Truth About Animal Cruelty, It’s Not at Livestock Auctions

Truth About Animal Cruelty, It’s Not at Livestock Auctions

Farmers and ranchers across the United States stand strongly against any form of animal abuse or cruelty. This video describes the responsibility of U.S. livestock auction markets in properly caring for animals.

Audio Feature: 2008 Cattle Industry Summer Conference: Nutrient Rich Foods Coalition, Joint Beef & Dairy Symposium part 2

Audio Feature:  2008 Cattle Industry Summer Conference: Nutrient Rich Foods Coalition, Joint Beef & Dairy Symposium part 2

Beefcast

The Nutrient Rich Foods Coalition answers questions from dairy and beef producers.

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Baxter Black: PANDA POOP

Baxter Black:  PANDA POOP

Columnists, including me, feel a responsibility to keep you, the reader, updated on discoveries or phenomenon that might directly affect you.

The latest gem that piqued my interest was the announcement that Chinese scientists are encouraging paper mills to use panda poop to make paper. Right off the bat I thought, why not use the whole panda? But there would be the ‘cuddly factor’ to deal with, so I dropped it.

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Clones: The Ethics of Super Cows

Clones: The Ethics of Super Cows

Thebeefsite.com

Cloned food is generally perceived in a negative light by consumers, but for veterinarian Donald Coover, it conjures a miraculous world of super-cows with high milk and meat yields.

Mr Coover is helping to lead the clone revolution out of tiny Galesburg, writes Alex Roslin for The Gazette, a village of 150 with one convenience store and two churches, surrounded by fields of wheat and cattle ranches.

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Will Mandatory COOL Hurt Ground Beef Sales?

Will Mandatory COOL Hurt Ground Beef Sales?

Steve Kay

Beef Magazine

Think of beef and most people bring to mind a juicy steak. But the beef industry’s most valuable product is ground beef, sold as such, in patty form or in other ways. Estimates suggest these products represent about 42% of all the beef consumed in the U.S. each year. In terms of volume, the market is divided 50/50 between retail and foodservice.

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Herefords Are First U.S. Beef Cattle Imported To Kazakhstan

Herefords Are First U.S. Beef Cattle Imported To Kazakhstan

cattlenetwork.com

A jumbo jet loaded with 253 Hereford cattle left Chicago O’Hare International Airport, then 48 hours and 12,000 miles later, the cattle arrived at their destination in southeastern Kazakhstan on June 22. It was an historic event; the group was the first U.S. beef cattle to be imported to Kazakhstan.

The cattle were purchased by Ataibekov Bakyt, owner of Dinara Ranch, a 700-head cattle and farming operation in Kazakhstan.

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Livestock Producer Compliance with The COOL Interim Final Rule

Livestock Producer Compliance with The COOL Interim Final Rule

Dr. Scott P. Greiner, Extension Animal Scientist, Beef, VA Tech

Livestock producers are not directly regulated by the COOL interim final rule as livestock are not considered covered commodities.  However, only producers have first hand knowledge concerning the origin of their animals.  Definitive origin information must be provided to slaughter facilities so that meat covered commodities can be accurately labeled at retail.  Presumption of origin by packers and other entities in the marketing chain is not permitted.  For example, it is not acceptable to assume that if an animal has no ear tag and/or brands identifying that the animal was born and/or raised in Canada or Mexico, the animal is of U.S. origin.

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AMI applauds USDA’s proposed rule on downer cattle

AMI applauds USDA’s proposed rule on downer cattle

Poultry Today

The American Meat Institute has applauded USDA’s response to its petition to prevent all non-ambulatory cattle from entering the beef supply.

“The proposed rule banning non-ambulatory cattle from the food supply will ensure long-term consumer confidence in the industry and our products,” said J. Patrick Boyle, president and CEO of the American Meat Institute.

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Listeriosis – A wake up call for Canada’s food inspection system?

Listeriosis – A wake up call for Canada’s food inspection system?

CATHY HOLTSLANDER

The Southwest Booster

Mad Cow Disease was the wake up call for the United Kingdom’s food safety system. In the 1980s Margaret Thatcher’s government cut back on public veterinarians to reduce costs, the meat industry became more centralized, and using rendered Scrapie-infected sheep seemed like a good way to get cheap protein for cattle feed. The horrible, tragic and disturbing deaths of young people who contracted variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) after eating hamburgers from diseased animals shocked and angered the British public – and virtually destroyed the British beef sector. The British government’s response at the time focussed on public relations in the domestic sphere and attempts to shore up export markets by downplaying and even withholding information about infected herds from importing countries.

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BEEF Completes Landmark Stocker Survey

BEEF Completes Landmark Stocker Survey

Wes Ishmael

Beef Magazine

“There’s a treasure trove of information here, some of it benchmarking what we’ve long believed about the stocker industry, and other data offering new perspectives,” says Dale Balsi, Kansas State University (KSU) Extension beef stocker specialist.

Blasi coordinated the involvement of 12 land-grant universities in preparing and analyzing the recently completed National Stocker Survey (NSS). It’s the first time that the demographics, management practices and needs of the nation’s beef stocker and backgrounding industry have been assessed so broadly and deeply.

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2008 Texas drought losses estimated at $1.4 billion

2008 Texas drought losses estimated at $1.4 billion

Blair Fannin

Texas A&M

Lack of rain and scorching temperatures hit Texas’ agricultural crops and beef operations hard late spring and summer, leading to an estimated $1.4 billion in drought losses, Texas AgriLife Extension Service economists reported Monday.

Crop losses were estimated at $1.1 billion, while livestock losses tallied $260 million, which includes lost hay production, added supplemental feed costs and other production expenditures.

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Beef groups plan information sessions

Beef groups plan information sessions

The Fort Morgan Times

The cattle business is continuously changing. With collaboration from several sectors of the industry, the Colorado Beef Quality Assurance Program and Colorado Beef Council will host cattle producer meetings throughout Colorado addressing current issues and trends affecting the evolving beef marketplace.

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September Beef Management Calendar

September Beef Management Calendar

Dr. Scott P. Greiner, Extension Animal Scientist, Beef, VA Tech

Spring Calving Herds

    * Inventory feed supplies, test hay for nutrient content and plan winter feeding strategies

    * Give pre-weaning vaccinations to calves

    * Make final preparations for calf crop marketing program

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Safety Important Even With Manure Management

Safety Important Even With Manure Management

Candace Pollock

Angus Journal

The routine of agricultural production can become perilous when attention to safety takes a back seat to the ease and efficiency of operating farm machinery.

A team of safety specialists from Ohio State University (OSU) Extension were to demonstrate the hazards of operating farm equipment at the Great Lakes Manure Handling Expo July 9 at the Molly Caren Agricultural Center in London, Ohio. Whether a farmer is driving a tractor or spreading manure on the farm, the message is the same: Safety comes first.

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Water Quality Issues For Beef Cattle

Water Quality Issues For Beef Cattle

cattlenetwork.com

Once again, many areas of Colorado are faced with excessively dry climate conditions in 2008 and the hot summer temperatures and minimal precipitation have dwindled the available forages for grazing beef cattle.  The “drought-like” conditions are occurring as grazing lands are still recovering from past years of severely limited rainfall. Reports are arising of depleted summer grazing conditions, limited to no forage/hay production and drinking water for cattle is a major issue for cattlemen also.  Decreased water availability and unsuitable water quality can contribute to significant losses of production during drought periods. 

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