Cct140922

CAN TWINE KILL? 路 PROVING ANIMAL WELFARE IN FEEDLOTS THE BEEF MAGAZINE

September 2014 $3.00

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

EASY DOES IT Reducing stress in the feedlot

Publications Mail Agreement Number 40069240

Leighton Kolk,

Iron Springs, Alta.

Look for your copy of the

CUSTOM FEEDLOT GUIDE

inside this issue.

Sponsored by:

Females You Can Trust

.ca

“Dam” Good Cows

Canadian Hereford Association • 5160 Skyline Way NE, Calgary, AB T2E 6V1 • 1-888-836-7242 • herefords@hereford.ca

Established 1938 ISSN 1196-8923 CATTLEMEN EDITORIAL Editor: Gren Winslow 1666 Dublin Avenue, Winnipeg, MB R3H 0H1 (204) 944-5753 Fax (204) 944-5416 Email: gren@fbcpublishing.com

Contents CANADIAN CATTLEMEN · SEPTEMBER 2014 · VOLUME 77, NO. 9

 H EA LT H

Field Editor: Debbie Furber Box 1168, Tisdale, SK S0E 1T0 (306) 873-4360 Fax (306) 873-4360 Email: debbie.furber@fbcpublishing.com ADVERTISING SALES Deborah Wilson RR 1, Lousana, AB T0M 1K0 (403) 325-1695 Fax (403) 944-5562 Email: deb.wilson@fbcpublishing.com Crystal McPeak (403) 646-6211 / (403) 360-3210 Email: crystal@fbcpublishing.com HEAD OFFICE 1666 Dublin Avenue, Winnipeg, MB R3H 0H1 (204) 944-5765 Fax (204) 944-5562 Advertising Services Co-ordinator: Arlene Bomback (204) 944-5765 Fax (204) 944-5562 Email: ads@fbcpublishing.com Publisher: Lynda Tityk Email: lynda.tityk@fbcpublishing.com Associate Publisher/Editorial Director: John Morriss Email: john.morriss@fbcpublishing.com Production Director: Shawna Gibson Email: shawna@fbcpublishing.com Circulation Manager: Heather Anderson Email: heather@fbcpublishing.com

Kolk Farms’ setup reduces stress.

EASY DOES IT  H EA LT H

FEATURES

President: Bob Willcox Glacier FarmMedia Email: bwillcox@farmmedia.com

Easy does it . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 A Greener Pastures Walk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 The importance of field diagnosis . . . . . . 16

Contents of Cattlemen are copyrighted and may be reproduced only when written permission is obtained from the editor and proper credit is given to Cattlemen.

Proving feedlot animal welfare. . . . . . . . . .20

Cattlemen and Canadian Cattlemen are Trade Marks of Farm Business Communications.

Lameness in feedlots: Easy to see, tough to diagnose . . . . . . . . . 24

Cattlemen is published monthly by Farm Business Communications.

Head office: Winnipeg, Manitoba. Printed by Transcontinental LGMC. Cattlemen is printed with linseed oil-based inks.

Subscription rates in Canada — $39 for one year, $58 for 2 years, $83 for 3 years (prices include GST). Manitoba residents add 8% PST. U.S. subscription rate — $35 (U.S. funds). Subscription rate outside Canada and U.S. — $55 per year. Single copies $3.

We acknowledge the financial support of the Govern ment of Canada through the Canada Periodical Fund of the Department of Canadian Heritage.

Publications Mail Agreement Number 40069240.

Canadian Postmaster: Return undeliverable Canadian addresses (covers only) to: Circulation Dept., PO Box 9800, Winnipeg, MB R3C 3k7.

U.S. Postmaster: Send address changes and undeliverable addresses (covers only) to: Circulation Dept., PO Box 9800, Winnipeg, MB R3C 3k7.

A facelift for bovine TB surveillance . . . . . 32

Lameness in feedlots 24 It is easy to spot, hard to diagnose.

Toe-tip necrosis still something of a mystery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Can twine kill a cow? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

DEPARTMENTS

Circulation inquiries: Call toll-free 1-800-665-1362 or email: subscription@fbcpublishing.com U.S. subscribers call 1-204-944-5766 Member

LIVESTOCK PUBLICATIONS COUNCIL

Our commitment to your privacy: At Farm Business Communications we have a firm commitment to protecting your privacy and security as our customer. Farm Business Communications will only collect personal information if it is required for the proper functioning of our business. As part of our commitment to enhance customer service, we may share this personal information with other strategic business partners. For more information regarding our Customer Information Privacy Policy, write to: Information Protection Officer, Farm Business Communications, 1666 Dublin Avenue, Winnipeg, MB R3H 0H1. Occasionally we make our list of subscribers available to other reputable firms whose products and services might be of interest to you. If you would prefer not to receive such offers, please contact us at the address in the preceding paragraph, or call 1-800-665-1362.

Ear tags for early disease detection. . . . . 36

Verified Beef Production . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41  H EA LT H

PRINTED IN CANADA

The editors and journalists who write, contribute and provide opinions to Canadian Cattlemen and Farm Business Communications attempt to provide accurate and useful opinions, information and analysis.

However, the editors, journalists, Canadian Cattlemen and Farm Business Communications, cannot and do not guarantee the accuracy of the information contained in this publication and the editors as well as Canadian Cattlemen and Farm Business Communications assume no responsibility for any actions or decisions taken by any reader for this publication based on any and all information provided.

10

A facelift for bovine TB surveillance Attempting to limit farm testing.

Congratulations!

To our September survey winner, Mike Smith of Mankota, Sask.

Cover Photo: Debbie Furber

32

Comment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4 Newsmakers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6 Letters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7 Our History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7 Research on the Record . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14 Vet Advice. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Holistic Ranching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Nutrition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Prime Cuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1 CCA Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Straight from the Hip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 News Roundup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 Purely Purebred . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 The Markets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 Market Talk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 Sales and Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 C AT T L E M E N · S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 4

3

 COMMEN T

By Gren Winslow

GRADING BEEFS

Those seeking quick changes to grade standards will likely be disappointed

T

he stars seem finally to be aligned to revise the Canadian beef-grading system, but don’t hold your breath waiting for it to happen.

The last revision was in 1992 and a lot has changed since then. That in itself clearly has not been enough to force a change. The Canadian Beef Grading Agency (CBGA) has proposed changes since 2012, and it is still waiting.

The one thing that has not changed, however, is our need to stay in alignment with the U.S. market. So now that the United States Department of Agriculture is seeking public comment on possible revisions to its beefgrading standards, particularly the 50-year-old yield grade standard, plus a review of beef instrument grading, it seems only prudent to start thinking about sprucing up our own system.

Charlie Gracey couldn’t agree more and attempted to get things moving last month by distributing a discussion paper with his own proposals for change to the Canadian system. He has some experience with the topic.

As the manager of the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association Gracey was involved in setting the 1972 grade standards designed to eliminate excessive fat from the beef supply, and in 1992 when marbling was reintroduced to the quality standard. He was also involved in creating the industry-driven Canadian Beef Grading Agency and the design of the grading ruler used to estimate carcass yield.

Today, he thinks the pendulum has once again swung too far toward the “fat” side of the ledger because marbling has become so identified with quality. As a result the trade stacks the deck to bring in more AAA carcasses and yield grades suffer which in turn reduces to real value of the carcass in terms of salable meat.

As evidence, he points to statistics from 1993 to 1997, when about 50 per cent of the AAA and Prime carcasses graded Y1. Since then the Y1 percentage has steadily dropped (particularly since 2006) down to 34 per cent in 2012.

Of course this varies with the demand for higher-marbled cattle through the year. We track the yield of all A grade carcasses every month on our market page if you are interested in following this trend. To August 11, 2012, 57 per cent of A carcasses graded AAA and Prime but only 20 per cent of those top “quality” carcasses graded Y1. To August 2 this year 58 per cent of the A carcasses are AAA and Prime and 24 per cent of them are Y1.

More marbling generally means lower yields, so these numbers seem to tell us all the advertising for triple and double A quality is working and the trade is paying premiums on AAA and Prime while easing up on discounts for lower yields to fill that demand. In part Gracey believes we got into this cycle because the packers

4

C at t l e m e n · S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 4

don’t have much faith in the accuracy of yield numbers derived from a ruler.

The result, he says, is that carcasses are fatter and lower in lean meat content today than any time since the early 1970s. He doesn’t think it has to be that way. Based on his own research he knows there are cattle out there that can grade AAA, Y1. We just need a lot more of them.

Sounds like a win-win but to pull it off, Gracey says the industry has to be willing to change.

First, we need more accurate yield estimates. Adopting USDA’s five yield categories would be a start. Most of the industry wants this change and the CBGA has proposed it to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) but is still awaiting a decision.

Gracey would prefer widespread adoption of instrument grading which would supply exact yields rather than category averages. That technology exists and is approved for use in Canada but so far JBS in Brooks is the only plant using it to grade. Cargill uses the equipment for its own information but not for grading.

either producers nor the N trade have shown much interest in change other than to stay in step with the U.S. The grading information would also have to be shared so producers could identify and propagate the better bloodlines.

Finally, packers have to be willing to pay for both quality and yield. Producers do respond to incentives whether it be for lean carcasses or heavily marbled ones.

It seems to make sense, but so far neither producers nor the trade have shown much interest in changing the grading system, other than keeping it in step with the U.S. So far, we haven’t been able to do even that because it takes so long to get regulatory changes through CFIA. Now the Americans are getting set to raise the bar again.

Under the Safe Food Act the CBGA was led to believe CFIA would retain authority over beef grading but pull the actual standards out of the regulations, so they could be adjusted faster to meet changing market conditions.

The latest word is the standards will still require regulatory change .

Gracey’s paper, Beef Carcass Grading: the language of the industry, can be found on our website www.canadiancattlemen.ca. c

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

CANADA’S FIRST LINE OF DEFENCE AGAINST BRD:

NO B.S. A sick calf costs time and money, so when it comes to preventing BRD, serious cattlemen don’t play around. They go with the proven leader — Pyramid® FP 5 + Presponse® SQ1. Over 10 million doses2 of this winning combination have been administered for one simple reason: It works. One easy shot protects your calves against 5 viruses and 1 bacteria associated with bovine respiratory disease (BRD). And that’s no B.S. For more information, talk to your veterinarian or Boehringer Ingelheim (Canada) Ltd. representative.

Aids in the prevention of disease caused by bovine rhinotracheitis virus, bovine virus diarrhea (Types I and II), bovine parainfluenza 3 and bovine respiratory syncytial virus, and aids in the reduction of severity of pneumonic pasteurellosis caused by Mannheimia haemolytica. 2Impact Vet data 2004–2014.

Pyramid and Presponse are registered trademarks of Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica, Inc. ©2014 Boehringer Ingelheim (Canada) Ltd.

1

123 N. Third Street

Suite 400

Minneapolis, MN 55401

P: 612-623-8000

www.broadheadco.com

 THE INDUST RY

NewsMakers Round Rock Ranching of Alberta is the 2014 recipient of The Environmental Stewardship Award (TESA). The fifth-generation family farm is operated by Sean McGrath, his Sean McGrath wife Tanya and their three children in partnership with Sean’s parents, Fred and Anne McGrath. The ranch consists of 2,000 acres of owned, leased and rented land with 80 per cent of the home ranch Fred McGrath native range which is managed to provide year-round grazing for 150 to 200 cows. In addition to innovative land management techniques the family has adopted bale grazing, the use of portable wind fence, and fuel-efficient vehicles for daily operations, plus numerous recycling efforts for twine, used oil containers, used oil, and old wire. The McGraths received the national award during the CCA’s semiannual meeting in Charlottetown.

Duane Ellard has been promoted to director of global marketing with Canada Beef Inc. Previously he had been responsible for carrying out the retail and foodservice marketing business Duane Ellard plan at the producer-funded marketing agency. Now he is responsible for global marketing strategies and programs.

His appointment is part of the restructuring within Canada Beef Inc. resulting from the resignation of John Baker, the vice-president of global marketing, back in May. Marty Carpenter, the former executive director of market development, North America, has been appointed executive director of the new $3.8-million Canadian Beef Centre Marty Carpenter of Excellence which is designed to build brand loyalty for Canadian beef with customers around the world.

The University of Alberta’s Kinsella Research Station was renamed the Roy Berg Kinsella Research Station at a ceremony last month marking 54 years since Berg obtained funding for the land to research his controversial ideas about the benefits of crossbreed cattle. Over 350 people attended the dedication ceremony hosted by Livestock Gentec. Before Berg proved otherwise it was widely believed that the benefits of hybrid vigour dissipated after the first generation. “Nobody was espousing crossbred herds of beef

cattle anywhere in the world,” explained Mick Price, who came to the U of A to do a post-doctoral fellowship with Berg and stayed for his entire career.

Shawn McLean is the new general manager of Livestock Identification Services Ltd. (LIS) capping off a 21-year career with the brand inspection agency that has spanned its transiShawn McLean tion from a public to a private industry-led organization. He became a brand inspector in 1993 at the old Calgary Stockyards office, and spent 10 years in High River before moving to the Calgary head office in 2002 as an IT specialist. He served on the head office operations management team, and chaired the team for the past six months before his promotion.

Canadian Business magazine recently rated John Masswohl, the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association director of government and international relations, number 40 out of Canada’s John Masswohl 50 Most Powerful Business People for 2014. He was recognized for being a skilled and effective lobbyist on Parliament Hill for Canada’s cattle industry over the past 10 years. In 2010 he was named one of Embassy Magazine’s top 60 Foreign Policy influencers. He was also named to The Hill Times top 100 lobbyists’ list.

Dr. Megan Bergman, most recently the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s regional director for Manitoba, was named Manitoba’s chief veterinary officer last month, replacDr. Megan Bergman ing Dr. Wayne Lees. Bergman graduated from the Western College of Veterinary Medicine in 2002 and went into clinical practice in Manitoba before joining the Canadian Food Inspection Agency in 2006. Manitoba’s chief veterinary office is responsible for responding to all concerns about animal care and welfare. c

6

C at t l e m e n · S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 4

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

 our histo ry

Lachlin McKinnon

the passing of another pioneer From the September 1948 issue of the Canadian Cattlemen

J

une 9, 1948, Alberta and the West lost another of its well-known and highly respected pioneers, Lachlin McKinnon at the age of 83 passed away at home in Calgary.

He was one of the early group of pioneers who came from Ontario in the early ’80s in search of opportunity in a new and undeveloped land.

He was born in Durham, Grey County, Ont. in 1865 and at the age of 21, after corresponding with school chums who had preceded him, he went west over the newly completed Canadian Pacific Railway line arriving at Calgary in the spring of 1886.

After visiting with his old friend Hugh McInnes he immediately set to work on odd jobs. On May 10, 1886, he commenced work as a chore boy at $30 per month with the Namaka Farm which was then owned by the Military Colonization Ranch and managed by General Strange. Three months later he was working for Arthur Goldfinch who was one of the shareholders of the colonization plan and after a year in which he gained much experience he returned to the Colonization Ranch and remained in its employ until going to work as a rider for the Lester Kaye outfit which operated ranches, supply farms and a butcher business.

In 1883 Mr. McKinnon married Miss Sarah Whitney who had come west with her family in 1892 from Collingwood, Ont., to settle in the Langdon district. He rented one of the supply farms east of Calgary and when the lease expired he and his young

Letters Caution to hobby farmers

I, Dino Petronio, moved to the Cariboo with my family from the lower mainland of B.C., to pursue our dream of owning a hobby farm. Our land is situated adjacent to Crown open rangeland. We were not aware we should have immediately built a fence to keep range cattle off our land.

Unfortunately our neighbour’s bull came onto our land, very close to our house and out of concern for my family’s safety, www.canadiancattlemen.ca

wife moved to nine acres which they had purchased and which was on the banks of the Bow River.

With plenty of open range for grazing of cattle a large holding of deeded land was not necessary. In 1897 and again in 1898 their home was flooded causing them to move two miles down the river to start anew. From that point on it was a case of accumulating land and cattle. In 1907 he made his largest purchase of farmland — about three sections from the Calgary Colonization Company, all property being adjacent to his holdings at Dalemead. From 1911 until 1917 his cattle operations were curtailed but his farming operations went ahead on a large and in a rushed decision, I shot the bull. I feel terrible about what happened. I now understand I should have immediately built the fence and I am very sorry the situation developed to the point it did. I encourage new residents coming to the Cariboo to educate themselves in regards to range laws and rules.

Dino Petronio Williams Lake, B.C. A&W missed a step

Your story on the A&W experiment (September 2014) was a welcome analysis. It is quite a revealing window on

scale. In 1915 he threshed over 42,000 bushels of grain. After 1917 his cattle operations were again expanded and additional land was purchased from the CPR. In 1921 he formed a family ranching and farming company entitled the LK Ranch and Farming Company. In 1922 the Bassano lease and 800 head of cattle were purchased and in 1925 the Round T Ranch south of Bassano and comprising 47,000 acres of deeded land were added to the family operation.

Soon after the formation of the company Mr. and Mrs. McKinnon retired from active ranching and farming and moved with their younger children to Calgary. Charles, the eldest son, became active manager. Lachlin McKinnon’s interest in agriculture matters, however, did not diminish with his retirement. For many years he was a director of the Western Stock Growers’ Association, and was a member of the Calgary Board of Trade.

He was a one-time president of the Southern Alberta Pioneers’ and Oldtimers’ Association.

Every cattle sales event or agricultural field day urged his attendance and despite a long siege of stubborn illness he was seen by hundreds of his friends at the 1948 Calgary Bull Sale.

Lachlin McKinnon has passed to his reward. He was a part of the West’s early development and he has left a large progressive family to carry on where he has stepped aside. c For more of the past from the pages of our magazine see the History section at www. canadiancattlemen.ca.

modern marketing. The problem I have is that A&W should have and could have developed a domestic supply chain for hormone-free beef before it started selling it. Its contention that suitable Canadian product is not available is nonsense.

If consumers want hormone-free beef then we should give it to them. But it should be CANADIAN beef. As it is A&W is advertising superior beef and selling inferior beef. Well-travelled beef doesn’t taste like fresh beef to me. I hope Continued on page 60

C at t l e m e n · s e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 4

7

I RUN FOR QUALITY FEED AND M New John Deere Commercial Hay Equipment When you run, you don’t want to choose between quality and quantity. With the introduction of a full line of commercial hay tools, you don’t have to. Your John Deere dealer delivers trained service technicians and a second-to-none parts network, so when it’s time to cut and bale, you and your equipment will be ready.

Large Square Balers Our new L300 Series Balers are designed to effciently pick up crop and deliver consistent, well-shaped bales every time. The result is quality feed and tons on the truck — which results in money in your pocket. With 206-cm (L330) and 229-cm (L340) pickup widths for maximum crop retrieval and a high-capacity inline rotor with fewer moving parts to maintain, the L300 Series also features a heavy-duty drivetrain and a single fork packer-stuffer for dense bales under any conditions. The John Deere-designed double tie knotter system has an integrated lubrication and a single lubrication hose. Fewer lube line connection points and fewer meters of grease lines means improved reliability.

D MORE TONS ON THE TRUCK ▼

8000 Series SPFH

W260 Windrower and 500R Platform

▼

Designed for comfort. Built for work. The new 8000 Series Self-Propelled Forage Harvesters deliver reliability, excellent cutting performance and more proftability to your operation. With fve all-new models, ranging from 375 to 616 hp, the 8000 Series takes serviceability to a new level with an integrated KP hoist, easy header hook-up and ground-level fuel fll. The new cab offers improved comfort and visibility and easier access to controls. A redesigned crop fow, with a larger feedroll opening, improved power transfer and crop path through the machine delivers greater effciency during chopping. And there’ll be no more bunch feeding because of mis-adjusted headers with the automatic or independent header speed adjustment.

Days can be long during harvest. That’s why the new W260 Windrower is designed to meet your demanding productivity requirements. Integrated AutoTrac™ enables faster cutting speeds while Constant Header Speed maintains crop and cut quality. The newly designed cab offers greater visibility and additional comforts to make your day manageable. Built around 6-cylinder, 6.8L John Deere engines, the 260-hp W260 Windrower has the power to get through the toughest crops. Plus, you can plan with confdence, since the W260 is JDLink™* enabled. You or your dealer can remotely monitor the machine to ensure optimal operation and stay on vtop of routine maintenance.

And with the new 500R Rotary Platform, the new design converges more crop toward the center of the windrow for consistently even windrow formation. This reduces your dry adown time without compromising cut quality. * Activation/subscription required. Some additional accessories and/or components may be required. JDLink requires a cellular data connection to transfer information from machine to JDLink website.

Consult your local John Deere Dealer for coverage availability.

www.johndeere.ca/NewFor2015

 COVER STO RY · h ea lt h

By Debbie Furber

Easy Does It

This low-stress feedlot handling system is easy on cattle and people

A

nimal handling is a big deal at Kolk Farms. It has to be when you’re looking out for the wellbeing of people and 12,000 head of cattle every day, year in and year out.

Quiet has always been the word as far as animal handling goes, says Leighton Kolk.

Cattle, hogs and poultry have all been part of the mix through the years on the family’s farm near Iron Springs, Alta. He carried that animal-handling philosophy forward as he, his wife, Elinor, and family, Jordan, Devan and Megan, took over, phasing out the hogs and poultry to concentrate on the feedlot and cropping. In 1998, the feedlot underwent a major expansion from 6,000 head to its current one-time capacity and finishes out double that in a year.

Quiet handling is now part of what’s become known as low-stress handling to encompass new insights into animal behaviour and handling techniques that have been ground proofed in recent years, Kolk explains.

Training on animal handling and safety has always been part of the orientation for new employees. To keep on top of the wave of new science, technology and latest “cow psychology,” Kolk organizes annual staff seminars with renowned experts in the animal-handling field and regular advice from his consulting veterinarian, Phil Klassen of the nearby Coaldale Veterinary Clinic.

“Lowering stress benefits animals and people,” Klassen says. “When cattle are

10

stressed, people are stressed and that takes its toll on both, so the principle of reducing stress should have a positive effect on animal health and productivity. To have a stress-free environment the facilities have to be properly designed and the people trained on how to use them.”

Kolk recently invested in a new processing facility that incorporates the latest in animal-handling strategies which has made it easier for his employees to keep animals flowing through the chute with minimal noise and stress.

Good lighting and radiant heaters hung over the main work areas add to the comfort level because a day rarely goes by when no cattle are moving in, out, or through the chute for routine treatments, says cattle foreman Glen Stronks, who has been with Kolk Farms for 11 years.

The old processing barn with its curved, solid-sided Temple Grandin-style handling equipment is now a dedicated hospital barn.

The new handling system is based on the Bud Williams concept that relies on positioning of the operator to direct the cattle.

The most noticeable difference is at the entry to the processing barn where cattle enter through a wide doorway into a rectangular “Bud box” made from ordinary rail panels instead of a solid-wall tub and crowding gate.

The straight chute to the squeeze and head gate sits at right angles to the box and is again open panels along the sides and on top.

C at t l e m e n · S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 4

With this see-through design cattle always see the handler who uses eye contact and body position to keep them moving. It also puts the handler on the floor, level with the cattle, eliminating the need for raised catwalks.

Cattle enter on the south side and move freely to the other end of the Bud box. Translucent panels in the north door enhance the open appearance and help disguise the dead end. When they reach the back of the pen their natural instinct turns them back to where they entered.

That’s when they first see the double 16-foot alley leading to the straight chute and the squeeze which is set at right angles to the Bud box. The alley needs to be as close as possible to the gate where they came in, making it the only way out of the box.

Handlers play a large role in this setup.

The cattle are processed in small groups.

Initially they are given time to move into the box, look around and turn toward the dual exit alley leading to the chute on their own.

While this is going on the handler closes the gate to the box, moves to the other side and stands by the entrance to the exit alleys. He never pushes them from behind.

This position takes advantage of the animals’ natural instinct to move around obstacles in front of them that they can see.

Two design elements make it easier for cattle to make the right choice. First is a double alley so animals can travel side by side for about 16 feet or two animal lengths

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

health

before coming to a gate that swings either way merging them into the single chute leading to the squeeze. Second, any animal looking down the open straight chute can see a clear escape route at the end.

As the first animals enter the alley, others will naturally follow. Stragglers, having nowhere else to go, come along on their own once they think they’re getting left behind.

Kolk’s box is sized for 15 nine-weight animals, so the process calls for the next group to be brought in as the last animals enter the double alley.

One-way stops on an overhead rail keep animals moving forward once they are in the chute. The height of the stops and width of the chute are easily adjusted by hydraulic controls to accommodate animals of any size.

Rubber pads anywhere metal meets metal buffer the noise. Even the hydraulic lines are wrapped in rubber and used tire tread is fixed to the floor to improve the footing and dull the noise.

Stronks has noticed that there is very little manure left behind in this new chute, only a couple of shovelfuls at the end of the day before it is hosed down for the night.

He can’t say for sure but he suspects this is just another benefit of the secure footing and the general stress-free environment in this new system.

When they first opened this processing barn, sunlight streaming through the southfacing windows created shadows that made some animals balk. They’ve since solved that by covering the windows with plastic and a light spray of paint.

The hydraulic squeeze features a palpation cage with man gates on both sides, swing-away side and bottom panels, and a

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

Every treatment is entered on a touchscreen panel on the squeeze Leighton Kolk, Iron Springs, Alta.

neck extender equipped with tag readers that end up directly behind the ears of the cattle.

A touch of a button is all that’s needed to read an animal’s electronic ID number.

That number is linked to a dangle management tag when the animal is processed into the feedlot and remains the key to reading its performance and health data for the remainder of its stay. Every treatment is entered via a touch-screen panel on the squeeze and can be retrieved just as easily or from an office computer. The program also brings up the feedlot’s protocol for the process underway.

A large screen on the opposite wall lets the person operating the hydraulic controls see the same information as the person giving the treatments.

Cattle can be sorted five ways going out of the squeeze. Air-operated gates to each pen can be programmed to open automatically according to weights from the scale in the squeeze and weight splits associated with each gate entered into the software program. A manual override allows gates to be operated with hydraulic controls on the squeeze.

Stronks says the best way to get cattle to take that last step into the squeeze is to

release the first animal into the outside pen down the short alley directly in front of the squeeze. Animals in the chute will want to follow the same escape route.

He keeps an eye on the animals’ body language to gauge how well they’re doing with their handling techniques. Relaxed cattle are alert and inquisitive, not heads up with a one-track mind bent on escape.

Playfulness as animals rejoin their pen mates and overall calmness in the outdoor pens tells him that the process wasn’t that stressful. A good experience the first time through sets the stage for future processing days.

Cows continue to be part of the farm operation. The herd winters and pastures on coulee land to the north and is moved to a pasture near the yard for calving in August. This helps a bit to supply calves for the feedlot at an off-peak time, but most of their calves are purchased direct or on contract from ranches and backgrounders. Approximately 40 per cent are sourced from auction markets across Western Canada.

Kolk welcomes questions at 403-738-4500 (office), 403-382-7231 (mobile) or leightonkolk@gmail.com. c

C at t l e m e n · S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 4

11

 grazing

By Steve Kenyon

A Greener Pastures Walk

T

he day was July 12, 2014. The sun arose early, the animals were all grazing, and I was still in bed.

July starts to slow down for me and I get to enjoy a lot of the nice days with the family. This day was no exception, except for one thing — I had to work. I am lucky that I have the ability to merge my family days with my workdays. It was the day of our Greener Pastures Walk, a family event.

Our pasture walk is more like a hayride as we all travel as one group on a flatbed trailer. The trailer was hooked up the day before, the picnic tables were tied down and the pool was filled. Yes, our pasture walks include a swimming pool. I was all ready for the day and not much was left to do. Snacks needed to be set out and coffee to make.

Our producers started to show up around 8:45 a.m. and the networking began.

Our tour began with the pasture pigs.

Everyone enjoyed our live, four-legged packages of cute bacon. We showed how we move a portable cage around the pasture and the use of electric netting to rotationally graze the pigs. We discussed rations and soil improvement. The piggies were popular.

We then headed off down the road to see some steers, but on the way we got to see the prep work for the “Red Neck Cattle Drive” that was going to be a big event in a day or two. Once at the pasture we did briefly observe the herd of 400 steers but as this year’s herd at home is a bit spooky, they took one look at this large group of people and headed for the bush. We looked at the pasture and discussed the residue remaining and when the cattle need to be moved. The true measure of when to move is a combination of residue remaining and rest period desired. We also picked through a few dung pats to find some dung beetles.

We discussed how important our soil life is and what they like and what they don’t like.

They are my employees and they work for room and board.

Seeing as though it had been a hard day already for all, we decided it must be time for lunch: back to the base for barbecued pork patties and salad. If you have never tried pasture-raised pork patties, you are missing out.

12

This year’s pasture walk took in everything from bale grazing to waterers and natural gopher control.

Our next stop was the bale grazing site from two years ago. The grass was tall and thick, and after a discussion of the benefits of bale grazing, I let the producers know that this pasture had already been grazed once this year. This was the second growth we were looking at. Bale grazing is a nobrainer. Just beyond the bale grazing was the turkey’s nest. This is one of my watering areas that uses an elevated water reserve to store water, and a siphon system to feed a trough. Works like a charm.

Bouncing across a pasture we next came to the natural gopher control area, which no longer has gophers. I would say the raptor perches are working.

A little bit farther and we came to our second watering sight. This is a true gravity flow system, an old tractor tire cemented in with a siphon hose running from a dugout about 500 feet up the hill. No power, no work, no headaches. I love it. It is my favourite system.

Off to the next site, “weed” control! We observed an adjacent continuously grazed quarter covered in buttercup. Across the road at Greener Pastures, the pasture was green, not yellow. For more details see last month’s article on “weed” control.

Then we were off to the next field where we saw a very thick crop of alfalfa. Up to now we had seen lots of clover and alfalfa mixed into all the pastures but this one was 90 per cent

C at t l e m e n · S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 4

or more alfalfa. The only pasture that did not have legumes so far in the tour was the bale grazing. I’ll leave you to figure out why the bale grazing did not have any legumes.

This quarter was an old hayfield that I took over with a very high percentage of alfalfa in some of the paddocks. We discussed how to manage high legume grazing without products or aids but just grazing management as that is what I do every time.

There is more economic loss today from the fear of bloat, than we would ever get from bloat. Learn how to manage it.

We also looked at another watering site in this field. This was a recycled semi tanker that was used as a storage tank. Here, a gaspowered water pump filled the tank which then gravity flowed to a stock trough. The trick is to set it up so you don’t have to watch the water pump! In addition to this, we had just had a load of wood chips delivered to level off around the water trough.

The walk concluded with some more networking and socializing back at the ranch. It was a fantastic day with a great group of producers out for another great pasture walk. c Steve Kenyon runs Greener Pastures Ranching Ltd. in Busby, Alta., www. greenerpasturesranching.com, 780-307-6500, email skenyon@greenerpasturesranching.com or find them on Facebook.

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

CSA Summer 14.indd 1

8/19/2014 3:06:27 PM

 researc h o n t h e r eco r d

By Reynold Bergen

Hot Air Doesn’t Just Come from Cattle

I

n late July, a very popular and well-respected scientific journal called Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published “Land, irrigation, water, greenhouse gas, and reactive nitrogen burdens of meat, eggs, and dairy production in the United States” (PNAS 111:11996-12001).

The authors, a physicist from Bard College in New York, a physicist and a graduate student from Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, and a Yale graduate student with a master’s degree in political science, looked at life cycle assessments (LCAs) for livestock. An LCA estimates environmental impacts by looking at the inputs used (e.g. energy, feed, fertilizer, water, etc.) and outputs generated (e.g. greenhouse gases, smog, manure, fertilizer run-off, etc.) when meat, milk or eggs are produced, processed, transported, distributed, consumed, and recycled.

The authors acknowledged that regional variations in production systems and environments are important: “the results of an LCA conducted in Iowa, for example, are unlikely to represent Vermont or Colorado.” Because daily feed intake, feed:gain, and intake on pasture vary with season, region, and technology use,“one research effort, focused on a single location, is unlikely to yield definitive results.”

What they did: They extrapolated the results of an LCA conducted in Iowa to the rest of the U.S. by incorporating USDA regional data on land and fertilizer use, feed production, irrigation practices and cattle numbers.

What they learned: Beef have a larger environmental footprint than chickens or swine. This isn’t news. Cattle are bigger, live longer, are raised on less productive land and consume more forage than chickens and pigs. So it’s no surprise that cattle need more feed, water and land, or that they produce more greenhouse gases than chickens or pigs.

What it means: This paper is flawed. Despite the fact that they criticized previous studies for using regionspecific data to depict a broader geography, they did just that. After criticizing past LCAs for being based on weak data, they did not gather or incorporate any new data into their own study.

Pardon me, but your bias is showing: The authors referred to the FAO’s 2006 “Livestock’s Long Shadow” report, which stated that livestock are responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than all of the world’s transportation combined. They failed to mention, “Clearing the Air” (Adv. Agron. 103:1-40), which clarified many of the oversights in “Livestock’s Long Shadow.”

They also failed to mention the FAO’s more recent 2013 “Tackling Climate Change Through Livestock” report, which used a much more rigorous and sound methodology to assess livestock’s environmental impacts.

Unfortunately, not all science is good science, and sometimes good journals publish bad science. Remember, it took 12 years for a leading medical journal (The Lancet) to retract

14

C at t l e m e n · S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 4

a 1998 paper that suggested childhood measles/mumps/ rubella vaccines were linked to autism. In the meantime, some well-meaning but misguided celebrities influenced a lot of concerned parents to not vaccinate their children.

Why you should care: This paper doesn’t encourage barley- versus corn-fed, or grain- versus forage- or grass-finished, or conventional versus hormone- and antibiotic-free production, or natural versus organic, or animal welfare approved, or local versus commodity production systems. This paper supports not eating beef, regardless of how it is raised, and was published by a highly respected journal that is read by influential scientists around the world.

What we are doing: Canada’s beef producers are constantly trying to reduce land, feed, energy and water use, improve range health and reduce nutrient and greenhouse gas losses. Improved production efficiencies often have environmental benefits.

Tim McAllister (AAFC Lethbridge) is leading a Beef Cluster project to measure how Canada’s beef industry’s feed, land, and water use, greenhouse gas production, carbon sequestration and biodiversity have changed since 1980, and identify ways to improve further.

The Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Beef is developing a sustainability assessment. Like the Beef Quality Audit, this will be a scorecard to identify where our industry is improving, and where we can still do better. The historical context from the cluster project, plus the ongoing sustainability assessment will help the industry to better respond to consumer questions, concerns, interests and demands for sustainable beef.

The single most meaningful environmentally beneficial dietary change they can make is to reduce food waste.

A 2011 FAO study found that the average North American consumer wastes more than 115 kg of food each year.

In North America, nearly 25 per cent of the cereal products (e.g. bread, pastas), 25 per cent of fish products, 18 per cent of the fruit and vegetable products, 15 per cent of the root and tuber products (e.g. carrots, potatoes), 15 per cent of dairy products, eight per cent of meat products, and five per cent of oilseed products (e.g. vegetable oil, margarine) are lost due to consumer-level waste.

That’s worth telling your friends and relatives.

The Beef Research Cluster is funded by the National Checkoff and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada with additional contributions from provincial beef industry groups and governments to advance research and technology transfer supporting the Canadian beef industry’s vision to be recognized as a preferred supplier of healthy, high-quality beef, cattle and genetics. c Dr. Reynold Bergen is the science director of the Beef Cattle Research Council.

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

 vet aDv i c e

TRUST AT THE HEART OF A SOCIAL LICENCE

I

n response to questions about trends, opportunities and challenges concerning the future for our beef industry, feedlot owners and veterinarians often mention matters like food safety, prudent use of antimicrobials, animal welfare and environmental stewardship. In effect, they are talking about the industry’s ability to secure its social licence to operate.

The economic, social and political environment around agriculture has changed. Today consumers influence the landscape of beef production in ways never before recognized. Televised examples of animal abuse in all sectors — as rare as they are — quickly become national spectacles that force industries to change. National policy on handling downer cows in the meat-processing sector, the use of cages in the layer industry, and farrowing stalls in pork production all serve as examples. Consumers and the public call for transparency in how food-producing animals are cared for; the industry responded with Codes of Practice in all sectors. Consumer eating preferences provided the licence for national chains to promote products they sell that sometimes run against the current of traditional production practices — the A&W “no hormone and steroid campaign” is a case in point. Producers grow more tolerant of labels like “natural,” “no hormone,” “organic” as individuals develop niche markets for products they sell. The preoccupation with producing beef efficiently for profit at all costs is shifting from what we believe as individual producer or veterinarian to what we represent as an industry.

The concept of social licences started with the mining industry.

Stakeholders grant social licences based on the credibility and relationships companies develop within communities and when their own values and those of a company/industry are aligned.

For the beef industry and other segments of food-animal agriculture, social licence is rooted in beliefs and opinions held by the public, particularly consumers. They include both people familiar with how beef is produced and those with little understanding beyond seeing beef as a food item in stores.

A social licence should never be considered permanent because beliefs and opinions change with new information. Announcements of major meat recalls and plant closures as occurred in 2012 at XL Packers in Brooks over beef contaminated with E. coli O157:H7, or in 2008 when listeria was found in processed meats produced at Maple Leaf Food’s Bartor Road facility in North York have lasting effects. When food safety is compromised, public dispersion is cast widely — at producers, at processors and government inspection systems. Food safety is sacred and nothing causes the community to question agriculture more acutely than situations where food safety is at stake, especially if people die. Social licences are very tentative.

They are hard to earn, and even more difficult to maintain.

Ryder Lee, manager of federal provincial relations, Canadian Cattlemen’s Association, talked about the “next steps” for Canada’s

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

Code of Practice for Beef Cattle at the 2014 University of Calgary Beef Cattle Conference. Although Ryder’s comments were primarily about the cow-calf sector, subjects discussed had application for everybody associated with beef production and are applicable to the beef industry moving toward obtaining its social licence to operate in the future.

The first step in acquiring social legitimacy is for the beef industry to understand the norms of the community (consumers and public). Today’s so-called “rules of the game” have changed. Ryder’s presentation covered topics liked veterinary-client relationships, pain management, snow as a water source and euthanasia. The expectation of many beef consumers will be that husbandry practices must change as a prerequisite to issuing a social licence. How many know that snow is considered a water source for beef cattle on range where it’s appropriate? How many in the community know that pain management in cattle is just nicely on the table and how industry expectations are about to change regarding hot iron branding, dehorning and castration, especially in older animals. Mounting expectations about animal welfare have already changed the industry’s approach to transportation and making end-of-life decisions for compromised livestock. Ryder’s instructions for end-of-life plans: “Have ’em, use ’em.”

Next in the chain of earning a social licence is credibility. The capacity to be credible is largely created by consistently providing true and clear information. The veterinary profession has been actively engaged in the debate on agriculture’s role in the antimicrobial resistance of bacteria affecting humans. Many researchers, among them veterinarians, have intensively searched for answers to the medical crisis that unfolds every day on surgical and medical wards in hospitals. The medical and veterinary professions talk incessantly about the prudent use of antimicrobials and limiting the use in animals of those drugs deemed important in humans. Regulatory authorities on both sides of the border have taken steps to curtail the use of antimicrobials for purposes of growth promotion.

Despite the use of new and powerful antibiotics to prevent respiratory disease in feedlot calves, the industry simply has not advanced sufficiently in reducing overall feedlot mortality. Does credibility lie in doing more to bring healthier calves on to the market by reducing stress, better vaccination programs and a makeover of how they are bought and sold?

The last step in gaining a social licence to operate is trust, the willingness to depend on the actions of another. Trust is integral to high-quality relationships, ones that take both time and effort to create. The beef industry must go there. c Dr. Ron Clarke prepares this column on behalf of the Western Canadian Association of Bovine Practitioners. Suggestions for future articles can be sent to Canadian Cattlemen (gren@fbcpublishing.com) or WCABP (info@wcabp.com).

C at t l e m e n · S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 4

15

 health

By Heather Smith Thomas

The Importance of Field Diagnosis

I

f an animal has a health problem, it’s crucial to have the correct diagnosis before attempting treatment. Dr. Chris Clark of the Western College of Veterinary Medicine in Saskatoon says the most common reason that a treatment fails is a wrong diagnosis.

“We often complain about disease not responding to treatment. But the drugs we have are fairly effective. If the animal is not getting better, it’s probably because you are treating it for the wrong thing. For instance, there are a lot of diseases that don’t respond to antibiotics. They are amazing drugs but they don’t affect viruses, parasites or nutritional problems. “They only treat a bacterial infection — and only certain types of bacterial infection,” he explains. You have to select an antibiotic the bacteria are susceptible to.

“Also keep in mind that with some bacterial infections, the tissue is so rapidly destroyed that treating the bacteria is not the issue; pathology is the problem. An example would be an infection in the joint of the foot. Even if you can eliminate the infection, there is still residual damage, making the animal lame,” he says.

“Diagnosis can be difficult. It takes four years of vet school for us to even come close. It’s not something that can be taught instantly. A person needs experience as well as classroom study, and cattle producers must recognize the difference between a presenting sign and a diagnosis,” he says.

“Cattlemen generally have a set of skills that are very hard to teach. I would love to have the skills they have — being able to tell when an animal is a bit ‘off’ and not acting quite like it usually does.” It helps to observe the herd from afar, before the animals notice you, because an alert animal may mask the signs of sickness. Astute observation is a skill most stockmen have.

“The rancher has this ability to pick up on subtle signs that the animal is sick. They can identify the one animal in the herd that is not behaving like it normally does, or behaving differently from the other animals. Stockmen can often identify which organ system is involved — whether it is lame, or showing signs of respiratory disease. They know if the animal is coughing or has a weepy eye, or diarrhea,” says Clark.

16

“But as a veterinarian my job is to determine why it has a weepy eye, why it has diarrhea, why it is lame, or coughing. Diagnosis is all about the why. This determines the treatment. There is no treatment for lameness, per se. If the animal has a nail in its foot, the nail has to come out. If it has foot rot it needs antibiotics. If it has a broken leg it needs to be euthanized (unless it’s a small calf and the leg could be splinted). We don’t treat all lameness conditions the same way,” he says.

With diagnosis more mistakes are made from not looking than not knowing. The clues are there, if you look for them

“There are also symptomatic treatments. If an animal is lame you can give it Metacam, to provide pain relief. But this won’t solve the underlying problem. You are merely treating the symptom and not the disease. There are treatments for diarrhea that make good sense — such as giving fluids/electrolytes — but knowing the cause of the diarrhea allows you to more specifically tailor your treatment.” You would treat it differently if it is caused by a

C at t l e m e n · S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 4

bacteria than if it’s caused by coccidiosis or a virus, or worms.

“This is why diagnosis matters. Most people look at a lame cow and assume it’s foot rot.

However, foot rot is a very specific disorder.

If it’s foot rot, it will get better with antibiotic treatment. If a producer calls and says, ‘Doc, I’ve got a cow with a bad case of foot rot that I’ve been treating for a week,’ then I know it’s not foot rot. It’s either something else, or it’s been neglected too long before treatment was begun and it has gone into the joint. Recognizing foot rot is highly important, so I teach people some of the clues,” he says.

“When an animal gets foot rot, the key thing is swelling above the hoof. The swelling is symmetrical and affects both digits, forcing the claws apart. If you look closely at the foot, you will see a grey-green slimy mass sticking out from the skin between the claws. If you give that animal antibiotics the foot will get better. Anything else that’s causing lameness needs to be looked at by a veterinarian.”

Abscesses are probably the most common cause of lameness that’s not foot rot.

“But you can’t treat an abscess with antibiotics successfully, even though it’s a bacterial infection. The infection is walled off from the blood supply and the antibiotic can’t get to it. Until you drain the abscess, the animal will get no relief,” he explains.

With eye problems, producers need to know the difference between pink eye and cancer eye. “Pink eye is treatable (and often transmissible to other cattle in the summer). Cancer eye in early stages can be treated, or you can put that animal on the cull list. If you see an animal with a weepy eye, take a close look. If it’s not cancer eye or pink eye, lift the eyelid to make sure there’s not a seed head, barley awn or some other foreign object stuck there and scratching the eyeball every time the animal blinks. If there’s something there, just lift it out.”

Calves tend to go downhill quicker than adults if they get sick, because they don’t have the body reserves. “If an animal is ill, your best diagnostic tool is a thermometer — just a simple one you can get at the drugstore.

Mark it with a Sharpie pen so you don’t get it confused with one in the house. The new ones are nicer than the old rectal thermometers that you had to tie a string on; the new

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

health

digital ones widen out and you won’t lose them in the cow’s rectum,” says Clark.

“Taking temperature is easy and can tell you a great deal. Body temperature for cattle should be between 38 and 39.5 C. If a young calf is cold, with subnormal temperature, that’s life threatening. If the temperature is above 39.5 C it’s running a fever. The most common reason for fever is infection. It could be viral or bacterial, but if the calf is running a fever, treating with antibiotics is a good idea. If the calf does not have a fever, there is a question whether antibiotics will help. So the first step is to take that calf’s temperature,” he says.

If you call your veterinarian for advice, report the animal’s temperature. “This gives the veterinarian a lot of information. When we know the temperature along with your description of symptoms, this helps us narrow it down,” says Clark.

“With young calves that aren’t doing right, check the navel. This is a common site of infection. Learn to tell the difference between a navel infection and a hernia. When you squeeze them, hernias generally disappear; the protrusion moves up into the belly. It’s normally soft, rather than hard and hot. The amount of skin at the navel is variable with the breed. What you are interested in, rather than how large the area, is the stalk that you can feel under the skin. It should be thinner than your pinkie finger, and should not be hot or painful. If it’s thick, hot, or painful when pressed, or has a discharge from, it’s probably infected,” he says.

“If it’s a small hernia, the only thing in it is a bit of fatty tissue (omentum). If it’s a large opening, a loop of intestine may come through and become twisted — and that’s life threatening.” A large hernia needs surgical repair.

Pneumonia in calves occurs most often in winter/spring rather than summer. “If the calf is sick in summer it’s usually something else. The thing about pneumonia is that it always gives the calf a fever,” he explains. A thermometer will be a big help.

Scours in calves is caused by multiple things, so knowing the age of the calf and the management can help a veterinarian determine the most likely cause. “If the calf is more than three weeks old, you may be dealing with coccidiosis, whereas under three weeks it is more likely caused by a virus or bacteria. The thing to realize about scours in young calves is that it’s not the scours that kills them. It’s the dehydration.

When you look at a calf that’s got scours, it doesn’t matter how shitty its tail is, or what

the scours looks like. What we need to check for is dehydration,” says Clark.

“Look at the eyes. When a calf suffers from dehydration it looks like the eye sinks back into the socket. If there is a gap between the eyelid and the eye (a sunken appearance), that’s a bad sign. The second way you can check is take a pinch of skin on the side of the neck, and let it go. It should spring back into place instantly. If it takes a few seconds to spring back, you are dealing with dehydration,” he explains.

“Those calves need fluid/electrolytes, given by stomach tube; don’t try to feed the calf a bottle. That would take you an hour and you’ll end up wearing most of it because the calf won’t want to suck it — and you’ll complain about the effort and never do it again. With a stomach tube you can give a calf two litres of electrolytes in less than a minute. If something is easy, you’ll do it again,” says Clark.

“Another thing I tell people regarding field diagnosis, if they wonder when to stop treating a calf — it’s when you can no longer catch him. If you can’t catch him, don’t treat him. If he’s easy to catch, he needs treatment. I also recommend talking to a

veterinarian if you have repeated episodes of the same problem,” he says.

“When you ask your vet for advice, describe what you are seeing. Don’t say, ‘I’ve got calves with pneumonia.’ Tell the vet that you have calves that are depressed and not sucking, and are doing this, this and this (and what the temperature is). Work with your veterinarian to get the diagnosis. If you say your cow has foot rot, this is a diagnosis rather than a description of the lameness, and won’t enable your vet to help figure it out,” he says.

“We want producers to recognize the value of a diagnosis, and get involved in helping their veterinarian make the diagnosis.” The producer and the veterinarian can work together as a team. Producers need to describe, to their best ability, what they are seeing, so the veterinarian can have good clues to work toward the proper diagnosis.

“A phrase one of my colleagues used a lot regarding diagnosis: more mistakes are made from not looking, than not knowing.

You make more mistakes if you don’t look close enough at what the animal is actually doing or how it appears. The clues are often there, if you look for them,” says Clark. c

“When my pen riders pull cattle, I want them to have a fast acting treatment that’s cost-effective.”

It just makes sense to treat cattle for BRD with the new generation macrolide, that is fast acting,1 long lasting2 and has a price that won’t break the bank. (And it’s plastic, so you won’t break the bottle either.) ®

Treat them with ZACTRAN .

Ask your veterinarian why ZACTRAN is ideal for cattle in your feedlot.

1. Giguère S, Huang R, Malinski TJ, Dorr PM, Tessman RK & Somerville BA. Disposition of gamithromycin in plasma, pulmonary epithelial lining fluid, bronchoalveolar cells, and lung tissue in cattle. Am. J. Vet. Res. 72(3): 326-330 (2011).

2. Based on label claims.

ZACTRAN ® is a registered trademark of Merial Limited. © 2014 Merial Canada Inc. All rights reserved. ZACT-13-7558-JAD-E

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

C at t l e m e n · S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 4

dossier : BOV-14106

client : Merial

date/modif. rédaction

relecture

D.A.

17

épreuve à

 HEALTH

By Debbie Furber

PROVING FEEDLOT ANIMAL WELFARE

I

n an effort to assure consumers some retail and food-service companies are auditing the animal welfare procedures of packing plants. The packers, in turn, are starting to ask feedlots for signed affidavits stating their operations meet accepted standards.

“What we don’t want to see happen is retailers and packers coming out with different animal welfare programs because it creates chaos and confusion if feedlots have to do something one way for one packer and another way for another packer,” says Dr. Joyce Van Donkersgoed, a feedlot veterinarian from Coaldale, Alta., who is project manager for the National Cattle Feeders Association’s (NCFA) Canadian Feedlot Animal Assessment Program.

Fortunately, three major packers of Canadian fed cattle — Cargill, JBS and Tyson — feel the same way and are on an advisory committee developing the NCFA welfare assessment program along with the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association, Quebec Beef Producers Federation and Alberta Milk Producers, an Alberta feedlot owner, a beef retailer, a Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals veterinarian, three feedlot veterinarians, two animal behaviour specialists (etiologists) and a transportation consultant.

Several members, including Van Donkersgoed, are trained auditors for the Professional Animal Auditor Certification Organization (PAACO), which audits the welfare program developed by the American Meat Institute (AMI) for plants that process cattle, swine and sheep in the U.S. and Canada.

Four were on the committee that recently updated the beef cattle code of practice.

The National Farm Animal Care Council (NFACC) is also providing input. It oversees the codes of practice for all species and

20

has been reviewed twice already by committee members. The final version was to be worked out at their September meeting.

Once approved it will be ground proofed at indoor and outdoor feedlots across the country. The data collected during this pilot phase will be used to establish benchmarks for acceptable animal care targets and seek out areas where more research is needed to bolster the standard.

Once the testing is wrapped up next spring, the manual and supporting material will be finalized and posted on the NCFA website by fall 2015.

WHAT’S IN IT?

“This is a way to identify areas that need to be improved.”

DR. JOYCE VAN DONKERSGOED VETERINARIAN, COALDALE, ALTA.

earlier this year published an Animal Care Assessment Framework for use by industry associations.

Ultimately, the committee will seek the NFACC’s stamp of approval to put this assessment program forward as the standard for Canada.

“It is a big project, but we didn’t have to reinvent everything because we don’t have to debate the code and we have the AMI animal-handling audit guide to follow for structure,” Van Donkersgoed explains.

After the initial committee meeting in January Van Donkersgoed and Dr. Karen Schwartzkopf-Genswein of the Lethbridge Research Centre wrote a draft package which

C AT T L E M E N · S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 4

The assessment consists mainly of checklists based on animal welfare guidelines found in the new beef code of practice. This will make it easier for feedlot owners to verify they are operating within the code, according to Van Donkersgoed.

“Sometimes we maybe think we are doing things right, but could find out, oops, we’re not, so this is a way to identify areas that need to be improved,” she says. “Nobody needs surprises of the sort that grab news headlines. People don’t forget those images.”

The manual includes supporting information, but the checklist is concise, objective and based on the best science available, plus real feedlot data. It explains what to look for, how to assess it and what’s acceptable.

You’ll be answering yes or no questions, measuring and counting things, such as how many slips, falls, bellows and prods animals experience coming off the truck and in the chute, and scoring things, such as the condition of the handling facilities, pens and cattle in the pens, she explains.

The transportation guidelines mirror AMI’s animal-handling guide as closely as

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

HEALTH

possible for consistency in the standards between feedlots and packing plants.

There is zero tolerance for wilful acts of abuse, and infractions result in an automatic fail on an audit.

Critical areas include access to feed and water, animal health and feed protocols, animal husbandry (use of low-stress animal handling, proper procedures and pain medications when possible for castrating and dehorning), euthanasia, and staff/ owner training.

The parts of the horse code of practice that apply to the welfare of feedlot working horses are also included.

Some written records are necessary, but overall many feedlots have protocols and records in place so it may mean adding only a few requirements here and there.

Secondary criteria are recommended practices from the beef code of practice (feed testing for example), or code requirements that can’t be objectively evaluated. Van Donkersgoed says it wouldn’t be fair to fail an audit because of a subjective requirement.

The program will be free and voluntary, starting out as an educational program for feedlot producers. Self-assessments can be carried out by the owner, foreman or a related party, such as a feedlot veterinarian.

Beef packers have trained animal care auditors on staff who routinely conduct self-assessments of their own plants, just as their quality control personnel conduct food safety audits. They may send their own animal care auditor or call a PAACO auditor to do feedlot assessments as required.

How often a feedlot can expect to be audited and who will pay for it has yet to be determined. Van Donkersgoed suspects packers may conduct random audits of their suppliers as required by their own customers. A feedlot may never be audited or could be selected as often as every year based on the volume of fed cattle it sells, or when an animal care issue is identified by the packing plant.

It is hoped that these audit reports will be recognized by all packers to avoid multiple audits at a feedlot within the same year.

WHAT IS ITS IMPORTANCE?

of example she recalls the visit of a European Union delegation to a large Alberta feedlot.

Seemingly satisfied with Canada’s food safety standards, all of their questions focused on animal welfare, mainly the use of electric prods, pain medication and castration.

The second is employee retention. “Animal welfare affects employee morale,” says Van Donkersgoed. A culture of rough handling, or casual abuse can cost you good employees who care about the animals in their care. She

urges feedlot operators to deal with this kind of behaviour as it occurs with training. Some employees will no doubt need consistent reinforcement when trying to change behaviour.

Van Donkersgoed allows they may encounter some resistance from owners who resent any interference in their business, but on the whole feedlot operators see the value in having a standardized method of proving to themselves and others that they are doing a good job of raising beef. c

Be part of the third annual Canfax Cattle Market Forum. Get the current market information specific to cattle producers and industry stakeholders.

Tuesday, November 18, 2014 – Registration, Evening Guest Speaker and Reception Wednesday, November 19, 2014 – Full-day Plenary Session Location: Deerfoot Inn and Casino, 1000, 11500 – 35 Street SE, Calgary, AB

For more information and to register online for the Forum visit www.canfax.ca or call 403-686-8407.

Van Donkersgoed offers two good reasons why feedlots should take an interest in this project.

The first is profit. “Improving animal care creates profit,” she says, since injured or sick animals take a big bite out of returns.

Ultimately, successful welfare audits will have a bearing on a feedlot’s ability to market cattle in Canada and other countries. By way

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

C AT T L E M E N · S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 4

Canfax2014_CanadianCattlemen_HalfPageIsland

21

Incorporating sustainable intensification and climate-resilient systems into forages and grasslands

By Ron Pidskalny, Executive Director — Canadian Forage and Grassland Association

The World Congress on Conservation Agriculture held in Winnipeg in June promoted the practical application of conservation practices to improve agricultural sustainability. One Congress theme included the concept of sustainable intensification (SI). Assuming that the world population continues to grow at its current pace, it is expected to increase from 7.2 billion today to 10.9 billion by 2100. SI assumes that as the global population grows, demand for food, fuel and fibre will also grow. However, conservation agriculture may allow producers to intensify cropping systems and increase production sustainably, and without an excessive expansion in the land area required for food production through: • Improvements in soil quality • An increase in the efficient use of inputs such as labour, nutrients and water • An increase in the diversity of cropping systems

crop and livestock systems. This suggests that forage crops have a unique capacity to contribute to positive outcomes as the world moves towards SI and CRS. Currently, the onus is on the Canadian producer to increase the efficient use of inputs such as labour, nutrients and water in a profitable and sustainable manner.

One way to learn about these complex and interconnected farming practices is from a peer who has successfully mastered these systems.

The Congress also examined climateresilient systems (CRS) — well-designed conservation agriculture systems with a diversity of crop types and healthy soils.

CRS offer producers a range of choices for adapting to changes in rainfall or temperature during the growing season and contribute to climate change mitigation.

The latest of issue in L’Écho Fourrager, published by the Québec Forage Council, describes this type of peer-to-peer interaction at a recent forage tour, where a producer has implemented a dairy cow feeding strategy based on the use of high sugar content fodder. Results suggest that cutting forage in late afternoon, and leaving a 24- to 28-hour period between cutting and bailing, produces forage with higher sugar content and between 40 and 60 per cent dry matter. This concept has also attracted considerable attention throughout Canada from the beef sector, and is one of the topics identified as a priority candidate by CFGA as an Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s forage development and technology transfer project.

The scientific literature contains ample support for the key role of forages in improving soil quality, increasing the diversity of cropping systems and in mitigating the effects of climate change in

These are just a few examples of the resources that are, and will be, at the disposal of producers who strive to incorporate SI and CSE in their forage and grasslands operations.

CANADIAN FORAGE & GRASSLAND ASSOCIATION www.canadianfga.ca Ph: 780-430-3020

There will be further opportunities to interact with forage and grassland peers at CFGA’s Fifth Annual Canadian Forage and Grassland Conference, ‘Closing the Forage Gap’ — Addressing the Competitiveness of Forages in the Agricultural Landscape, November 17-19, 2014 in Bromont, Québec. For CFGA, this is a significant event as we bring together Canadian and international forage and grasslands stakeholders for our first ever FrenchEnglish bilingual conference featuring simultaneous translation for our speaker sessions. CFGA has lined up an impressive list of speakers including: • Dr. Gilles Bélanger, Laval University, and recipient of CFGA’s 2013 Leadership Award, who will provide an overview of major achievements in forage research and look into future challenges and opportunities for forage production • Dr. Bill Deen, associate professor, University of Guelph, who will cover the fit for forages in productive and sustainable Canadian cropping systems • Dr. Les Vough, forage crops extension specialist emeritus, University of Maryland, who will discuss the Eastern U.S. hay market’s challenges and opportunities for Canadian exporters • Mr. Alan Gardner, Haydar Group, United Kingdom who will bring us up-to-date on the Irish and Middle Eastern hay markets.

Please visit our website at www.canadianfga.ca/events/currentevents for more information.

For the latest innovations in hay tools, go to nhsmart.com/hay Š2014 CNH Industrial America LLC. All rights reserved. New Holland is a trademark registered in the United States and many other countries, owned by or licensed to CNH Industrial N.V., its subsidiaries or affiliates. NH04149141HT

 health

By Debbie Furber

Lameness in feedlots: easy to see, tough to diagnose

A

recent review of health records from 24 Alberta feedlots covering approximately 445,000 head revealed that lameness affected 6.1 per cent of the animals, but accounted for 28 per cent of all treated animals and 49 per cent of euthanized animals, while incurable respiratory disease accounted for 10 per cent.

The finding, which was part of a larger study in progress led by researchers from the Lethbridge Research Centre and University of Calgary Veterinary Medicine (UCVM), didn’t come as a surprise to veterinarians who work with feedlots because improved medicines for pneumonia in combination with treatment on arrival have substantially reduced the number of respiratory disease cases in fall-placed calves.

It’s easy to see that an animal is lame, but not always as easy to determine what’s causing the problem. Dr. Michael Jelinski of Veterinary Agri-Health Services, Airdrie, Alta., demonstrated this concept in a video quiz to lead off a lameness workshop held at the UCVM annual beef cattle conference this summer.

Narrowing it down to lameness most often seen in fall-placed calves in Western Canada, he says foot rot, mycoplasma arthritis, toe-tip necrosis and, in some feedlots, digital dermatitis are leading causes.

Laminitis, injuries and potential ergot poisoning may also be problematic.

Foot rot and digital dermatitis

Common foot rot affects three to four per cent of feedlot populations in the West. It’s caused by common bacteria present in the environment and shed in manure to then enter the hoof through a wound or crack in the skin.

Classic signs are rapid swelling and redness in the soft tissue between the claws usually causing the claws to spread apart. The area feels warm and has a rotten odour if the infection is oozing out. Left unchecked, the swelling will spread up around the hairline at the top of the hoof and back into the dewclaw area up the fetlock.

Typically, the animal will be very lame and avoid putting weight on the affected hoof if at all possible.

24

“If foot rot is suspected and it doesn’t respond to an antibiotic appropriate for foot rot, then it’s probably not foot rot,” Jelinski says. Unfortunately there are plenty of alternatives causes for lameness.

Digital dermatitis (hairy heel warts) is a highly contagious skin infection that doesn’t respond to injectable antibiotics.The cause is still not clearly understood, but spirochete bacteria along with other bacteria and possibly a virus have been implicated.

Raised lesions appear between the claws and often on the bulbs of the hooves and around the dewclaws. Swelling isn’t common, however, the lesions may occur along with foot rot.

Historically, digital dermatitis has been an issue in dairy barns, but its prevalence has been increasing in Alberta feedlots in recent years.

The standard dairy treatment is to clean the foot and apply a topical antibiotic with a short-term wrap, Jelinski explains. This can be difficult to do in a feedlot. In outbreak situations, feedlots have used footbaths of copper sulphate or formalin with some success.

“Given the increasing prevalence of this disease and the difficulty managing it, it’s important for feedlots to be vigilant with lame cattle that are not responding to treatment for what may appear to be foot rot,” he advises.

Mycoplasma arthritis

Aside from visible lameness, this infection is usually noticeable as a swelling in one or more leg joints.

Mycoplasma arthritis generally starts as a pneumonia. When animals are under stress with weakened immune systems, mycoplasma bacteria can invade the lungs and from there enter the bloodstream and settle into joints.

Any joint can be affected, but ankle, stifle, hock, and elbow infections are common.

Stifle joint infections caused by mycoplasma arthritis may be mistaken as foot rot, however, animals with a stifle problem will typically stand with the toe on the affected side just touching the ground and the foot won’t be swollen.

Mycoplasma pneumonia can respond to an appropriate antimicrobial given early, but joint infections are difficult to treat.

C at t l e m e n · S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 4

Dr. Michael Jelinski points out some of the conditions that cause lameness in feedlot cattle.

You have to get enough antibiotic into the joint to be effective, especially when there is tissue damage from the infection. Some of these animals will come around with time, but it could be weeks or even months.

About one to two per cent of animals in a feed yard will be affected with a joint infection due to mycoplasma and some will require euthanasia, but the numbers vary greatly by feedlot.

Toe-tip necrosis syndrome

This infection can affect many calves, but it’s not contagious.

One theory is that it sets into the hoof through a weakness at the tip of a claw thought to be caused by wear and tear on

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

health

the hooves that happens along the way from the farm to the feedlot. Typically, it starts in one or more hind claws, but can affect front claws as well.

Jelinski says some feedlots see it more than others. The big risk factors seem to be transport time, animal temperament and floor conditions.

Although most feedlots are aware of the condition, it is often misdiagnosed as an injury due to trauma or handling because lameness may start to appear within a few days after arrival.

This is why treatment is often delayed.

In the meantime, the infection may spread deeper into the claw tissues and bone where it becomes untreatable and ends up with the animal being euthanized. It’s often a surprise to see what’s going on in the hoof when the animal is necropsied, Jelinski adds. For more detail see our related story in this issue.

Sloughing hooves

Constriction of blood vessels in the extremities due to frostbite and ergot poisoning may also cause lameness.

Ergot toxicity has been more common in recent years with wet growing conditions more conducive to ergot bodies forming in cereal heads, says Jelinski. The severity of associated lameness problems tends to cluster by feedlot depending on where they source grain. Grain screenings in pelleted supplements are another source of ergot toxins.

Ergot toxicity may first show up as lameness in the feet. Over time a line of demarcation (splitting of the skin) may become evident between the dead and healthy tissue. Some hooves may be affected worse than others and in severe cases the entire foot or claw sloughs off.

“The degree of damage caused by ergot toxins depends on the amount of toxin consumed and animals may recover from low-level poisoning when contaminated grain is removed,” he says.

Prairie Diagnostic Services at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine in Saskatoon now has equipment in place to test feed for ergot toxins.

Laminitis

Laminitis is easy to recognize by the way cattle walk. They tend to throw their front feet forward and bring their back feet underneath trying to get their weight on the bulbs of the hooves. Some animals may kneel on their front legs in an attempt to take weight off their feet. www.canadiancattlemen.ca

In a healthy hoof, a layer of laminae cushioned between the hoof wall and the third bone (the bone coming down to the tip of the hoof) holds the bone parallel to the hoof wall. When laminae weaken or tear from the hoof wall, the third bone begins to rotate downward putting pressure on the sole.

Laminitis in feedlot cattle is associated with a rapid increase in highly digestible carbohydrates (grain) in the diet, which changes the acidity in the rumen and in turn kills off some types of digestive organisms that release toxins into the bloodstream as they die. The toxins cause swelling in blood vessels of the hooves leading to impaired circulation.

A hardship groove associated with an abrupt change in diet will become noticeable across the hooves as they grow out.

Sole overgrowth, skinny claws (flipper feet) and other claw abnormalities may become apparent in time.

Once laminitis sets in there is no practical treatment, however, animals with mild cases may get along just fine on soft ground in well-bedded pens. Marketing affected animals in a timely manner is advisable.

 Fo ot rot Ex a mples

Bad Feet Foot rot

ergot in feet

Others

It can be very difficult to distinguish lameness when an infection is caused by injuries, according to Jelinski.

Bruises, sprains, torn ligaments, ruptured tendons and, the very odd time, fractures can happen during routine handling and in pens when animals jostle at the feed bunk.

Nerve and brain damage also cause peculiar behaviour and strange gaits which can be mistaken as lameness.

Spastic paresis is an example of a hereditable condition where sensors in the muscle bundles keep the leg muscle tight causing the hock to hyperextend with each step. A severe joint infection can trigger an acquired form.

Abscesses from needle injection sites too close to the spine have been known to create a “wobbler” when the infection pushes up into the spinal cord just behind the head.

“Lameness is, of course, an economic concern for feedlots because of the cost of medications and labour to care for the animals, but it’s equally an animal welfare concern because many lameness conditions are very painful and may become chronic,” Jelinski says. “Unfortunately, we can’t do much to manage the pain. Unless we know the condition has a chance of improving with appropriate treatment, it’s best to deal with it by early marketing or euthanasia.” c

digital dermatitis

C at t l e m e n · S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 4

25

Replace & Activate CCM Oct 2014.pdf 1 22/08/2014 6:19:32 PM

Tags... We’re it !

A fully-functional

livestock traceability system in Canada is based on three pillars: 1. Animal Identification - Associating a unique animal identification number to an animal (e.g., applying an approved Canadian Cattle Identification Agency radio frequency identification tag to an animal’s ear) 2. Premises Identification - The assignment of a unique identification number to a physical land location.

3. Movement - Recording the change in location (i.e., unique premises) of a uniquely-identified object at a specified time/date.

C

M

Y

CM

MY

CY

CMY

K

The ability to trace an animal through its life cycle rapidly is essential to isolating animal health emergencies. It can help limit the economic, trade, environmental and social impacts of such emergencies.

While approved Canadian Cattle Identification Agency (CCIA) radio frequency identification (RFID) tags provide a technical solution for tracking animal movement, there are occasions when these tags do not perform as expected. This reference is intended to provide practical instructions on how to manage common challenges such as recording and reporting lost and replaced tags as well as where to go for additional assistance.

If an animal loses a tag and the lost tag number is known, the livestock operator would use the CROSS REFERENCE event to report and associate the lost tag number with the newly applied replacement tag number within the Canadian Livestock Tracking System (CLTS) database. Since lost tags are rarely found, most lost tag numbers remain a mystery. To support livestock operators to meet provincial and federal regulations, here are step-by-step instructions on how to use the REPLACED event in the CLTS database, which associates a newly-applied tag number with a previously tagged animal when the lost tag number is unknown.

What you need

for a REPLACED event: The tag replacement date.

Your CLTS database account number.

Where to START: www.clia.livestockid.ca Enter your username, password and click Login.

On the home page, click Option 1: Directly Online.

On the Submit Events: Select Event Type page, select the Replaced event and click Next.

Adding Tags to the List There are four options to add tags to your list.

Select the Single Tag option and enter the last nine digits of the approved CCIA RFID tag number in the field provided.

Click Ad Tags to List for every entry you make.

The tag number(s) added will appear under List of Tags Associated with the Event, with the word Add in front to describe each tag. Continue to add tags until your list is complete.

Same for All Tags versus Not Same for All Tags 1. If you have only entered one tag, you will be taken directly to the Event Details page. If you have more than one tag entered, you will be asked if you want to apply the same details to each tag. a) Same for All Tags will apply the same details to all tags. For example, one replace date or common animal attributes (e.g., colour, sex, etc.). If you select Same for All Tags, you will proceed to the Required Information section. b) Not Same for All Tags will allow you to enter different details for each tag such as multiple replaced dates or different animal attributes (e.g., colour, sex., etc.) If you select Not Same for All Tags, you will proceed to Step 2.

NOTE: If the number of tags noted does not match your records, click Back to return to the Add/Remove tags page to correct it.

cont’d...

HOW TO REPLACE

IT when you can’t find it.

... cont’d REPLACED event

2. On the Submit Events: Event Details for Specific Tags page, click the plus sign (+) to view each tag in a range. Only one range can be opened at a time.

3. Click the box beside a tag to select it and click Apply Event Details to Selected Tags. For a shortcut, select all of the tag(s) that have the same details at once.

Required Information On the Submit Events: Event Details page, the required information is marked with red asterisks (*).

1. Enter the date you applied the tags with four digits for the year, two digits for the month and two digits for the day.

2. Your account name and number will appear automatically.

Optional Information The remaining fields on the page are optional; however, it is recommended to enter as much information as possible.

1. Select the Destination Account premises of where the animal was tagged from the drop down menu. If you have not obtained your premises identification (PID) number from your provincial PID registry, please leave the Destination Account premises identification field in the default option as Select.

2. You may select Sex, Species, Breed and Colour using the corresponding drop down menu.

3. In the Comment field, you may enter any other data about the event (e.g., invoice number or how/where the tag was lost). cont’d...

... cont’d REPLACED event

4. Once all your information has been entered, click Apply to All. 5. Each tag with the event details applied will appear with a Complete status.

6. Repeat the Apply Event Details to Selected Tags process until all tags/tag ranges show Complete in the status column, then click Next.

Confirmation On the Submit Events: Confirmation page, the information you submit will appear under the Event Details heading. Be sure to review the information to confirm it is accurate.

If you need to make any changes, click Back.

If the information is accurate, click Confirm and Submit.

Transaction Details A transaction identification (ID) has been assigned to your submission. You are advised to make note of the transaction ID in your records and check your transaction status to ensure the information processed successfully.

Congratulations !

We are here to help !

Now is a good time to visit your local tag dealer OR activate your QUICK and EASY-to-use web store account, order tags online and have the supplies shipped in time for fall-run !

tags.canadaid.ca Toll-free:

1-877-909-2333

 Holistic R a nc hi ng

By Don Campbell

the power of paradigms

A

paradigm is a basic assumption or way of thinking that is commonly accepted. A paradigm might be defined as: how we see things. They may be true or untrue but if paradigms are accepted they have tremendous power on our ability to think or to accept new knowledge.

In his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Thomas Kuhn says people will always judge new ideas in the light of prevailing beliefs, or paradigms. People can never be objective about new information. If a new idea is in line with what we believe, said Kuhn, we accept it readily. But when an idea goes against our experience, knowledge and prejudices — what we know rather than what we think — our minds block it out, distort it or rebel against it.

The fact we all have paradigms helps explain why we don’t make more progress as a society. So often we come together perhaps with widely divergent paradigms. Each one of us tries to implement our view of how things should be. We seldom even think about or discuss which paradigm may have more value.

If you begin with an incomplete or ineffective paradigm you will never arrive at the right answer no matter how much time or money is spent. The most critical point in arriving at the best answer is to start with the correct paradigm.

Let me share a simple example. Suppose we are developing some kind of a program. We start with some simple math. If we make a mistake in addition at the beginning we will never arrive at the correct answer. Spending more time and money or making things more complicated won’t help as we have a basic flaw in our paradigm.

Now let’s look at some of the situations we are facing in agriculture today where changing our paradigms might prove helpful.

The greater sage grouse: There are three main groups involved in this situation. The environmentalists, the government and the ranchers. The main proposal is to reduce the stocking rate. This is being proposed and supported by the environmentalists and government.

Judging from this action one can conclude that the environmentalists and the government are coming from a paradigm that cattle are detrimental to the land.

The ranchers are basically saying, we are good land stewards, leave us alone. The paradigm in their case appears to be that continuous grazing is beneficial to the land.

A more holistic approach might say that cattle properly managed (planned grazing) are beneficial to the land.

If the groups come together and each group tries to implement its paradigm there will be no progress.

If they challenge their paradigms there is a chance for real progress. New knowledge might allow everybody to agree that healthy land requires cattle grazed in a proper

28

C at t l e m e n · S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 4

manner. With a new paradigm all the stakeholders and the sage grouse would benefit.

Noxious weeds: The basic paradigm regarding noxious weeds is that weeds are bad. This paradigm leads us to try and eliminate weeds. The result of this paradigm is that we have a long list of noxious weeds. We have extensive programs on how to deal with these weeds. The result after 25 or more years is that we have never taken a single weed off the noxious weed list. In fact the number of weeds on the list continues to increase even though we have spent many thousands of dollars trying to control them. It appears to me that our program is largely ineffective. Is it possible that our beginning paradigm could be flawed? What would be the result of a paradigm that says noxious weeds are a symptom of previous management? In this case we could take all the money directed at controlling weeds and direct it to improving management. Everyone knows that noxious weeds are less of a problem in healthy, well-managed land. Would investing this money in education and better management be a better use of our resources?

An increased frequency of droughts and floods: In this case our existing paradigm is that droughts and floods are due to too much or too little rain. Our conventional paradigm is to drain every slough, cut every tree and have no concern for the water cycle. The result is more frequent floods and droughts. The cost of this is immense. A new and more effective paradigm might be: we need to maintain wetlands and trees. Having an effective water cycle should be a top priority. With this paradigm we would see a reduction in both floods and droughts. Some of the money currently being spent on floods and droughts could be redirected to compensate farmers for maintaining a healthy ecosystem. The result would be less devastation from floods and droughts and a more sustainable agricultural society.

This idea of addressing our basic paradigms could be applied in so many places. Our best hope for real progress in society is not in changing how we do things but in changing how we see things. Can you think of areas where a paradigm shift has helped you? Can you think of areas where a paradigm shift might help our society?

My personal experience has been that I was much more rigid and set in my ways at age 40 than I am at age 70. So many of the paradigms that I held have been challenged and changed that I am now willing to look at any idea before discarding it. I believe we can all benefit from being willing to challenge our paradigms. What is your opinion? Happy trails. c Don Campbell ranches with his family at Meadow Lake, Sask., and teaches Holistic Management courses. He can be reached at 306-236-6088 or doncampbell@sasktel.net.

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

www.farm-king.com

Cut it, Ted it, Rake it, Move it.

Sickle Bar Mower

Disc Mower

Tedder

Easy Rake

Easy Rake Superstar

Bat Rake

Round Bale Carrier Model 1450

Round Bale Carrier Model 2450

Square Bale Carrier Model 4480

Getting your hay from the field to the yard has never been easier.

Farm King offers a full line of hay tools designed to increase productivity of your operation and maintain the nutrient value of your crops. From first cut to the last move, Farm King meets your haying needs.

Visit www.farm-king.com to find a dealer near you.

Š2014 Buhler Trading Inc. | info@buhler.com | www.farm-king.com

 Nutriti o n

By John McKinnon

Achieving Performance in Backgrounding Programs

A

s we move into fall, many of you will be planning feeding programs for weaned calves. With today’s high prices, managing market volatility is an ongoing concern, particularly for the smaller feeder. In some cases, producers have entered into forward contracts or custom feeding agreements with larger feeding companies, the latter typically based on a cost-per-pound of gain basis.

Unfortunately, these arrangements have not always favoured the smaller operator. Today, the Western Livestock Price Insurance Program offers western Canadian beef producers the opportunity to lock in a floor price for their feeder cattle and minimize the threat of adverse market swings.

While guarding against market risk is an important component of any feeding program, equally important is setting realistic performance targets for the cattle and implementing a feeding program that achieves these goals. In terms of designing a backgrounding program, one of the first steps is identifying your target market (i.e. are you aiming for the grass market in the spring or feeding calves that will go direct to a finishing feedlot).

The answer will typically determine when you market the cattle and your target end weight. When used in conjunction with the initial weight of the calves and the start date for the feeding program, this information will dictate the required rate of gain and the nature of the feeding program.

There are numerous examples that illustrate this concept. Consider the development of the replacement heifer. When setting up a winter feeding program for these animals, the cow-calf producer needs to know weaning weight, the target breeding weight and the anticipated breeding date. As an example, consider a group of 450-pound heifers weaned in mid-October. If the target is to have these animals at 800 pounds by mid-May such that the majority are cycling, then a feeding program targeting 1.7 pounds per day is required (i.e. 350 pounds of gain over 210 days). Failure to achieve this rate of gain can result in an unacceptable number of these heifers not reaching puberty by breeding. In contrast, an excessive rate of gain can result in overconditioned heifers that are chronic poor breeders.

A similar line of thinking is followed when setting up backgrounding programs for steer calves. In this case, you need to decide on a starting date, a target marketing date and weight. The targeted weight gain, divided by the number of days on feed will dictate the rate of gain. For example, in order for 550-pound calves in

30

C at t l e m e n · S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 4

mid-October to reach 850 pounds by March 1, an average daily gain of 2.2 pounds per day (300 pounds gain over 135 days) is required. In contrast, 400-pound steer calves weaned in October and destined for grass in the spring, likely need to weigh 700 to 750 pounds by early May. This translates to a target gain of 1.5 to 1.7 pounds per day, depending on your end point and is a very different feeding program from that of the heavier calves.

As with the heifers, too fast a rate of gain can result in overconditioned cattle that the buyer will discount, while poor performance results in lightweight calves and reduced profit.

The key to targeting a specific rate of gain in any of these programs is setting up a feeding program that meets the nutrient requirements of the cattle for the expected level of performance, particularly the correct dietary energy content. Typically this is achieved by regulating the grain content of the diet and by manipulating the dietary forage to concentrate (grain plus supplement) ratio. All things being equal, the higher the grain content, the higher the dietary energy content and the greater the expected rate of gain.

Typical backgrounding diets are formulated to contain 60 to 80 per cent forage and 20 to 40 per cent concentrate on a dry matter (DM) basis. The dietary energy concentration will depend on forage quality, the type of calves involved, the expected rate of gain, the length of the feeding program and the environmental conditions experienced by the calves. Consider a ration that is 55 per cent barley silage, 15 per cent brome hay, five per cent supplement and 25 per cent barley grain (as fed basis).

Using average nutrient values, this diet has net energy values for maintenance (NEm) and gain (NEg) of 0.70 and 0.43 megacalories (Mcal) per pound (DM basis), respectively. The total digestible nutrient value is 67.5 per cent. When cattle are on feed and eating ad libitum, this diet is too “hot” for the replacement heifers and the steers destined for grass mentioned above, but matches the requirements of the heavier calves expected to gain 2.2 pounds per day. In the case of the lighter calves, to achieve the desired gain, one would need to reduce the energy density of the diet to 0.67 and 0.40 Mcal per pound DM of NEm and NEg, respectively (TDN value of 65 per cent).

As you can see small changes in ration energy density can influence cattle performance. In next month’s column, we will examine feeding programs that allow one to target the nutrient requirements of any class of cattle you want to background. c

John McKinnon is a beef cattle nutritionist at the University of Saskatchewan

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

CANADA’S CUSTOM

Feedlot Guide SEPTEMBER 2014

SPECIAL PULL-OUT SECTION

Set the stage for healthy lungs.

Provide cattle with the broadest coverage available against the most common and costly respiratory diseases with VISTA Once SQ, the only single-shot vaccine that combines both: TM

- an avirulent-live Mannheimia haemolytica and Pasteurella multocida culture, and - five modified-live viruses.

ETE THE MOST COMPL INE CC SINGLE-SHOT VA AND

CTERIAL AGAINST BOTH BA PATHOGENS RY TO IRA SP VIRAL RE

Talk to your veterinarian about one-of-a-kind VISTA Once SQ combination vaccine.

VISTA™ is a trademark of Intervet International B.V. Used under license.

Merck Animal Health, operating in Canada as Intervet Canada Corp., a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc., Whitehouse Station, NJ, USA. MERCK is a trademark of Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp., a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc., Whitehouse Station, NJ, USA. Copyright © 2012 Intervet International B.V., a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc., Whitehouse Station, NJ, USA. All rights reserved.

Vista Ad Canadian Cattlemen.indd 1

2014-07-29 09:56

British Columbia Andrews A1 Feeders

Gary Andrews 167 Dure Meadow Road Lumby, B.C. V0E 2G7 Ph/Fax: (250) 547-2219 Lot capacity: 650

9 2 8

Carmangay Colony Feeders

Alberta Antelope Butte Livestock ltd.

Jim Lynch-Staunton Box 10 Lundbreck, Alta. T0K 1H0 Ph: (403) 628-2020 Cell: 627-6770 email: jim@jrtwave.com

Bill Freding 487 Sibco Landfill Road Oliver, B.C. V0H 1T1 Ph: (250) 498-3077 Fax: 498-3977 email: freding@telus.net Lot capacity: 6,000

1 5 9 2 8

Cattleland feedyards ltd.

BALLCO FEEDERS inc.

Jeff Ball Box 127 Brant, Alta. T0L 0L0 Ph: (403) 684-3540 Fax: 684-3345 email: jeff@ballco.ca Lot capacity: 15,000

1 5 9 2 8 4 7

7

Central h Feeders ltd.

Mark Hengstmengel Box 122 Iron Springs, Alta. T0K 1G0 Ph: (403) 738-4805 Fax: 738-4806 / Cell: 308-6632 Lot capacity: 2,700

Barnett Farms

Bill Barnett Box 1, Site 14, R.R. 1 Strathmore, Alta. T1P 1J6 Ph: (403) 934-4260 Fax: 934-4920 Lot capacity: 3,000

2 9 chinook feeders

1 9 2 4

Box 343 Nanton, Alta. T0L 1R0 Ph: (403) 646-2087 Fax: 646-2978 Lot capacity: 17,000

bear trap feeders

Bob or Don Lowe Box 1499 Nanton, Alta. T0L 1R0 Ph: (403) 646-5550 Fax: 646-5697 Lot capacity: 4,000

Claresholm Beef producers ltd.

T.J. Larson Box 1043 Claresholm, Alta. T0L 0T0 Ph: (403) 625-2911 Fax: 625-2151 email: claresholmbeef@gmail.com Lot capacity: 13,000

Blue Ridge colony

Eli Wurz Box 121 Mountain View, Alta. T0K 1N0 Ph: (403) 626-2388 Fax: 626-2394 Cell: 359-3287 Lot capacity: 350 9

1 2 4 5 7 8 9 Cleardale Colony

Mike S. Stahl Box 159 Cleardale, Alta. T0H 3Y0 Ph: (780) 685-2800 Fax: 685-2704/ Cell: 834-7165 Lot capacity: 600

CAIRNS FEEDYARDS LTD.

Larry Cairns Box 8 Madden, Alta T0M 1L0 Ph/Fax: (403) 946-5897 Cell: 333-2400 Lot capacity: 5,000

1 5 9 2 8 4

Cor Van Raay Farms Ltd.

Box 64 Iron Springs, Alta. T0K 1G0 Ph: (403) 738-4528 Fax: 738-4435

2 4 5 8

9 backgrounding

2 health program

Cam VanEe Box 100 Pincher Creek, Alta. T0K 1W0 Ph: (403) 627-1525 Fax: 627-1524 Cell: 894-2178 email: barjw@hotmail.com Lot capacity: 7,500

1 5 9 2 8 4

7

Diamond H farms Ltd.

Gabriel Hebert Box 123 St. Vincent, Alta. T0A 3B0 Phone/Fax: (780) 635-2699 Cell: 645-8695 Lot capacity: 2,200 Henk Vanden Berg Box 793 Fort Macleod, Alta. T0L 0Z0 Ph: (403) 553-4290 Fax: 553-4291 Cell: 315-3969 Lot capacity: 5,000

1 9 2 4 grandview cattle feeders Ltd.

Greg Van Vaerenbergh Box 336 Picture Butte, Alta. T0K 1V0 Ph: (403) 328-9775 Fax: 381-0250 / Cell: 317-9550 email: grandvu@la.shockware.com Lot capacity: 43,000

1 9 2 8

1 5 9 2 8 4 7

Diamond 8 Cattle co.

Dan Hagel/Jason Hagel R.R. 1 Swalwell, Alta. T0M 1Y0 Ph: (403) 546-2187 / 546-3874 Cell: 312-7153 / 312-7154 Fax: 546-3949 Lot capacity: 4,800

Box 300 Eaglesham, Alta. T0H 1H0 Ph: (780) 359-3022 Fax: 359-3004 Cell: 837-4342 Lot capacity: 2,500

Rod, Carol or Jason Calhoun Box 72 Swalwell, Alta. T0M 1Y0 Ph: (403) 546-2655 Fax: 546-3831 Cell: 333-5440/333-5438

7

hagel feeders Ltd.

Codesa Colony

calhoun cattle co. ltd.

1 5 9 2 8 4

5 2 4

9 2 8

1 5 9 2 8 4

Marco or Adrian Box 142 Monarch, Alta. T0L 1M0 Ph/Fax: (403) 824-3635 Cell: (403) 634-4026/634-3352 email: adriandw@shockware.com Lot capacity: 5,000

FootHill Farms

1 9 2 8

1 5 2 9

5 market analysis

de wilde feeders

Joe Gregory Box 2265 Strathmore, Alta. T1P 1K2 Ph: (403) 934-4030 Fax: 934-4594 email: karen@cattleland.ca Website:cattlelandfeedyards.com Lot capacity: 25,000

1 9 2 8 4

1custom order buying and selling

Box 907 Castor, Alta. T0C 0X0 Ph: (403) 882-2691

9 2 8

9 2 Southern Plus Feedlots

Coulthard Feedlot

Ben Wurz, Johnny Wurz Box 40 Carmangay, Alta. T0L 0N0 Ph: (403) 643-2456 Fax: 643-2410 Cell: 795-9806/795-9805 Lot capacity: 5,000

7

hairy hill colony

Darius R. Hofer Box 35 Hairy Hill, Alta. T0B 1S0 Ph: (780) 768-3770 Fax: 768-2178 Lot capacity: 1,200

5 9 2 8

8 pen sharing

4 trucking

7hedging

Alberta Continued highland feeders

Bern & Mike Kotelko Box 400 Vegreville, Alta. T9C 1R4 Ph: (780) 768-2466 Fax: 768-3888 / Cell: 632-1031 email: bkotelko@highlandbeef.com Website: www.highlandbeef.com Lot capacity: 36,000

1 5 2 8 7 High River colony

Martin & Ed Box 5610 High River, Alta. T1V 1M7 Ph/Fax: (403) 395-2107 Cell: 652-8758 Lot capacity: 2,500 9

highway 21 feeders ltd.

Ed Miller/ Lyle Miller Box 60 Acme, Alta. T0M 0A0 Ph: (403) 546-2278 Fax: 546-3709 Cell: 888-2539 (Ed) 888-3973 (Lyle) email: hwy21@wildroseinternet.ca Lot capacity: 20,000

1 5 2 8 4

7

hWY 52 beef producers ltd.

Dwight Morhart/ Ryan Kasko Box 1250 Raymond, Alta. T0K 2S0 Ph: (403) 752-2333 Fax: 756-3434 / Cell: 795-7394 email: hwy52@shockware.com Website: www.kaskocattle.com Lot capacity: 15,000

1 5 9 2 8 4

7

Jonust Farms Ltd.

Bradley Raugust Walter Raugust R.R. 1 Ponoka, Alta. T4J 1R1 Ph: (403) 783-2726 / 783-2202 Fax: 704-2302 Cell: 350-5265 / 350-8023 email: rbraugust@hotmail.ca or blackelk@telusplanet.net Lot capacity: 1,000

9 2 8 jubilee feedlot

Wayne Forbes Box 5510 Westlock, Alta. T7P 2P5 Ph: (780) 349-2476 Fax: 349-5414 Cell: 349-0127 email: wayne@jubileefarms.ca Lot capacity: 6,500

1 9 2 8 4

Kasko Cattle Co. Ltd.

Ryan Kasko Box 1266 Coaldale, Alta. T1M 1N1 Ph: (403) 345-4301 Fax: 345-3778 Cell: 795-2246 email: ryan@kaskocattle.com Lot capacity: 25,000

1 5 2 8 4

7

Allan Johnson Box 151 Hughenden, Alta. T0B 2E0 Ph: (780) 856-2241 Fax: 856-2399 Cell: 842-0232 email: marniesfeeders@xplornet.ca Lot capacity: 8,500

Martin-Min Wurtz Box 125 Barons, Alta. T0L 0G0 Ph: (403) 757-2330 Fax: 757-2337 Lot capacity: 6,000

1 8 4 Klassen Agriventures Ltd.

Myron Klassen Box 488 Linden, Alta. T0M 1J0 Ph: (403) 312-3577 Fax: 546-2445 email: Myron@klassenagriventures.ca Lot capacity: 5,000

K-Belt farms

Bruce Konynenbelt Box 90 Nobleford, Alta. T0L 1S0 Ph: (403) 824-3431 Fax: 824-3258 Cell: 634-4744 email: kbeltfam@shockware.com Lot capacity: 4,000+ 9 2

Kenwynn Farms Ltd.

marnies Feeders

KeHo lake colony

1 2 4 5 8 9

Larson custom Feeders ltd.

Brian McKinnon Box 129 Carseland, Alta. T0J 0M0 Ph: (403) 934-4114 Fax: 934-2122 Lot capacity: 7,500

1 5 9 2 8

T.J. Larson Box 1227 Fort Macleod, Alta. T0L 0Z0 Ph: (403) 553-3110 Fax: 553-2828 Cell: 394-6496 email: larsonfeeders@gmail.com Lot capacity: 6,000

5 9 2 8 4 Molenaar Farms Custom Feedlot

John or Trevor Molenaar Box 268 Nobleford, Alta. T0L 1S0 Ph: (403) 824-3691 / 824-3590 Fax: 824-3691 Lot capacity: 6,000

1 9 2 8 4 J.F. Murray farms

Shawn Murray Box 86 Picture Butte, Alta. T0K 1V0 Ph: (403) 732-4339 Fax: 732-4187 Lot capacity: 9,000

1 5 9 2 8 4

7

1 2 4 5 7 8 9

1custom order buying and selling

5 market analysis

9 backgrounding

2 health program

8 pen sharing

4 trucking

7hedging

ADD SAFE-GUARD ADD POUNDS

TM

Safe-Guard TM (fenbendazole ) is a different class of dewormer than pour-ons and injectables. It works fast to stop internal parasites and the hidden damage they cause. These parasites suppress feed intake, reduce average daily gain, hurt nutrient absorption and immune function, reducing the health and performance of your cattle.1,2 Use Safe-Guard as part of your parasite control program for more pounds of high quality beef in the feedlot.3,4 Visit www.AddSafe-Guard.com for more information or contact your veterinarian.

1 Endoparasite control, L.R. Ballweber, Veterinary Clinics Food Animal, 2006, 22:451-461. 2Economic analysis of pharmaceutical technologies in modern beef production, J.D. Lawrence and M.A. Ibarburu, Iowa State University, 2007. 3Pasture deworming and (or) subsequent feedlot deworming with fenbendazole. Effects of grazing performance, feedlot performance and carcass traits of yearling steers, R. Smith, et al., The Bovine Practitioner, 2000, 34:104-114. 4A fenbendazole oral drench in addition to an ivermectin pour-on reduces parasite burden and improves feedlot and carcass performance of finishing heifers compared with endectocides alone, C.D. Reinhardt, J.P. Hutcheson and W.T. Nichols, Journal of Animal Science, 2006, 84:2243-2250.

Safe-Guard is a trademark of Intervet International B.V. Used under license. Merck Animal Health (known as MSD Animal Health outside the US and Canada), operating in Canada as Intervet Canada Corp., a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc., Whitehouse Station, NJ, USA. MERCK and MSD are trademarks of Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp., a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc., Whitehouse Station, NJ, USA. Copyright Š 2012 Intervet International B.V., a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc., Whitehouse Station, NJ, USA. All rights reserved.

TM

SafeGuard bovine Canadian Cattlemen.indd 1

2014-07-29 09:38

Alberta Continued Park road farms ltd.

Allan Slomp P.O. Box 419 Nobleford, Alta. T0L 1S0 Ph: (403) 824-3676 Fax: 824-3677 email: prf@xplornet.com Lot capacity: 4,500

9 2 penridge feeders

Office Box 4 Swalwell, Alta. T0M 1Y0 Ph: (403) 546-0015 Lot capacity: 4,000

1 5 9 2 8 7 Poplar Lodge Ranch Ltd.

Will Porter Box 12 Czar, Alta. T0B 0Z0 Ph: (780) 857-2056 Fax: 857-2057 email: willporter64@gmail.com Lot capacity: 3,500

1 9 2 8 RJ Feeders

Ralph or Josie Kientz R.R. 1 Olds, Alta. T4H 1P2 Ph/ Fax: (403) 631-2373 Cell: 994-0581 Lot capacity: 1,700

1 9 2 8 4 Rocky ridge land & cattle

Darcy Stewart/ Loren Stewart Box 65, Site 19, R.R. 2 Strathmore, Alta. T1P 1K5 Ph: (403) 934-4426 Fax: 934-9998 Cell 888-5083 Lot capacity: 3,000 9

Roulston Farms

Rob Roulston Box 152 Bruce, Alta. T0B 0R0 Ph/Fax: (780) 688-2284 Lot capacity: 1,000

9 2 8

Schooten & Sons Custom Feedyard Ltd.

John Schooten Shane Schooten Cody Schooten Justin Schooten Box 148 Diamond City, Alta. T0K 0T0 Ph: (403) 381-3883 Fax: 381-8809 Cell: 634-1459 (John) 634-1535 (Shane) 634-4116 (Cody) 634-5679 (Justin) email: schootenandsons@yahoo.ca Lot capacity: 10,000

Shelter Valley land & cattle

Sam McQuaid Box 131 Czar, Alta. T0B 0Z0 Ph: (780) 857-2720 Fax: (780) 857-2827 Cell: (780) 209-2373 Manager, Chris McQuaid (780) 806-6107 email: svlc@telus.net Lot capacity: 38,000

Bert or Brian Schwartzkopf Box 743 Coalhurst, Alta. T0L 0V0 Ph: (403) 381-4219 Fax: 394-2143 Cell: 360-2973 Lot capacity: 4,000 9

South Cara Farms Ltd.

Shelter Valley Custom Feeding

Sam McQuaid Cell: 780-209-2373 Lethbridge, Alta.

Manager: Corey Conan Cell: (403) 894-1020 Lot capacity: 10,000

Schwartzkopf farms Ltd.

5 market analysis

south island farms ltd.

1 9 2 4 7 Signal Ridge Farms

9 backgrounding

Russell Klassen Box 1287 Stettler, Alta. T0C 2L0 Ph: (403) 742-9762 Fax: 742-1828 email: info@signalridgefarms.com Lot capacity 2,000

2 health program

Rick Cromarty Box 157 Provost, Alta. T0B 3S0 Ph: (780) 753-4767 Fax: 753-4745 Cell: (780) 753-8801 email: scfl1@mcsnet.ca

1 9 2 8 5

1 5 9 2 8 4

1custom order buying and selling

Box 1425 Coaldale, Alta. T1M 1N2 Ph: 403-345-2210 Fax: 345-6844 Cell: 382-9518 Lot capacity: 9,000

9 8 2 5 4

1 9 4 2 7

1 2 4 5 7 9 8

John Slingerland

Scott MacLean Box 249 Bow Island, Alta. T0K 0G0 Ph: (403) 545-2422 Fax: 545-2442 Cell: 952-1405 Lot capacity: 6,500

1 5 9 2 8 4

7

7

8 pen sharing

4 trucking

7hedging

Uphill feeders

Colby Hansen Box 11 Tawatinaw, Alta. T0G 2E0 Ph: (780) 801-2805 Cell: (780) 307-2574 email: Colbyuphill@hotmail.ca Lot capacity: 500

9 2

V.C. Feedlot

Martin M. Stahl Veteran Colony Veteran, Alta. T0C 2S0 Ph: (403) 575-2169 Fax: 575-2190 Lot capacity: 1,000

1 9 2 4

H & R Vandenberg Farms

Harold Vandenberg Box 454 Coaldale, Alta. T1M 1M5 Ph/Fax: (403) 345-3991 Cell: 382-7986 email: vanfarm@yahoo.com Lot capacity: 5,000

1 5 9 2 8 4

Vandenberg cattle co. ltd.

John or Geert Box 531 Picture Butte, Alta. T0K 1V0 Ph: (403) 381-3302 / 381-6569 Fax: 381-3364 Cell: 380-0300 Lot capacity: 4,300

5 2 4

van Loon farms stafford feeders ltd.

stronks Feedlot

Ken & Chris Box 2243 Athabasca, Alta. T9S 2B7 Ph: (780) 675-9207 Fax: 675-5095 Lot capacity: 6,000

1 9 2 8 4

7

stankievech ranches

Glen & Clare Stankievech Box 389 Trochu, Alta. T0M 2C0 Ph: (403) 442-2242 Fax: 442-3169 Cell: 588-6325 • Wintering cows Lot capacity: 2,000

5 9 2 8 stauffer farm feedlot

Murray Stauffer Jack Puddifant R.R. 3 Eckville, Alta. T0M 0X0 Ph: (403) 746-5737 Fax: 746-5739 email: stauff1@xplornet.com

1 5 9 2 8

Ed Stronks Box 870 Picture Butte, Alta. T0K 1V0 Ph: (403) 738-4106 Fax: 738-2193 Cell: 308-9997 Lot capacity: 6,000

1 5 2 8 4

1 9 2 8 Sunnybend Feedlot

Marvin Tschetter Box 160 Fort Macleod, Alta. T0L 0Z0 Cell: (403) 635-0340 Fax: 553-2958 Lot capacity: 2,000 9

7

sundial livestock feeders ltd.

Chris Tetreault Box 359 Bassano, Alta. T0J 0B0 Ph: (403) 641-3500 Fax: 641-3018 Cell: 633-0890 Lot capacity: 10,000

thompson colony feeders

Tongue creek feeders ltd./ Roseburn ranches ltd.

Peter Morrison Box 5910 High River, Alta. T1V 1P6 Ph: (403) 652-7410 Fax: 652-2936 Cell: 312-7909 email: cattle@roseburn.net Lot capacity: 16,000/12,000

1 5 4 9 2 8

John B. Walter R.R. 1 Westlock, Alta. T7P 2N9 Ph: (780) 349-3542 Fax: 954-2633 Cell: 349-1740 Lot capacity: 2,000 9

tfS Expanse Ltd.

James Bekkering 6311-56th Ave. Taber, Alta. T1G 1X9 Ph: (403) 223-9090 Fax: 223-9061 Lot capacity: 25,000

Box 54 Tiger Lily, Alta. T0G 2G0 Ph: (780) 674-3954 Fax: (780) 674-3502 Cell: (780) 206-0024 email: vanloonfarms@gmail.com Lot capacity: 2,000

1 9 2

Vee tee feeders ltd.

Don Davies Box 12220 Lloydminster, Alta. T9V 3C4 Ph: (780) 875-6231 Fax: 875-6232 Cell: 808-5607 email: veetee@mcsnet.ca Lot capacity: 6,000

1 9 2 8 7

Western feedlots ltd.

Travis Hickey Box 5279 High River, Alta. T1V 1M4 Ph: (403) 652-3933 Fax: 601-8670 Website: westernfeedlots.com

1 5 9 2 8 7 West Ridge farms

Jim Hurt Box 321 Crossfield, Alta. T0M 0S0 Ph: (403) 946-4198 Lot capacity: 1,300

1custom order buying and selling

5 market analysis

9 backgrounding

2 health program

8 pen sharing

4 trucking

7hedging

9Saskatchewan 2 bezan land & Livestock Ltd.

Layton Bezan Box 1726 Regina, Sask. S4P 3C6 Ph: (306) 775-0412 Fax: 775-0444 Cell: 537-8898 Lot capacity: 1,200

1 5 9 2 4

7

birch island land & cattle co.

Shayne Yewsuk / Mark Herman Box 236 Rhein, Sask. S0A 3K0 Ph: (306) 273-4600 Fax: 273-4601 email: birchisland@imagewireless.ca Lot capacity: 8,500

1 5 9 2 8 4

7

Border line feeders inc.

Kevin Antworth Box 128 Ceylon, Sask. S0C 0T0 Ph: (306) 454-2250 Fax: 454-2216 Cell: 442-7401 email: kevin.blfi@sasktel.net Lot capacity: 12,000

1 5 9 2 8 4 Burnt out creek ranch

Ernie Wicks Jordan Kowal Cody Wicks Box 566 Tisdale, Sask. S0E 1T0 Ph: (306) 873-3702 Fax: (306) 873-5046 Cell: (306) 873-0129 Lot capacity: 4,000

1 5 9 8 4 dietrich farms ltd.

Jim Dietrich Box 68 Mendham, Sask. S0N 1P0 Ph: (306) 628-4249 Cell: 628-7170 email: jdietrich@sasktel.net Lot capacity: 2,200

1 5 9 2 8 4 Excellerator Genetics

Ron Dietrich Box 116 Moosomin, Sask. S0G 3N0 Ph: (306) 435-9381 email: excellerator@sasktel.net Website: www.excelleratorgenetics.com Lot capacity: 4,000

1 9 2 4 7

hagerty livestock ltd.

Nine Mile Ranch Ltd.

Larry Hagerty General Delivery, Box 11 Stony Beach, Sask. S0G 4S0 Ph: (306) 345-2523 Fax: 345-2085 Lot capacity: 3,000

1 9 2 8 4

Jeff Carlson Cam Buyer Eric Buyer Carnduff, Sask.

Ph: (403) 442-3186 Fax: (403) 442-2261 Cell: (403) 350-9674 email: jcarlson@explornet.com Lot capacity: 5,000

perrault feedlot

L & D feeders

Perrault brothers Box 182 Ponteix, Sask. S0N 1Z0 Ph: (306) 625-3750 Fax: 625-3978 Cell: 625-7804 Lot capacity: 1,000

Dave & Lynne Baumann Box 39 Tompkins, Sask. S0N 2S0 Ph/Fax: (306) 622-4605 Lot capacity: 2,200

1 9 2 8 M & T Feedlot

1 9 Pound-maker agventures ltd.

1 5 9 2 8 4

Greg Thompson Box 336 Moose Jaw, Sask. S6H 4N9 Ph: (306) 694-5314 Fax: 693-8822 Cell: 631-7413 Lot capacity: 3,500

1 5 9 2 8 4

purpose Farms Inc.

Myles Heppner Box 70 Spiritwood, Sask. S0J 2M0 Ph: (306) 984-2149 Fax: 984-2450 Cell: 883-7476 Lot capacity: 3,500 9 2

plains livestock Inc.

7

McQueen Feedyards

Bill & Dave McQueen Box 35 Tessier, Sask. S0L 3G0 Ph: (306) 656-4465 Fax: 656-2042 Lot capacity: 6,000

7

Bruce Edwards Box 160 Porcupine Plain, Sask. S0E 1H0 Ph: (306) 889-4500 email: plainslivestock1@xplornet.ca Website: www.plainslivestock.net Lot capacity: 10,000

1 5 9 2 8 4s

Brad Wildeman Box 519 Lanigan, Sask. S0K 2M0 Ph: (306) 365-4281 Fax: 365-4283 email: pma@pound-maker.ca Website: www.pound-maker.ca Lot capacity: 28,500

1 5 2 8 4

7

Red Coat Cattle Feeders Inc.

Barry Boghean Box 86 Hazenmore, Sask. S0N 1C0 Ph: (306) 264-3844 Fax: 264-3206 Cell: 625-7355 email: rccf@yourlink.ca Lot capacity: 18,500

9 2 8 15

1 5 2 8 4 1custom order buying and selling

5 market analysis

9 backgrounding

2 health program

8 pen sharing

4 trucking

7hedging

Manitoba Bar M Stock Farms Ltd.

Brad McDonald P.O. Box 1345 Portage la Prairie, Man. R1N 3L5 email: cattlemen@hotmail.ca Ph/Fax: (204) 239-5928 Cell: 856-6293 Lot capacity: 1,800

9 2 Dana Johns

Box 188 Kenton, Man. R0M 0Z0 Ph/Fax: (204) 838-2003 Cell: 365-7149 email: johnsdm@goinet.ca Lot capacity: 1,000

1 9 2 8 4 Foxwillow

Christopher & Sarah Walwin Box 69 Hamiota, Man. R0M 0T0 Ph: (204) 562-3633 email: cswalwin@mts.net • Specialize in pedigree cattle Lot capacity: 600

Hamiota feedlot ltd.

Ross L-Seven Ranch

Chad Ross/Brian Ross Box 1087 Estevan, Sask. S4A 2H7 Ph: (306) 634-7301 Fax: 634-7762 Cell: 421-6346 • Custom grazing • Heifer A.I. • Cow/bull wintering Lot capacity: 2,500 9

Tyner Valley Stock farms

Dave Taciuk Box 774 Wakaw, Sask. S0K 4P0 Ph: (306) 233-5959 email: d.taciuk@sasktel.net

westwood Land & Cattle Company

Kevin Woods Box 6 Moosomin, Sask. S0G 3N0 Ph: (306) 435-2102 Fax: 435-4833 Cell: 435-7313 Lot capacity: 10,000

Td3L Hull Ranch

2

shur Transport exporting & trucking

Norm Shurygalo Box 308 Beinfait, Sask. S0C 0M0 Ph: (306) 388-2329 Fax: 388-2321 Cell: 421-3482 email: shurtruck@hotmail.com Lot capacity: 800

1 5 9 2 8 4 Sunny slope Cattle Ltd.

Don Bowyer Box 1744 Maple Creek, Sask. S0N 1N0 Ph: (306) 662-2901 Fax: 662-4450 Lot capacity: 1,500 9 2

Terry & Debbie Hull Box 160 Willowbrook, Sask. S0A 4P0 Ph/Fax: (306) 782-7295 email: tdhull@yourlink.ca Lot capacity: 1,100

1 5 9 2 4 wes Wiebe

Vaughan Feedlot

9 2 8

willow park ranch

Watteyne Cattle feeders LTD.

Wes Watteyne Box 262 Lafleche, Sask. S0H 2K0 Ph/Fax: (306) 472-3775 Cell: 472-7642 email: ws.watteyne@xplornet.com Lot capacity: 2,200

Ben Wurz Box 70 Tessier, Sask. S0L 3G0 Ph: (306) 237-9510 Fax: 237-9511 Cell: 220-0400 Lot capacity: 800

1 5 9

1 9 2 8

1custom order buying and selling

5 market analysis

1 9 2 8 G.C. Klassen and sons

7

Wes Wiebe Box 1651 Swift Current, Sask. S7H 4G6 Ph: (306) 773-2171 Cell: 741-1220 • Winter cows Lot capacity: 600 9 8

9 2 8

Lyle Vaughan Box 22 Canwood, Sask. S0J 0K0 Ph/Fax: (306) 468-2677 Lot capacity: 1,000

Larry Schweitzer Box 610 Hamiota, Man. R0M 0T0 Ph: (204) 764-2449 Fax: 764-2264 email: feedlot@goinet.ca Website: www.hamiotafeedlot.com Lot capacity: 13,000

Garry or Cindy Box 1152 Altona, Man. R0G 0B0 Ph: (204) 829-7706 Fax: 829-3676 Cell: 324-7405 Lot capacity: 500

1 9 2 4 PEnner feedlot

Phillip Penner Donavon Penner Box 66 Kelwood, Man. R0J 0Y0 Ph/Fax: (204) 967-2009 Cell: 212-0221 Lot capacity: 650

9 2 8 Rocking U feeders

Box 779 MacGregor, Man. R0H 0R0 Ph: (204) 685-2264 Fax: 685-2135 email: rockinguf@hotmail.com Lot capacity: 10,000

1 9 2

9 backgrounding

2 health program

8 pen sharing

4 trucking

7hedging

MANITOBA Continued D&P Rooke Farms

Daniel and Penny Box 68 Alexander, Man. R0K 0K0 Ph: (204) 756-2073 Fax: (204) 752-2341 Cell: (204) 573-2082 email: daniel@d-pgroup.com

9

Rolling acres

Daniel Hofer Box 95 Eden, Man. R0J 0M0 (204) 916-3525 ext. 216 Lot capacity: 250

9 T.J. Livestock

Thor Jonsson General Delivery Oakview, Man. R0C 2K0 Ph: (204) 768-2422 Fax: 768-3393 Cell: 739-3230 email: tjonsson@mts.net Lot capacity: 2,000

1 5 9 2 8 4

7

Wild Rose cattle ranch

Mark or Nicholas Symbol Box 18, Group 6, R.R. 1 Anola, Man. R0E 0A0 Ph: (204) 866-2683 Lot capacity: 240

9 2 8

Ontario Daniel Jeffrey

R.R. 2 Stratford, Ont. N5A 6S3 Ph: (519) 273-7843 Cell: 272-9001 Fax: 271-9382 Lot capacity: 900

9 2 8 4 7

Nova Scotia Van Oostrum Farms

New Brunswick Davanna Holdings Dean & David Acton

Andrew Van Oostrum R.R. 2 Berwick, N.S. B0P 1E0 Ph: (902) 538-7716 Fax: 538-1411 Lot capacity: 400

308 Cookville Loop Rd. Cookville, N.B. E4L 2A4 Ph: (506) 536-2508 Fax: 536-2826 Cell: 379-0024 email: davanna@xplornet.ca Lot capacity: 1,000

1 5 9 2 8 4

Prince Edward Island beech hill Farms

127 Beech Hill Road Alberry Plains, P.E.I. C0A 2E0 Ph: (902) 651-2173 Fax: 651-2578

1 9 4

1 9 2

wayne martin

R.R. 2 7468 Wellington Road 8 Alma, Ont. N0B 1A0 Ph: (519) 638-3871 Fax: 638-3825 Lot capacity: 450

R.A. Farm

Robert Acton 550 Cookville Road Cookville, N.B. E4L 2A7 Ph: (506) 536-2564 Fax: 536-4700 Cell: 364-7263 email: rafarm@nbnet.nb.ca Lot capacity: 1,200

9 2 8 milldale farms ltd.

R.R. 1 Norwich, Ont. N0J 1P0 Ph: (519) 468-2325 Fax: 468-2326 Cell: 532-8748 email: vanker@execulink.com Lot capacity: 550

1 9 2 8 4

5 9 2 4 7

1custom order buying and selling

5 market analysis

9 backgrounding

2 health program

8 pen sharing

4 trucking

7hedging

When BRD strikes, time is of the essence. Help minimize potential losses with a single injection of RESFLOR速, the only 2-in-1 treatment product that combines: - a fast-acting1, broad-spectrum antibiotic to help manage pathogens associated with BRD infection, and - a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory (NSAID) to help reduce fever

...for visible recovery within 6 hours.1

ING PRODUCT THE FASTEST-GROW FOR THE IN CANADA D* TREATMENT OF BR

Ask your veterinarian about the unique dual action of RESFLOR.

1. Weingarten A, et al. The efficacy of Resflor速, a new therapeutic agent for the treatment of bovine respiratory disease, XXIV World Buiatrics Congress, 2006. * Impact Vet 2012 Data 速 Resflor is a registered trademark of Intervet International B.V. Used under license.

Merck Animal Health, operating in Canada as Intervet Canada Corp., a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc., Whitehouse Station, NJ, USA. MERCK is a trademark of Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp., a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc., Whitehouse Station, NJ, USA. Copyright 息 2012 Intervet International B.V., a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc., Whitehouse Station, NJ, USA. All rights reserved.

Resflor Ad Canadian Cattlemen.indd 1

2014-07-29 09:52

Optimize BRD protection with ZUPREVO

®

High and sustained concentrations in lung tissue.1 Indicated for the reduction of morbidity associated with BRD in feedlot calves.

Treats more cattle per bottle* than any other on-arrival antibiotic.2 Uncompromising quality backed by the no-hassle, worry-free Breathe Easy Pledge of Performance.†

Make ZUPREVO your NEW on-arrival antibiotic of choice for cattle at high risk of developing BRD. ®

* Per like-sized vial in animals of comparable weight. † Consult your veterinarian for details.

NOTE: The correlation between pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic (pk/pd) data and clinical efficacy is unknown.

1. Menge, M., Rose, M., Bohland, C., Zschiesche, E., Kilp, S., Metz, W., Allan, M., Röpke, R., Nürnberger, M. Pharmacokinetics of tildipirosin in bovine plasma, lung tissue, and bronchial fluid (from live, non-anesthetized cattle). J. Vet. Pharmacol. Therap. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2885.2011.01349.x.

2. As per the approved Canadian product label concentrations and recommended dosages.

ZUPREVO® and RESFLOR® are registered trademarks of Intervet International B.V., used under license by Intervet Canada Corp., a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc., Whitehouse Station, NJ, USA, operating in Canada as Merck Animal Health.

MERCK® is a registered trademark of Merck Canada Inc. in Canada.

Copyright © 2014 Intervet International B.V., a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc., Whitehouse Station, NJ, USA. All rights reserved.

Zuprevo ad Canadian Cattlemen.indd 1

2014-07-30 09:56

 PRIME CUTS

By Steve Kay

FEWER CATTLE, FEWER PLANTS

M

eat-packing plants are the lifeblood of many rural communities in North America. So the impact of a plant closure is often felt more by local businesses than by livestock producers who supplied the plant. It wasn’t always that way for producers. Even in the early 2000s, groups on both sides of the border worked to get new beef-processing plants built in the belief this would put more money in producers’ pockets.

How wrong they were and how events have changed in the last five or six years. Building a plant was never a guarantee of anything, as the backers of Ranchers Beef in Alberta and Northern Beef Packers in South Dakota found out. The Ranchers plant looks likely to reopen late this year, which is great news for producers and cattle feeders. But the NBP plant in Aberdeen will likely be dark for a long time.

What changed is a shrinking herd on both sides of the border and in Mexico. The three countries had a combined 128.74 million cattle on January 1, 2010. By January 1 this year, this number had fallen 11.04 million head or 8.6 per cent. The impact has been threefold. It has pushed the price for all beef cattle to new highs. It has forced feedlots to close or run at reduced capacity, and it has forced beef plants to do the same. Another impact is on the hundreds of companies that supply products and services to the industry. It’s hard to measure this impact financially. But if each animal uses $100 worth of products and services, that’s a $1.1-billion hit in four years.

The Ranchers plant closed in August 2008. Later came closures by XL Foods of its Moose Jaw, Sask., plant two years later and its fed beef plant in Calgary, Alta., in May

2011. This left the province with only two large fed beef plants. Along with the COOL-related difficulties of selling slaughter cattle to the U.S., this left cattle feeders in Western Canada with fewer marketing opportunities. But the red-hot U.S. market this year has lifted prices on the Prairies and made cattle feeders much happier. Moreover, the demand for Canadian cattle is likely to continue to grow.

The first major realignment of capacity with supply in the U.S. came in 2006 when Tyson Foods closed two slaughter-only plants, in West Point, Neb. and Boise, Idaho. Such plants were by then something of an anachronism so these closures came as no surprise. But they might have remained open if the cattle had been there. Tyson’s big move though came in February 2008 when it closed its Emporia, Kan., plant. This had a processing capacity of 4,000 head per day so was the first sign that U.S. fed beef processors needed to make tough decisions to protect their other plants.

Cargill took such a decision in February last year when it shuttered its 4,650-head-per-day plant in Plainview, Texas.

Catastrophic drought in the region and in northern Mexico had reduced available cattle numbers at both the ranch and feedlot levels by more than the plant would harvest in a year.

Cargill has another large plant 90 miles away in Friona so its decision was made partly to protect that plant.

Closures since then have accelerated on both the fed and non-fed (cow) side. Another 11 plants have closed.

They and Plainview represented 12,750 head of daily capacity. Capacity nationally is now much more in line with cattle supplies but there’s no guarantee that more plants won’t close next year. Each will be a loss to their community and to the industry. c

A North American view of the meat industry. Steve Kay is publisher and editor of Cattle Buyers Weekly.

your cattle’s future looks bright Crystalyx.com l 800.727.2502

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

CRYSTALYX® works hard to develop new and innovative ways to help producers with all types of feeding and management situations.

Your CRYSTALYX® program delivers minimal labor investment, zero supplement waste and specific formulas tailored for specific needs. It’s not just a product...it’s a program. Your future looks bright with CRYSTALYX®.

C AT T L E M E N · S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 4

31

 health

By Debbie Furber

A Facelift for Bovine TB Surveillance

T

he Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) is wrapping up an ambitious round of bovine tuberculosis testing of cattle, wild elk and deer in and around Riding Mountain National Park in west-central Manitoba as the first step in easing TB surveillance measures for producers living in this area.

It can’t come soon enough for the producers in the Riding Mountain Eradication Area (REMA).

It’s going on 12 years that beef producers in the RMEA have been required to present their herds to CFIA for routine on-farm testing as often as every second year in some locations.

There hasn’t been a case of bovine TB in Manitoba’s domestic herd since 2008, yet the RMEA surveillance program remains unchanged because wild elk in the park are a known reservoir for the disease.

It’s taken a toll on producers, says bovine TB co-ordinator Allan Preston. Not only on those who’ve already called it quits, but those still committed to making a go of it despite the stress and ever-present dread of having TB turn up again.

Surveillance currently takes up half of the standing TB management plan’s annual $2-million budget and many feel it would be better for all concerned if more of that money could be spent on research, risk mitigation and disease prevention.

Preston, a beef producer himself and former practising veterinarian and assistant deputy minister of agriculture in Manitoba was appointed to his position by the provincial and federal governments in December 2012 at the urging of Manitoba Beef Producers (MBP). His role has since been extended to the end of this year.

This was part of the MBP’s continuing campaign in support of producers in the RMEA who have had to bear the burden of the heightened security measures on behalf of all Manitoba producers. Their co-operation with the program allowed Manitoba, including the RMEA, to regain its TB-free status in 2006 and maintain it since then.

The CFIA created the RMEA on January 1, 2003, on the heels of the TB outbreak of the early 2000s, after the USDA decision to downgrade Manitoba’s TB status in the sum-

32

Elk remain the main reservoir of TB for deer and cattle in the Riding Mountain Park area.

mer of 2002. To this day, the U.S. requires negative individual tests on all cattle and bison of breeding potential from anywhere in Manitoba before they’re allowed in.

As of this summer there were 429 herds (41,052 head) in the RMEA with 37 herds (3,367 head) in the core area.

Special testing program

A big part of Preston’s initial work involved bringing together the various stakeholders — MBP, two federal departments, two federal agencies, two provincial departments, the Manitoba Wildlife Federation and a large First Nations community — to decide on a path forward.

Using wildlife modelling it was determined that 102 elk and 135 white-tailed deer would need to test negative to prove TB had reached an undetectable level. The CFIA also chose to test 5,000 cattle from 55 herds in the RMEA. At an undetectable level, Preston says he would feel comfortable saying TB has been pushed back far enough that it would no longer be a problem. To eradicate it they would have to eliminate all wild elk and deer from the park and that was never in the cards.

Testing the wild population ran into a couple of hitches earlier on. Hunters were

C at t l e m e n · S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 4

required to submit samples but only six elk and 95 deer had been submitted up to February of this year and by then it was discovered that the elk and deer populations in the park were lower than expected.

Preston says Parks Canada then stepped up with a program to capture, kill, inspect and test 46 elk and 40 deer, and donate the meat from healthy animals.

The remaining elk samples were collected by the conventional method of capturing animals for a blood sample, then fitting them with an ID collar and releasing them.

Positive ones would be recaptured and euthanized to confirm a diagnosis with a culture test that can take up to four months.

All elk removed from the park were cultured as well as five of the captured animals.

Results and implications

On May 12 one elk cow cultured positive.

Fortunately she was born in the spring of 2003, making her a remnant of the early 2000 outbreak. “Picking up one of those old cows or bulls wasn’t unexpected,” Preston says. “Where a positive in the elk population would be of greater concern is finding one born after 2004 because that’s the area that would tell us if we have the disease still percolating in the wild.”

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

health

To date, there has not been a positive wild elk born after 2004.

All of the deer samples came back clean.

Finding a positive deer would have been uneventful at any rate because TB in this population was a spillover from the previous high level in wild elk. The first of 11 deer cases was confirmed in 2001 and the last in 2009.

Finding the one old positive elk cow will have implications for ongoing surveillance of the elk population because it means that TB in the wild isn’t yet at an undetectable level.

However, Preston says it shouldn’t affect plans to reduce the testing of the domestic cattle herd because the elk was taken from deep in the core area of the park, where the risk to cattle would have been minimal.

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

Testing of the RMEA domestic herd is focused mainly on the rural municipalities of Rossburn to the south of the park and Grandview to the north where past outbreaks have occurred. Fourteen herds have been depopulated since the start of Manitoba’s bovine TB management plan in 1990.

As of late August, 51 herds had been tested covering 3,600 head and two remained to be done. Six head reacted to the caudal tail fold test. This is in line with the expected reactor rate. Those animals were retested using a two-stage blood test.

Five of the animals have been cleared and the results were still pending on the last one.

“Finding one or more positives in the domestic herd wouldn’t be the end of the

world,” Preston says. “The CFIA has a wellexercised drill for dealing with that and the clock starts ticking. We have 48 months from the first herd and if we have a second herd in that 48-month window, then our TB status is at risk.”

The goal of the working group is to reduce the amount of live testing at the farm and rely on packing plant data for cattle from the RMEA to provide the necessary surveillance.

“The reduced testing will be much more targeted and strategic based on qualitative and quantitative risk assessments of the RMEA producers,” Preston explains.

TB surveillance at packing plants is a longContinued on page 34

C at t l e m e n · S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 4

33

h ea lt h

 t b t est i ng

“ Slaughter surveillance is critical to doing less herd testing.”

Allan Preston bovine TB co-ordinator

Continued from page 33

standing program in Canada and the U.S. In Canada, CFIA personnel on the floor at federally inspected plants and veterinarians supervising other abattoirs check for TB when they carry out regular health inspections. Unfortunately, a test run on this concept last winter had disappointing results.

This project started by identifying premises in the RMEA and tracking the cattle using the Canadian Cattle Identification Agency (CCIA) tags issued to those premises until the tags are retired at slaughter or export.

“Only 50 per cent of them were found, indicating that there are serious problems with the traceability system, especially when it comes to accounting for the retirement and/ or export of tags,” Preston says. “Recent funding announcements and projects in development have a strong focus on this problem because slaughter surveillance is critical to doing less herd testing and right now, we’re not getting the data.”

Of course, the producers have to be willing to share their premises ID and data in order to make this work. In February, people were already on the ground asking RMEA producers to sign off on sharing their testing information with MBP. Otherwise it remains confidential through an agreement between the CFIA and CCIA. The Manitoba government has since committed $150,000 to back the development of a surveillance program using TB test results from packing plants and abattoirs for cattle originating in the RMEA. This project will be managed by the producer-run MBP. The federal government is also on board with $297,000 to support ongoing development of a disease-testing model, tracking TB test results at slaughter, and enhancing existing monitoring and management activities.

Beyond Surveillance

On-farm risk assessments coupled with biosecurity measures will be important in the effort to reduce the level of routine testing.

34

TB spreads through saliva, making saliva left on bales the most likely route of transmission from wildlife to cattle. Assistance has been available for building eight foot high stackyard fences. Now there is interest in 3D fencing to prevent mingling of cattle and wild cervids. (For more on 3D fencing, see Canadian Cattlemen, October 2013.)

A herd-health module has been developed to be delivered in conjunction with CFIA testing.

“There has been concern over the years that testing has a negative impact on some of these herds and we’ve been able to demonstrate that’s not the case,” Preston says. A third-party review of TB control programs in four other countries found no documented negative health effects from longterm repeated tuberculin testing. Negative effects on cattle and people due to stress have been documented and recognized, however.

The reviewer also found that research is underway to develop alternatives to the current TB-testing regime, including a vaccine, however, none are likely to be available any time soon and are possibly 10 years away.

Preston says a new surveillance model is being developed by the CFIA and MBP with input from AusVet, an Australian consulting company.

The current Manitoba project will provide useful information for other jurisdictions should they have to deal with TB issues down the road.

TB has been present in Canadian dairy and beef herds since 1897 when the federal government started providing free testing.

Ten years later, TB inspections at packing plants were introduced. Area TB testing started in 1923 and outbreaks weren’t uncommon through to 1961, when the first general TB test was conducted across Canada. Approximately 400,000 of the 500 million cattle tested had positive reactions and were put down. c

C at t l e m e n · S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 4

When TB is suspected CFIA’s current TB-testing protocol starts with a caudal tail fold (CTF) test, where tuberculin is delivered intradermally into the loose skin along the side of the tailhead.

Seventy-two hours later, the cattle have to be presented again for examination. Animals with suspicious CFT surface reactions have blood taken for a bovigram test.

A positive bovigram leads to a temporary quarantine while animals with positive results are euthanized and inspected for signs of TB. If no lesions are found, the carcasses are cleared and the quarantine is lifted.

When lesions are found, tissues are stained for microscopic examination. If acid-fast bacilli characteristic of TB are present, tissue samples need to be cultured to confirm the diagnosis. The herd stays in quarantine until the culture results are in, which can take up to four months.

One positive culture means the whole herd must be put down and compensation paid according to CFIA regulations. It’s rare to find more than one to two per cent of a herd infected upon post-slaughter testing.

Trace-outs are conducted to identify animals that have left the herd in the past five years. Those herds are immediately quarantined and the testing process begins again.

A sore point has been the CFIA’s refusal to pay producers a mustering fee for their time and effort rounding up their cattle twice in three days. The provincial government did offer a $6-per-head mustering fee for a few years, then dropped it to $2 and Manitoba Beef Producers kicked in another $1 per head.

New funding for data collection will replace the old mustering fee for producers over the next three years.

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

here’s the beef Stay on top of the latest livestock news, market stats and weather with the Canadian Cattlemen mobile app.

It’s all the great content and regional insight you rely on, in a convenient digital format.

Stay effortlessly informed on all the news and data that matters to you.

 Set your local weather

Sponsored by

 Set subjects relevant to your ranch  Set notices on the futures contract

prices of your choice  FREE

to Download – scan the code to downloand

 Available for Android, iPhone and Blackberry smartphones  Visit agreader.ca/cc to download the app

or text “cc” to 393939 to be sent the link.

Standard text messaging rates apply.

Part of the

network

 HEALTH

By Debbie Furber

EAR TAGS FOR EARLY DISEASE DETECTION

A

n ear tag sensor system developed and validated for heat detection and health monitoring in the dairy industry by Agis Automatisering of the Netherlands is showing promise as a tool for early detection of respiratory disease in feedlot cattle in Canada.

The CowManager SensOor tag clips onto an Allflex radio frequency identification button to pick up ear movements associated with feeding and rumination. Ear movement is constant but irregular when the head is down while eating compared to a regular pattern of ear movement during rumination.

Data are transmitted every minute from the tag to a computer that translates the information into feeding and rumination minutes and summarizes it into one-hour periods.

When an animal’s feeding or rumination time drops in comparison to the previous day or to its pen mates, an alert shows up on the computer. An app is available to receive the same alerts and data on a mobile device.

The correlation between the onset of sickness and changes in feeding behaviour is as early as seven days before cattle show clinical signs of illness, according to previous studies using the GrowSafe individual feed bunk system. It has also been well established that treating cattle in the early stages of lung infection improves cure rates and reduces weight loss, explains Dr. Barbara Wolfger, a veterinarian from Austria, who is currently a PhD candidate studying with Dr. Karin Orsel at University of Calgary Veterinary Medicine (UCVM).

Wolfger says the SensOor system is also of interest because it measures rumination time. The association between rumination

36

time and early disease detection hasn’t been studied, but could aid in identifying conditions such as ruminal acidosis.

Working with Orsel and Dr. Edouard Timsit, she put the SensOor system to the test last summer in a validation study at Lacombe Research Centre to determine whether it could be a practical and effective tool to record feeding and rumination times.

Eighteen steers were fitted with SensOor tags to monitor feeding and rumination 24-7, while observers recorded feeding and rumination minutes for a total 233 hours during the same six-week period.

Compared to live observation, the system correctly recorded 92 per cent of feeding minutes and 51 per cent of rumination minutes. Ninety-two per cent of non-rumination events and 71 per cent of non-feeding events (rumination and other behaviours) were correctly calculated.

“A lot of rumination minutes were calculated by the system as feeding minutes, so the algorithm still needs a bit of adjustment. If adjusted to correctly recalculate those feeding minutes into rumination minutes we would actually get a pretty precise measurement of feeding and rumination,” Wolfger says.

A second trial was carried out at Lethbridge Research Centre last fall to assess the system’s practical application. The objective was to compare feeding and rumination behaviour of sick and healthy animals as monitored by the SensOor system. Thirty low-risk steers were fitted with tags, but only three were pulled for signs of respiratory disease by pen checkers who didn’t have access to the SensOor recordings. A healthy calf was pulled at the same time

C AT T L E M E N · S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 4

each of the sick calves were pulled to compare rumination and feeding time.

“We saw that sick calves had shorter feeding and rumination times than the healthy cattle and after treatment we saw feeding time increase quite dramatically, so the system seems to work really well,” Wolfger reports. “Even though the information isn’t 100 per cent accurate, we still get what we want — to detect calves that are sick.”

Unfortunately, no formal conclusions could be drawn from this study because of the unexpected low number of sick calves, but the research team feels the system has great potential for early respiratory disease detection.

She cautions producers to be careful when interpreting absolute numbers and percentages because on average the system recorded six minutes more feeding time per hour and three minutes less rumination time per hour than observed.

Regularly monitoring behaviour patterns over time would give producers a good indication of normal versus suspicious trends.

The company is working to improve and adjust the technology for the beef cattle industry and perhaps to develop a lighterweight tag for calves, while the UCVM is hoping to secure funding for a large-scale study to prove the system’s ability to detect early stage of disease and test the system during very cold winter temperatures.

EASY TO USE

The team found the system to be very user friendly when it came to installation, learning the technology and reading the data.

The reusable ear tags easily click on and off the Allflex RFID tags. No SensOor tags were

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

health

lost during these trials. Wolfger recommends keeping tags at room temperature before clipping them onto the RFID tags when working outdoors in cold temperatures.

Reading distance is one drawback. The ear tags have to be within 100 metres of the router to maintain continuous data flow.

However, when cattle are farther away, the tags save data for up to 48 hours and transmit it the next time the animal is within reach of the router.

The SensOor tags perform three functions and each requires its own software module to collect and summarize data. The system was originally developed for use with the fertility software module to detect heat in dairy cattle.

The health module summarizing feeding and rumination per hour and day was tested in this study for its potential as a tool for early disease detection in feedlot cattle.

The temperature function works with the health module, however, Wolfger wasn’t able to integrate this feature into early disease detection because it records ear skin temperature, not body temperature. In temperature-controlled environments, the ear skin temperature of an animal relative to the group in combination with feeding behaviour may be used to detect metabolic disorders and disease, but its practical application for cattle housed outdoors in the Canadian environment hasn’t been assessed.

The CowManager SensOor system has to be ordered directly from the manufacturer.

As of August, a starter kit including one tag, the health module and co-ordinator for a computer was priced at CAN$109 per tag for up to 100 tags. There is a volume discount in 100-tag increments that drops the price down to $80 per tag for more than 5,000 tags. The router costs $731. The system, including the reusable SensOor tags, has an expected 10-year lifetime and fiveyear manufacturer’s warranty.

Product details and contact information are available on the company’s website, www.cowmanager.com. For more information on the trials, Wolfger can be reached at bwolfger@ucalgary.ca. c

Quiet industry Leader

SaleS & Product SuPPort ProfeSSionalS Nester Livestock equipmeNt LtD 1-888-684-3691

•

VuLcan, ab

www.NesterLivestockequipmeNt.com www.canadiancattlemen.ca

C at t l e m e n · S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 4

37

 health

By Debbie Furber

Toe-tip necrosis still something of a mystery Early detection critical

H

aving no clue as to what’s causing lameness could be your best clue for diagnosing toe-tip necrosis syndrome in the early stages, which is the only time treatment will be effective.

Circumstantial evidence is the key, explains Dr. Murray Jelinski, Alberta Beef chair with the Western College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Saskatchewan.

Typically, lameness starts to appear within two days to a few weeks after arrival at the feedlot, frequently in excitable cattle.

They go lame on one or both hind feet but initially there is no swelling in the hoof area as is typical with almost all other hoof conditions associated with lameness.

It could start as mild lameness, something that might be dismissed as an injury from trucking or handling. The severity increases as the disease progresses with a shortened stride and obvious pain when the toe touches the ground. In severe cases, animals may be three-legged lame.

“The sooner you treat these calves with antibiotic the better because the cure rate for toe-tip necrosis in the early stage is believed to be good. Once infection gets into the bone, the situation is grave because it’s very difficult to successfully treat bone infections,” says Jelinski.

What’s happening is an injury has exposed the white line at the tip of the claw.

The white line around the underside of the claw where the sole meets the hoof wall is the most vulnerable part of the hoof.

When bacteria gain entry infection sets up in the corium surrounding the P3 (third phalangeal) bone at the tip of the hoof.

The P3 is comparable to the third bone at the end of a human finger and the corium is comparable to the quick on your nail in that it supplies blood and nutrients for horn growth.

“In many cases, unless you pick up the hoof, wash it and look really, really closely with a flashlight, you won’t see the weakness in the white line. That’s why we think the syndrome is so under-reported and misdiagnosed,” Jelinski says.

Even when they knew exactly what they were looking for Jelinski and Dr. Sonia Marti,

38

The slow and steady progression of toe-tip necrosis.

PHOTO: Dr. Murray Jelinski

who is working on a large lameness study at the Lethbridge Research Centre, were only able to confirm the diagnosis on some calves by clipping the tip of the hoof just into the corium to see brownish-black pus seep out.

The procedure is doable in a feedlot with ordinary hoof nippers, however, some care is needed.

“The key is to start slowly because you don’t want to damage the white line and corium if the foot is perfectly fine,” he explains. “Only the very tip of the toe should be nipped. If the animal has toe-tip necrosis, then a small draining tract will be evident, and it will be surrounded by dead-looking tissue. Additional trimming of the dead tissue and placing pressure on the sole often leads to a small amount of bloody brown pus being expressed from the defect.”

Although drainage may help, it’s not a treatment. At this stage, the infection is already in the corium and possibly the P3 bone and your only real option is to have your veterinarian amputate the claw. Be sure to check all of the other toes for the disease before going ahead with the amputation.

Once the P3 dies and starts to rot, swelling will appear as infection moves into surrounding tissues. It generally starts in an outside claw on a back hoof, spreading from the P3 into the second and first bones of that claw, then the other claw and oftentimes into the leg bone. It’s not uncommon for these lame calves to die from embolic pneumonia as the bacteria showers into other parts of the body.

“Invariably these calves are treated for general lameness within the first month of arrival, don’t respond to several treatments,

C at t l e m e n · S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 4

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

health

and end up being put down three to four weeks later,” Jelinski says.

From a welfare perspective and to maintain staff morale he urges euthanizing sooner rather than later. It’s depressing to work with lame animals day in and day out when you know they are in pain and there’s nothing you can do about it.

The research

Toe-tip necrosis syndrome, commonly called P3 necrosis, was first described in feedlot cattle in the early 1980s, but not much is known about how the syndrome progresses or why it pops up randomly.

That’s what Jelinski and master’s student Chad Paetsch set out to learn in a study funded by the Beef Cattle Research Council.

Several feedlot veterinarians are co-operating by submitting hooves from cattle euthanized because of lameness and other causes to compare differences in hoof structure and hoof wall properties (hardness, elasticity, moisture content).

The prevailing theory is that it’s related to animals coming off pasture into feedlots.

“If you think about how animals use

their hind legs to push and shove against each other when moving through loading ramps, alleys and chutes, it’s quite possible that they rasp down the tips of their hooves on the concrete surfaces,” Jelinski explains.

Their findings to date generally support the theory that it’s a shipping- or processingbased condition that starts with mechanical trauma to the toe, but they have seen calves put down as early as four to five days after arrival and the odd time have found toe-tip necrosis in front hooves as well.

“This makes me think it could have started earlier on, maybe loading at the farm or at the market, and that there could be something else involved,” he says.

Toe-tip necrosis isn’t seen in cow-calf operations, but it could be present at a low level that’s going undiagnosed.

They have found an association between bovine viral diarrhea (BVD) and toe-tip necrosis, however, the virus isn’t a necessary component because many cases won’t have BVD present. BVD is known to suppress the immune system, which may explain its involvement in toe-tip necrosis.

Jelinski has received funding from the

Alberta Livestock and Meat Agency to carry on with a micronutrient analysis of hoof samples to investigate whether a mineral deficiency in calves and yearlings coming off pasture could be associated with the integrity of the hoof wall and thus predispose the hoof to infection.

Dr. Barry Blakley, WCVM, will be overseeing the analysis at Prairie Diagnostic Services.

This will involve upwards of 400 samples, half of which will be hooves from confirmed cases of toe-tip necrosis to compare against samples of healthy hooves as the control.

Jelinski will continue to work with the engineering department to do more mechanical testing of the hoof wall and sole.

This work is supported by a grant from Saskatchewan’s Agriculture Development Fund.

Paetsch will be defending his thesis this fall and results from the micronutrient analysis and mechanical testing are expected by the end of the year.

The goal of all these research projects is to develop a strategy to prevent or control toe-tip necrosis syndrome.

For more information, Jelinski can be reached at 306-966-7166. c

Plan to attend the...

2014 5 Annual TH

CFGA Conference & AGM November 17-19, 2014 Hôtel Château-Bromont Bromont, Québec

hosted by the Quebec Forage Council

‘CLOSING THE FORAGE GAP’

ADDRESSING THE COMPETITIVENESS OF FORAGES IN THE AGRICULTURAL LANDSCAPE Call for Leadership Award Nominations Deadline Oct 3, 2014

Canadian Forage & Grassland Association Association Canadienne pour les Plantes Fourragères

For more information please contact: Canadian Forage & Grassland Association Ph: (204) 254-4192

www.canadianfga.ca www.canadiancattlemen.ca

C at t l e m e n · S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 4

39

 CCA repo rts

By Dave Solverson

A busy August

A

s I reflect on a busy August full of Canadian Cattlemen’s Association (CCA) business and begin planning for harvest, I am struck by a few welcome developments in the industry that are far from business as usual. Cattle prices continue to hold strong, giving cow-calf producers an opportunity to sell into a hot market in this fall’s calf run. The short supply of animals in general will be good for yearlings off of grass as well. All animal types are deriving incredible value as cull cow and bull prices are also adding significant returns to cow-calf producers. It is these types of prices and profitability levels that will have more people considering expansion.

Prior to the CCA Semi-Annual Meeting in Charlottetown, P.E.I., I participated in a research tour that focused on forages and feed efficiencies in Eastern Canada. As I travelled through the Atlantic provinces I was struck by the great opportunities for expansion in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. I think there is real opportunity to work with the cash croppers in P.E.I. also, and to ultimately increase the size of the feeding and finishing sector in the Maritimes.

These are interesting times for Canada’s beef industry. On the trade front, now that Canada and the European Union (EU) have reached a complete text for a free trade agreement, it’s only a matter of time before the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) becomes a reality.

The Government of Canada recently announced it had regained full market access to Jamaica. While this market is small, every single market access win means producers can realize a better price for their cattle.

The CCA appreciates the efforts of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Minister Gerry Ritz to open markets for Canadian beef. The strong relationship the CCA has with Minister Ritz is equally vital when dealing with difficult matters like U.S. mandatory country-oforigin labelling (COOL).

In late July, COOL was discussed at length by myself and CCA vice-president Dan Darling at the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) summer conference in Denver.

Minister Ritz also attended the conference. In reference to the ongoing dispute currently in front of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Ritz told delegates that if successful, Canada will seek retaliation as quickly as possible and will target everything from California wine to Minnesota mattresses. He continued the tough talk on COOL at the CCA Semi-Annual.

The potential for retaliatory tariffs has commanded the attention of the U.S. Congress. Recently, 110 members of Congress sent a letter to the U.S. secretary of agriculture and U.S. trade representative requesting that, should the WTO rule against the U.S., the secretary of agriculture “rescind the final rule while Congress works to permanently resolve the issue.”

40

C at t l e m e n · s e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 4

The negative impact of Canadian and Mexican retaliation to the state of Iowa — a leading supporter of COOL — was discussed in an op-ed published in the Des Moines Register. The Corn Refiners Association in Washington, D.C. said $300 million worth of annual exports could be impacted, including commodities such as pork, corn, some prepared foods, while the corn wet milling industry could lose $500 million in annual sales to Mexico if corn sweeteners are targeted.

It suggests a solution put forth by a broad coalition of U.S. industries: should the WTO find that COOL is in violation of the U.S.’s international trade obligations, the secretary of agriculture should immediately suspend COOL indefinitely.

Speaking of international obligations, I was invited recently to participate in a video about BSE surveillance. I accepted the invitation because I feel strongly about Canada meeting its commitment to the OIE to maintain surveillance and testing levels in order to meet the expectations of Canada’s domestic and international customers. It is something that we must do in order to continue selling our beef around the world.

Participating in the video, which is aimed at producers and due to be released later this month, served as a good reminder of the importance of BSE surveillance to the Canadian industry. It prompted me to review options on my own farm with fresh eyes, and I urge my fellow beef producers to do the same.

This is the time of year for producers to take stock of the animals they have on farm and make culling decisions. I’m doing this on my own operation and have selected some cows that although in decent shape now may not be suitable for shipping for slaughter in a few months’ time. Once they have finished raising their calves I will call my veterinarian and have them assessed to see if they can fit into the program, because it is the right thing to do. I’d also urge producers to submit any eligible animals including all deadstock for testing as this is another way for Canada to meet its international commitments.

The experts say cattle between 30 months and 10 years of age provide the most valuable information in terms of monitoring the cattle population for BSE. However, any animal older than 30 months of age that fits into one of the categories of dead, down, dying or diseased are potential candidates for testing.

Taking positive actions like this will help Canada keep its place as a beef-exporting country. The measures in place are doing their job but we still need to ensure surveillance is at the appropriate level to measure the effectiveness of the controls. Meeting our testing commitments will help put Canada in a position to apply for negligible risk status in the fall of 2015 for approval at the OIE meeting in 2016. c Dave Solverson is president of the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association.

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

BUILDING TRUST IN CANADIAN BEEF

A master plan for cull cows This dairy producer’s plan has merit for all cattle operations

For many years shipping cull cows was an easy decision for Caronport, Sask. dairy producer Blaine McLeod. He loaded them up and hauled them a few miles down the road to the local slaughter plant in Moose Jaw. An easy trip for him and the animals.

Then things changed. That plant closed and cull cows had to travel a lot farther so their health was more important. His operation grew, with sons Michael and Mark joining, which meant more cull animals to handle. As well, major news stories of mistreatment of cull cows put the entire cattle industry under real scrutiny for cow management.

That led the McLeod family to set up a new cull cow master plan.

It provides economic value. And it meets farm and industry expectations that cull animals are well treated and reach the end of their life with appropriate dignity.

Farm philosophy

The new plan started with a philosophy: Every animal would be evaluated as an individual. Herd turnover rate on the 300 milking cows is about 25 per cent. Animals are culled for production reasons such as milking levels, failure to rebreed or age. Some are culled for health reasons.

All cull animals are assessed to ensure they are healthy enough to be sold. Can they travel? Refused at the destination or the carcass condemned? If there are problems, they don’t leave the farm.

Some cows are shipped directly from the milking line as they near end of lactation. Some will be pulled off the milk line and put in the “fat pen” which holds animals destined for the beef market. Some cows are sold to beef producers as nurse cows, a busy market recently.

Animals that are lame or have feet and leg problems are given time to recover.

Heavy milking cows are milked down. “We’ll foster a couple of bull calves on a cow until she drops in milk production,” says Michael. “Cows that develop chronic mastitis problems that can’t be solved economically, will also be culled and may have calves fostered onto them.”

Most cattle move to a local livestock buyer who assembles liner loads. The goal is to have animals move into premium markets where possible.

Thinking ahead about how cattle fare in reaching a destination is important to both dairy and beef production.

Don’t ship problems

Even with the best management, some animals will not be fit to leave the farm.

“Farmers pretty well know if an animal is healthy enough to ship or not,” says Blaine. “There will be some surprises, but the day of just sending a cow to the packing plant and seeing what happens is done.

“Euthanasia on farm still needs to happen and we need to do it properly.”

Protecting the industry

A key part of this master plan is cattle industry support.

“I hope we do a good job as an industry of dealing with society on these management issues,” says Blaine. “But at the end of the day I hope what we have coming back from that effort is practical, affordable and sustainable for the industry as well.”

DEVELOPED BY PRODUCERS. DEVELOPED FOR CONSUMERS

One implant. That’s it. You’re done!

Avoid the inconvenience and stress of re-implanting.

Do it right. Do it once.

Merck Animal Health, operating in Canada as Intervet Canada Corp., a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc., Whitehouse Station, NJ, USA. MERCK is a trademark of Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp., a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc., Whitehouse Station, NJ, USA. Copyright © 2011 Intervet International B.V., a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc., Whitehouse Station, NJ, USA. All rights reserved.

For more information, talk to your veterinarian or call our technical service at 1-866-683-7838.

® Registered trademark of Intervet International B.V. Used under license.

REV-XS Canadian Cattlemen QSHere.indd 1

13-07-24 14:49

 health

By Heather Smith Thomas

Can twine kill a cow?

C

attle can die from eating twine or net wrap left on big bales or put through the bale processor. And Dr. John Campbell, head at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine, in Saskatoon thinks it happens more often than we think.

“I don’t have a lot of data, unfortunately, but I’m starting to believe this is a bigger problem than we give it credit for. I recently did a herd investigation in which a fairly well-managed cow-calf herd had six cows die over a period of two days. The local veterinarian asked me to stop by and I was able to necropsy two cows that had recently died. The cows were close to calving and in reasonable body condition,” Campbell says.

“The rumens were very large and full of feed and I found large amounts of plastic net wrap occluding the outflow in both rumens.

The producer had used a bale processor but did not remove net wrap when processing bales. I believe the cows ingested these large pieces of net wrap and it was probably not an issue until they became heavily pregnant. Once the fetus got large enough to restrict abdominal space, the rumen became occluded and huge, and the cows died of what appeared to be suffocation. Lying down on a hillside may have played a role as well.”

This scenario is becoming more and more common, but unless the unfortunate animal is cut open to determine the cause of the problem many producers never know what happened. Necropsy may reveal wads of net wrap or baling twine. The cow may ingest these when they are left on the bales, or consume rebaled twines or bale wrap that were out in the field and ended up in the next crop of hay.

The most common symptoms are poor appetite (some cows stop eating entirely), weight loss, diarrhea, or sometimes a toofull rumen and suffocation. The producer may do nothing to try to save the cow because of the high cost of surgery, and because the symptoms are vague. People might suspect BVD, hardware, Johne’s disease, salmonella, E. coli, liver flukes, coccidiosis or internal parasites.

“The herd I investigated had multiple cows that all died within a few days of each other, possibly because they were heavily pregnant. The full rumen and large uterus

42

In cows that died, Campbell says the rumens were very large and net wrap was blocking the outlet.

may have put too much pressure on the lungs. In other instances the net wrap may become entangled with all the food material and create blockage at the exit into the intestine. This creates a slower demise, with the cow losing weight for a period of time.”

The ingested material may be small amounts of chopped-up net wrap, or a large piece that was left on a bale — or was not chopped up by the processor. “Perhaps the blades are dull, or the net wrap gets wound around them, or for whatever reason sometimes the processor just shoots that wrap out in one big piece and doesn’t chop it up. In this particular instance it was pretty obvious that the processor was not chopping up the wrap,” says Campbell.

“One of my colleagues thought maybe the cows ate it because they’d run out of feed; some people wait until the cows clean up the previous feed before feeding them again.

I’m not sure if that’s a reason or not, however, because cows will eat all sorts of things even if they have a lot of feed. Once they start chewing on something like baling twine or net wrap they tend to keep wadding it into the mouth and usually swallow it,” he says.

“I think that sometimes the ingested pieces don’t affect them much when they are not pregnant. There is enough room in the rumen for a fair amount of foreign matter to roll around in there without obstructing anything. But once a cow gets heavily pregnant

C at t l e m e n · S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 4

with a big fetus pushing up against the rumen, this makes it more difficult for that foreign material to move around in there. It may get wedged in the wrong spot. It might suddenly obstruct the outflow of the rumen. In some cases it might completely block the outlet and the food can’t go on through the tract.”

The cow can’t eat much because the rumen is full and unable to empty itself. She loses weight because she’s not eating enough, and not much material is going through the tract. These cows waste away and may have diarrhea because only the fluid contents of the rumen can make it past the obstruction.

“The pregnant cows I observed were in good shape, however, and dying suddenly.

Their rumens were full of feed, and they had a big calf in them, and when they lay down on a slight hillside with pressure on their lungs, they essentially suffocated. One of the cows I opened up had just started to calve. The calf’s legs were entering the birth canal. She may have laid down to calve and couldn’t breathe adequately because of the full rumen,” says Campbell.

“These cows died so quickly that they didn’t lose weight. But in a cow that isn’t heavily pregnant you might see the opposite scenario — with cows losing weight over a period of time, and poor appetite.

The net wrap could cause an obstruction to where they are basically impacted and not much solid feed going through,” he says.

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

health

“The rumens of the cows I opened up were gigantic. It took a lot of time to wade through all the feed material in the rumen to find the net wrap. It would be easy to miss if you weren’t looking for it, even though these were really big wads,” he says.

“I don’t have any idea how common this problem is, or how often we’re missing it.

For that producer who lost the six cows, you wouldn’t know whether he’d have 10 more cows die, or no more cows die. Certainly you could look for and diagnosis this condition in the heavily pregnant cow if you saw a cow that was really full on the left side and you palpated her rumen and it was hard and impacted, rather than full of gas,” says Campbell.

“You could do a rumenotomy — open up the rumen and search for the foreign material. It wouldn’t be an easy job, with all the food material in there, but it would be something a person could try. That’s what I told the farmer — that if he had any more cases and suspected a problem he could palpate the left side of the abdomen. If it’s big and hard this would be something we could try.”

It might be aCattlemen chance to savead therevised cow.

Canadian 7 X 5

“It would be an extensive surgery because you’d be pulling material out of that rumen for quite a while before you could get it all out. A lot of that stuff was hard and dry, and packed in there pretty tightly, in the cows I opened up. It would take some time, but a person could do it,” he says.

The plastic material doesn’t seem to break down, so it could potentially stay in the rumen forever. “Small pieces might pass on through, but big chunks would probably stay in the rumen and roll around in there indefinitely, and might cause problems.”

In this particular instance the bale processor had not chopped the net wrap up into little pieces like you’d expect it to. “It seemed to wrap around and then shoot it out in a big wad now and then,” he says. You often see big pieces lying out in the field after the cows have eaten the hay. Some people gather it up afterward, but some don’t. It might be a good idea to gather it up or take it off the bales before feeding them, but that can be a challenge at times — if there has been moisture that’s frozen the net wrap to the bales. It can be almost impossible to get itAug all off. c 26:Layout 1 8/26/14 4:09 PM

“ I don’t have any idea how common this problem is, or how often we’re missing it.”

Page 1

Thanks to our cattle tracking software, Hank has more time to spend with his grandson.

How robust tracking equals profitability From better feed management and lower drug costs to genetics and age verification, we’re helping producers save time and earn more money so they can spend it on what matters most.

We’re helping producers maximize profits, increase price per-head, and improve per-carcass yields. We’re helping protect businesses and grow markets through fast, easy-to-use, and credible data tracking.

ViewTrak is the most widely used tracking and trading software in North America, supporting over 50-million head of livestock world-wide every year.

“ViewTrak products are invaluable in helping us put more money in our clients’ pockets.”

- Rob Bergevin, General Manager of Foothills Auctioneers Inc.

Let us show you how you can profit from cattle tracking, just like Hank.

www.viewtrak.com www.canadiancattlemen.ca

C at t l e m e n · S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 4

43

 straigh t f ro m t h e h i p

By Brenda Schoepp

How we are portrayed

W

hile we often may find it hard to find time to tune in to the world around us — we can be assured that the world is tuning in to us. The interest in agriculture has been growing worldwide and now media has figured out that folks want and like to know about food and the folks who produce it. Not only that but they are quite OK with drama — and the farm can be dramatic — to the point of a soap opera frenzy.

Not all of it is well researched or especially true for the beef industry. Taking a little time this summer to search online as though I was an urban consumer took me on quite a journey. The intent of many sites and stations was to turn customers away from all factory farming (which is loosely defined) and towards a sustainable model (again loosely defined) of farming food animals.

The starting point to deliver this message comes in cartoons so that children and adults can relate to the message. The cartoons painted an idealistic picture of the farm and a horrid picture of anything that involved a cage or pen. Crossing the whole spectrum of age through cartoon is the Meatrix which follows the journey of a talking pig Leo and chicken Chickity led by Darth Vaderlike Moopheus. As beef producers you can be assured that you are part of a corporate machine that “every day brings us closer to an epidemic that cannot be stopped.”

The guilt trip is on the reader who lives with “the lie we tell ourselves about where our food comes from.” No small quest, the site is now available in 30 languages and has won numerous marketing awards.

For teenagers, one of the emerging ways of communicating agriculture is via video games and game play on YouTube. Today, super-cool comic books also have an agricultural message and are very popular in countries such as Korea.

And then there is always TV. We don’t expect that all urbanites will watch the “Prairie Farm Report” or “Country Canada” but there is so much interest in food that there are now television series devoted just toward farming stories. Channel 4 in the U.K. runs a popular series entitled “First Time Farmer” which features young farmers. The idea behind the show is, “A new generation of farmer is breathing life into the agricultural world balancing hard work, love, laughter and partying.”

Partying? It seems we have missed this part in agriculture in Canada. But if we think hard and long about this statement — one can begin to appreciate the appeal that the series has to a young urban population.

Based in Kenya, the series “Shamba Shape-Up” (Shamba means farm) is a must-see for African audiences. It involves going into farms with a team to imple-

44

C at t l e m e n · S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 4

ment change that would increase production and address many other issues. Most of these farmers are women and the show is a great source of information and motivation for young women farmers.

Old-fashioned radio may not be the way of the West any longer but it most certainly is the way of the future for many remote farms. Farm Radio International reaches out to farmers in developing countries across the planet and a special format Her Farm Radio that is especially valued by women farmers in Africa.

The Internet of course is the source of information for the entire world and accessible by cellphone. There are excellent references and great videos to watch and Canada’s Agriculture More Than Ever remains a positive and balanced site. From the other side of the spectrum I took the time to grind through Chipolte’s Farmed and Dangerous and interviews with founder and chairman Steve Ells. There seems to be some confusion about whether the practices Ells claims are in place or if, as the website states, they are “trying to find suppliers” to meet the model. There is a world of difference between one claim and the other and logistically we know that a company that large cannot obtain supplies from enough small farms on a continuous basis to make it all happen.

So what is the truth? When the public, including children, go to discover the world of beef, what will they find? As outlined in this column they will find an array of information and opinion on the same subject matter.

This is fine with me. It is a free country, and varied views should lead to higher plains of thought.

If I Google “beef in Canada” there is a host of official websites but none that crosses all demographics. If I Google “raising beef in Canada” I can find out step by step how to raise a cow. OK. Now Google “eating beef.”

The majority of the 61 million results reflect beef as a poison and a food that should not be eaten.

At the end of the day, all beef cattle are eaten. Getting the message out so that it has a broad appeal in a fun and colourful format on every known server is vital to discussion.

Consumers then at the very least have a choice of reading material. I know that inconsistencies exist but we are out of time and instead of perpetuating the protectionist attitude by tuning out, the beef industry could go to the drawing board and tune in to how consumers are learning about the beef they eat. Look at it as creating the tools for the ethical omnivore — the consumer not of the future but of today. c Brenda Schoepp is a motivating speaker and mentor who works with young entrepreneurs across Canada and around the world. She can be contacted through her website www. brendaschoepp.com. All rights reserved. Brenda Schoepp 2014

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

IF YOU’RE GOING TO LEAVE THIS….

It’d better be for something like this.

Everyday you help drive the economy— furthering the influence of the world’s #1 renewable resource. This is your chance to do even more. Farmfair International is the place to see, be seen and make your business better—your one-stop destination for agriculture.

Definitely worth the trip. farmfairinternational.com #FARMFAIR

NOVEMBER 4 – 9, 2014

EDMONTON EXPO CENTRE

 THE INDUSTRY

NewsRoundup Forage

The effect of advancing maturity on the quality of four forage species1

Can I do that on grass?

Vernal Alfalfa*

By Jack Kyle, Ontario forage specialist

With increased interest in grass-fed beef, people ask if it is possible to fatten cattle on pasture without grain supplementation.

The answer is yes, with a few conditions.

When grass finishing animals remember that the market is generally not looking for as much fat cover as normally found on grain-finished animals. If you are not looking to finish cattle but rather achieve maximum growth on pasture the same pasture management principles will apply.

First and foremost, what is the quality of the pasture? To achieve optimum production you need lots of good-quality pasture.

However, unlike with stored forages and grains, producers often don’t have an accurate quality assessment of their pastures.

This is because pastures grow and are utilized directly by the animal without ever being formally harvested or analyzed.

Stored forage and grains have a known quality and energy level — either from feed analysis or from a long consistent history of grading standards and nutritional analysis.

Although it is often produced on farm, you still have a good indicator of the feed quality, especially in the case of grains.

With pastures, there is a wide range in species makeup, including any number of mixtures of legumes and grasses, with each species having a different feeding value.

There is also the maturity factor — pastures may range from lush and vegetative to those which are mature and woody. Obviously, the lush and vegetative pastures will provide much higher-quality feed, and you will have far greater success finishing cattle on this than a mature, woody pasture. This range in quality has a tremendous effect on animal performance, especially with livestock requiring more than a maintenance ration.

In a research project conducted at the Ontario Agricultural College in the 1960s, forage quality at various stages of growth was determined. For alfalfa, the range was from a high of 20.8 per cent CP (crude protein) and 70.6 per cent IVD (in vitro digestibility) in the younger plants to a low of 15.6

46

Climax Timothy

Saratoga Bromegrass

Frode Orchardgrass

%IVD

%CP

%IVD

%CP

%IVD

%CP

%IVD

%CP

Boot

70.6

20.8

70.9

10.6

74.7

13.3

75.1

13.4

Heading

65.9

17.7

64.1

8.9

71.2

11.0

69.1

10.0

Flower

63.0

16.7

56.6

6.9

61.3

8.2

59.4

6.7

Early Seed

60.1

15.6

53.1

5.7

51.8

6.6

59.7

5.8

* Alfalfa - medium bud, very first flower, full flower, early seed 1 From Research Review of Forage Production Crop Science OAC 1983, R.S. Fulkerson

per cent CP and 60.1 per cent IVD in the more mature plants. For orchardgrass, the protein ranged from 13.3 per cent to 6.6 per cent and digestibility ranged from 74.7 to 51.8 per cent, showing a decrease in value as the plant matured. Timothy and brome grass showed similar declines in quality as orchardgrass.

When the digestibility of forage decreases, the intake also declines. This comes as a double hit because the animals are eating less of a lower-quality feed, resulting in poor performance. To finish well, cattle will need high intakes of quality forage. If pastures are managed to be grazed when the plants are in the vegetative state, with maximum animal intake, excellent growth and production results are achievable.

The second condition required to successfully finish on pasture is good pasture management. How do you manage your pastures and your grazing to achieve these results? Staging the pastures to create a wedge of forage with the last pasture grazed being the thin edge of the wedge and the next pasture to be grazed is the thick end of the wedge. If animals are moved every one to two days they will always have fresh high-quality forage available that will meet the nutritional requirements for excellent growth. To support pasture finishing, pastures should be maintained with forage grasses in the boot stage and legumes in late-bud to early-flower stages. By maintaining and monitoring this “wedge” you will have the opportunity to adjust your grazing program to maintain quality pasture from May through to October.

Take the example of a 12-paddock system. The animals will start in paddock

C at t l e m e n · S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 4

one and by the time they get to paddock 12, the first one will have regrown to provide abundant high-quality forage.

Animals come out of paddock 12 (the thin end of the wedge) when the forage is sufficiently grazed and moved into paddock one (the thick end of the wedge) where there is ample supply. Animals will rotate through the 12 paddocks so that while one is being grazed the other 11 are in a state of regrowth. Ideally, by the time animals have grazed through paddocks one to 11, and are ready to be back in paddock 12, it will have regrown enough to be the thick end of the wedge again.

Perennial pastures have minimal input costs and very low maintenance cost when compared to annual crops, stored forage or grain crops. By maintaining quality pasture throughout the grazing season, you create the lowest-cost feeding program, while still achieving gains comparable to any other feeding program. It is the dollars you have left that determine your profitability, not the gross revenue. Well-managed pastures are an opportunity to have a profitable bottom line and access a niche but growing market for grass-fed beef.

health

Virtual on-farm necropsy hunts out disease

Researchers believe the next epidemic or health concern for the cattle industry may well be in the story told by the animals that die on the farm. Therefore, the ability to collect relevant and timely information and samples from an animal that has died is crucial to making an accurate diagnosis.

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

N EWS ROUNDUP

But this process can be costly and may not be deemed necessary by the animal owner.

For animal health practitioners, cutting down necropsy costs and finding new tools for producers and veterinarians to promote the sharing of knowledge and learning opportunities on cattle diseases has always been the challenge to overcome.

That’s where the use of imaging technology to make a diagnosis “at a distance” comes in. Over the years, its use has increased in many applications such as feedlots, wildlife monitoring and parasitism.

However, the methodology of making a diagnosis “at a distance” by a diagnostician has never been formally compared to making a necropsy diagnosis over the Internet.

But Dr. Eugene Janzen at the University of Calgary believes a necropsy diagnosis over the Internet holds potential in improving intelligence on animal health.

Currently, he is involved in an innovative research trial on “virtual” long distance diagnosis. With support from the Alberta Livestock and Meat Agency (ALMA), Dr. Janzen’s research aims to eventually advance the concept of “on-site” diagnosis of cattle cadavers. This project will use a complete necropsy examination in a diagnostic laboratory as the “gold standard” and compare that to a diagnosis made by using the images of that necropsy viewed by a “blind panel” of veterinarians with different levels of experience and expertise.

The process involves the active participation of cattle producContinued on page 48

DeStress is a nutritional therapy product developed to deliver animal welfare and productivity benefits.

• Manages stress & shrink when weaning, handling and transporting cattle • Lower shrink by 2% (e.g.: That’s 12lbs more on a 600lb calf, @ $2.50/lb is an extra $30 per head!)

• Reducing stress will improve animal health

Manufactured by:

Call 1-800-729-9155 Or 780-352-9155

Next generation Weigh Scale Indicators

5000 Series Setup – made easy

Visibility – made easy

Data transfer – made easy

Offering the next generation in weighing technology, the new 5000 Series retains Tru-Test’s prized speed, accuracy and rugged reliability.

It’s now never been easier to track the performance of your animals and make better informed decisions.

Call today for fall specials! www.tru-test.com www.canadiancattlemen.ca

800-874-8494 C at t l e m e n · S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 4

47

GREENER PASTURES

RANCHING LTD. Presents:

*Year-Round Grazing Systems* A Business Management School Topics include: • Human Resources • Economics and Finance • Pasture Calculations • Grazing Management • Pasture Rejuvenation • Weed Control • Cell Designs/Water Systems • Swath Grazing/Bale Grazing

Location: Westlock, AB

When: Nov. 10th, 11th & 12th, 2014 Or ask us about setting up a school in your area.

Funding through the Growing Forward 2 program Can you Graze 365 days a year? We provide a 3-day course that will take you right into the design and planning of a year-round grazing system. The course tuition is $750/Farm Unit, which allows two members from your farm business to attend. This course is well worth the investment.

Check out our website for details about funding available!

To register please contact:

Steve Kenyon

Greener Pastures Ranching Ltd.

(780) 307-6500

www.greenerpasturesranching.com skenyon@greenerpasturesranching.com

Putting marketing and price control back into the hands of the cow/calf producer

News Roundup

Continued from page 47

ers and their employees in the selection process. For instance, when an animal of interest dies, the producer or employee will notify the research group at the University of Calgary faculty of veterinary medicine (UCVM). A dedicated animal health technologist (AHT) will proceed to the property, collect the cadaver and submit it to the diagnostic laboratory at the UCVM. The duty pathologist will examine the animal at necropsy; the AHT will take a standard set of images of that necropsy and present them to the panel.

The objective is to measure the agreement between the “gold standard” necropsy done, “no holds barred” by the pathologist and compare that to the accuracy of examining images alone.

Ultimately, it is envisaged that producers or their designates, under instruction from their own veterinarian, will dissect the cadaver, take photographs and email the images to the herd veterinarian who may forward them to a designated diagnostician at a veterinary facility. The involvement of a veterinarian is to instruct the producer group thereby maintaining the integrity of the veterinary clientpatient relationship.

Dr. Janzen believes this virtual diagnostic process will reduce the cost of animal necropsy significantly. A producer will now spend $20 to $50 per case as opposed to $300 to $500.

“The key aspect of this project is that it will advance the veterinary field by providing new tools to veterinarians and cattle pro-

Contact us today for a free, no obligation consultation Ryan Copithorne Phone 403-669-3451 ryan@cowsincontrol.com

www.cowsincontrol.com

48

C at t l e m e n · S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 4

ducers. The project will advance knowledge sharing and learning opportunities,” he said.

In addition, Dr. Janzen says the convenience of a reduced cost will enable cattle producers to conduct more necropsies, which translates to more knowledge and information about the prevalence of animal diseases.

“This will also help producers to manage the disease issue more appropriately,” he says.

“You may need to know why that animal died to prevent others in your herd from being affected, says Janzen. “Some reasons such as foot-and-mouth disease would have severe implications to your national industry.”

The Alberta Veterinary Medical Association (ABVMA) says Dr. Janzen’s research holds potential to improve animal health and to improve producer-veterinarian contact.

“Information collected by necropsy examination is an essential piece of the data that must be collected to ensure the health of the individual herd. Gathering and reviewing this information also serves to support surveillance and is essential in managing the entire animal population of the province,” says Dr. Duane Landals, senior adviser with the ABVMA.

health

VBP animal care module moving ahead

The new animal care module to be added to Canada’s established Verified Beef Production (VBP) on-farm food safety program will include a formal approach to assessing animal care for self-evaluation and, if the producer chooses, third-party audits to verify that beef cattle code of practice animal care requirements are being met.

VBP is a free and voluntary program offered by the Canadian Cattlemen’s Asso-

Feed & Water Testing Ph: 204-237-9128 Fax:855-754-1046 www.ctl.mb.ca

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

NEWS ROU NDUP

ciation (CCA) for all beef production sectors. Funding was secured late last year to develop modules for animal care, environmental stewardship and biosecurity over the next three to four years.

Ryder Lee, CCA’s manager of federal, provincial relations, says the animal care technical package was formed in August and is set to move forward with writing the program. The next step will be to test it on beef operations to make sure it’s workable and meets the intended purpose before it is finalized.

The committee will follow the Animal Care Assessment Framework developed by the National Farm Animal Care Council (NFACC) starting back in 2007. The process was tested by the Dairy Farmers of Canada in 2012 before the framework was finalized and released earlier this year.

The framework is a species-neutral document that lays out six steps for designing a transparent, credible animal care assessment program consistent with the HACCP (hazard analysis and critical control point) approach and the relevant code of practice requirements.

It’s then up to the national commodity or specialized industry group that wants to develop an assessment program or revise an existing program using the framework’s process to flush out the details. The group needs to contact the NFACC, designate a program co-ordinator to take the lead, put together a wellrounded program development team that includes knowledgeable stakeholders as outlined in the framework, develop program content for the specific commodity, test the draft program on farms (optional, but strongly recommended), and report to NFACC at various stages of program development.

Developing program content is a complex task that must follow certain principles related to use of code-of-practice requirements, establishing performance targets or critical levels, make use of three types of assessment measures and define sampling procedures.

If NFACC deems that the process has been followed, it will support the program and recognize the group’s use of the framework on the NFACC website.

The framework document is available under the resources tab on the NFACC website at www.nfacc.ca.

VBP’s manual and checklist for the food safety program, which was also developed using international HACCP guidelines, is an example of what an assessment program looks like. It and information about how to participate are online at www. verifiedbeef.org.

Trade

Suspend COOL if WTO rules against U.S., says coalition

Following a report that says the World Trade Organization has sided with Canada and Mexico in the dispute over U.S. country-of-origin labelling rules, a coalition of American food and agriculture organizations is urging Congress and U.S. Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack to immediately suspend COOL if the WTO rules against the U.S. Although the ruling had not yet been Continued on page 50

November 24-29, 2014

--------------------------------------------------------------

BEEF SHOWS ..................

CANADIAN COWBOYS’ ASSOCIATION FINALS RODEO

EQUINE ENTERTAINMENT

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

..................

..................

LIVE MUSIC

STOCK DOG CHAMPIONSHIP

..................

SHOPPING

C at t l e m e n · S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 4

49

News Roundup

Continued from page 49

made public, a report in the Wall Street Journal said the WTO has determined the U.S. is not complying with its international trade obligations.

The decision was shared confidentially with the governments for all three countries involved in the trade dispute in early July. It’s now expected the ruling will be made public this month.

Speaking on behalf of the COOL Reform Coalition, the U.S. National Corn Growers Association issued a statement saying suspending COOL would “neither prejudge the pending WTO litigation on this matter nor allow an ongoing period of knowing violation of international trade obligations.”

The Canadian cattle and hog industries say COOL is costing producers north of the border around $1 billion per year.

While the Canadian government has already published a list of U.S. products that could face retaliatory tariffs, a WTO compliance panel ruling against the U.S. would likely be appealed. If the appeal decision is also in Canada’s favour, there’s a possibility those retaliatory tariffs could be implemented by the middle of 2015.

management

Alternative phosphorus-based manure applications evaluated

Alberta feedlot operators are interested in knowing how a potential shift to phosphorus-based manure application-rate regulations or guidelines will affect their operational costs and income.

To examine these questions Dr. Elwin Smith, a bioeconomist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) in Lethbridge evaluated the impact of different manure application rates on the returns of a medium-size beef feedlot in southern Alberta.

The current practice in Alberta is to base manure applications on crop-available nitrogen, which is the first limiting nutrient for most Alberta crops. However, by applying manure based on nitrogen, other nutrients such as phosphorus may be applied at rates that exceed plant nutrient requirements. Long term this can contribute to phosphorus buildup in surface soils and surface water from run-off raising a number of environmental concerns. The Alberta Nutrient Management Planning Guide states that: “Depending on the natural risk (e.g. presence of neighbouring water bodies, high soil test phosphorus)… it may be advisable to consider basing (manure) application on phosphorus recommendations.”

Smith’s study looked at the impact of such a regulatory change by constructing

an economic model to compare costs and returns when manure application rates are based on annual crop nitrogen limits or annual phosphorus requirements.

“We also looked at the case of applying manure at three times the annual phosphorus requirement but applied every third year on a rotational basis to onethird of the land base,” says Smith.

This high rotational rate was based on the work of Dr. Jim Miller with AAFC in Lethbridge. When he rotationally applied manure at three times annual phosphorus requirements, phosphorus concentrations in the run-off were 50 to 94 per cent lower than when the application rate matched the crop’s annual nitrogen requirements.

“Our findings suggested no environmental benefit for annual phosphorus-based manure application over once-every-threeyear phosphorus-based manure application with respect to phosphorus and nitrogen in run-off, says Miller. “However, manure application at three times the phosphorus crop requirement sometimes caused a spike in total phosphorus in runoff the year of application.”

“Basically, in the year after manure application, there is a higher risk of potential environmental impact, such as phosphorus moving into water bodies,” he concludes.

“Similar nitrogen concentrations in run-off for the phosphorus- and nitrogen-based manure application trials indicated that shifting to a phosphorus-based

Selected results for manure application approaches Matching Annual Crop Nitrogen (N) Requirements Reduced return ($/head)

Matching Annual Crop Phosphorus Requirements

3-times Crop Phosphorus Requirements*

Base case

7.50

1.70

Manure hauling cost ($/ head)

13.76

22.46

16.50

Cost to haul and apply additional manure ($/t)

3.00

13.12

4.25

Supplemental N inorganic fertilizer purchase (kg/ha)

79.4

77.7

81.8

Supplemental P2O5 inorganic fertilizer purchase (kg/ha)

31.6

8.2

28.6

*with manure applied once every three years, to one-third of the land base

feedlot DIRECTORY “Custom Feeding With Personal Care”

Calhoun Cattle Co. ltd. * 4,000 head capacity * Finishing/Backgrounding * Proudly producing Alberta beef since 1980 Rod or Carol Calhoun (403) 546-2655 Cell (403) 333-5440

Jason Calhoun (403) 546-2766 Cell (403) 333-5438 Fax (403) 546-3831 Box 72, Swalwell, AB T0M 1Y0

50

C at t l e m e n · S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 4

KLASSEN AGRIVENTURES LTD. Box 488, Linden, AB T0M 1J0 303007 Rge. Rd. 250 Myron Klassen Tel: 403-312-3577 myron@klassenagriventures.ca

“CUSTOM CATTLE FEEDING”

John Schooten & Sons Custom Feedyard Ltd.

P.O. Box 148, Diamond City, AB T0K 0T0 Phone: 403-381-3883 • Fax: 403-381-8809 Email: schootenandsons@yahoo.ca * Calves — Background — Finish * Share Pens * Feedlot Solutions — Bunk Management — Medical Program * Age Verification Technology * Professional Nutritionalist on Staff * Lot Capacity is 20,000 Head

Justin: 403-315-5679 Shane: 634-1535 Cody: 634-4116

www.schootenandsons.com

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

Project2_Layout 1 3/25/14 10:59 AM Page 1

N EWS ROU N DU P

manure application would not significantly influence nitrogen in run-off.”

The economic analysis was based on a 10,000-head feedlot with access to 39 quarter sections of cropland within 12 kilometers of the feedlot. Manure application costs were set at $2.67/tonne for loading, $0.70 for transport and $1.64 for application. Cropping costs were analysed for irrigated and dryland conditions in southern Alberta.

The model also factored in supplemental inorganic fertilizer costs because a phosphorus-based manure application strategy requires supplemental nitrogen to meet crop requirements.

Key findings

markets

Ritchie manufactures a complete line of livestock watering Pump & Equipment Ritchie manufactures a complete line Ability of livestock watering products products with the highest specifications in the industry. From Calgary, AB, Canada a single horse Stall Fount to a specifi fountain that waters up 500 industry. From a single horse Stall with the highest cations intothe 800-263-5353 or 403-273-6414 head, Ritchie fountains are top quality. Plus, every Ritchie a fountain that waters up to 500 head, Ritchie fountains are abilitypump@telus.net - www.abilitypump.com fountain Fount is backedto by our 10 year limited warranty.

For more

top quality. Plus, every Ritchie fountain is backed by our 10 year limited warranty. For more information visit us online at:

www.RitchieFount.com

Heavy feeder exports will continue — analyst

Market analyst Kevin Grier with the George Morris Centre in Guelph doesn’t foresee Continued on page 52

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

C at t l e m e n · S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 4

MARKETPLACE

Annual applications based on crop phosphorus requirements had substantially higher costs than the other two options examined because the manure had to be transported farther and applied over more acres at a low rate. Returns were reduced by $7.50/head compared to annual applications based on crop nitrogen requirements.

Hauling costs alone were 65 per cent higher (from $13.76 to $22.46/head); transport and application costs added another $10.12.

These extra costs were partially offset by savings in fertilizer purchases (77 per cent less phosphorus and four per cent less nitrogen).

Applying manure every third year at three times the phosphorus requirement to a third of the acres was a cheaper alternative than annual applications based on phosphorus levels but still reduced the return per head to the feedlot by $1.70 compared to annual applications based on nitrogen requirements.

“The Provincial Nutrient Management Planning Guide identifies scenarios where manure application rates based on crop phosphorus recommendations makes sense,” says Smith. “Based on our economic study, the application of manure to targeted fields once every third year, and based on three-year crop phosphorus requirements, appears to be a reasonably sound alternative manure application strategy. And Dr. Miller’s work appears to confirm that it is a reasonably sound environmental strategy, as well. ”

51

More on the web

those s” “famou

plainjans.com

Roper

620-872-5777

gloves

News Roundup

p la i n j a n s

: f ro m

AVAILABLE BACHELORETTES

Continued from page 51

Pam, 49 - 5’4 110lbs divorced, business owner, loves horses, sailing, shopping, travel I don’t sweat the small stuff, my life is great, I laugh everyday and appreciate every moment.

Michel, 58 - I am in my fifties and I am in the best shape of my life and have a trainer. I love to be in excellent health and am an occupational therapist and health is vital. I have no debt and no bad habits.

Forage Additive For alfalfa silage, corn silage and baled hay

any significant let-up in the flow of western feeder cattle to the U.S. this fall, particularly from Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

Writing in the August 25 issue of his Canadian Cattle Buyer newsletter, he says one of the most interesting developments over the past year is the flow of feeder cattle off the eastern Prairies.

From July 2013 to June 2014, 390,000 western feeders were shipped to U.S. feedlots in Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado and Washington. “The big increases have been

Dry granular or ready-to-use liquid

Casey, 42 - I have two

children a girl and a boy.

I am a teacher and I love my job. I live in a small town where I feel I know everyone and my dating opportunities are limited.

Value of dry matter saved - treatment cost = dollars saved INTERNATIONAL STOCK FOOD

1-877-473-2474 info@isfcanada.ca www.isfcanada.ca

more on the web

plainjans.com

Chelsea - My parents were

married at my age 28. I am the girl next door, I love the outdoors, red necks are fine for me, love God, my family and my community.

• BUILT OUT OF 2 7/8 INCH PIPE • ONLY BALE FEEDER LIKE IT IN CANADA.

Matchmakers Select

MARKETPLACE

1-888-916-2824 www.selectintroductions.com

52

If you have an animal that can bend it or break this feeder I will replace it for FREE!

DOUBLE BALE FEEDER

DEALER FOR RIGID INDUSTRIES LED LIGHTING SINGLE BALE FEEDER

Thorough screenomg process, customized memberships and guaranteed service.

Est 14 years in Canada & US. We are a full service permanent relationship firm with a success rate of 87%. Testimonials available.

REMOTE WIRELESS MAGNETIC TOW LIGHTS

DEALERS WANTED

Lloyd Klassen 780-228-5772 • Cam Klassen 780-512-7332

Mid-summer Wireless Pan Tilt and Zoom Cow Cam Systems Blow Out

20% Off 20% Off

Mid-summer Wireless Pan Tilt and Zoom Cow Cam Systems Blow Out

Get yours now at Get yours at this thisnow Unbelievable UnbelievableLow Low Price Price While Supplies LastWhile Supplies Last

Prices Starting at at Prices Starting

Allen Leigh

Security & Communications Ltd.

1,600

$

00 1,60000

$

Sale endsSale Oct.ends 15,Oct. 2014 15, 2014

866-289-8164

Contact Us Today! www.allenleigh.ca 866-289-8164 Contact Us Today! www.allenleigh.ca

C AT T L E M E N · S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 4

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

N EWS ROUNDUP

to Nebraska and Colorado. Numbers to Washington are down notably,� he says.

Most of those cattle will end up being fed for slaughter at the Tyson plant in Lexington, Nebraska which has a capacity of 4,800 head per day. “The important point, however, is whether or not the flow is going to continue at year-ago levels this fall. The answer is yes it will. “First of all and most importantly, the western grain advantage has not only eroded but is likely gone. Beyond the grain advantage there are other factors that will pull cattle south, even beyond the fact that numbers are short in the U.S. relative to Canada.�

The other factor is related to country-of-origin labelling. The Lexington facility takes “B� cattle and as such has a need for a critical mass of this type of cattle. “Tyson is likely supportive if not outright encouraging of Nebraska and Colorado feeders pulling cattle out of Canada. In addition while the feeder cattle are marketed and procured in a variety of ways there are steady relationships developed with established roles regarding the trade.�

Finally, he says, U.S. corporate feedlots and their bankers are more able to sustain the exceptional levels of capital and risk that have evolved in the beef industry over the last few years. “The bottom line is that numbers are going to continue to flow south off the Prairies in material numbers. While numbers have always flowed, the volumes constitute a new form of competition which will impact not only the feeder basis but also the fed basis.� c

GALLERY LOCATION:

5419 - 36 Ave Wetaskiwin, AB

E-MAIL:

oldwildwestgallery@yahoo.com

Be Prepared order your Hi-Hog handling equipment today

PHONE:

780-352-3520

GALLERY HOURS:

Mon - Fri 10 am to 6 pm đ&#x;? đ&#x;? đ&#x;? đ&#x;? pm Sat 10:30 am - 3:30 Closed Sundays and holidays!

Call and find out if you are eligible to recieve GF2 funding on the purchase of your new Hi-Hog chute

www.hi-hog.com 1-800-661-7002 www.canadiancattlemen.ca

C AT T L E M E N ¡ S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 4

MARKETPLACE

đ&#x;? đ&#x;? đ&#x;? đ&#x;?

53

 NEWS AB OUT YOU

By Deb Wilson

PurelyPurebred prices will be good for producers, and feed grain prices reasonable. Access to foreign markets is improving slowly but surely, and Canadian cattle and beef continue to be recognized as some of the best in the world.

I hope you have a successful harvest, your feed yards are full and your calves wean heavy. I look forward to visiting with you at one of the many events this fall.

2014-15 Canadian Limousin Association board of directors. Front row (l -r): Terry Hepper (vicepresident), Sask.; Brian Lee (president), Ont.; Bill Zwambag (treasurer), Ont. Back row (l-r): Tim Andrew, Alta., Jim Richmond, Alta., Eric Boon, Sask., Lynn Combest, Alta.; Anne BrunetBurgess (general manager). Missing: Richard Renaud, Erin Kishkan.

n The 45th annual general meeting of the Canadian Limousin Association took place on July 26 at Prairieland Exhibition in Saskatoon. The summary of reports, including financial statements is posted on the CLA website or can be requested at the office. The 30 members in attendance voted in favour of the bylaw change that was proposed with regards to testing donor dams for Proto. An open discussion regarding parentage verification also took place. The comments were in favour of leaving the policy as is without compulsory DNA testing of all registered Limousin animals. The discussion was scheduled as per an official request to the board of directors from the floor. Also during the AGM, it was requested that the board establish a policy regarding CLA postings on social media. The board will discuss it at the next board meeting on December 12 and 13.

At the board meeting the CLA directors discussed the CLA website which will be revamped this fall, changes to the registry system in the new year, a proposal for Limousin tags that is pending approval with CFIA, and a change in the fee schedule as of January 1, 2015. The new fee schedule will be mailed to CLA members this month with their Whole Herd Enrolment statements. n It was a great summer of livestock shows, junior events, breed annual meetings, field days and industry meetings. I hope you were able to take part in some of the events.

As we head into the fall run it looks like

54

n The 35th Annual Canadian Junior Hereford Association National Show, Bonanza, was held in Lindsay, Ont. at the Lindsay Exhibition Centre July 29 to August 3. The Bonanza committee was chaired by Ontario CJHA adult adviser Katelyn Larmer, co-chaired by junior members Kyra McConnell, Justin McLaughlin, and Cassandra Gorrill along with many volunteers! The Bonanza 2014 committee did a fantastic job putting on a very large, very successful junior show! Show sponsors made this event possible, bringing together enthusiastic juniors, their parents, and leaders for an extremely friendly competition and learning opportunity, where cattle-handling skills, presentations skills, showing and exhibiting skills, speaking, judging, writing and artistic abilities were put to the test.

The large number of juniors involved in Bonanza 2014 reflects the dedication they have to the Hereford industry, and will keep the breed on a solid footing for years to come! A total of 116 juniors from across Canada and the U.S. attended Bonanza 2014 with 152 head of Hereford cattle.

Bonanza 2015 will be held in Fredericton, New Brunswick from July 29 to August 2 at the Fredericton Exhibition Centre. n The 115th Interior Provincial Exhibition was held the Labour Day long weekend in Armstrong, B.C. This is an extremely popular event with a well-attended livestock show, rodeo, fair and trade show. Some of the highlights for livestock folks were the Supreme Show, the Jackpot Heifer Show and the Jackpot Steer Show with a $1,000 prize to the Champion Steer, and $500 to the Reserve Steer. The Grand Champion Steer was a silver Charolais-cross steer shown by Austin Fiske, and the Reserve Champion Steer was a Black Angus shown by Lone Star Angus,

C at t l e m e n · s e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 4

Suggestions are always welcome. My phone number is 403-325-1695 Email: deb.wilson@ fbcpublishing.com

the Townsend family of Sylvan Lake, Alta.

The Jackpot Heifer Show was won by Harvest Angus of Prince George, B.C. Supreme Champion Bull was an Angus, also shown by Lonestar Angus, with the Supreme Champion Female, a Hereford cow-calf pair shown

by Cayley Brown of Princeton, B.C. Thank you for the invitation to the Beef Banquet on Saturday night, hosted by the IPE and Don and Peter Raffan and their crew. The food was fantastic, as was the company. Any time you get a group of cattle enthusiasts together, the stories get bigger and better, and the BS gets deeper!! n In conjunction with Bonanza, the 123rd Canadian Hereford Association annual meeting was held on Friday, August 1. There was a strong presence in attendance as well as online. The keynote speaker was Kevin Schultz from Sandhill Farms, Haviland, Kansas, U.S. He spoke on GE-EPDs and how he incorporates their use on his farm. Kevin’s presentation is available at www.hereford. ca under the home tab, then click on media.

The presentation was extremely well received and we would encourage cattle people from all breeds to take a look. n At the Calgary Stampede the 2014 UFA Steer Classic Reserve Grand Champion — “Baldy” came from a Hereford X Maine Anjou cow and was sired by the clubby bull “Believe In Me.” He was purchased in September 2013 from Chad Thompson Show Steers, in South Dakota and came to Canada in November of 2013. He was managed at Wheatland Cattle Co. under the watchful eye of Cody Lafrentz. Baldy has done extremely well in 4-H and Jackpot shows throughout the spring and summer of 2014.

The entire Canadian Hereford membership, along with Cattlemen magazine, would like to congratulate the owners of “Baldy” for winning the UFA Steer Classic Reserve Grand Champion and Champion in the Hereford class at the Calgary Stampede and Exhibition. For the third year in a row, the champion Hereford steer has gone on to become the UFA Steer Classic Reserve Grand Champion. “Baldy” is co-owned by Barry Olney, his daughter Emily Geisel,

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

PURELY PUREBRED

both of Estevan, Sask. and Cody Lafrentz of Bienfait, Sask. The owners of “Baldy” received a cheque for $5,000 sponsored

by United Farmers of Alberta (UFA), plus breed class prize money of $1,000 sponsored by the Alberta Hereford Association and a Grand Champion Hereford trophy sponsored by Charlie Dallas. n The Canadian Angus Foundation is in the final days of compiling a National Angus Cookbook and has requested your family recipes passed down, your current favourite recipes, and particularly to promote our product — all kinds of beef recipes. It is looking for your recipes to show the diversity of our great “Angus Nation” and really needs your help to make the cookbook a success. All Angus breeders — big, small, new, longtime, youth, active and retired — please participate! We are looking for all sorts of recipes — main dishes, salads, desserts, breads, cookies, BBQ and Angus beef just to name a few.

Be a part of a great project!

Please assist them in creating history and have your recipes documented. The deadline to submit recipes is September 30, 2014. Recipes can be submitted online at www.cookbookprinter.com. n The Seventh Annual Manitoba Youth Beef Roundup, along with the Canadian Junior Shorthorn Weekend was an unbelievable educational weekend event.

Sixty-five Juniors from Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta’s enthusiastic Junior Cattle Producers attended the Seventh Annual Manitoba Youth Beef Roundup August 1, 2 and 3 in Neepawa, Man. Excitement in the cattle industry brought out a top-notch group of interested young cattle producers and 115 head of cattle. This Junior event brought out

n Cattlewomen for the Cure raised a record-breaking $71,000 at their annual golf tournament in Medicine Hat, Alta. The beneficiary of the funds for 2014 is STARS, Stars Air Ambulance. Congratulations to the organizing committee led by Lindsay Smith, on a tremendously successful event.

65 Junior members, all working together as teams and in individual competitions, to learn the skills needed in the livestock industry. This is not just a cattle show, but a multi-faceted event which is structured to encourage youth to continue on in the livestock industry.

The weekend started off with the Ag Challenge, a timed competition which requires hands-on knowledge of the livestock industry. The Juniors enjoyed the challenges and tasks they were given, like halter making and tattooing an animal. The winning team was Braden Calvert, Brad Height, Clayton Sprung, Brooklyn Hedley, Ty Nykoliation. On Saturday competitors competed in — judging, grooming, public speaking, photography, graphic design, art, promotion and marketing, as well as participating in the cattle show; making this event an educational competition, for both individuals and teams.

The Manitoba Youth Beef Roundup Agribition Team will consist of Kolton McIntosh, Eriksdale; Rachael Verwey, Portage; Braden Calvert, Carberry and Devon

Manns, Austin. This team will represent Roundup at the 2014 Canadian Western Agribition in Regina in November. New in 2014, the Manitoba Youth Beef Roundup presented two $1,000 scholarships to Dillon Hunter, Kenton, Man. and Samantha Rimke, Oak Lake, Man. The Roundup committee thanked everyone who attended, volunteered, judged, and sponsored the Seventh Manitoba Youth Beef Roundup to make it a success. Visit their Facebook page — Manitoba Youth Beef Roundup.

Show pictures can be viewed on www.grantspix.com or on their Facebook page. nMRA Cleveland 108Z was recently named the Grand Champion Bull at the Manitoba Limousin Association Provincial Show, Supreme Champion Bull (Ron Sangster Memorial Award) and The RockyMountain Implements Ultimate Supreme Champion Beef Animal at Harding Summer Fair. With this he will represent the Harding Fair and Ron Sangster Memorial Award in the RBC Continued on page 56

Real Industries Ltd

Real Products, Real Quality, Real Prices...Get REAL!

www.realindustries.com

888-848-6196

LIVESTOCK HANDLING EQUIPMENT: -Adjusting palp cage moves with squeeze to eliminate animal turning -Dual side-1 step adjustment on alleyways keep animals centered in system *Great with scale use -Scissor door on tub eliminates corners. Additional access doors gives extra versatility -Dual action roll gates move with ease and speed from either side -Alley bow panels allow for curved setup -Fully sheeted to 66 inches to calm animals -Sold as fully assembled components to maintain ease Also Available: Portable System on wheels, Panels, Feeders, Confinement Pens, Trailers and more

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

Manufacturing Livestock Equipment since 1976 C at t l e m e n · s e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 4

55

PU R E LY PU R E B R E D

Continued from page 55

Supreme at Agribition. 108Z was exhibited

by Jaymarandy Limousin, Roblin, Man. n Notice to Hereford breeders, the Canadian Hereford Association is now accepting bulls born in 2014 for Traits 5 and 6. Please contact Megan Black at the Canadian Hereford Association at Meghan@hereford.ca or 888-836-7242 for all the details. n Congratulations to Lynn and Tyra Combest, of Combest Limousin Farm, Erskine, Alta., on their marriage August 9. Lynn is a director on the Canadian Limousin Association board and a longtime Limousin breeder. n We wish Canadian Limousin Association president Brian Lee a speedy recovery. Brian suffered a livestock accident on August 15, at the farm where he works, when a cow and he had a disagreement.

Consequently, he spent time nursing his six shattered ribs at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto. A reminder that no matter how experienced we are, accidents happen when handling livestock. n The Canadian Hereford Association (CHA) is entering its third and final year of the RFI research project, a collaboration between the Canadian Hereford Association (CHA), Olds College, Cattleland Feed Yards, Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development, University of Alberta and Livestock Gentec which is funded through the “Idea to Innovation Program,” Natural Sciences and Engineering Council (NSERC), and co-operating Hereford breeders. At the end of the third year, the CHA will have assisted researchers in measuring close to 1,000 Hereford bulls for residual feed efficiency (RFI). The goal of the project was to produce a Residual Feed Intake (RFI) EPD n The 2014 National Junior Limousin Conference was a huge success, thanks to the organizers, participants, sponsors, judges and everyone who came out to take part in it. Congratulations to the 36 juniors who participated. To see the complete results check in the Limousin Voice Summer Edition or on the CLA website. Mark your calendars as the 2015 Junior Conference will be in Stratford, Ont., August 6-8. Event chair is Wayne Lawrence. Thank you to all who contributed to the fundraising auction that took place in Saskatoon for the OJLA.

56

and that goal has been accomplished. The preliminary EPD will be released in the fall of 2014, a full year in advance of the planned release. The Canadian Hereford Association will be the first breed in Canada to release a homegrown RFI EPD. Feed efficiency is the new buzz in North America and gives cattlemen the opportunity to breed more efficient cattle creating additional profit for cow-calf producers, growers and finishers. The CHA is working with Dr. John Basarab, senior research scientist with Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development and adjunct professor at the University of Alberta, a world-renowned researcher in the field of feed efficiency. n Michael Latimer celebrated his first full year working for Canadian Beef Breeds Council in August. “It has been a tremendous privilege to represent the purebred industry, especially the interaction with the people involved. In my opinion, we have made some big gains in how the organization and the seedstock industry is viewed by other sectors of the beef production chain,” said Latimer. “However, we still have some work ahead of us, particularly regarding funding for our initiatives, as the Legacy fund expires next March. I look forward to seeing everyone throughout the fall and as always feel free to email or call me with your thoughts.” Congratulations Michael, from Canadian Cattlemen, it has been a pleasure to work with you. n Canadian Beef Breeds Council (CBBC) participated in the Alberta government lead trade mission to Kazakhstan from Aug. 1-10. As reported by earlier trade missions, there are some opportunities for exporting cattle or genetics. It has a somewhat similar terrain and climate to that of Alberta and Saskatchewan, as well as a desire to increase its cattle numbers.

However, there are also some serious chal-

lenges to the market such as the financing structure and the devalued Kazak currency (KZT). n Michael Latimer and CBBC president David Bolduc, attended the Canadian Cattlemen Association semi- annual meeting in Charlottetown, P.E.I. Aug. 12-17. They presented a report focusing on the recent Kazakhstan trade mission and the Russian sanctions, to the CCA Foreign Trade Committee. Latimer and Bolduc also participated in the Value Creation and Competitiveness Committee meeting and the CCA board meeting. While there they presented an overview of the Canadian beef industry along with Alberta Beef Producers, Canadian Cattlemen’s Association, Cattlemen’s Young Leaders, Beef Cattle Research Council and Canfax to a group of South Korean agriculture students from the “Korean Rural Hope Foundation.”

They were an attentive group who seemed to have a particular interest in our youth development programs. n Representatives of Canadian Beef Breeds Council met with Alberta Livestock and Meat Agency (ALMA) staff at their office in Edmonton. ALMA seemed very supportive of the CBBC initiatives and helped provide some insight regarding funding for both international marketing and scientific development projects. John Crowley was in Calgary on September 2-3 and met with a few of the breed associations to discuss programming. n Canada Beef is an official sponsor of the CFL. A truly Canadian sports league and a truly Canadian product, the match is a great one.

The opportunity is targeted to a large audience and offers a number of opportunities to share the Canadian beef story in an effort to build Canadian beef brand loyalty. c

CJLA show participants.

C at t l e m e n · s e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 4

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

 Market Su mma ry

By Debbie McMillin

TheMarkets Fed Cattle Fed cattle prices slipped back from the incredible high set just two weeks ago of $165.28/cwt to $159.97 in response to slumping U.S. cash and future prices coupled with a seasonal slowdown in beef demand and a $5.31 drop in cut-out values. Even with this downturn fed prices were still running $41.17 ahead of last year at this time.

The U.S. cash market has seen larger decreases than the local market in the past few weeks narrowing the cash-tocash basis to 4.49 under the U.S. compared to the five-year average of -8.11 per cwt and -9.69 last year.

The Canfax August 1 Alberta and Saskatchewan cattle-on-feed report was up five per cent over last year but July placements were down 29 per cent putting them at the lowest on record for the month. Fed cattle slaughter in Canada is up over last year. Fed steer slaughter is up five per cent at 891,331 head and the heifer kill is up 10 per cent at 548,324 head.

The strength in the basis has limited U.S. buyer interest in recent weeks but to date fed cattle exports are very close to a year ago at 234,639 head.

Feeder Cattle Feeder cattle prices this summer have been very strong on limited volumes. Strong fed cattle and futures prices led to a strong yearling run with prices topping $218.17 per cwt before backing off slightly in the past two weeks to an average $215.89/cwt near the end of August. When compared with a year ago the current 850lb. feeder steer price is up $70.73/cwt or 49 per cent. The 850-lb. cash-tofutures basis is still sitting wider than what would be considered normal for this time of year at -19.82/cwt compared to the five-year average of -10.50/cwt.

Calf volumes were still light at auction markets as I write this, however, many Internet and satellite sales were www.canadiancattlemen.ca

reporting strong prices on a large number of calves marketed for delivery in October and November. The cash market has been keeping pace with the rest of the cattle industry through the summer with 550-lb. steers reaching a record $262.83/cwt in mid-August. Since then prices were pushed back to average $258.67/ cwt near month end which is still 67 per cent higher than last year’s average of 103.54/cwt. On a 550-lb. steer that amounts to an increase of nearly $570/head.

Feeder exports have slowed through August, however, year-to-date total shipments to the U.S. are still up 39 per cent over 2013 at 236,312 head.

non-fed Cattle Cull cattle income is an important factor in the management of a cattle operation and recent salvage values have producers looking hard at flipping older stock to improve their overall herd. Cow prices since the start of the year have increased over 61 per cent to a high at $128.30/cwt at the start of August. Since then market pressures and anticipation of high volumes coming to town pushed cows down to average $123.63/cwt near the end of the month, which is still $41.21/cwt above last year’s price. Domestic cow slaughter by mid-August was down five per cent on the year at 254,565 head. Export shipments of cows were also down, by 12 per cent for a year-to-date total of 150,740 head. Bull prices were averaging $136.55/cwt at press time, which was down slightly over the past couple of weeks. Bull slaughter in Canada is up nine per cent to 2,899 head and exports of slaughter bulls were also down by 11 per cent at 45,071 head by mid-August. c Debbie McMillin is a market analyst who ranches at Hanna, Alta.

 DE B ’S OUTLOOK Fed Cattle Look for further price pressure near term as sluggish fall demand coupled with higher retail prices create some pullback. The U.S. is not as current as our market and it has some larger cattle to move through the system in the coming weeks. Local feedlots are current, which should give them some leverage managing the downside in this market. Looking out to the fourth quarter, supplies should tighten across North America right as prices typically improve as demand increases and packers look to secure holiday requirements.

Feeder Cattle Tight supplies relative to demand will be the norm for the feeder market this fall. As the run of calves begins quality will be important in gaining premiums but overall demand should support a strong fall market. High prices are generally seen as a signal for expansion and with the reprieve from drought seen in so many areas the U.S. is expecting some expansion.

Any heifer retention down there this fall will only limit feeder numbers further and fuel greater demand and competition for available calves. The current wide basis and pressure on the Canadian dollar should add to U.S. buyer interest. All that being said, with high prices buyers will be looking to manage their risk by locking in some of their calves on any dips in the market. Continue to watch the spring live cattle futures as an indicator for the fall feeder run.

Grain harvest is underway and the U.S. expects a record-large corn crop, which will support a lower cost of gain and be supportive of the feeder market. Local barley markets have also been under pressure in recent weeks.

Non-Fed Cattle Cull cattle volumes will increase seasonally over the next month. Prices will be pressured lower by the increased supplies as well as some seasonally sluggish beef movement. Pressure on the fed cattle price in coming weeks could wear on cull cattle values, as well. However, sluggish beef movement will not hit the non-fed market as hard given the strong demand for grinding and trim products. Look for near-term pressure as the market deals with the fall run and additional cows coming to town. Longer-term prices should be supported by overall supplyand-demand fundamentals and a solid floor from the U.S. market which will limit downside risk.

More markets  C a t t l e m e n · s e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 4 57

M A R K ETS

Break-even Prices on A-Grade Steers

Market Prices

170

280

160

ALBERTA

150

220

140

190

130

160

120 110

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

180

ONTARIO

165

130

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

130

D1,2 Cows

120 110

150

100

135

90 80

120 105

Steer Calves (500-600 lb.)

250

70 60

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

Canfax weighted average price on A-Grade steers 2014 2013

Break-even price for steers on date sold 2014-15 2013

August 2014 prices* Alberta Yearling steers (850 lb.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $207.44/cwt Barley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.20/bu.

Barley silage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52.50/ton Cost of gain (feed) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64.46/cwt Cost of gain (all costs) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97.72/cwt Fed steers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164.80/cwt Break-even (January 2015) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156.81/cwt Ontario Yearling steers (850 lb.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $214.81/cwt Corn silage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35.84/ton Grain corn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.23/bu.

Cost of gain (feed) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66.86/cwt Cost of gain (all costs) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95.01/cwt Fed steers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170.20/cwt Break-even (February 2015) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165.24/cwt *Mid-month to mid-month prices Breakevens East: end wt 1,450, 183 days West end wt 1,325 lb., 125 days

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

Ontario

Alberta

2014 2013

2014 2013

Ontario prices based on a 50/50 east/west mix

Market Summary (to August 9) 2014

2013

Total Canadian federally inspected slaughter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,643,811. . . . . . . . . 1,565,592 Average steer carcass weight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 844 lb.. . . . . . . . . . . . . 871 lb.

Total U.S. slaughter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18,800,000. . . . . . . 20,214,000

Trade Summary Exports 2014 2013 Fed cattle to U.S. (to August 2) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228,946.. . . . . . . . . . 231,550 Feeder cattle and calves to U.S. (to August 2). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234,1 73.. . . . . . . . . . 168,586 Dressed beef to U.S. (to June). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243.69 mil.lbs.. . . . .218.54 mil.lbs Total dressed beef (to June). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339.43 mil.lbs.. . . . .306.01 mil.lbs 2014 IMPORTS 2013 Slaughter cattle from U.S. (to June) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0 *Dressed beef from U.S. (to June) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144.92 mil.lbs. . . . . . . 183.11 mil.lbs *Dressed beef from Australia (to June) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26.57 mil.lbs. . . . . . . 16.80 mil.lbs *Dressed beef from New Zealand (to June) . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.14 mil.lbs. . . . . . . 18.85 mil.lbs *Dressed beef from Uruguay (to June) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.19 mil.lbs. . . . . . . 19.39 mil.lbs Canadian Grades (to August 23, 2014) % of A grades +59% 54-58% AAA 23.1 21.9 AA 28.9 8.5 A 1.9 0.1 Prime 0.3 0.5 Total 31.0 54.2

EAST WEST

Total graded 385,410 1,352,505

Yield – 53% Total 10.4 55.4 1.9 39.3 0.0 2.0 0.7 1.5 13.0 Total A grade 98.2%

Total ungraded 15,171 262

% carcass basis 81 .8% 88.8% Only federally inspected plants

58

C at t l e m e n · s e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 4

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

 market ta l k

By Gerald Klassen

Larger Meat Supplies Could Weigh on Feeder Market

O

ver the past few weeks, I’ve received many inquiries in regards to the feeder cattle price outlook for the fall and winter period. Throughout 2014, feeder cattle prices have been moving in tandem with the fed cattle market. Feedlot margins remain in positive territory moving into the fall period with the higher fed cattle prices allowing buyers to bid up feeder cattle accordingly. Feed grain prices have been trending lower with favourable crop conditions in Western Canada and the U.S. Midwest. In the previous issue, I focused on the barley and corn fundamentals stating that burdensome supplies of U.S. corn would keep barley and feed wheat values under pressure for the first half of the 2014-15 crop year in Western Canada. Therefore, it is important to have a good idea of the risks influencing the fed cattle market which I will discuss in this article. Feeder cattle will be vulnerable to price variation in the fed cattle markets and cow-calf producers need to watch this closely to plan their marketing strategy.

The USDA has raised their 2014 third- and fourth-quarter beef production estimates. While projections are still below year-ago levels, the decline is not as sharp as earlier anticipated. Earlier in spring, the live cattle futures were incorporating a risk premium due to the uncertainty in production but we now see this premium eroding.

Beef production will start to show a steeper year-over-year decline towards the end of the fourth quarter and then the first quarter of 2015 will see an even tighter supply situation. For the second quarter of 2015, U.S. beef production will experience a year-over-year increase in production. Usually, the months of March and April are periods of seasonal high fed cattle prices but the projections point to counter seasonal price activity during the spring of 2015.

For the week ending August 9, Canadian exports of fresh and chilled beef were 13 per cent above last year, which kept basis levels quite firm in Alberta for fed cattle. However, exports may slow down later in the year and also in the first half of 2015.

The price of meat substitutes will be a negative factor influencing cattle and beef prices. Pork prices have dropped sharply over the past two months and the Russian ban is causing additional supplies to be absorbed in the domestic North American market. Broiler production is experiencing a year-over-year increase in supplies from July 2014 through July 2015. Price-conscious consumers will be looking for alternate sources of protein as the poultry market functions to encourage demand.

On the demand side, grocery store and full-service restaurant demand generally softens in September and October as the summer holiday season comes to an end. Consumers tend to stay at home and not eat out as often and travel spending also slows down. This has a major effect on beef, especially for the higherend cuts served in middle- to upper-class restaurants. This year, we could see more significant drop in full service restaurants because of the strong summer period. There is a need to rein in spending and eating at restaurants is a fairly easy way to tighten the family budget.

It is also important to note that consumer confidence reached the magical level of 90 over the summer which suggests the economy is firing on all cylinders. Consumers feel fairly optimistic about their future which contributed to the larger spending during June and July. However, a very robust period is usually followed by a softer tone which will also occur during the fall period. Notice that January and February are also slower months for restaurant activity.

In conclusion, beef production is coming in larger than earlier anticipated causing the risk premium in the market to erode. While the first quarter of 2015 will see a year-over-year decline in beef production, beef supplies will increase in the second quarter causing feedlot operators to be cautious when purchasing replacements that will be marketed at this time. Demand is softer during September and October; December food spending tends to surge and January and February are also quite slow. Pork and poultry prices are bearish from current levels due to larger-than-expected supplies. All these factors point to a volatile feeder market. It appears that the upside in the fed market is defined. We all know how sensitive beef and cattle prices are to any changes in economic activity and this is the most robust period we’ve seen since 2007. It will be difficult for this economic activity to continue at the current pace.

Feedlots tend to buy feeders based on the margin in the future and there is potential for a risk discount in November and December. Therefore, producers with yearlings will likely want to move them earlier, rather than later. Calf prices have potential to slowly soften throughout the fall and early winter. c Gerald Klassen analyzes markets in Winnipeg and also maintains an interest in the family feedlot in southern Alberta. He can be reached at gklassen7@hotmail.com.

u.s. quarterly beef production

u.s. quarterly pork production

(million pounds)

Quarter

(million pounds)

2013

Estimated 2014

Estimated 2105

2011

2012

1

6,411

6,283

6,172

5,868

2

6,559

6,475

6,517

6,183

2012

2013

Estimated 2014

Quarter

2011

5,650

1

5,720

5,775

5,777

5,785

6,375

2

5,371

5,475

5,519

5,504

3

6,737

6,584

6,608

6,445

6,240

3

5,485

5,585

5,624

5,460

4

6,492

6,571

6,420

6,065

6,060

4

6,065

6,220

6,278

6,030

TOTAL

26,199

25,913

25,717

24,561

24,325

TOTAL

22,625

23,055

23,198

22,779

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

C a t t l e m e n · S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 4 59

 GOI NGS ON

Sales&Events Events

September 18-19 Canada Beef Annual Forum and AGM, Toronto, Ont. 22 CLGA Annual General Meeting, Alliston, Ont. 23-25 Agriculture and Agri-Food Council’s Summit Up, Pomeroy Inn, Olds, Alta.

24-25 Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Beef AGM, Kelowna, B.C. 26-28 Young Ranchman’s All Breeds Livestock Show, Swift Current, Sask.

27 Pacific Invitational All-Breed Sale, Williams Lake, B.C.  ADVERT IS E R I N D EX Page Ability Pump & Equipment 51 53 Airdrie Trailer Sales Allen Leigh Security & Communications Ltd. 52 Boehringer Ingelheim 5 Buhler Manufacturing 29 50 Calhoun Cattle Co. Ltd. Canadian Angus Assoc.

52 Canadian Cattle Identification 26, 27 Canadian Charolais Assoc.

OBC Canadian Forage & Grassland Assoc. 22, 39 Canadian Gelbvieh Assoc.

51 Canadian Hereford Assoc.

IFC Canadian Limousin Assoc.

18, 19 Canadian Red Angus Promotion Society 52 Canadian Shorthorn Assoc.

33 13 Canadian Simmental Assoc.

Canadian Western Agribition 49 Canfax Cattle Market Forum 21 Central Testing Laboratories 48 Ryan Copithorne 48 Greener Pastures 48 Hi-Hog Farm & Ranch Equipment 53 International Stock Foods 52 John Deere Ag Marketing Center 8, 9 Klassen Agriventures Ltd. 50 Lakeland Group/Northstar 14 a-p Matchmaker Select 52 Merck Animal Health A1-A12, 41 Merial 17 Nester Livestock 37 New Holland 23 Northlands Farmfair International 45 Plain Jan’s Inc. 52 Real Industries 55 Ridley Block Ops/Crystalyx 31 Riverside Welding 52 Salers Assoc. of Canada 52 John Schooten & Sons Custom Feedlot Ltd. 50 The Cattle Range 6 Tru-Test Inc. 47 Vermeer Corporation IBC ViewTrak Technologies 43 Wetaskawin 47 53 Wild West Gallery

60

30 Canadian Animal Health Coalition Board Meeting, Toronto, Ont.

October

1-2 Beef Value Chain Round Table Meeting, Delta Airport, Calgary, Alta.

3 Alberta Agriculture Hall of Fame Ceremony, Edmonton, Alta.

3-5 Olds Fall Classic. Olds Regional Exhibition, Olds, Alta.

5 Ontario Provincial Show, Markham, Ont. 10-12 Expo Boeuf, Victoriaville, Que. 15-16 Beef Industry Federation, Kansas City, Missouri

November 2-9 Farmfair International and Canadian Finals Rodeo, Northlands Expo Centre, Edmonton, Alta.

5-8 Agri-Trade Farm Show, Westerner, Red Deer, Alta.

7-16 Royal Agricultural Winter Fair, Exhibition Place, Toronto, Ont. 13 Best of Canadian Agri-Marketing Association Awards, Ottawa, Ont. 17-19 5th Annual Canada’s Forage and Grassland Conference and AGM — “Closing the Forage Gap,” Bromont, Que.

Letters Continued from page 7

consumers who eat at A&W realize that better burgers exist.

Keep up the good work.

Ed Curry Youngstown, Alta.

We followed Roy Berg’s plan

I saw the item about Roy Berg day in your magazine.

He put on a course for the Western Stock Growers in 1968 to present a good idea for ranchers. First off he made a crossbreeding program. The first cross was winter hardy with Angus, Hereford and Salers cattle. The second cross was milking cows, Brown Swiss and Simmental. The third cross was fastgaining cattle, Charolais and Romanola.

He put all this together and we followed it starting in 1969. We culled all animals that

C at t l e m e n · s e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 4

18-19 Canfax Forum, Deerfoot Inn, Calgary, Alta.

19 Market Access Secretariat Meeting, Ottawa, Ont. 24-29 Canadian Western Agribition, Evraz Place, Regina, Sask.

December 1-3 Alberta Beef Producers Annual General Meeting, Calgary, Alta.

9-11 2014 Western Canadian Grazing Conference — “Going Beyond Sustainability,” Radisson Hotel South, Edmonton, Alta.

January 2015 10-25 National Western Stock Show & Rodeo, National Westen Complex, Denver, Colorado, www.nationalwestern.com 21-23 Saskatchewan Beef Industry Conference, Evraz Place, Regina, Sask. c  Event listings are a free service to industry.  Sale listings are for our advertisers.

Your contact is Deborah Wilson at 403-325-1695 or deb.wilson@fbcpublishing.com

did not perform in our climate. We raised all bulls on our own, but brought some in for genetic opportunity while following his plan. He said if you had 250 cows, there would not be a problem raising your own bulls.

In the 1960s the calves were born in the middle of March and April. The weaning weights were 300 to 425 pounds. Now we have calves born at the same time but weighing 550 to 750 pounds.

We pulled 30 or more calves per year in the 1950s and ’60s. Now we have not pulled a calf for the last two years, including yearling heifers.

We put cattle in Cattleland Feedyard Test Station in 1993-94. They were the most efficient cattle and were the three fastest gainers.

Most of the ranchers did not go on the first Roy Berg program. They went on Beef Booster instead. I feel the first program was the best.

David Copithorne Designer Gene Cattle Co. Calgary, Alta.

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

Balers Bale Processors Disc Mowers Mower Conditioners Rakes Tedders Trailed Mowers Vermeer, the Vermeer logo and Equipped to Do More are trademarks of Vermeer Manufacturing Company in the U.S. and/or other countries. Š 2014 Vermeer Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

CanadianCattlemanFullpg_SpecificAg_504ProFullline.indd 1

EQUIPPEDTODOMORE.com

8/22/14 10:50 AM

666 lbs. #CHAROLAIS steers at Hoards Station last week sold for $2.94...

That’s over $1950 a calf!!! @COLTON243 17 Charolais steers sold in Keady.

689 lbs. at $296.50 CAN = $2043/Head @KENSCHAUS 44 Head of Silvers 926 lbs. at $216.00 @DRYLANDCATTLE

CCA_Summer14-8.indd 1

8/26/2014 8:52:58 AM