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SEMO to test covered cattle feedlot in Missouri

Southeast Missouri State University is using a grant from the Missouri Beef Initiative to build a covered feedlot. Dr. Julie Weathers, associate ag professor, tells Brownfield it’ll be a three-sided building that will house 100 head of cattle. Weathers says they’ll compare the cattle there to those in an outdoor feedlot, “The other side, literally in the same paddock, so that the conditions would be extremely similar will have a fenced off area and so we can feed similar cattle in BOTH sides.”

Weathers says WEATHER will be one of the biggest parts of this study, “We have to take into consideration how much humidity we get. Wind flow, because not all parts of Missouri are going to pick up as much wind as other parts. Things like that. The amount of rain, the amount of snow, ice, all those fun things.”

Other Missouri universities, including Lincoln University in Jefferson City, will conduct similar experiments to see if covered feedlots could be a viable option for finishing cattle in Missouri, which is a leading cow-calf state. Most Missouri cattle are finished in Kansas.