Cow chips

Cow chips


Oklahoma City Journal Record/KFOR

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Zig Beef president John Hassell is proposing for cattle identification would be similar to a computer chip. (Photo: Journal Record)

OKLAHOMA CITY – John Hassell hopes the sweat equity he put into his Ph.D. dissertation on wireless sensor networks doesn’t just become a wall decoration, but something that will land him big bucks.

The 38-year-old Wewoka native formed his own company, ZigBeef, last year, and he’s planning to market a new type of animal radio sensor device to the country’s best and brightest cattle ranchers.

Hassell is developing an ear tag that uses a tiny, battery-powered computer chip to store information about cattle, including the animals’ date of birth, vaccination records, temperature and an identification number.

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Mad Cow Concerns in Tennessee

Mad Cow Concerns in Tennessee

Wednesday, Mar 08, 2006 – 08:00 AM
Tricities.com

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – A state legislator says Tennessee is “playing Russian roulette” with mad cow disease.

State Representative Frank Niceley of Strawberry Plains says Tennessee needs to clamp down on livestock feed regulations.

He’s sponsoring a bill that would go beyond federal regulations by banning all feed containing cattle protein or bone meal made from cattle or other ruminant animals such as sheep.

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Barbecue roasts animal rights group

Barbecue roasts animal rights group
COLLEGE REPUBLICANS HOPE TO ENCOURAGE MEAT EATING

By MAYA CARPENTER
Independent Florida Alligator Contributing Writer
Tim Hussin / Alligator Staff

Flint John, an Agribusiness graduate student, looks at the hot dog he is about to eat at PETA, People Enjoying Tasty Animals, an event put on by the College Republicans on Wednesday. Free hot dogs and hamburgers were offered outside the Alpha Gamma Rho house.

UF students enjoyed $500 worth of meat Wednesday for the second annual People Enjoying Tasty Animals barbecue sponsored by the UF College Republicans.

A play off of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the free barbecue was held from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Alpha Gamma Rho Fraternity house.

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Nymox treatment to nearly eliminate E. coli on fresh beef, other foods

Nymox treatment to nearly eliminate E. coli on fresh beef, other foods

Agprofessional.com
Mar. 9, 2006

HASBROUCK HEIGHTS, N.J. — Nymox Pharmaceutical Corp. has developed a new proprietary treatment for potentially fatal E. coli O157:H7 contamination of beef and other food products.

Laboratory studies showed that the Nymox product, NXC-4720, is capable of reducing the level of E. coli O157 contamination on fresh beef by more than 99 percent.

A recent study by the USDA estimated that the annual cost of illness due to E. coli O157 was $405 million, including $370 million for premature deaths, and concluded that, given the high costs, additional efforts to prevent infections by this pathogen might be warranted.

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Breathalyzing animals may replace blood tests

Breathalyzing animals may replace blood tests

RYAN FAIRLEY
Daily Nebraskan
March 10, 2006

The word breathalyzer brings a few images to mind, but a group of pigs or a pot load of cattle are usually not the subjects of those breath tests.Still, such sights could be on the horizon for U.S. agriculture as officials look for new ways to test animals for possible contamination as a result of bioterrorism.

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Invasive plants get help from enemies

Invasive plants get help from enemies

Native predators control invaders better than transplanted ones
By Dennis O’Brien
Baltimore Sun Reporter

Ask anyone who’s tried to cut down pesky bamboo shoots or rid his garden of purple loosestrife: Invasive plants can be a major hassle.

Scientists have long believed that invasives thrive as well as they do because they have escaped the natural predators in their native homes. But a study released today says that’s only part of the reason.

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eMerge reports financial loss

eMerge reports financial loss

Firm lays off 10 employees; faces delisting

BY BRIAN MONROE
FLORIDA TODAY

Sebastian-based eMerge Interactive Inc. had lower losses in its fourth quarter, but lost more money for the full year, the company announced Thursday. The struggling company still is looking for its first profit.

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Northern Utah ranchers hope to whet consumers’ appetite for ‘Cache’ cows

Northern Utah ranchers hope to whet consumers’ appetite for ‘Cache’ cows

By Arrin Newton Brunson
Special to The Salt Lake Tribune

LOGAN – Ranchers in and around this northern Utah community see a wealth of opportunity in a new breed of marketing for their “Cache” cows.
But they won’t be a part of the new “Utah’s Own” label, and neither will other in-state ranchers raising homegrown beef.
Instead, the Utah’s Own campaign will promote other state-bred goods when the marketing push kicks off next month in Salt Lake, Utah and Davis counties, explained Jed Christensen, director of marketing and development for Utah Department of Agriculture and Food.

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FAM controversy in Brazil delays livestock elimination

FAM controversy in Brazil delays livestock elimination

Mercopress

Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture began this week sacrificing livestock in the south of the country where the recurrence of an outbreak of foot and mouth disease was reported.

A total 377 cattle from two different farms in the state of Parana are being terminated in this first stage, but “another 6.126 livestock from another five farms are to be eliminated in a date yet to be established”, said Juliana Matoso, spokesperson for the federal authorities in Parana, a state neighbouring with Paraguay and Argentina.

In the State of Matto Grosso do Sul where the original FAM outbreak was first diagnosed last October, the sanitary rifle has been fired at least 30.000 times.

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