The article below is from Hobby Farm Blog. There are many ways you can keep your livestock happy during the worst of winter. By keeping them happy, they’re also more likely to be healthy and healthy animals produce more for your farm or ranch.

1. Always Have Water Available
Cattle often struggle to get enough water during the winter. Water sources can freeze or are impossible to get to because of snow, ice or mud. Veterinarians say that each day cattle need between 1 and 2 gallons of water per 100 pounds of weight. That makes water an important resource in any weather condition, winter or not. A novice livestock manager may assume that cattle can eat snow or lick ice to reach their normal limit, but that’s simply not the case. Doing so would take hours and reroute valuable body heat, leaving little time or energy to feed and grow.
Since dehydrated cattle are more at risk for colic and impaction, it’s important to maintain their water uptake and keep them healthy. The easiest solution is to install tank heaters in their water sources. When you do, make sure to follow manufacturer instructions to avoid accidental shocks or fires. If you can’t use a heater, be able to provide unfrozen water several times a day and in multiple locations.
By ensuring a regular water source, even when temperatures plummet below freezing, your cattle will continue to thrive — a key sign of a happy animal.


2. Keep Cattle Well Fed
Do cattle get cold? They do if they aren’t fed well enough! That’s why it’s important to maximize food delivery during cold weather. Without enough energy, they can’t generate enough body heat, their core temperature drops and death could follow.
To keep your cattle well-fed and happy during the winter, there are a number of options. The easiest, but often most expensive option, is to switch to a feed with increased nutrients. These premium feeds deliver guaranteed nutrients, including fat and protein, but can wreak havoc on the profits of your operation.
Another option is to find ways to feed cattle while limiting waste. Avoid scattering feed hay on the ground where as much as 50% of it can go to uneaten. Instead, deposit hay in a hay feeder or other similar shelter – just make sure there’s enough feeders for all your cattle to feed at once and without forcing any animal to wait its turn.
Your best option pays off the most. Try to maintain a few fields of cold-hardy grass that your cattle can graze through the winter, even with snow on the ground. Early in the season, use rotational grazing to section off a paddock or two with your electric fencing. In it, grow a tall, highly-nutritious grass that will peak out from under a heavy snow. With the proper training on how to reach the partially buried grass, your cattle will be happy to spend a chilly winter day on the range.


3. Provide Proper Shelter
Life on the pasture is normally pretty good. Lots of food and plenty of space, but when a winter storm comes roaring in, getting to safety becomes top priority. Without it, cattle can stress over their well-being and panic.
Providing proper shelter for grazing cattle during cold weather is critical and can even reduce your feed costs, since chilled livestock will have increased energy requirements. Shelter can be provided in a variety of ways. Three-sided sheds placed throughout your pastures will allow cattle to escape harsh weather. Hills, gullies, thickets of trees and shelterbelts can also work as wind breaks.
It’s also important to pay attention to the weather forecast. When you know there’s a winter storm coming, it’s best to keep cattle close to the barn or near a shelter. That’s one of the benefits of temporary electric fencing – you can control where your cattle are at all times.


4. Avoid Mud
Winter mud hits cattle in two ways. First, mud is the perfect breeding ground for foot rot and thrush. Secondly, it can be challenging for cattle to stay warm when they are caked in mud, even if the mud is only on their legs.
To keep cattle happy in the winter, address your mud issue by adding gravel or woodchips to muddy areas. You may also benefit from rotational grazing to limit the chances of an overgrazed pasture turning into mud. Your electric fencing can also be used to allow muddy fields an opportunity to recover.


5. Assist Pregnant Cattle
Pregnant cattle should be carefully monitored through the winter. Check with your veterinarian about any specific vaccinations they may need to keep them healthy through the winter, including nutritional supplements and deworming.
Pay special attention to them through harsh weather, too. They need to be shielded from extreme temperatures and they have easy access to food and water, regardless of how deep the snow is. Remember a healthy, well-fed mother is going to pay big dividends later on.
In fact, segregating pregnant cows into paddocks for close monitoring is always helpful. Doing so allows you to provide them with the right nutrition, water and shelter. Also, it keeps them close as they approach their due date. That allows you to be on scene and properly equipped to help during delivery.


6. Keep Cattle Comfortable
Beyond all the efforts listed above, there are additional ways to bring comfort to your cattle, winter time or not.

• Milking cows can be soothed and comforted with udder cream to relieve cracked and sore skin.
• Providing sand beds for resting cows helps ease stress on knees and hocks. Some ranchers have gone a step beyond sand beds, installing sloped water beds to ease body stress and increase comfort.
• Bedding material is also helpful, especially if cows are wet and its cold out.
• Another simple solution to increase comfort is to give your cows space – such as extra bed spaces and spaces for feeding. By keeping your herd size at the appropriate level for your capacity, your cattle will be far less stressed and produce better for you.

Although it is true that Beefalo where breed for their incredible abilities to forage, maintain body temperature and sustain growth in sparsity... it is still a very smart idea to help aid your Beefalo's natural genetic abilities by doing the best that you can for your animal. A Happy Beefalo Is A Prosperous Beefalo!

The earlier the better is the best method for halter breaking any calf. It's really important for them to get used to you touching them, so begin right at birth. It really helps if you have a cow that will allow you near her as well, because it will be in her nature to let you near her calf. So it is important to select Beefalo that you can work with easily from the start. 

Let us know if you have any tricks to halter breaking your calves in the comments below. If you are looking for Beefalo calves as 4-H students or for other show purposes, visit the "Beefalo For Sale" page for a list of current Beefalo calves for sale.

 "I am often frustrated when browsing through facebook, it is apparent how passionate people are about their animals. So it continues to puzzle me why it is that so many people who appear to be passionate cattle breeders do not register nor buy registered animals. 

I am such a strong proponent of pedigree cattle with on-going registration of offspring and I fail to comprehend why other passionate breeders do not share this same foundational golden rule. "-Pat White

So the questions lingers in the air.. why should anyone buy registered cattle?

Registration papers signify the genetic makeup of the animal you own or are about to buy. With one simple piece of paper you are able to trace that animals ancestry back at least 3 generations. Now why would this be important? 

Well perhaps we should explore for a brief second "what is a breeder?". 

The definition of a "breeder" is paramount and Wikipedia describes it as follows: "a breeder is a person or group that practices the vocation of mating carefully selected specimens of the same breed to reproduce specific, consistently replicable qualities and characteristics." So a breeder differs from one who simply "sells" or "keeps" a particular breed. 

A beefalo farmer or hobbiest should look at his/her operation as a business and whether the amount they raise is large or small.. everyone should strive to profit from their sales. 

"Let's look at a small example to help clarify this aspect; Trying to duplicate a particular animal by pulling the same ancestors out of the similar pedigrees. This is a common practice among breeders within their herd. When we recognize a superior animal out of one cow sired by a particular bull, we may try to reproduce some of that superior creature by repeating the breeding. Sometimes it works.. other times it fails. That is the fun and frustration of breeding livestock, we get to see what we can accomplish and hopefully learn from our mistakes. In your own herd, your memory or careful note taking rekolect such successes or failures. A purchaser of registered animals now has that same map to success when buying new breeding stock. 

Without registration papers or without the transfer of registration to the new owner.. that animal is now effectively lost to the gene pool and is now considered no more then a grade or commercial beef cattle. It's lineage is lost, it's history is lost and in most cases it cannot be reestablished."- Pat White

Let's transition back for a moment to the breeding aspect as we grab a tid bit from the "Register Those Bulls" article.

"Genetic knowledge is critical to the future of the beef business. Without trying to upset anyone, bull circles encompass a lot of discussion, which is good. However, generally, if the breeder has done his or her homework, every bull has been registered and the genes that are available are known. Registration numbers are a pathway to the genetic offering through the various breed associations.
Recently, I have been busy assisting producers at bull-buying workshops. These workshops seem to be appreciated as producers develop baseline or benchmark values for production traits of previous bulls utilized in the herd. Too often, the stumbling block is the lack of a registration number, which blocks access to the database that contains the bull’s information.
Do not make the statement: “Well, the bull only will be used on commercial cows, so I do not need the bull registered.” That is wrong, just wrong.
The biggest toe-stubbing problem in the beef industry is the lack of understanding of the value of individual animal identification.
The point today is simple. Even if individual animal identification numbers are not available for all the cattle in the inventory, the registration numbers available throughout the purebred business are critical and the heart of the breed association." -Kris Ringwall

"Breeding registered cattle is highly rewarding both emotionally and financially.  But buy registered cattle is not enough to creating the best, you must learn to study these registration papers and develop a feel for what a "A+" cow or bull is, if you want those papers to pay off. You need to develop the best you possibly can and market those genetics in any fashion that you can fathom. It means you breed reliable cattle that does what you expect, what your consumers expect and desire. You build a reputation for honesty, integrity and good cattle all at the same time. You back your word with deeds and make sure you take care of your buyers. Help them learn, help them market, help them become ennamered with registered cattle as you are. 

It's not rocket science, but it goes a long way to cementing a relationship between you and your new buyer and a relationship between that new buyer and your association. Make registration your priority and instill that precident in every purchaser of your cattle. 
It takes a long time to build a respected reputation that new breeders will turn to as first choice for new purchase options or herd improvements. 

So do those registration papers really matter??? 

The answer is an unequivocal... YES!

Anyone with cattle can market those animals for beef. And any registered cattle can produce beef, but opposite is not true. An unregistered animal is grade/commercial cattle; no matter how gorgeous, no matter the breed, no matter the confirmation or the temperament, and no matter how "pure" they may look it remains the same... beef. 

It is why whenever I see a gorgeous breed of cattle, only to find that it has not been registered- I feel a profound sense of disappointment.  I find the failure to maintain registration on any unique breed a travesty and a tragedy" -Pat White