Short Term Calf Removal

Short Term Calf Removal

Dr. Glen Selk, Oklahoma State University

Short-term calf removal is the term that describes the temporary physical separation of the calf from its mother. This removes the nursing stimulus from the cow for about 2 days. The care of the calf during that 48 hours is actually quite simple. Most producers will make certain that calves access to some “sweet” feed and plenty of fresh drinking water. The calves will eat very little during this time. Removal of calves for 48 hours has shown to improve rebreeding rates of moderately conditioned (BCS=5) cows by 4-8%.

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Cattle Update: Industry Leaders Discuss The Benefits of Value-Added Calves

Cattle Update: Industry Leaders Discuss The Benefits of Value-Added Calves

Cattlenetwork.com

WHAT: Fort Dodge Animal Health will host a luncheon featuring industry leaders discussing value-added calves from the perspective of producers, sale barn owners and branded beef programs. Topics of discussion will include:

-What value-added calves are really worth

-How to hold a value-added calf sale

-What’s new in preconditioning programs

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USDA tries to revive animal identification efforts

USDA tries to revive animal identification efforts

High Plains Journal

The Canadians and the Australians have already figured this out. But in the United States, the process of identifying all livestock and ensuring 48-hour trace-back capability has been an extremely uphill battle.

Bruce Knight intends to fix the problem. In his new role as Undersecretary for Marketing and Inspection Services, he’s been charged with setting the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) upright, getting the key messages and benefits aligned, and actually demonstrating that people will register their premises first; animals second and eventually enable 48-hour traceability. It’s a monumental task, for sure. But it’s not the first or last challenge that an ag policy veteran like Knight has encountered during his years on Capitol Hill, working for numerous commodity organizations, and most recently, serving as Chief of the Natural Resources Conservation Service.

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Creep Feeding Beef Calves

Creep Feeding Beef Calves

Mark A. McCann, Extension Animal Scientist

Mycattle.com

Creep feeding is the practice of providing supplemental feed to nursing calves. This is done usually with the use of a creep gate, large enough for calves to enter the feeding area, but too small to allow cows to pass. Creep feeding can be implemented in various forms or systems, but regardless of method chosen, use it judiciously. Treat creep feeding as management decision rather than an annual management practice. The type of creep feeding system varies from grain-based energy creeps to limit-fed protein creeps to creep grazing. Each system produces a general response of increased growth, which is not always profitable. Creep feeding like any other supplementation practice, must be analyzed based on estimates of expected increases in performance and income compared to the costs of these improvements.

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Cattle ID report goes to lawmakers

Cattle ID report goes to lawmakers

Peggy Steward

Capital Press

Washington state lawmakers have received a report outlining recommendations on the implementation of an animal identification system in the state.

A 20-member cattle advisory committee, representing various segments of the state’s cattle industry, met several times last year to come up with the recommendations contained in the 43-page report, released Jan. 12 by the Washington State Department of Agriculture.

“Though implementation of a voluntary NAIS (National Animal Identification System) at the federal level has been delayed, the cattle advisory committee feels it is important to move ahead on a voluntary program in Washington,” the report said.

In drafting the recommendations, advisory committee members looked at what other states plan to do to implement an ID program and selected four demonstration projects within the state. The goal of an ID program is to track animals quickly in case of a disease outbreak and to help producers meet export requirements, the report said.

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USDA needs to follow current rules, not new

USDA needs to follow current rules, not new

Aberdeen American News (SD)

Before the U.S. Department of Agriculture expands the list of allowable Canadian beef and cattle imports into the United States, it should make sure that it can enforce the current guidelines.

Apparently that hasn’t been happening.

Selling Canadian cattle on the open market – including at South Dakota sale barns – is emphatically not allowed by the USDA.

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Hereford Sale Packs the House

Hereford Sale Packs the House

American Hereford Association

The Mile High Night National Hereford Sale once again was the talk of the National Western Stock Show in Denver. Enthusiasm and spirited bidding throughout the sale on Jan. 12 proved to a packed crowd that the Hereford offering was unique and well-accepted. When Eddie Sims, National Cattle Services Inc., silenced the gavel for the final time, 22.16 lots averaged $16,805, with nine embryos averaging $500.

Topping the sale at $58,000 for one-quarter semen interest was Churchill Yankee ET consigned by Churchill Cattle Co., Manhattan, Mont.; Stuber Ranch, Bowman, N.D.; and Pied Piper Farms, Hamlin, Texas. This popular Jan. 20, 2006, calf is sired by GH Neon 17N, and the lot was purchased by the Churchill Yankee Syndicate.

C Maui Jim ET was also in demand as one-quarter semen interest was purchased for $45,000 by the Maui Jim Syndicate. This calf that was selected as the champion polled Hereford bull at the Western Nugget National Hereford Show was born on Sept. 4, 2005, and is sired by DM BR L1 Domino 146. Colyer Herefords, Bruneau, Idaho, consigned the lot.

Ned and Jan Ward, Sheridan, Wyo., offered the pick of their 2007 heifer calves. This lot was popular last year and proved to be even more so this year as DeanaJak Farms Inc., New Enterprise, Pa., claimed the lot with a bid of $50,000.

Sandhill Farms, Haviland, Kan., always consigns a great lot to this sale, and this year was no different. One-half semen interest in SHF Rib Eye M326 R117 sold for $34,000 to American Breeders Service, DeForest, Wis. This March 23, 2005, calf is sired by KCF Bennett 3008 M326.

Star Lake Cattle Ranch and Jonathan Blin, Skiatook, Okla., and Massey Hereford Ranch, Wickett, Texas, consigned a super May 2, 2006, calf by STAR Bright Future 533P ET. One-quarter interest in STAR JJB Back to the Future sold for $22,000 to La Mojarrita Ranch, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Smithfield phasing out sow gestation crates

Smithfield phasing out sow gestation crates

by Bob Meyer, Dave Russell, and Peter Shinn

Brwonfield Network

Smithfield Foods, the nation’s largest pork producer, announced Thursday it will phase-out the use of sow gestation crates in all its operations over the next 10 years. The move came in the wake of successful ballot initiatives in Arizona and Florida that banned the use of sow crates in those states, and as a California lawsuit against sow crates move forward.

Opponents of the ballot measures in Arizona and Florida said extremist animal rights groups with a hidden vegan agenda were behind the effort to ban sow crates there. And Steven Duchesne, a spokesman for CorcPork, the 9,000-sow operation in California that’s being sued for a second time by anti-crate advocates, told Brownfield there’s no question those animal rights extremists are behind the legal action against his firm’s use of sow gestation crates.

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BSE rules breached

BSE rules breached

Meat News

UNITED KINGDOM: Over thirty-month-old heifer untested for BSE enters the food chain.

The British Food Standards Agency has launched an investigation into how an Over Thirty Month (OTM) heifer entered the food chain without being tested for BSE.

Testing of all cattle that are over thirty months at slaughter is mandatory if they are intended for human consumption.

The heifer had its specified risk material removed – those parts of the animal that would contain more than 99 percent of any infectivity that would be present if the animal had BSE.

Because of this, the FSA says that any risk to human health from this heifer would be extremely low.

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Federal Legislation Seeks to Keep ‘Downed’ Animals Out of Food Supply

Federal Legislation Seeks to Keep ‘Downed’ Animals Out of Food Supply

PR News Wire

Farm Sanctuary, the nation’s leading farm animal shelter and advocacy organization, today announced its support of the Downed Animal and Food Safety Protection Act

(HR 661), introduced by U.S. Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY) with 74 original co-

sponsors. This act would amend the Humane Methods of Livestock Slaughter

Act of 1958 to prohibit downed animals from becoming part of the human food

supply. Senator Daniel Akaka (D-HI) is introducing similar legislation in

the U.S. Senate.

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Agriculture is drunk on ethanol

Agriculture is drunk on ethanol

High Plain Journal

It is a euphoric time for corn farmers brought on by this single new factor in the marketplace that is creating unprecedented demand for grain. Even with our capacity to grow billions of bushels, it is not enough to satisfy the new refineries that dot the productive farm lands across the Midwest and reach to literally every state that has a dream of energy independence and profitability.

The laws of supply and demand are truly alive in a time of short supplies and a voracious appetite by domestic and export markets alike. The next year looks like one of extreme volatility based on the market reaction to the final USDA report of 2006 that lowered the total corn crop by 211 million bushels.

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Southeast research farm annual meeting is Jan. 30

Southeast research farm annual meeting is Jan. 30

Vermillion Plain Talk (SD)

Perspectives on South Dakota climate, use of biofilters to eliminate livestock odor, and highlights of 2006 crop and livestock research projects will be topics at this year’s annual meeting at Southeast Research Farm, set for Jan. 30.

The program begins at 1 p.m. at Southeast Research Farm, 29974 University Road, six miles west and three miles south of Beresford.

South Dakota State University Extension State Climatologist Dennis Todey will summarize climatic patterns and their effects on South Dakota agriculture. Extension farm machinery and safety specialist Dick Nicolai will show how biofilters effectively control odor from pigs raised in a confinement barn at Southeast Farm.

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