bans the sale of shell eggs from hens kept in conventional cages. The ruling did not crack the bigger preemption question. Instead, the court said the federal government had not

Fence-line fire: A Colorado rancher’s wildfire loss has wandered into one of the biggest climate liability fights in the country. Kathleen Kelley, a fourth-generation Colorado rancher, saw the Lee Fire scorch nearly all of her ranch, dry up water for hundreds of cattle and force her to sell the herd that had anchored the operation. Her story has become part of a broader caseasking whether fossil fuel companies can face state-level claims for climate damages. Court corral: The

Gray area: Colorado’s wolf program just hit the part of reintroduction where the brochure meets the livestock bill. State wildlife officials temporarily paused the chronic depredation directive that allowed lethal removal after repeated wolf attacks, saying future removals will be handled more conservatively while the population picture comes into focus. Translation: problem wolves are not off the hook, but the hook is now wrapped in committee language. Population math: The s

Virtual fencing is moving from ranch-tech novelty to public-lands tool, which is great news for anyone who has ever priced a fence and then quietly stared into the distance. No posts required: Halter and the Foundation for America's Public Lands are expanding virtual fencing on BLM-managed grazing land, with nearly $3 million committed across 15 projects, more than 4,500 cattle collared and over 1,300 miles of virtual fence drawn. The solar-powered collars use GPS and sound c

Cattle health researchers are asking a simple question with expensive consequences: does every animal in the group really need the same antibiotic treatment? Treat the risk: Brad White, professor of production medicine and director of the Beef Cattle Institute at Kansas State University, helped develop models designed to identify cattle groups most likely to benefit economically from metaphylaxis, the preventive treatment of a group when bovine respiratory disease risk is hig

The West has a horse problem, and no, it is not that anyone forgot to close the barn door. By the numbers: Federal land managers estimate more than 85,000 wild horses and burros are roaming western public lands. Detailed 2026 program data put the population at 85,466 animals against a maximum Appropriate Management Level, or AML, of 25,592. That is more than three times the agency’s target while drought tightens the same forage and water supplies used by wildlife and livestoc

USDA is telling dairy checkoff climate work to take a long walk back to the barn. The squeeze: U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins told National Dairy Board Chair Lolly Lesher to halt several environmental initiatives that USDA says are not aligned with current department policy. The list includes Scope 3 greenhouse gas accounting, the U.S. Dairy Net Zero Initiative, the Greener Cattle Initiative, the Sustainability Alliance, the Dairy Stewardship Commitment, FARM

New Mexico just got a fresh inspection stamp, and small processors may be very interested in the ink. The move: USDA and the New Mexico State Livestock Board finalized an agreement bringing the state into the State Meat and Poultry Inspection Program. That makes New Mexico the 31st state with an approved state program, giving local processors another inspection lane while keeping standards federally equivalent. The bigger plate: The timing is not random. USDA also launched th

Cattle country is not exactly breaking up with President Donald Trump, but some ranchers are checking the relationship status. Rural side-eye: Ranchers’ loyalty is being tested as beef import moves collide with years of rural political support. The frustration is not abstract. Producers finally seeing profitable cattle prices do not love watching Washington reach for imports as the consumer-facing fix. Shocking, we know. The beef with beef: Earlier plans to allow more tariff-

New World screwworm is the kind of pest that makes “bug problem” sound wildly too polite. Bug bunker: Flyttr announced plans for a large-scale biosecurity research and countermeasure platform in San Antonio, with New World screwworm as the first target. The company says its FastFly platform is designed to move from design to testing to production faster than the usual pest-control timeline, which is nice because parasites are not famous for respecting committee schedules. Fir

Washington is trying to rebuild the cattle herd, which is adorable because cows still insist on using biology instead of a policy memo. The steer-down: President Donald Trump signed two executive orders aimed at ranchers, small processors and meat-market competition. The package calls for more aggressive Packers and Stockyards Act enforcement, expanded interstate market access for eligible meat products, and a new guaranteed loan program for small and regional beef processors

The U.S. dairy sector is producing more milk with fewer farms, which is efficient, impressive and a little emotionally rude to anyone who still pictures every dairy as a red barn with one cow named Bessie. Udder math: Large-scale dairy farms are reshaping the industry because bigger herds can spread overhead across more hundredweights of milk. That can help manage costs and volatility, but it also changes how quickly the national milk supply responds when prices move. By the

The federal beef yield grade system is having a midlife crisis, except it is 60 years old and still grading carcasses like the cattle never discovered feed efficiency, bigger frames or the modern urge to become a couch with hooves. The wrinkle: Feeders are sending increasingly fatter cattle to slaughter after longer days on feed, chasing pounds in a market where beef still has more pricing power than a county fair lemonade stand. Dale Woerner, Texas Tech University meat scien

Washington is trying to rebuild the cattle herd, which is adorable because cows still insist on using biology instead of a policy memo. Herd help: The new Ranchers First Initiative gives producers a few more tools to keep females in the pasture instead of sending the future to town. The package includes a Beef Retention and National Development endorsement, letting producers insure the economic value of breeding over a two-year period through livestock risk protection. Grass

Cows have officially entered their wearable-tech era, and somehow the Apple Watch still does not track cud. Strap in: ZELP commercially released ZELP Sense, a device designed to measure methane and carbon dioxide from individual cattle in real farm settings. The system sits near the nostrils, ships data through automated transfer and reports emissions through an app, because apparently even burps need a dashboard now. The point: The company says the wearable has gone through

Meat case math: President Donald Trump wants cheaper ground beef, so Washington is reaching for the oldest trick in the pantry: more supply, now served with a generous helping of “don’t ask where it came from.” The plan would let up to 300,000 metric tons of lean beef trimmings enter the U.S. for 90 days without the out-of-quota tariff, tied to a promised 25% discount. The sizzle: Consumers are still staring down record-high beef prices, and the U.S. herd is sitting near a 75

Top Gun may need more room to buzz the desert, but Nevada ranchers say the expansion is taking a bite out of the ground that keeps their cattle business alive. The fence line: The Fallon Range Training Complex expansion is moving forward after Congress approved a major modernization that adds land ranges, airspace changes and infrastructure upgrades. The Navy says the Bravo ranges and Dixie Valley Training Area were too cramped for realistic training. Ranchers hear that and m