Kentucky's lush rolling hills serve more purpose than a picturesque background. Kentucky livestock operations, like beef cattle enterprises, are primarily forage-based systems. Relying heavily on the diverse climate opportunities to provide lush pastures in the spring and even stockpile fescue for those late fall months. The winter brings on feeding hay in roll bales or square and the difficulties of fighting the mud, which brings not only opportunity cost losses, but financial as well.

Over the winter of 2019, over 300 livestock were lost in the Northern Kentucky region. The winter was not harsh, but the mildly cold weather and combination of a lot of precipitation put livestock in a state of stress. Due to these significant losses, PCEO Extension Agent for Ag, Lindie Huffman, refocused programming to delve into the deep root causing issue of losses. These were narrowed to forage-system design and forage quality. Through a series of programs that scaffold on foundational principles of livestock feeding, facility design, and increasing forage quality Pendleton County Producers are adopting practices to mitigate the challenges that winters bring to the beef operations. 

Grazing systems are designed to be unique and operate under unique circumstances, but if we understand the foundational challenges and areas of growth, by understanding conditions and interactions, we can develop a holistic systems approach to ensure that our goals of producing high-quality beef cattle, minimizing loss, and maximizing resources are accomplished. 35 Producers participated in all three of the Livestock Feeding Program, and 90% of those are now participating in forage testing services for the first time. Each producer received a grazing stick to measure the suitability of their forages for grazing, $30 of hay testing, and access to tools to aid in supplementing the quality of their forage base with other economic and available feed sources. It is estimated that if producers engage in BMP's outlined in the programming, they will decrease their risk of loss (animal mortality) by 75%.

Educational courses will continue to have a foundational focus on forage quality and producers will be offered holistic farm planning services, soil testing, forage testing, feed rationing, and marketing principles.