Stopping doping in the show ring
Jim Spencer
Minneapolis Star Tribune/Heraldnet
The State Fair Market Beef Grand Champion looked like a 1,305-pound stuffed toy. His thick black coat — preserved by a summer spent lounging in an air conditioned room — fit like a plush velvet robe. His leg hair — teased and doused with adhesive — shone with freshly sprayed black paint.
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Baxter Black, DVM: MALIBOO
I was sitting on the beach reading the Malibu newspaper to acquaint myself with their local concerns. There were the usual stories; real estate, recession, anti-motorcycle rants, the Interior Secretary’s visit to the park, and the anti-rodenticide brigade.
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GIPSA’s Political Football
John Harrington
DTN
Like a shell-shocked commander waving a white and bullet hole-ridden flag, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack parsed his words with great care in the midst of last Friday’s livestock competition meeting.
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Foot Rot in Beef Cattle
John F. Currin, D.V.M. and W. Dee Whittier, D.V.M., Extension Veterinary Specialists, Virginia Tech, and Nancy Currin, D.V.M., Veterinary Extension Publication Specialist, Virginia Tech
Foot rot is a common disease of cattle that can cause severe lameness and decreased weight gain. Other common names for the disease are sore foot and foul foot. Technically the disease is called interdigital necrobacilosis, meaning a bacterial disease creating dead tissue between the toes, the interdigital area of the foot. The incidence is usually sporadic, but with outbreaks in high intensity operations it may be 25 percent or higher.
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Cheating in the Show Ring, Part 1
Cattle.com
It’s that time of year again – the pigs are being walked, the lambs’ feed is carefully being measured and put into individual feed pans and the steers’ hair is being washed out and brushed through daily (sometimes even twice daily). When most students are sleeping in, young 4H and FFA members have been up for hours patiently feeding, grooming and exercising their pride and joy.
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Selecting for calf health via genetics
The Cattle Business Weekly
Seasoned cattlemen have long suspected a link between calf genetics and health, and a mounting body of research is proving them right. Uncovering that connection might lead to new tools for managing disease resistance.
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Could Self-Vaccinating Cattle Cut Disease?
Thebeefsite.com
Scientists are testing a vaccine that spreads by itself as a solution to a highly infectious buffalo and cattle disease that costs millions of dollars a year.
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