News Update
December 14, 2017
Use Angus Genetics?
Get a Scholarship!
The Angus Foundation is pleased to offer three $1,000 Allied Angus Breeders scholarships to young people who use Angus genetics in a commercial cattle operation breeding program or whose parents use Angus genetics. Emphasis is placed on applicants’ knowledge of the cattle industry and their perspective of the Angus breed.
“The Angus Foundation always is looking to help youth further their educations,” said Milford Jenkins, Angus Foundation president. “Angus genetics have so much to offer beef producers, so we want to encourage young people to use Angus genetics by helping support their academic pursuits.”
Scholarship applications are available online at angusfoundation.org and are due May 1. Applicants must be a graduating high school senior or enrolled at a junior college, four-year college/university or other accredited institution and have a minimum 2.0 GPA. Recipients will be announced in July.
Continue reading this Angus release online.
An FYI on Grading Maturity Determination
After input from industry stakeholders, consideration of more recent research, and months of procedural process, USDA announced a change to modernize the grading standards by allowing carcass maturity as determined by dentition to be used when assigning quality grade.
Studies have shown that beef from carcasses determined by dentition to be less than 30 months of age but exhibiting advanced skeletal maturity (B and C) was equally as palatable as beef that did not exhibit advanced skeletal maturity.
The new standard will allow carcasses determined to be less than 30 months, based on dentition, to be classified as “A” maturity as long as skeletal maturity has not advanced to the oldest categories of “D” or “E.” The latter two age groups will not be eligible for Prime through Standard grades. Carcasses found to be more than 30 months of age will still have quality grades assigned using current standards. The revised standard goes into effect Dec. 18, with more details available here.
Read more of Dykstra’s biweekly comments in the CAB Insider at www.cabpartners.com/news/cabinsider/.
Finding Profit
Opportunity. It’s there, but you may have to look a little harder for it. That’s what this year’s Feeding Quality Forum (FQF) attendees learned during the daylong meetings Aug. 29 in Omaha, Neb., and repeated in Garden City, Kan., Aug. 31.
AgResource Co. kicked off the forum with market predictions. Its president, Dan Basse, told Omaha attendees, “Ag is not at its bottom yet, but I think the worst is over.”
In the next few months, the analyst predicted, fed-cattle prices will hit bottom at $100 to $104 per hundredweight (cwt.), then improve into the first quarter of 2018.
Keep reading this Angus Journal article online.
Time to Do Something About Animal Disease Traceability
Joe Leathers crawled out of a teepee bedroll, drove to an airport and climbed aboard a jet bound for Denver. Though based in Guthrie, Texas, the general manager of 6666 Ranch had been helping wean calves on a remote leased property in Montana, but Leathers thought it was important to honor his commitment and attend the Strategy Forum on Livestock Traceability.
Leathers had been asked to share his views with an audience gathered to discuss animal disease traceability as it applies to cattle. Hosted Sept. 26-27 and organized by the National Institute for Animal Agriculture (NIAA) and the U.S. Animal Health Association (USAHA), the event attracted an audience consisting largely of federal and state regulatory veterinarians, plus agency folk representing USDA and various state departments of agriculture. There were a few people present on behalf of the Livestock Marketing Association (LMA) and others representing a handful of state cattlemen’s associations.
There were very few cattle producers in the audience — a fact not lost on Joe Leathers. He lamented the scarcity of bonafide industry “stakeholders” in attendance. Leathers also gently chastised the regulatory personnel that are seeking a way to implement a more comprehensive framework for USDA’s Animal Disease Traceability (ADT) program. Why, he asked, have no cattle producers been involved in forming recommendations for updating ADT?
Keep reading this Angus Journal article online.
Don’t Let Vaccines Freeze in Cold Weather
Cold weather can make things more challenging when vaccinating cattle. Russ Daly, Extension veterinarian and associate professor at South Dakota State University, says one important consideration when working cattle in cold temperatures is to be careful to not let vaccines freeze — whether you’re working with a modified-live virus (MLV) or a killed product.
No matter what type of vaccine you’re using, it shouldn’t be allowed to freeze. The modified-live viruses will be inactivated by freezing, and the vaccine will no longer be potent, he explains. It won’t be able to stimulate an immune response, so you would essentially be wasting your time vaccinating those animals.
“It may even be more important to be careful with killed vaccines that contain adjuvants. Freezing of the adjuvants may create some compounds that could make the animals sick. We want to make sure we can keep those vaccines at refrigerator temperature while we are working with them,” he says.
Read more of this Angus Beef Bulletin EXTRA article online.
Editor’s Note: The articles used within this site represent a mixture of copyrights. If you would like to reprint or repost an article, you must first request permission of Angus Productions Inc. (API) by contacting the editor at 816-383-5200; 3201 Frederick Ave., Saint Joseph, MO 64506. API claims copyright to this web site as presented. We welcome educational venues and cattlemen to link to this site as a service to their audience.