Micro Beef Technologies and Midwest MicroSystems Launch Cow Sense Verified Program

Micro Beef Technologies and Midwest MicroSystems Launch Cow Sense Verified Program

AMARILLO, Texas, November 28, 2007 – Micro Beef Technologies and Midwest MicroSystems are pleased to introduce the Cow Sense® Verified Program, a value-added program providing cow-calf producers an integrated, comprehensive tool to age and source verify cattle and qualify for numerous domestic and export market programs. 

With the Cow Sense Verified Program, Midwest MicroSystems’ Cow Sense Herd Management Software is integrated with Micro Beef Technologies’ USDA-approved Process Verified Program (PVP) for age and source verification.  The partnership between these two leading individual animal and herd management solution providers affords cow-calf producers a variety of methods to differentiate their cattle in the marketplace and increase profitability.

This integrated system enables information exchange and verification for individual animals, herd management practices, and continuous economic improvement.  Cow Sense Verified provides Cow Sense users with easy access to a proven, market-leading age and source verification option. 

Cow Sense customers can take advantage of the Micro Beef Verification Services to qualify cattle for a variety of value-added specification beef programs, such as those requiring cattle that have not been treated with antibiotics, implants, ionophores, or have received certain pre- and post-weaning vaccination protocols. An added benefit of the Cow Sense Verified program is the ability to share and receive meaningful animal performance information with participating feedlots through the same Micro Beef Technologies platform and Midwest MicroSystems’ BeefSTAR™ application.

“Connecting producers to marketing programs that add real value to their operations is a priority for Micro Beef,” says Joe Young, Manager of Integrated Beef Programs for Micro Beef Technologies.  “In today’s market, age- and source-verified cattle are often earning average premiums of $25 – $35 per head.  We’re pleased to combine our verification services and information management with Midwest MicroSystems leading herd management system to help producers create additional value in their cattle.”

“A key to success in the beef industry is managing details.  Consumers’ increasing demands for source verification, beef quality assurance, and verification of management practices require good herd record-keeping.  We are proud to partner with Micro Beef to provide Cow Sense users with a proven method for differentiating their cattle in the marketplace and maximizing their value,” says Midwest MicroSystems Vice President Tim Davis.  “This simplified approach combines additional marketing benefits with the valuable on-ranch herd management information provided by Cow Sense.”

Cow Sense Verified cattle may also be posted online in the Micro Beef Listing Service, the industry’s only online, public listing for 100% on-site audited cattle.  To view the Micro Beef Listing Service, visit http://www.microbeef.com/cattlelisting.

For more information on Cow Sense Verified, visit http://www.midwestmicro.com/verified.htm or contact Midwest MicroSystems at 800-584-0040 or Micro Beef Technologies at 800-858-4330.

Third Annual Mid-South Stocker Conference Set for February 12-13

Third Annual Mid-South Stocker Conference Set for February 12-13

The 2008 Mid-South Conference will be held February 12-13, in Lebanon, Tennessee. The conference is a cooperative educational program by the University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension and University of Tennessee Extension.

Bayer Animal Health will again serve as “partner” for the conference.

The theme of the conference is “Plan for Success.” The conference will offer practical information that will aid stocker operators in planning and managing their operations to maximize profit.

Pre-registration for the conference is $95.00 and must be made by February 5, 2008. Registration the day of the conference will be $145.00.

Stocker production is the sector of beef production between weaning and the feedlot. The market currently has greater demand for heavier, healthier feeder cattle. Both Kentucky and Tennessee, as well as the Mid-South area, produce thousands of cattle that would increase in market value by stockering them.

The conference gets underway at 1:00 PM on February 12 with a tour of stocker operations and other stops of interest to conference attendees. The tour will conclude with a reception and Certified Angus Beef steak meal at Horn Springs Angus Farms, hosted by Quinton Smith. Mr. Mark McCauley of Certified Angus Beef will make a presentation to wrap up the tour. The reception and steak dinner is sponsored by Bayer Animal Health.

The tour will also provide an opportunity for stocker operators to interact with each other and the program presenters in an informal environment.

The program of February 13 will include topics related to “successful” stocker operations presented by nationally recognized experts in the stocker industry. Topics include health and management of stocker cattle, risk management, the outlook for the stocker industry, using byproducts from ethanol production in stocker cattle rations.

The day will conclude with a panel discussion by successful stocker operators from the Mid-South area who will share what they do to be successful with their operations.

For additional information, contact Dr. Jim Neel, University of Tennessee Extension Beef Cattle Specialist at 865-974-7294 or jneel@utk.edu or Mr. John Bartee, County Director, University of Tennessee Extension, Montgomery County Tennessee at 931-648-5725 or jbartee1@utk.edu. In Kentucky contact Dr. John T. Johns University of Kentucky Beef Cattle Specialist at 859-257-2853 or jtjohns@uky.edu. For more information, visit the following web site: http://www.midsouthstocker.org/

Pastures need lime

Pastures need lime

Baxter Bulletin

Are you losing extra yield from pasture and forage crops each season due to low soil pH?

Lime on acid soils is required if a well-balanced fertility program is to be achieved. Yields can be increased on many Arkansas farms by correcting acid soil conditions with lime. Most grasses will produce top yield on soils that are only moderately acid or slightly acid. Most legumes, on the other hand, grow best on soils that are slightly acid to neutral in pH reaction. Good yields of all forages are more attainable when proper levels of lime and fertilizer are applied to pastures and hay meadows.

In addition to increasing soil pH, lime supplies calcium or calcium and magnesium (dolomitic limestone), both essential nutrients for plant growth. Other benefits include increasing the availability of soil phosphorus and molybdenum; decreasing the solubility of elements like aluminum and magnesium, thereby reducing the possibility of toxicity to some crops; improving soil structure; increasing the bacterial breakdown of plant residues; and improving the nodulation (nitrogen fixing ability) of legume plants.

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Recovering from the freeze and drought of 2007

Recovering from the freeze and drought of 2007

by Bryce Roberts

Spencer Magnet

Spencer County farmers are not likely to soon forget the past year. A double punch of a late spring freeze and a summer drought has left pasture and hay fields gasping. Now that some rain is again falling, producers may be wondering how well their fields will recover and if they can make changes to better prepare for future weather problems.

“There are no easy answers for recovery,” said Ray Smith, extension forage specialist with the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture. “There’s no miracle cures. Good, sound forage management is really what is needed.”

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Kentucky Extension, Conservation Service Team Up for Best Grazing

Kentucky Extension, Conservation Service Team Up for Best Grazing

Thehorse.com

Partnerships allow two people or entities to pool their strengths, with the combination stronger than either could be on their own. The University of Kentucky College of Agriculture and federal Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) have pooled their expertise in Kentucky for many years to provide the best possible information to farmers on grazing strategies for their livestock.

“We have a common goal-we want profitable, environmentally sound, and locally beneficial grazing systems on Kentucky farms regardless of the species you are trying to raise,” said Jimmy Henning, PhD, associate dean for extension and associate director of the UK Cooperative Extension Service.

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USDA to survey cattle producers in January

USDA to survey cattle producers in January

Brownfield Networ

by Jerry Passer

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is calling on nearly 50,000 cattle operations nationwide to provide the latest and most accurate data on cattle inventories and calf production.

“The January cattle survey provides Iowa producers the opportunity to serve as the frontline source of data on cattle” said Joe Prusacki, director of the Iowa Field Office of USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS). “In Iowa, we’ll be contacting about 2,000 operations in order to measure trends in beef and dairy cattle inventories, calf crop and cattle operations.”

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Horselover Facts

Horselover Facts

Jesse Walker Reason Magazine Animal welfare activists are pushing the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act, which would ban “the shipping, transporting, moving, delivering, receiving, possessing, purchasing, selling, or donation of horses and other equines to be slaughtered for human consumption.” Ken Silverstein parses the problems with the bill: Are French horse eaters worse than American cow, pig, or chicken eaters? Keep in mind that unlike the last three animals, horses aren’t raised for food. Animals raised on factory farms live in infinitely more squalid circumstances than horses destined for the dinner plate. [The law’s supporters] say that transport conditions to Mexico are appalling, with, in the words of the American Welfare Institute, horses “typically hauled for more than 24 hours without rest, water, or food in trailers that provide little protection from weather extremes. FULL STORY

Steroid, hormone-free beef just better, says farmer

Steroid, hormone-free beef just better, says farmer

By Brent Schanding

Shelby County Sentinel-News (KY)

Beef. It may be what’s for dinner, but Americans are increasingly turning to more organic and natural options to satisfy their cravings, according to supermarket industry and health magazine reports.

Nationwide sales of the specialty meat from cattle that are not fed antibiotics, hormones or animal bi-products, are up 20 percent from last year, due partly to diet trends, fears of mad cow disease and word of mouth from longtime natural and organic consumers.

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Beef talks at the livestock symposium

Beef talks at the livestock symposium

By Teresa Carter

KTVO-TV

The largest expense a livestock producer has is the cost of providing feed grain. And anything they can do to reduce costs will help with the bottom line.   

This year at the Missouri Livestock Symposium, an expert from the University of Missouri will be having a presentation on keeping feed costs in check.

As a symposium committee member says they have a great line-up on speakers that producers will find to be very informative.

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Johne’s Disease Testing Options-What Has Changed?

Johne’s Disease Testing Options-What Has Changed?

Cattlenetwork.com

Producers in Ohio have enjoyed a very high level of support for Johne’s disease testing for many years. Although warning signs that this could change have been visible for the past two to three years, the changes that came about in March of this year were a surprise to some producers and veterinarians. What changed?

Actually, not all that much. Ohio still has a Johne’s program that mirrors the federal guidelines of the Voluntary Bovine Johne’s Control Program. Veterinarians still administer risk assessments and help producers develop management plans, much as they have in recent years, and Ohio still has one of the best-equipped and best-staffed diagnostic laboratories for Johne’s disease in the USA. And Johne’s disease is still costing the Ohio cattle industry enormous amounts of money in lost milk production and premature culling of animals. The only real difference, admittedly a very important one, is that the Ohio Department of Agriculture has been required to begin charging substantial fees for fecal cultures and ELISA blood tests. And the timing couldn’t have been much worse. Why?

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Grass-fed cows mean healthier beef

Grass-fed cows mean healthier beef

By Herb Weisbaum

KOMO Radio

Cows were made to eat grass not grain. Eating grass is healthier for them and, it turns out, it’s better for those of us who eat red meat.

According to Consumer Reports on Health, beef from cattle that have a grass-only diet has about half the saturated fat of corn-feed beef and higher levels of beneficial fatty acids and antioxidants.

Until this month, there were no standards for the “grass fed” label claim. New government regulations that took effect in mid-November say grass-fed means all grass and no grain.

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Checkoff changes the talk of Nebraska Cattlemen meeting

Checkoff changes the talk of Nebraska Cattlemen meeting

by Peter Shinn

Brownfield Network

A serious debate on the future of the beef checkoff is set to begin at the Nebraska Cattlemen annual meeting in Kearney. Over 400 have registered to attend this meeting and many more are expected to show up than have signed-up. One of the key topics here is a potential increase in the beef checkoff, a recommendation of the Industry Wide Checkoff Task Force more than a year ago.

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Kobe: The Arthritic Beef

Kobe: The Arthritic Beef

The Grinder

The cows behind Kobe beef are supposed to have luxurious lives, right? But that’s not what Gourmet says.

Everyone’s heard the stories of the sybaritic lives of the cows that are slaughtered for Kobe beef: the massages, the Kirin beer, the satin negligees. (OK, that last part is made up. But I’ll bet you’ll read about it on a menu soon.) The world’s most expensive beef famously comes from bovines that make the Roman emperors look modest.

At least that’s the line. But in December’s Gourmet (story not available online), Barry Estabrook asks a few pointed questions about how exactly these cows are reared. He gets very few direct answers—he dryly notes that “attempts to reach an official with Japan’s Kobe Association failed”—but he’s able to flesh out the real story from the few Westerners who’ve seen Kobe farms.

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U.S. ends increased testing of Canadian meat

U.S. ends increased testing of Canadian meat

Reuters

Canadian meat and poultry exports will no longer be subjected to increased U.S. testing after audits of the country’s meat system showed it was safe, the U.S. Agriculture Department said in a letter to Canadian officials.

USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service early this month began double testing Canadian meat — including pork and poultry — in an effort to detect E. coli 0157:H7, salmonella and listeria. The increased testing began on November 9.

The extra meat tests came after an outbreak of E. coli in several U.S. states was traced to beef from a Canadian company, Ranchers Beef, this year.

William James, an acting assistant administrator with FSIS, said in the letter that two audits were completed in Canada this month. One audit found “unsafe practices in Ranchers Beef were not employed by other establishments” and that seven other plants where problems were identified between May 1 and June 6, had taken corrective action.

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Hoosier Beef Congress Begins 21st Year

Hoosier Beef Congress Begins 21st Year

by Gary Truitt

Hoosier Ag Today

One of the biggest events in the Indiana Cattle industry gets under way this week. The Hoosier Beef Congress will draw over 4000 cattle enthusiasts to the Indiana State Fairgrounds. Julia Wickard, Executive Director of the Indiana Beef Cattle Association, told HAT this year’s show will feature a record number of cattle, “This is our 21st year and we just keep getting bigger every year.” Wickard credits the popularity of the event with the timing of the show, “This is the first show of the new show season and it is a change for people to get their new entries in a show.” She also said that this show attracts a lot of first time exhibitors, “It is a great place for young people to get some experience.”  

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