PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

from MI Summer 2023

IF I KNEW THEN WHAT I KNOW NOW, WHAT I MAY HAVE DONE DIFFERENTLY STARTING MY FARM

Doug Roberts

UDFOM Members,

Wow! Here we are at the end of July and are already thinking of all the fall work that is right around the corner. It seems like we were just there a few months ago.

I hope everyone has had a wonderful spring and summer so far. Since the convention in March, we have all been watching the fawns being born, the antlers growing every day and trying to get the hay in the barn for the Winter feeding program.

The UDFoM board has already started working on the 2024 convention. We are really hoping to get donations in early this year so we can spend more time on producing a great auction booklet that can be sent to you in the mail ahead of time. The board was also able to sign a two-year revolving contract with the Ellison place for the second weekend of March. The UDFoM convention dates for the next three years will be. March 8-9, 2024. March 7-8, 2025 and March 13-14, 2026. We are happy to have found a great venue with a great staff in Gaylord Michigan.

On the political side of things there are a few things the board is keeping an eye on and participating in. In Lansing, the Cervid advisory council is working with the Dept. of Ag on shortening the length of quarantine time with the CWD trace outs. They are also working on coming up with a system for identifying harvested bucks for CWD testing, when the tags have been removed for pictures. On a bad note, the Dept. of Ag. was denied federal grant money for genetic testing of our fawns as well as money for culling our GG animals due to the lack of someone in the dept. not signing the grant in time. We are still trying to get to the bottom of this mess up.

The last thing I want everyone to be aware of is that the Federal CWD standards are going to be opened for comments, recommendations and changes for moving forward. Gina is taking the lead on creating our UDFoM comments and suggestions for making much needed improvements to the standards. If you have any suggestions, please reach out to a board member so we can take all your concerns and ideas into account.

Thank you again for your support of UDFOM! Blessings to all of you,

Doug Roberts President