Bye bye, Angus Burger—you’ve been nickel-and-dimed off of McDonald’s menu.

This Associated Press article helps explain why: "At a time when the restaurant industry is barely growing, McDonald's has been playing up its Dollar Menu in ads to boost sales and steal customers away from competitors. Even if that hurts profit margins, executives say the strategy is critical to gaining market share and ensuring the long-term health of the company."

This isn’t the first shake-up to McDonald’s burger line-up. A few months ago, Reuters also reported on the McDouble and the Double Cheeseburger shifts on the Dollar Menu.

But remember, we are talking about a fast food chain. It uses a lot of U.S. beef (and arguably some from New Zealand and Australia). And 10% to 15% of its sales come from the Dollar Menu.

With competition like that, why did they think a premium, higher cost Angus burger would work anyway? Although, I will miss the tomato on top.

What do you think? Is this good or bad for U.S. beef?

To date, the site has posted over 1,000 listings, which translates into more than 108,000 head of animals listed.

Since launching a year ago, Cattle-Exchange.com has helped buyers and sellers come together to trade cattle. To date, the site has posted over 1,000 listings, which translates into more than 108,000 head of animals listed, and has been visited by more than 100,000 people and received more than 1 million individual page views. Now the site is seeing both buyers and sellers coming back to the site to trade cattle. In January to date, the site is seeing repeat sellers, which were 10% so far.

"I would not have found the replacement females I was looking for had it not been for Cattle-Exchange." says Bill Dix from Iowa. He saw the cattle he wanted in Kansas and went right to them, saving a lot of time and money.

The benefit for buyers on the site is that it allows you to search for the type of cattle you are looking for and narrow results based on geographic location, breed and more. For sellers, Cattle-Exchange.com allows you to provide detailed information on what interests buyers and also post videos and photos, which brings in more page views and potential buyers.

A buyer recently posted on Cattle-Exchange.com's Facebook page: "Thanks Cattle-Exchange for hooking me up with the cattle seller. I picked up what appears to be a great large herd at a reasonable price today."

You can find out what Cattle-Exchange.com has to offer by going to www.cattle-exchange.com and also find of on Facebook and on Twitter @CattleExchange.

Put me in a pasture with a camera and some cattle, and I’m happy. My family and neighbors know if they see my car parked at the gate, or Dad’s pickup in the pasture, that I’m out there somewhere, just trying to get the best shot that I can. 

• Choose the right equipment—a digital SLR camera with a zoom lens suits most people well.
• Have a bag of feed cubes or grain with you so cattle don’t move away too quickly.
• The same animal handling rules apply when photographing cattle—be calm and quiet.
• A good idea is to take profile pictures of the best cows and bulls in the group, as well as an overall group shot of the animals. If you are selling only one animal (a bull, for example) you may want to halter the animal to get that "heads up" look.
• The best time of day is early to mid-morning, and mid-afternoon. Be aware of the effect that shadows have on dark cattle.