Canadian cattlemen

Sco r i ng h y b r i d a dva ntag e · W i nt e r o pti o ns

THE BEEF MAGAZINE

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Established 1938 ISSN 1196-8923 Cattlemen Editorial Editor: Gren Winslow 1666 Dublin Avenue, Winnipeg, MB R3H 0H1 (204) 944-5753 Fax (204) 944-5416 Email: gren@fbcpublishing.com Field Editor: Debbie Furber Box 1168, Tisdale, SK S0E 1T0 (306) 873-4360 Fax (306) 873-4360 Email: debbie.furber@fbcpublishing.com

Contents canadian cattlemen · october 2, 2017 · Volume 80, No. 9

 M A NAG E M E N T

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Hybrid advantage is your advantage ― now there’s a way to score it. . . . . . . . . . . . 10

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Cull or keep? ― Factors to consider when culling cows . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

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Wintering heifers at Fenton Hereford Ranch. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

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Wintering heifers 16 at Fenton Hereford Ranch  ma NAG E M E N T

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Winter options. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Verified Beef Production . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

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Stress is the enemy with ‘natural’ calves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Forage & Grasslands Guide. . . . . . . . . . 33-41

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The editors and journalists who write, contribute and provide opinions to Canadian Cattlemen and Glacier FarmMedia LP attempt to provide accurate and useful opinions, information and analysis. However, the editors, journalists, Canadian Cattlemen and Glacier FarmMedia LP cannot and do not guarantee the accuracy of the information contained in this publication. Use or non-use of any information is at the reader’s sole risk, and we assume no responsibility for any actions or decisions taken by any reader of this publication based on any and all information provided.

Heifer selection is in the eye of the beholder. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Heifer selection is in 20 the eye of the beholder

Congratulations!

To our October survey winner, Dani Dooley of Rosedale, Alta.

This month’s survey is on page 48.

Cover Photo: by Western Beef Development Centre

Comment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Newsmakers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Our History. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Research on the Record. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Free Market Reflections. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Straight from the Hip. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Vet Advice. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Prime Cuts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 CCA Reports. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 News Roundup. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Purely Purebred. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 The Markets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Market Talk. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 Sales and Events. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

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3

 COMMENT

By Gren Winslow

Quality Counts

T

he final report of the 2017-18 National Beef Quality Audit is due out next March but Mark Klassen, the director of technical services for the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association gave us a sneak peak at some of the preliminary results at this year’s beef industry conference.

To call it an audit is a bit of a misnomer. It’s really a series of audits. There’s the National Retail Audit that began benchmarking consumer satisfaction with Canadian beef. The results of that one were featured in our December 2016 issue. There was a beef tenderness survey. Then there’s the National Plant Cooler and Processing Floor Carcass Audit to benchmark carcass grading performance, and the Production Practices and Quality Priorities Survey of feedlots, packers, retailers and food service operators.

All the results of this quality research ultimately end up being put to use to keep the industry focused on producing a tasty, tender, and healthy product as economically as possible.

That gives you an idea of what to look for next March, but for the moment we have just preliminary results.

Horns have long been seen as a safety issue for the cattle industry. And while you are never going to get a 100 per cent agreement on the need for horns, there’s no doubt about their economic cost from bruising, head condemnations or extra labour in the plant. And that is a message that obviously has been getting through to the industry.

Approximately 93 per cent of Canadian cattle today are polled, according to the newest audit, compared to 88 per cent in 2010-11. The trend line on this one quality defect is pretty obvious.

Tag, the mud and manure on the hide at slaughter, represents a cost to the packer in terms of extra labour to get the hide off cleanly, and meat yield when they have to trim off any remaining stains on the carcass.

The last audit put the loss at $8.17 per head or $25 million in 2011.

This is one blemish the industry continues to wrestle with. An estimated 79 per cent of carcasses carried tag into the plants in the latest audit, slightly more than the 74 per cent recorded in 2010-11.

Liver abscesses are another sore point. The audit found significant abscesses in 18 per cent of livers this time compared to 10 per cent in the last audit. The final report will give us a more complete breakdown of the three categories used to discount damaged livers based on what is salvageable, but when the A3 category involving multiple large abscesses is up by that amount we can safely say the costs for this defect are

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rising. The 2010-11 audit put the economic loss at $9.36 per head or nearly $30 million in 2011.

A disappointing five per cent of the carcasses audited this time around had visible injection lesions on the surface that had to be trimmed as they cause the beef to be tough. This compares to two per cent of the carcasses with this defect in 2010-11.

On the brighter side, when they cut into subprimals like the top butt, blade, eye of round and inside round, they found significantly fewer injection site lesions than they did on the last audit. The results in the outside round cuts were about the same as last time.

We will have to wait for the final report to see how that all washes out in terms of costs for this particular defect.

Branding remains about as popular as it was a half decade ago. Thirteen per cent of the cattle in this audit were branded, compared to 12 per cent in 2010-11.

There’s no question brands cause some damage to hides. The last audit put the cost to the industry a little under a dollar per head, or $2.8 million in 2011. That bill will be a little higher this time around.

Given the requirement for branding by some financial institutions and the rising value of cattle which makes them more attractive to thieves, it’s hard to see this number coming down for some time yet.

Bruising results in some costly trimming on the main primal cuts as they move through the plant, depending on how deep they go. This time around bruises were noted on 30 per cent of the cattle. That may sound like a lot but it is a significant improvement over the 43 per cent that showed bruising in 2010-11. This preliminary number is also an average taken from fed cattle and cows. When it comes to trimming for bruises the number is almost always higher in the cows.

Most of the bruises this time were minor, as well, so the amount of trim due to bruising is going down at a fairly significant clip. Klassen believes this downtrend in bruising is one measure of the very real improvement in animal welfare that has occurred within the industry over the years.

There are several ways to value quality. The more we reduce discounts or lower costs, the more money should end up in the pockets of producers, packers and retailers. That’s one way.

In terms of the entire industry, however, quality is the real Canadian Beef Advantage. It’s the meat behind the slogan. And like everything else in today’s market, if you want to sell it, you have to back it up, and meeting these quality benchmarks is a verifiable way to do that. c

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

 THE INDUST RY

NewsMakers The Beef Cattle Research Council (BCRC) has introduced its three successful applicants for the 2017-18 Beef Researcher Mentorship program. Each has been paired with leaders in the Canadian beef industry and given a travel budget to enable them to become more familiar with Canada’s commercial beef industry.

Dr. Mika Asai Coakwell is the new assistant professor of animal genetics at the University of Sask­ atchewan. She grew up in Saskatchewan and began her MSc studies in bovine Dr. Mika Asai genetics in the department Coakwell of animal and poultry science, after graduating with BSc in biology and archaeology at the U of S. She completed her PhD at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, Switzerland, examining epigenetic events in cloned cattle.

Upon returning to Canada, she began studies in a new field, ocular genetics, in Edmonton, as a post-doctoral fellow. There, she studied genes implicated in human ocular defects.

She subsequently became a research associate in the department. Her current research interests are in beef cattle genetics, particularly in muscle and bone growth and development. Other interests include the study of inherited disease in cattle and companion animals. Asai Coakwell’s husband Colin is a pilot with the Canadian Armed Forces, and after five military postings in five years, they and their three children are ready to settle down back in her home town of Saskatoon.

She is being mentored by producers Lance Leachman, Ryan Beierbach, and Michael Latimer, the CEO of the Canadian Beef Breeds Council.

Dr. Robert Gruninger is research biologist at the Agriculture and AgriFood Canada Lethbridge Research and Development Centre. He was born and raised in Lethbridge and Dr. Robert Gruninger attended the University of Lethbridge and graduated with a BSc (honours) in biochemistry. His PhD work was conducted in the labs of Dr. Brent Selinger and Dr. Steven Mosimann and he was awarded his PhD in biochemistry from the University of Lethbridge in 2009. His PhD

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studies applied biochemical approaches to characterize the molecular basis of enzyme activity of several rumen phytases. Dr. Gruninger then went on to complete a post-doctoral fellowship from 2009-2012 in the lab of Dr. Natalie Strynadka at the University of British Columbia where he used structural biology to probe the basis of beta-lactam antibiotic resistance in pathogenic bacteria. Dr. Gruninger has been working for Agriculture and AgriFood Canada as a post-doctoral fellow (2012-16) and as a research biologist at the Lethbridge Research and Development Centre under the guidance of Dr. Tim McAllister. The focus of Dr. Gruninger’s research is to apply a combination of “-omics”-based techniques and protein biochemistry to better understand the microbiology of ruminant microbes and the role that the rumen microbiome plays in determining the efficiency of lignocellulose degradation in the rumen. He has received numerous prestigious awards from NSERC, Alberta Ingenuity and the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research. He is being mentored by producers Larry and Justin Helland, and ruminant nutritionist Darryl Gibb.

Dr. Stacy Singer is a research scientist (forage biotechnologist) with Agriculture & Agri-Food Canada’s Lethbridge Research and Development Centre. She obtained her PhD at the Dr. Stacy Singer University of Regina in 2005, and subsequent to this, carried out postdoctoral fellowships at the USDA-ARS Appalachian Fruit Research Station in West Virginia and Cornell University’s New York State Agricultural Experiment Station. The majority of her work during this time centered on developing plant biotechnological applications, understanding and improving abiotic and biotic stress tolerance, and coming up with ways in which to mitigate transgene flow between transgenic crops and their non-GM counterparts. Following this, she was employed as a research associate at the University of Alberta, where her research focused on utilizing biotechnology to enhance seed oil content and composition. In the past 10 years she has published 38 peer-reviewed articles in a

number of high impact journals, two book chapters, has an extension publication under review, and has five further manuscripts in preparation. Her research program presently focuses upon the development of advanced breeding tools and “clean” biotechnological platforms, which do not produce foreign proteins, for the improvement of various performance- and quality-related traits in forage crops. She is being mentored by forage and beef producer, Graeme Finn and forage seed grower Gord Card.

Fisher Branch beef producer Betty Green has been appointed to the board of the Manitoba Agricultural Services Corporation, a body that supports sustainability Betty Green and diversity in the agriculture industry. Green is the co-ordinator of the Verified Beef Production program in Manitoba, and a partner in the G7 Ranch with her husband and son. She previously served as president of the Manitoba Cattle Producers Association and as president of both the Provincial and Canadian Associations of School Trustees.

Cow-calf producer Peter McLaren of Perth has been elected president elect of the Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association.

He has 400 acres in forages, silage, grain corn, barley Peter McLean and soybeans to support his beef and cash crop operation.

Gerry Ritz, the federal minister for agriculture and agri-food for nine years in Stephen Harper’s Conservative government said goodbye to federal politics last month, stepGerry Ritz ping down as the MP for Battlefords-Lloydminster, a riding he has held since 1997. The beef industry remembers him best for the deregulation of the Canadian Wheat Board and his steadfast and ultimately successful opposition to the U.S. government’s mandatory country-oforigin labelling (COOL) law. c

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

 our histo ry

Buffalo Park Grazing Ass’n Community Pasture

By Capt. K.S. Tory, Wainwright, Alta.

From Canadian Cattlemen, November 1950

I

n this rich ranching country of Alberta the big name ranches and ranchers, and ranches with romantic backgrounds steeped in the traditions of the Alberta cattle story, are liable to obscure the less romantic but just as vital little ranch layouts known as Community Pastures.

Such a little lay-out, grazing about 3,000 head of stock, is stretched across the sandy plains of the former Buffalo Park, and its reserve, 12 miles south of Wainwright, Alberta. With the valley of the Battle River cutting into the West ranges and the Ribstone Creek wetting down hay and grazing territory in the central park, together with numerous lakes, the range is both provident and picturesque. E.J. (Bud) Cotton has made this area memorable in his stories about buffalo.

When the decision to remove the buffalo was final, the local farmers cast covetous eyes upon the rich grazing lands lying unused within the park fence. The P.F.R.A. looked upon the site with favour and pushed in survey parties preparatory to setting up a Federally-controlled community pasture as operated in other Provinces. Associated with the early moves of the pasture formation was a resolution sponsored by a meeting called “The All Farmers’ Conference” in 1941, requesting Hon. J.G. Gardiner to consider the matter. Local names like Lars Myggland, C. Ed Patterson, R.C. (Dick) Hissett, are associated with these early efforts.

With the need for emergency training areas during World War II, the Department of National Defence took over the old Buffalo Park and used it for the establishment of training and internment camps, later developing the Wainwright Military camp in this ideal training country.

The local stockmen went ahead on the lands available east of the fenced area, where an area of Crown lands, abandoned farms and municipal lands had been used for years by the early settlers and stockmen in the days of the free range. Lists were circulated and the data supplied the Department of Lands and Mines revealed there were 4,433 head of stock available for grazing on approximately 60,000 acres of range in Ranges 4, 5 and 6 West 4th. www.canadiancattlemen.ca

A Provisional Board was set up with R.C. Hissett, President, Fred Maddex acting-Secretary and C. Ed Patterson, D.E. (Scotty) Hines, Robt. Bishop, G. Ted Scott, Leo (Billy) Brown, Felix A. Currier, and the District Agriculturist as Directors.

The Association was incorporated in May 1948, with head office at Wainwright. Captain Kenn Tory was engaged as SecretaryTreasurer, and the organization opened its gates for business, receiving cattle from stockmen in the area of Edgerton, Heath, Czar, Metiskow, Cadogan and Wainwright.

The Department of Lands made the new Association responsible for the administration of hay permits within the former Buffalo Park. These ran annually into approximately 3,500 tons.

Early problems were overcome by cooperation and western goodwill. In an early meeting arranged by the Secretary with the Military Commander of the Camp, the Board members were shown into the Colonel’s presence by the Adjutant. The stockmen wanted hay for their stock and the Army was an adversary that was burning up good hay and grazing lands. The prepmeeting atmosphere was tense. Within half an hour, after the members indicated on large military maps in terms of section numbers, ranges and townships, and the Colonel replied in reference points, army place names, contours and features, the hay lands were made available to the stockmen when not used by the Army.

This early horse-trading meeting has paved the way for the finest liaison between local camp command and the Association; while Colonel George Weir of H.Q. Western Command has negotiated the over-all arrangements at the higher level.

Several times the Army Brass has accepted the invitation of the Board to sit in on meetings to discuss future policy and outline Army manoeuvre requirements that necessitate herding of the cattle.

Proof that the Army backs up the Association as the bargaining body for all local farmer contacts was established in the winter of 1949-50, when a feeder moved several hundred stock onto the Association’s area for winter feeding, contrary to the Asso-

ciation policy. So the Provost Marshall arrived at the camp one morning and gave the offender 72 hours to remove his stock.

To service this large herd of stock, the Board acquired Federal Department of Agriculture bulls under control of the Greenshields Grazing Association, another early organization for the improvement of breeding stock in the area. The members voted to establish a Hereford pasture, and now run eleven purebred bulls with the cows along with suitable private bulls.

Range riding on the herd was initiated

by Leo (Billy) Brown, well known stampeded figure from Czar, who followed the herd and acted as mid-wife to new born beef during the season. Gordon Tattersall, of the well-known livestock-raising family of the district, is now head rider.

The present board elected by the 75 members has R. Chas. Stewart of Greenshields as President; C. Ed Patterson as Vice-President with Directors Beverly Almost and Leo Brown of Czar, Wm. (Bill) Castle and Foster Tennant of Edgerton, and Walter Jackson of Greenshields.

Despite the necessity for extra herding, with some hardship on the stock, because of the joint use of most of the range with Army troops at training, the local stockmen are convinced of the practical benefits to be secured through this co-operation within the Community Pasture. Whether the herd of grazing domestic stock will spread out to cover all the old stamping grounds of the huge buffalo herd, depends considerably on international affairs and the needs for training areas. But a lesson can be read in this rangeland tale of a small group of little stockmen and farmers, even within the sound of gunfire and the atmosphere of war preparedness, quietly pursuing the age-old industry of stock raising and the making of hay. These people don’t rate with the big names of the Alberta cattle industry but they represent some of the true wealth upon which Alberta has grown and by whose efforts great wealth is created. c For more of the past from the pages of our magazine see the History section at www. canadiancattlemen.ca.

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RethInk YouR opeRatIon

Next-generation Maxxum® Series Tractors Get More Work Done All Across Your Farm Efficiency Starts With a Hardworking Tractor

I

t’s not just the sleek new styling that will capture your attention with the new Case IH Maxxum® series tractor. From the new dualclutch transmission to the durable front axle, Case IH designed and built the new lineup of Maxxum tractors to help you get more out of your operation.

“Around the farm or in the field, there’s no room for wasted motion,” said Cole Carling, marketing manager for Case IH Maxxum, Puma® and Optum™ tractors. “And there’s not much room in the shed for a tractor that’s suited to only one or two tasks.” Next-generation Maxxum tractors deliver the versatility today’s farming operations demand.

Flexibility, From the Field to the FArmyArd Since being introduced in 1989, the Maxxum series has earned a reputation as the ultimate loader tractor. Innovations across nextgeneration Maxxum tractors only solidify that position. But it’s the new ActiveDrive 8 dual-clutch transmission that leads the way in making Maxxum tractors the go-to power source for applications across the farm.

“We designed and built the new Maxxum tractors to be an everyday workhorse — the first choice for nearly any task,” Carling said. “The fit is just as comfortable whether pulling an RB565 premium round baler or an Early Riser® planter or moving snow, hauling feed or cleaning cleaning corrals.”

At the heart of that flexible comfort are three transmission configurations:

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variable transmission Designed to increase productivity, the new ActiveDrive 8 24-speed transmission features eight powershift speeds in three electronically shifted ranges. The middle range offers working speeds between 2.4 and 10.7 mph without torque interruptions or requiring range changes.

“We anticipate producers will use the middle range for 90 percent of field applications,” Carling said. “With ActiveDrive 8, the transmission automatically selects the right gear, not ‘just’ the next gear, when the operator requests more or less ground speed.”

Other innovations help next-generation Maxxum tractors easily transition between around-the-farmstead chores and fieldwork. For example, an aggressive new grill and hood styling enhance cooling system performance; factory-installed AFS AccuGuide™ with AFS Pro 700 display

or dealer-installed AFS Electristeer autoguidance options increase productivity; and optional electronic or mechanical rear hydraulic remote valves support various implements and attachments.

“Timing is everything with nearly every job around the farm,” Carling said. “But that’s especially true when it comes to hitting optimal planting windows or putting up hay at peak nutrient levels or before a storm.” Extended routine service intervals, including a 600-hour oil change interval, help maximize uptime. These tractors are efficient, too. Tier 4 B/ Final SCR-only Efficient Power technology delivers more power with less fuel. Mechanical efficiencies in the ActiveDrive 8 transmission and automated features reduce fluid consumption by up to 5 percent, compared with the previous model.

CustomizAble ConFigurAtions The new Maxxum lineup features five models ranging from 116 to 145

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engine horsepower (95 to 125 PTO hp). Producers can choose a heavyduty 2WD configuration that provides the increased agility necessary to meet the needs of diverse farming operations. Or they can go with the toughest MFD front axle ever offered on Maxxum tractors: a Class 4 Heavy Duty MFD front axle.

“We’ve also included several features that help next-generation Maxxum tractors stay true to their loader-tractor roots, making them an excellent choice for livestock feeding, snow removal and all types of material handling,” Carling said.

For example: • With the push of a button, the responsiveness of the dedicated forward and reverse shuttle clutches can be tailored to a specific loading tasks.

• An optional advanced loader joystick puts speed control at the operator’s fingertips.

• Adaptive Steering Control and automated transmission features like memory shuttle and brake-to-clutch help reduce operator fatigue.

CASE IH MAKES EQUIPMENT THAT WORKS AS HARD AS YOU. Whether you’re mowing, baling or pulling, Case IH has the equipment you need to keep your operation running strong.

You’ll find everything from do-it-all Puma®, reliably flexible Farmall® and simply productive Maxxum® series tractors to balers, windrowers, mower conditioners and more. If there’s a job to be done on your operation, there’s only one equipment brand you need to turn to — Case IH. Learn more at your local Case IH dealer or online at caseih.com/livestock.

©2017 CNH Industrial America LLC. All rights reserved. Case IH is a trademark registered in the United States and many other countries, owned by or licensed to CNH Industrial N.V., its subsidiaries or affiliates. www.caseih.com

 researc h

By Debbie Furber

Hybrid Advantage is Your Advantage — now there’s a way to score it

T

he bit of tissue on the root of a tail hair is all it takes for a DNA test to extract a lot of useful information for managing your crossbreeding program.

Delta Genomics at Edmonton, Alta., has developed a new three-in-one product, EnVigour HX, that uses a DNA test to match a calf to its sire, give a breakdown of the calf’s breed composition, and calculate a hybrid vigour (heterosis) score for the calf.

When the breed composition of the sire is known, the remainder of the breeds identified in the calf ’s DNA can be attributed to its dam and a hybrid vigour score can be calculated for the dam without having to send its sample to the lab.

It all adds up to a straightforward way for commercial beef producers to monitor genetics in their herds without having expected progeny differences for individual animals, says Delta Genomics CEO Michelle Miller.

The research to back the database for hybrid vigour scoring comes from two major initiatives in recent years — the Canadian Cattle Genome and the international 1,000 Bull Genomes projects — along with information gathered during the first half of a three-year project by Delta Genomic and Alberta Agriculture and Forestry with the goal of collecting more genomic information on crossbred cattle that will eventually be incorporated into genomically enhanced EPDs. “In the meantime, we know that we are good at parentage and breed analyses and

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Photos courtesy: Delta Genomics

that there is a lot of value in measuring and managing hybrid vigour,” Miller explains.

Delta Genomics describes hybrid vigour as the tendency of a crossbred animal to deliver qualities superior to the average of both parents.

Direct, or individual heterosis, is the simplest example. When a dam of one breed is mated to a sire of another breed the crossbred calf will have a mix of genetics that tends to give it a measurable advantage over straight-bred counterparts for traits such as weaning and yearling weights.

If the dam is a crossbred, another layer of heterosis contributes to the calf’s genetic makeup. This maternal heterosis stacked on heterosis retained through each preceding generation has been proven to boost direct heterosis in offspring and positively influence traits with low heritability that are of economic importance to cow-calf producers, but difficult to measure in young animals.

Miller calls them the fitness traits. Fertility is the big one, along with longevity, overall health and adaptability or ability to withstand the elements, and lifetime productivity. Feed efficiency can also be added to the list with work by Alberta Agriculture research scientist Dr. John Basarab showing that a 10 per cent increase in heterosis translated into a $6 per head per year savings on feed costs in 2016.

Miller explains the hybrid vigour score as a proxy for the whole group of fitness traits.

It’s not, however, intended to predict a growth advantage in offspring due to direct heterosis.

EnVigour HX was released in February

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and 10 breeds are now represented in the hybrid vigour score calculation: Angus, Charolais, Galloway, Gelbvieh, Hereford, Limousin, Maine Anjou, Salers, Simmental, and Shorthorn.

Miller anticipates an uptick in use of EnVigour HX this fall as calves come off pasture and go through the processing routine when it’s convenient to pull the tail-hair samples.

The turnaround time for test results is 15 business days, giving producers time to contemplate their crossbreeding strategy before bull-buying season.

In addition to parentage testing to keep tabs on bull performance and the quality of their offspring, she sees a lot of potential for use of the breed composition information on replacement heifers, for instance, selecting those with the highest hybrid vigour scores or planning breeding groups to improve hybrid vigour in the next generation.

Hybrid Vigour Score

Dr. Troy Drake of Drake Veterinary Services and Cow/Calf Health and Management Services at Kathyrn, Alta., gives us a groundlevel look at hybrid vigour scores.

He is the founder of Herdtrax, a webbased cow-calf health and management program, and was a key collaborator on the EnVigour HX project. Approximately 2,500 calves representative of the 200,000 active cattle on Herdtrax, were enrolled each year in the underlying genomics project at Lacombe Research Centre.

Working through one example starting

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

research

with a 2015 calf, EnVigour HX determined the breed composition to be 68 per cent Simmental, 12 per cent Angus and 10 per cent Hereford with lesser percentages of Charolais, Limousin, and Gelbvieh in the mix. Its hybrid score is 51.

The breed composition of its dam, born in 2006, was back-calculated to be 23 per cent Angus, 37 per cent Simmental and 19 per cent Hereford with some Charolais, Gelbvieh and Limousin, giving it a hybrid score of 76.

This particular cow’s hybrid score will always be 76; however, the score for each of its calves will vary depending on the breed composition of the sire each year. The hybrid vigour score of the same cow’s 2016 calf is 64, being 54 per cent Angus, 23 per cent Simmental with lesser percentages of Charolais, Limousin, Hereford and Gelbvieh.

Drake sees hybrid scores (heterosis index values) ranging from a low of 20 to a high of 80. A cow with a high index could be mated to a bull of any breed without losing ground on heterosis in the offspring. A cow with a low index would best be mated to any breed of bull other than the dominant breed in its genetic mix to improve heterosis in the offspring.

“There’s no question heterosis works. It has been tried and tested for many years and I’m a firm believer in the science. It’s a big premise for our [Herdtrax] herds,” he says.

He recalls that it was fairly easy 25 years ago to visually determine breed type and manage a crossbreeding program accordingly — the red cows could go with black bulls and vice versa. Nowadays, many commercial herds are so homogenous in colour and conformation that it’s difficult to visually know how straightbred or crossbred a cow is under the hide.

“Now we can test to fine tune a breeding program so instead of mating by colour we can sort based on each cow’s heterosis index to maximize hybrid vigour,” he explains.

“EnVigour HX gives us parentage and a hybrid score. Parentage is a really big deal because producers need to know which bulls in their own management system are siring the most profitable calves. The hybrid score can be used with the goal of maximizing heterosis. This is simple, low-hanging fruit for commercial producers.”

He and Delta Genomics are setting up an auto exchange program so that producers on the Herdtrax program will be able to create a DNA request file to send the information required for sample testing directly from Herdtrax to Delta Genomics and have the EnVigour HX results sent directly to their Herdtrax account.

Livestock Gentec at the University of

Alberta is building a website, myherdandme. com, to help producers assess hybrid vigour score results relative to their own crossbreeding, production and marketing goals.

The Olds College Technology Access Centre has grants available to offset some of the cost of the EnVigour tests and employs students part time to help producers with outlining goals for their crossbreeding programs and reviewing test results to interpret what it all means in relation to those goals. There

is no fee for the consultation and producers within manageable proximity to the college are welcome to enquire about the cost of having a student assist with collecting and submitting samples. The grants and consultations are available to producers anywhere in Canada. For more information, contact Kaley Segboer at 1-800-661-6537 ext. 4786.

For more information about EnVigour HX, visit www.deltagenomics.com or call 780-492-2538. c

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 managem e n t

By Heather Smith Thomas

Cull or Keep? — Factors to Consider when Culling Cows

W

hen culling cows it’s important to have a plan, preferably one that includes pregnancy testing and close evaluation of every cow.

Bruce Viney, a risk management specialist with Alberta Agriculture and Forestry, recalls that when he ran cattle he culled for a lot more reasons than whether or not they were open. “If they have bad feet, bad udders, bad attitudes, we got rid of them,” says Viney.

“Every producer has a notebook or record-keeping system. When a cow calves, you can note that she has a bad udder or was wild/aggressive and needs to be on the cull list. Come fall, however, when she has a big calf and she’s quieted down or her udder doesn’t look so bad, and she’s bred again, it is easy to lose our resolve about selling her. It’s easy to decide to keep her one more year, rather than acting on the earlier decision.

“You are tired in the spring, and frustrated, working long hours during calving, and you have a cull list. Then you soften in the fall. You don’t stop to consider the extra costs of production involved with those animals — the fact that a wild cow might break out and you’ll have to fix fence, or that she might hurt someone, or that you might have more labour involved if a cow has a bad udder,” Viney says.

Grant Lastiwka, forage/livestock business specialist with Alberta Agriculture and Forestry, says safety and time are the most important factors. “The number one factor affecting cow profitability is that she has to calve and we have to be able to sell that calf or the cow is a costly loss to our bottom line.”

If she doesn’t have a calf, or doesn’t have a live calf to market, she costs you. “Calving issues, health issues, udder issues are all reasons to cull a cow. If the cow requires calving assistance or has feet issues, she’s a cull. I culled this year for a cow that had a calf with scours two years in a row,” he says.

Culling decisions hinge on many factors, which should include safety for people and ease of handling. “We often say that, but it is still an issue; producers tend to keep that cow if she has a good calf, knowing that she can be dangerous at times or harder

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to handle, slowing our working time,” Lastiwka says.

“If a certain cow doesn’t work in your system, you don’t need her. If she stays skinny while the other cows maintain body condition, she might have a weak calf, or might not rebreed. Some cows don’t work in a certain management system; maybe she doesn’t stay in a fence or hops over the electric fence. Any cow that makes more work for you should be on the cull list,” he says.

This includes any cow that has a vaginal prolapse before calving, because she will do it again in subsequent years.

Sometimes you have to prioritize reasons you’d cull a cow. “How her calf performs might be important. If calf performance is poor I’ll probably cull the cow, after the other reasons have been covered, or I might decide to keep one with poorer feet if she has one of the best calves. Depending on cow price to calf price ratio, this factor will be varied, but the cows with low calf productivity are the ones that should get less chance to stay in the herd.”

The biggest factor for Travis Olson, a seedstock and commercial cattle producer from Athabasca, Alta., is her profit potential. “We calve 1,500 cows each year and 1,000 of them are registered Angus. We are in the cattle

business to make money. When making culling decisions, the first thing to think about is whether the cow will make a profit in the future. The number one factor in profit and loss in beef operations in North America is how many calves you wean for every cow you expose to the bull. If a cow is open, she needs to be gone,” he says.

If she didn’t raise her calf whether due to coyotes because she’s not attentive enough, or the calf got sick because she didn’t have good colostrum or her udder wasn’t good enough for the calf to suckle soon enough after birth and comes up dry, she should be gone. “Sometimes there’s a freak incident, like a calf run over by a vehicle even though the mother was right there and there wasn’t anything she could do about it. Usually it’s the fault of the cow, however, if she doesn’t bring home a calf. It is important to eliminate cows (and cow lines) that cause you problems,” says Olson.

“Any cow that makes you feel unsafe should also be culled. It’s a blend of profitability and quality of life for the producer,” he says.

Functional traits are also important.

“We’ve always culled cows that get bad feet.

Any cow that has trouble moving around won’t do as well. They may rebreed for sev-

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management

eral years, but it’s a genetic component you don’t want to perpetuate; you wouldn’t want to keep daughters from that cow,” he explains.

It’s similar with udder problems. Culling decisions based on udder evaluation can be tricky since udder and teat shape and length can change over time. A heifer that had a good udder as a first calver may have a drooping and even a blown-out udder as an older cow. Teat length on a heifer may be a clue, but udder attachment is difficult to predict. The best clues might be what her mother’s udder was like as an older cow, and her sire’s mother, since udder conformation is inherited.

“Feet and udders are important, but how important depends on whether you are doing this as a commercial producer or a purebred producer. Some things a commercial producer might let slip by — and get a couple more calves out of that cow before culling her — but are issues that a purebred breeder should not tolerate. A breeder’s excuses become his customers’ problems.

You don’t want any of those problems. But the biggest factor is profitability. Do the cows get pregnant, and do they have a calf to wean?” says Olson.

“Many producers pay attention to a weaning index — how much does the calf weigh at weaning, in relation to the mother?

But weaning weight only looks at half the equation; you are only looking at the production, and not what the cow consumes.

We weigh every cow. If the average cow weighs 1,400 pounds on our ranch, that would be about a 100 index on her weight.

If she is indexing an average calf (index 100) at 550 pounds at weaning, that’s acceptable.

Some cows index a calf at 102 and you’d say she’s a good indexing cow, but if her weight is 1,700 pounds and she is 20 per cent heavier than the average, she’s also eating 20 per cent more than the average so she should be weaning a bigger calf. Those are the cows we are eliminating as well. The only way you can do that is by weighing the cows to know what they actually weigh.”

The Ole ranch is now downsizing average weight on its cows in the belief that it’s better to have more efficient, smaller cows that wean a higher per cent of their own body weight in calf weight.

“Culling the inefficient cow is important, but still secondary to culling a cow that isn’t raising a calf every year,” he says. Once you have your herd fertile and the cows breeding back on schedule, then you can start culling on other attributes.

“Select cattle for the environment. We www.canadiancattlemen.ca

do a lot of winter grazing, and it isn’t easy for cows to dig through snow and consume high-lignin diets. Some cows can handle this better. Cows that can’t handle it won’t do well and should be culled. Cows that don’t fit the environment, by milking too much or having too much growth or are too hard fleshing are culls on our place,” says Olson.

“If you have ample feed, good grass, and don’t mind putting hay in front of cows,

that’s a different story. Most producers are cost-conscious, however, and trying to extend their grazing season. One of the culling decisions has to be on cows that are not cutting it on that management program,” he says. Winter feed is one of the major costs of running a cow, if you have to feed very much hay.

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m a nag e m e n t

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we have to cut costs. When everyone was making money in the cattle business, people weren’t as worried about what they were spending on the cattle.”

There are always some cows that need to be culled, for various reasons, especially when you are trying to select for more profitable cows. Every operation, regardless of size, tends to cull a certain per cent per year.

“In our herd of 1,500 cows, if I am culling six per cent per year that don’t get pregnant, and another three per cent that lose their calves before weaning, and two per cent on feet and udders, and two per cent on cows that are

loss is how many calves you wean and the second most important thing is winter feed costs. We need thrifty cows,” he says.

“As an industry, we are now seeing producers ask for things they didn’t ask for in the past. Our smallest-framed, easiest fleshing bulls — which 12 years ago would have been hard to sell — are now high sellers,” Olson says. Producers are realizing they need to reduce frame size and birth weight, and add fleshing ability.

“As cattle prices in the marketplace dip,  researc h

MARKETING THE CULLS

Culling on temperament and maternal behaviour Joe Stookey, a cattle producer and recently retired professor at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine in Saskatoon, says no one really wants to cull a pregnant cow, but sometimes you need to look hard at other reasons.

Some years back, one of his students did a project looking at culling, and talked to many ranchers to assess their willingness to cull cows based on maternal behaviour. The survey asked ranchers if they would cull aggressive cows as well as heifers that rejected or abandoned their calves. Most producers said they would readily cull a cow that lacks maternal behaviour, but were less likely to cull an aggressive cow. “If that cow raised a good calf, they didn’t want to cull her,” says Stookey.

“Other producers had no tolerance for a cow that was dangerous to be around when she calved, and they culled the man-eaters. It depended on the operation and how the cattle are managed. Some producers just stayed away from the cows and calves for three weeks and by then those aggressive cows settled down and were less protective and less dangerous. Ranchers tell me that some breeds are worse than others for overly aggressive behaviour, and some cows will hunt and chase people even when their calves are much older.”

The survey asked ranchers what percentage of their cows they thought would charge a person at calving time.

“It varied, but one producer with an extensive operation said more than 50 per cent of his cows with a newborn calf would charge at people. He had

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lower indexing — and all those numbers add up to about 15 per cent, I get rid of 225 cows per year. The guy who has 100 cows would be culling 15 head per year,” says Olson.

It doesn’t matter how aggressively you pay attention to teats and udders, feet, fertility, etc., there will always be a few cows with poorer traits. “There’s always the odd one that gets mastitis and a bad teat, or a cow that throws back genetically to something undesirable. You are always working on those issues, but it’s nice when you get to the point where some of the traits you cull for are far less numerous in your herd,” he says.

no intention of culling cows based on aggressive maternal behaviour,” says Stookey.

“It was much easier for people to cull a cow that didn’t accept her calf, than to cull an aggressive cow that raised a good calf. Culling the non-motherly cows makes sense because there’s a good chance they will repeat that behavior,” he says. There is always extra labour involved in trying to convince a nonmotherly heifer to raise her calf.

“It would be useful to be able to predict future maternal behaviour in replacement heifers. So in one research project we scored a bunch of heifers on different behavioural tests, before they were bred and pregnant. We tried to identify those heifers that might give problems later on. But we could not find a behavioural test that predicted what they would be like as mothers.”

You just don’t know, until they actually calve, and many will surprise you.

“We also asked producers if they had any way to know how to predict behaviour at calving. Are the cows that become nasty calm individuals or wild ones? There was no relationship; it was all over the board in the responses we received.” Some that you think will be good mothers and manageable are not, and vice versa.

“We do know, however, that a cow’s maternal behaviour is very repeatable.

They generally exhibit the same behaviour the next year when they calve.

That’s why heifers that abandon their calves should be culled, and producers rarely give them a second chance,” says Stookey.

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Market timing is sometimes difficult.

“If we preg test, then we can manage the cull group for a future target market or sell them to cut losses once the calves are weaned. If you calve early and can preg test for an August cow sale and wean early, that would be best of worlds,” says Lastiwka.

Bruce Viney says there are no right answers to fit everyone, and the best decisions vary from year to year because cattle prices are not predictable. “Even though prices tend to go up in the summer, they don’t always. Knowing your cost of production is crucial. Even though you might have lots of feed, this doesn’t mean you should put it into old cows. You might be better off to keep it for calves or another use,” he says.

“If you have older cull cows that will bring the lower end of the price range, you might not want to spend much on feed to try to get them heavier. Sometimes you are better off to just sell them. On the other hand, if the open cows are young heifers that lost calves, they are worth more and you can afford to spend a little more to get them ready to sell and put together a load. Sometimes there’s a good market for heiferettes if they have the potential to grade better.”

Everyone wants to hit the peak market, but that’s hard to do. “There is a seasonal tendency for higher prices in summer, but it costs feed and overhead to hold cull cows over winter and get them into that market.

If you have cheap feed and the facilities to do it, you can make money, but there is always some risk in holding cows.”

“We are lucky here in that we have markets nearby and don’t need a full load to justify transportation cost. If a cow gave us a problem we just got rid of her. Keeping a bunch of cull cows longer to put more weight on them is not always the best choice. The feed has a value. You could

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management

always sell it or use it for something else,” he says. All factors need to be weighed.

Ole Farms sells cull cows directly to the packing plant.“This is one advantage we have as a large operation. We sell our cull cows by the load and get a price on the rail,” says Olson.

This is more profitable than selling through an auction and paying a commission.

“The auction also tends to find a way to discount your animals; if they are going directly to the plant you don’t have this discount. It doesn’t matter if a cow has a

sore hip or some minor problem; she goes on the truck just fine and we get full retail value, whereas if she went through the auction she would be severely docked. The cattle business is a tight market. It takes away your profit if you pay a lot of money in sales commissions,” he says.

Some years, for some operations, it might pay to keep a thin cow and put more weight on her, while other years it won’t pay. “Dry cows that come home without a calf usually have good flesh, and the best time to market them is as soon as we find them — sorting off the cows that lost a calf and getting them to market quickly.

Usually we send one load of cows in midsummer,” he says.

“Then after we preg-test (by ultrasound) and find the open cows, we watch the market to see when we should ship those. Our typical market time is March-April. We put some weight on those cows over winter and market them in early spring. Most years the better price will pay for the feed we put in them, and they also gain very well. Many of those cows will put on 100 pounds between January and March,” he explains. c

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 managem e n t

By Heather Smith Thomas

WINTERING HEIFERS AT FENTON HEREFORD RANCH

A

l Fenton of Fenton Herefords at Irma, Alta., has raised thousands of replacement heifers and has a pretty good idea about how to feed and grow them into cows.

“We use fenceline weaning, which is low stress. We wean in a 10-acre area with cows on one side and calves on the other. It’s a long hot-wire fenceline, where the cows and calves can pair up along the fence. Often they lie down across the fence from one another and the calves settle in pretty well,” he says.

“If you have a long enough fence, they aren’t walking as much. There is room for pairs to come together at the fence when they want to. We also put a couple old granny cows with the weaning heifers to help keep them calm,” says Fenton.

Calves take their behavioural clues from their mothers or the adults around them. If the cows stay calm, the calves don’t spook and run as readily when they see people.

The granny cows act as a role model to provide comfort and security. “If something scares them a little and the cows don’t spook, the calves learn it’s not that scary,

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and they won’t run. This settles them a little quicker,” he says.

“Another thing that helps calves at weaning is to feed the cows and calves whatever you’ll be feeding the heifers, and feed that ration for a week before weaning. The calves start eating that feed and know what it is, and their gut adjusts to it. This makes a better transition than if they have to go through an abrupt change of feed. Once you shut off the milk, stress comes from not only the weaning but also the nutritional aspect. If they are already accustomed to that feed, it makes a difference,” he explains.

“If you have the space to feed in bunks so there is plenty of room and not a lot of competition, you can leave all your heifers together. If you have to feed in a smaller area where there’s more competition, divide them into groups according to weight. Feed the lighter end together as a group, and the middle and the bigger end as separate groups. I think they winter a lot better that way. The smaller calves don’t have to compete with the larger ones,” says Fenton.

“We are getting set up to winter on standing corn. We already winter pregnant heifers that way, and they do well with no competition for feed. We have native grass pastures for them in the spring. We process them before they go, so they have all their shots. If they are on native grass for a certain length of time before we spread them out in breeding pastures with bulls, they don’t seem to have the weight loss like they would if they were just coming out of the feedyard for breeding,” he explains.

They may have a little weight loss just because of the difference in nutrition but it is temporary and doesn’t line up with their first cycle when you are turning bulls out. “They are ready to go when we sort them and then there’s not a lot of change involved and the results are better,” he says.

“Our bred heifers winter on standing corn from early November until April 1 and start calving April 15. There is no competition for feed and they do well.

We give them Ivermec in the fall, and also use an oral dewormer, and notice quite a

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management

difference in the heifers in how they do,” Fenton says.

“We also use a mineral pack. We don’t force-feed them mineral by putting it in feed because we don’t bunk feed. The corn they are eating is tested, so we know what our nutrients and calcium need to be. We keep the mineral pack fresh at the water bowls where the heifers have to walk by every day. They are used to going in there and eating a couple ounces a day of the mineral. Since there is no competition for feed, they trail in there a few at a time and they all eat some. If the mineral is balanced for what they need, this helps with faultfree calving in the spring,” he says.

He likes to see pregnant heifers do a fair amount of walking during winter. “We start them out grazing the standing corn fairly close to water, then toward spring a lot of the heifers are walking a half mile to water. This strengthens them and gets them in shape, and they calve a lot easier. They don’t grow as big a calf if they are fit rather than fat. Walking makes a difference,” Fenton says. When pregnant heifers have to travel and stay in shape, he feels there is also less incidence of abortion.

“I learned the benefits of exercise when I was 16, when we used to make heifers walk across the valley and come into the ranch for water. Those heifers calved without help, whereas when we penned them in winter and they had all the feed they needed and seldom had to walk, this could increase calf size by about 10 pounds and they didn’t calve as easily.

Ten extra pounds of calf, in a heifer that is not in shape makes a considerable difference. A heifer that’s in shape will have no trouble giving birth to that calf and it won’t stress her as much or as long,” he says.

She doesn’t get as tired, and if she’s not worn out she’ll be a better mother. She’ll get up quicker and turn around and be more interested in that calf and start licking it and her actions will stimulate the calf to get up quicker and find the udder.

When wintering and feeding heifers, if some of them aren’t doing as well, pull them out of that group and feed them a different way. “You could still calve them out, but don’t keep them. There may be a variety of reasons holding them back, but don’t make excuses. If you bring them in and put them on feed and they suddenly start doing really well, that doesn’t give you a reason to keep them. They will have calves that also need extra help to do the job. Know your

environment and adapt your feed source and your culling on that same concept. The way you feed heifers/cows will allow you to find out if they are suitable for your ranch and your environment.”

Condition of the heifers shows you if your nutrition is good enough. “If there’s a large number of heifers falling off and not doing well, readjust your feeding program in the fall before you get into winter.

You don’t want to add feed to heifers in

the last part of pregnancy. Body condition should stay constant through the last 60 days. If you bring them up in condition a little in the fall to get them where you want them, that’s fine, but don’t be advancing their condition during the last 60 days of gestation or they will build bigger calves.

Find their nutritional balance early, and make sure it’s good enough to keep them there during the last 60 days for best calving results,” he explains. c

“Cattle coming into my feedlot are usually heavier, so I treat ’em with long lasting ZACTRAN on arrival.”

Heavier weight cattle are often at lower risk to BRD so it makes sense to treat them with the fast acting,1 long lasting2 product that won’t break the bank. (And it’s plastic, so you won’t break the bottle either.)

Treat them with ZACTRAN ®.

Ask your veterinarian why ZACTRAN is ideal for cattle in your feedlot.

1. Giguère S, Huang R, Malinski TJ, Dorr PM, Tessman RK & Somerville BA. Disposition of gamithromycin in plasma, pulmonary epithelial lining fl uid, bronchoalveolar cells, and lung tissue in cattle. Am. J. Vet. Res. 72(3): 326-330 (2011).

2. Based on label claims.

ZACTRAN ® is a registered trademark of Merial (a member of the Boehringer Ingelheim group of companies), used under license. ©2017 Merial Canada Inc. (a member of the Boehringer Ingelheim group of companies). All Rights Reserved.

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 cover • M A NAG E M E N T

By Heather Smith Thomas

Winter Management for Replacement Heifers

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ood management of heifers, especially during winter, can make a big difference in their success as cows. Dr. Bart Lardner, research scientist with the Western Beef Development Centre (WBDC) and adjunct professor in the department of animal and poultry science at the University of Saskatchewan says the traditional recommendation, for the past 40 years, has been to let heifers reach 65 per cent of their eventual mature body weight before breeding them.

This is why ranchers may confine heifers after weaning and push them to gain more than they would on winter pastures.

Some ranchers keep more heifers than they need and then make selections the following spring regarding which ones to breed. Other ranchers raise heifers on pasture or range (feeding hay and supplement) and don’t confine them, feeling that those heifers stay fitter and healthier and make better cows, even though they don’t grow as fast as intensively fed heifers. The genetics of many cow herds have changed; some stockmen have selected for more efficient animals that can do well without grain, needing less expensive inputs for growth and production.

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“The increase in cost of fossil fuel and feedstuffs, and capital investment, makes us look at rate and pattern of gain when developing heifers,” says Lardner. Today we have cattle that can do well without being pushed so much. There has been a lot of research in this area, since the concern has been that puberty would be delayed if heifers were raised with a lower rate of gain and lower per cent of mature body rate at breeding. Some of the earlier work was all about insuring that they would reach puberty and breed on time, but there has also been some work to see if there was an alternative, such as developing them to less than 65 per cent mature body rate. Studies were done looking at developing heifers to 60 per cent or maybe even just 55 per cent of mature weight as the lower end.”

“Success with this is all about genetics.

British breeds might be better fit for this lower per cent than some of the continental breeds. We’ve looked at the possibility that there might not be a negative effect on reproductive efficiency — not just as a firstcalver but also for the life span of that cow in the herd,” he says.

Some ranchers have developed cattle

that fit their ranch environment and can thrive on the grazing resources the ranch provides, without expensive inputs during the development period, the 200 days from October-November until breeding in June or whenever breeding starts.

“Recent work at the research centre at Miles City, Montana, has evaluated developing heifers to lower weights, studying reproduction impacts and economics. Dr. Rick Funston at North Platte, Nebraska, has also evaluated heifers developed grazing winter range or residues. We put together a development program here in Saskatchewan, looking at two rates of gain for developing heifers — moderate versus high, and an extensive grazing program versus a drylot feeding program. We called these groups moderate gain in extensive grazing, high gain in extensive grazing, moderate gain in drylot and high-gain drylot,” he says.

“We wanted to expose replacement heifers to a system they would be managed in for longevity — in an extensive system where they have to go find the feed versus having it brought to them in a bunk or pen. They have to go out and graze, winter well, and then cycle during breeding season and give the producer

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MANAGEMENT

a calf,” he says. Most ranchers want heifers that can utilize crop residues, stockpiled winter range, standing corn, or whatever the ranch can grow cheaply for winter feed.

“So we looked at the two systems and moderate versus high rate of gain and followed them through to their third calf. This gives us a better idea about whether the development system impacts reproductive longevity of the heifer. Most of the research programs simply followed heifers up to their first pregnancy diagnosis but not beyond. We followed them farther, to see their retention rates within the herd. Whatever system we develop heifers in should be for longevity and not just making sure the heifers can breed as yearlings,” he says.

“During the development program that first winter, before breeding, we had some heifers on a typical high-roughage diet — a grass/legume hay — and bale grazing.

Being grown in a winter environment they needed a little extra energy, but the largest part of their diet was good-quality hay, with a little cereal grain for supplement.

The moderate-gain group gained about 1.2 pounds per day. The high-gain group averaged a little over 1.5 pounds per day. At weaning, they were all about 565 pounds.

The heifers with moderate gains came out at about 780, and the high-gain group weighed about 870 just before breeding,” says Lardner.

“If you go for the lower per cent of mature body weight, such as 55 versus 65 per cent, make sure the breeding pasture has good-quality forage. We saw that those few lighter-weight heifers that had not yet reached puberty coming out of winter did reach puberty during breeding season, started cycling, and did become pregnant.

So if pasture quality is adequate, they do catch up,” he says.

He recommends weighing cattle to know

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the actual average mature body weight.

Don’t guess. Know if your mature cows, five years old and above, average 1,200 pounds, 1,400 pounds, or whatever. If you use a targeted rate of gain for heifers, you need to know the mature weight.

“In that first year, with moderate-gain heifers we saw compensatory gain during breeding season. Those heifers only gained about 1.2 pounds during winter but gained about two pounds a day during breeding season and caught up. By contrast the highgain group had static growth at about 1.5 pounds during breeding season.” They had already put on the weight they needed.

“There was no difference in first pregnancy rate; both groups ended up with similar rates of 85 to 90 per cent pregnancy rate. Then we followed them through the next couple years. The heifers with moderate gains caught up with the others by second calving and were similar as mature cows. We looked at three years of retention in the herd, comparing how they were developed. The heifers from each of the four systems were all similar; each group had about 77 per cent retention in the herd, based on normal culling practices.” Thus the moderate-gain heifers were just as able to stay in the herd as the ones with higher gain during development.

Input costs keep going up, in terms of infrastructure, fuel, feed, etc. “The difference between our groups of extensive moderate gains and drylot high-gains group was about $60 per head development costs for the first 200 days after weaning. You don’t want to cut development costs too much, if it will be detrimental and have a negative effect on the heifers,” he says.

You want to optimize a development program, without having to spend more than you need to. “A program shooting for 55 per cent mature weight won’t work

everywhere. You might want to aim for 60 per cent of mature weight to fit your environment and winter. Some areas are tougher in winter, and some areas the summers are tougher; forage nutrition is more challenging during summer.” In some situations you might need to have heifers coming out of winter with a little more growth.

The second winter, when heifers are pregnant, it is important they be in adequate body condition before calving. “The six weeks prior to calving, make sure to meet their protein and energy requirements. We wintered bred heifers on a swath graze program and knew the quality of the annual cereal hay they were grazing. This extensive grazing system was cost-saving, but six weeks before they started calving we checked feed quality and gave them a little supplement in the form of a range pellet — just to make sure they were in good body condition. We didn’t want them to drop below optimum condition.”

On the other hand it is also important to not overfeed heifers as they approach calving. You don’t want them to get too fat or put too much into fetal growth at that time or there may be calving problems.

“You simply give them every chance to calve with the least difficulty and hopefully come back and rebreed,” Lardner explains.

“Continue to pay attention through their second year regarding the way they are fed, to get them rebred for their second calving.

That’s the next big challenge. Some operations have a lot of focus on that first breeding season but then just put the first calf heifers in with the older cows. They tend not to rebreed because they can’t compete with older cows for feed,” says Lardner.

They are still growing, so they should be kept separate from the older cows in winter so they have adequate feed for growth and can rebreed. c

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 managem e n t

By Heather Smith Thomas

Heifer selection is in the eye of the beholder Here’s how Travis Olson beholds them

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here are many criteria regarding which heifers to keep and which ones to sell. Most producers have certain goals that help guide those decisions. Commercial cattlemen want heifers that will be fertile, productive, long-lived cows that stay in the herd a long time producing good calves. Purebred breeders want heifers that will produce high-quality seedstock — bulls or females — for their customers. Some breeders look first at performance records and then visually evaluate the heifers, while others make their first sort in the corral/pasture and use records as a final tie-breaker.

Regardless of a heifer’s performance records, pedigree, EPDs of sire and dam, etc., she must also have other qualities that are more difficult to measure. There is no substitute for a good eye when evaluating heifers.

Travis Olson of Ole Farms, Athabasca, Alta., has had a lot of experience selecting heifers. His ranch raises seedstock as well as commercial cattle from 1,000 registered Angus cows and 500 commercial cows.

When asked, usually by commercial producers, what people should look for when selecting heifers, Olson generally offers eight key factors to evaluate, and some of them may not be so obvious.

1. EVALUATE THE DAM

“A lot of people go into a pen of heifers and pick the ones they like the look of, but the most important factor is the mother, not the looks of the calf. If you have records, you need to use those to closely evaluate the mother of that heifer. Are her feet good? Is her udder sound? Does the heifer and her mom have good temperament? Do you have production records and weights on her calves? Has she had a calf every year?” There are many things you can’t tell about that heifer’s potential as a cow, without evaluating her mother.

“Everything goes back to profitability, and the No. 1 factor in profit or loss in North American beef herds is how many calves you wean for every cow exposed to a bull. You want to choose a daughter out of a cow that has produced for several years

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and hasn’t missed a calf or fallen back; she’s breeding up every year, her calving interval is tight, she has a sound udder and feet. Most people don’t pay enough attention to this. They just go into the pen of heifers and pick the 20 that look best.

Looks are important but the mother is extremely important,” he explains.

2. CHOOSE YOUR OLDER HEIFERS, NOT YOUR BIGGER ONES

You want heifers that were born early in the calving period because that means their mothers were fertile. “You end up with a

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better herd if you sell your heifer calves on choice, because your neighbours will come in and pick the biggest 10 per cent. Many commercial producers make the mistake of keeping the biggest heifers. A person who always keeps the biggest heifers soon ends up with cows that are too large.

“You end up with a better herd if you choose females that were born from the first or second cycle. This puts more emphasis on fertility and keeping calving intervals tight.

“There are also reasons why the younger heifers in the group could be less successful. Their mothers may not have been as

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management

fertile, and those youngest heifers will have less time to mature enough to have a cycle or two before you start breeding them,” he adds.

3. SELECT FROM THE MIDDLE OF THE HERD

“Don’t pick the smallest 10 per cent nor the biggest. Avoid extremes, in all traits.

You don’t want the extremely long heifer or extremely short heifer. Extremely muscular can be a really big problem. You don’t want a heifer that looks more like a steer because often her endocrine balance is off and she doesn’t regulate her hormones correctly. There’s more chance that she’ll come up open,” says Olson.

“You also don’t want a heifer that’s extremely long-necked or too short-necked which makes her look like a male.”

are buying heifers or selecting your own, weed out the ones that don’t shed off as quickly. They hold their guard hairs longer because they haven’t been cycling.”

Hormones change the body metabolism and make a difference in many things.

just don’t have a very wide birthing canal.

Selecting the ones with adequate pelvic size can prevent some calving issues and if you palpate them you could also detect something abnormal like a bone spur.

You can kind of tell they have adequate width through the pins just by looking at the heifers, but even more if they don’t have enough width,” says Olson.

7. WIDTH THROUGH THE PINS (PELVIC SIZE)

He recommends palpating and measuring pelvic width in heifers. “Some females

Continued on page 22

4. FEMALES SHOULD LOOK LIKE FEMALES

Select feminine heifers. “There should be some angularity to the head and neck.

Most people will select for this, but a heifer should look like a heifer,” he says.

There’s more chance that she will be fertile, maternal and productive.

5. EASY FLESHING

This is harder to evaluate at weaning because a fat heifer may have a dam that milked too well. The dam herself may actually be thin. It’s easier to evaluate the heifer’s fleshing ability after her first winter, before her first breeding season. “A heifer going into the breeding season that doesn’t have enough fat isn’t going to breed. She probably won’t last if she’s in a difficult environment. If she doesn’t flesh as a yearling heifer she won’t flesh as a cow.” She’ll fall apart when she’s lactating and raising a calf.

6. HAIR COAT

“A highly productive, feminine, fertile heifer will be one of the first to lose her guard hairs in the spring, shedding quicker. She has a soft, smooth hair coat, compared to a male,” says Olson.

Males have coarser hair than females, especially over the head and crest. “This has to do with higher levels of testosterone; the hair will be kinkier and coarser over those points whereas the females’ hair will tend to be softer and smoother.

You’ll see varying degrees of this in heifers, but if you look at your open heifers they are often the ones that shed off last — so watch those guard hairs. If you

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Continued from page 21

8. SLOPE FROM HOOKS TO PINS

“This is probably one of the most important factors, but often overlooked, especially in North American cattle. You won’t find any wild animal that is level from hooks to pins,” says Olson. Elk, deer, moose, bison, etc., all have a sloping rear end. Cattle that are level from hooks to pins are exhibiting a serious man-made fault.

Many cattlemen feel that being level looks more balanced, but it is actually more natural to have the hooks considerably higher than the pins, with good slope to the rear end.

This is an important structural trait. “I recommend a book written in the 1950s by the South African researcher Jan Bonsma, entitled Man Must Measure. After he wrote it, he started touring the U.S. and giving talks about cattle structure.

I strongly encourage all purebred and commercial producers to read that book.”

“Lack of slope causes reproduction issues. The show ring has been part of the problem. People talk about a square hip, for instance, as a good trait, whereas in reality it is a detriment,” says Olson.

Many producers tend to choose cattle that are straight in the hind leg. All wild animals are cow-hocked, and also have some angle to the hock joint when viewed from the side, which is a much stronger structure than straight hind legs or post-legged cattle.

“If you have an animal that has a straight hind leg, this moves the patella and also changes the angle of the leg, rotating the pin.

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C at t l e m e n · O c t o b e r 2 , 2 0 1 7

When the hooks and pins become level, the hind legs become straight (construction that often won’t hold up) and changes the angle of the pelvis.” This changes the birth canal and makes it more difficult for the calf to come through in a natural arc.

The calf ’s feet tend to jam up against the backbone and tail head.

The lack of slope and smaller birth canal also makes drainage from the reproductive tract more difficult.

“Another worrisome thing that it does with the short tail head is move the anus forward, inside the body cavity. This is called a recessed anus, with the vulva tipped forward. Like a ‘windsucking’ mare, fecal material falls into the vagina.

Many commercial producers are finding that a lot of these sharp-tailed, level-pinned cows are coming up open. They are also harder to calve. If you do have to make an assist on that kind of cow, and are pulling the calf, it’s often a hard pull and you hear a pop. This means that the thurl — the bone halfway between the hook and the pins, where the ilium and ischium meet (the hip joint) — is out of place.” If there is adequate slope, the birth canal is more open and actually has more room.

A show animal that is level from hooks to pins has more reproductive problems. “There needs to be a slope toward the rear, as shown in illustrations in Jan Bonsma’s book. His research was done 65 years ago, and he pointed out the Bos indicus cattle and many breeds that do have a good slope, and singled out some of the European breeds that became too level and had more reproductive problems. Now we are seeing this problem in the modern Angus. Breeders are starting to bring the tail heads down again but it was really bad in show cattle 10 years ago,” he says.

“The Holstein breeders figured this out a long time ago with their genetic type scores and type classification. They measured everything and correlated it with fertility and calving ease. The dairy industry insists now that judges select cattle that have considerable slope from hooks to pins.”

Some of these important structural traits have to be evaluated visually because there are no EPDs for conformation.

“But some of these things are fairly easy to measure. You can easily see if a cow has slope from hooks to pins, especially if she has short summer hair; you can see the highlights of the hook and pin bones,” says Olson. c

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 researc h o n t h e r eco r d

By Reynold Bergen

Abnormal weather doesn’t grow average forage

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verages are useful statistics, but sometimes averages can be misleading. As the University of Saskatchewan’s late Iain Christison said, “the average human has one breast and one testicle.” Canada’s rainfall may be close to average this year — but much of the country is experiencing severe drought, and most of the rest is soaked.

Either way, low yields, unharvestable or spoiled forage mean that winter feed supplies will be below average in many places, and nutritional value likely won’t be average either.

For instance, drought-stricken pastures and forage crops have lower levels of carotene, which cattle need to produce vitamin A. A recent paper from Cheryl Waldner and Fabienne Uehlinger of the Western College of Veterinary Medicine (Can. J. Anim. Sci. 97:65-82) looked at 150 beef cow-calf herds in Alberta and Saskatchewan. Calves born the spring following a drought had a much higher risk of vitamin A deficiency, and calves with severe vitamin A deficiency were nearly three times more likely to die than those with higher levels.

Copper deficiency is also a concern for many areas of Canada, even in a good year. Sometimes copper levels are simply too low. Sometimes copper is present in the forage or feed, but is unavailable because it is bound up by sulphates, molybdenum, or both. In drought conditions, sulphate levels in dugout water can rise to the point that it can cause copper deficiency as well as other problems. Weather may also have an impact on molybdenum levels. Cheryl Waldner and Leeanne van de Weyer sampled 66 beef cow herds in Western Canada, and found that cows’ serum molybdenum levels were more than twice as high in areas that had more than 300 mm of rainfall during the growing season compared to areas with less rainfall (Can. J. Anim. Sci. 91:423-431).

In addition to vitamins and minerals, energy and protein will probably not be “average” in this year’s forage crop either. Testing your water and feed is important for you and your nutritionist to appropriately supplement whatever nutritional imbalances you may (or may not) be facing.

But is the supplement eaten? Averages can mislead you here, too. A team of Alberta researchers examined individual intakes of loose mineral supplements and molasses blocks fed in a Growsafe feeder (Can. J. Anim.

Sci. 80:681-690). The trace mineral mix was formulated to meet individual cow requirements when consumed at 100 g per head per day. Over the six-day trial, mineral intake averaged 183.5 g per head per day, and many cows ate enough. But some ate absolutely none, while some ate 900 g per day. The molasses blocks targeted an intake of 500 to 1,000 g per head per day. Over the course of a month, heifers consumed an average

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of 572 g per day. But individual heifer intakes ranged from two to 976 g per day.

An animal doesn’t need to exactly meet its nutrient requirements every day. But over time, they do need to have a balanced diet. A total mixed ration (TMR) makes it easier to ensure that each animal consumes the nutrients it needs — that’s why feedlots use them.

A Beef Science Cluster study led by Steve Hendrick of the Western College of Veterinary Medicine compared mineral supplements fed free-choice vs. in a total mixed ration. Pregnant Hereford-cross cows (121) and bred heifers (48) were split into four groups of roughly equal numbers of cows and heifers. For the last 75 days of pregnancy, two groups were fed barley silage, with loose free-choice minerals in a separate tub. The other two groups had the mineral mixed in with the silage as a TMR. After calving, one of the freechoice mineral groups was switched to the TMR, and one of the TMR groups was switched to free-choice.

Blood samples were collected from all cows and heifers in early January, all dams and their calves within a week of calving, and all animals at the end of the trial (May 24). Calf health, growth and cow rebreeding performance were monitored. Cows fed free-choice minerals were six times more likely to be copper deficient at calving compared to cows fed the TMR, and cows fed free-choice minerals both before and after calving were 47 times more likely to be copper deficient than cows fed the TMR ration throughout. Calves with inadequate copper levels at birth were 6.4 times more likely to be treated for pneumonia, scours or navel infection. Cows fed mineral in the TMR came into heat 2.3 times faster and became pregnant sooner than cows fed free-choice mineral.

Extreme moisture conditions can have a great impact on the nutritional content of your forage, the nutritional state of your herd, and the health of your calves next year. A TMR may not be cost-effective for everyone. But your nutritionist can likely help develop an effective way to mix and deliver vitamin, mineral, protein and/or energy supplements in a way that appeals to more than the average cow.

The Beef Research Cluster is funded by the Canadian Beef Cattle Check-Off and Agriculture and AgriFood Canada with additional contributions from provincial beef industry groups and governments to advance research and technology transfer supporting the Canadian beef industry’s vision to be recognized as a preferred supplier of healthy, high-quality beef, cattle and genetics. c Dr. Reynold Bergen is the science director of the Beef Cattle Research Council.

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 health

By Debbie Furber

Stress is the enemy with ‘natural’ calves

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imiting the use of growth promotants for raising calves is easy. Just stop using them, accept that you will lose efficiencies, and concentrate on capturing every other advantage.

Limiting the use of antibiotics is another story.

David Saretsky, who raises cattle and runs a cattle marketing company, Cantriex Livestock, with his family near Ponoka, Alta., was on hand at the University of Calgary’s Beef Cattle Conference to give an overview of that story.

Much of his knowledge of what it takes to be successful raising calves for the natural beef market has been gained through his experiences working closely with clients who sell and buy calves for this market and during his time as cattle manager with One Earth Farms.

“I think people make the biggest difference to success raising cattle in this type of system. You can use the best protocols, technology and genetics, but if you don’t have the right people you are destined for failure,” Saretsky says.

It’s fairly easy to surround yourself with good people, but some may not be the right fit for a natural beef system and it can be really tough to let them go. If you don’t, though, they will cost you efficiencies and

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weigh heavily on your bottom line because calves that end up having to be treated with antibiotics for animal welfare reasons fall out of the system. Premiums are lost when they have to be separated, managed and marketed apart from the rest, he explains.

People across the natural beef chain have to be committed to the program, starting with the ranch families supplying the feeder cattle or retaining ownership to finish. They have the greatest impact on total production within the system because without calves there couldn’t be a program.

There are three types of ranchers he sees having success raising calves for natural beef programs: those who truly believe in their hearts that this is the best way; those in it for the premiums because they feel they can raise cattle efficiently enough to benefit; and those who want to know where their beef ends up.

Next are the feedlots. Their role is critical in ensuring the quality of the calves going to the packer.

Saretsky says it takes a special feedlot with everyone having a thorough understanding of the protocols to do everything effectively because there are several hoops to jump through that most feedlots don’t have to deal with. One of the biggest is audits and

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feedlots need to bring their A game because if they fail, the program could collapse.

Commitment has to extend to consultants, veterinarians, nutritionists and your feed company, to ensure that the products recommended or supplied fit with the program’s production and health protocols.

The people who run the companies that market natural beef shouldn’t forsake the power of local knowledge when they lay out their protocols.

“I have good working knowledge of raising cattle in central Alberta, but I learned very quickly that I don’t know the ins and outs of raising cattle in Dawson Creek, Medicine Hat or over in Foam Lake, Saskatchewan. Weather conditions vary and influence how we manage cattle, so protocols need to reflect the local area and they need to be flexible,” Saretsky explains.

Having a hard and fast shipping date, for example, can be disastrous if a storm hits, he says, recalling a delivery of newly weaned calves that were loaded in the rain, got stuck in a storm and never did fully recover.

Reducing stress should be the main focus when designing the protocols because stress is the biggest cause of sickness and, therefore, the need to use antibiotics.

Natural beef programs are about limit-

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health

David Saretsky

ing the use of antibiotics. It’s impossible to stop using them altogether because sick animals need treatment regardless of the type of production system.

“Every major interaction between man and cattle causes some degree of stress, so this is where input from everyone working with the cattle becomes all that much more important.

If we can reduce stress, we can minimize antibiotic use and improve almost every measurable aspect of this type of production system, including treatment rate, death loss, rate of gain, conversion,” he explains.

Weaning, transport and muddy pens are major stressors and in his view the highest potential to cause sickness.

Minor stressors such as processing and vaccinating, moving cattle, ration adjustments and exposure to new cattle can reduce efficiency for a short time but when added together could lead to sickness and treatment.

Real-world management

Plan, plan and plan some more on every aspect of how the calves will be managed. At the same time, plan to be flexible enough to adjust to whatever the day brings your way.

Never hesitate to cancel a plan if, for instance, the weather looks bad, the pens are too muddy, the cattle don’t look right or your hired man doesn’t show up. www.canadiancattlemen.ca

Know your limits because biting off more than you can chew will hurt you financially. Processing 1,000 head a day in a conventional program may be doable, but when trying to limit the use of antibiotics it would spell disaster. He suggests processing 1,000 head a week might be an achievable goal.

“Without question, weaning is the most critical juncture in this type of production system because every stressor can occur during weaning,” Saretsky says.

Separating activities that cause stress helps to keep them from piling up. He believes keeping calves on the ranch for as long as possible after weaning is one of the best strategies. Not only does staying at home limit exposure to bugs, it allows them to rest up before they go on the truck.

Transport compounds even minor stresses.

The planning for weaning needs to start long before the big day. It’s a time for preweaning vaccinations and exposing calves to dry feed. It does work.

“Vaccination is emphasized in a natural beef system because it reduces the number of bugs calves are exposed to. We vaccinate at branding and again two to six weeks before weaning, but it’s important for custom backgrounders and feedlots to stay on schedule,” he emphasizes.

“We also expose calves to a total-mixed

ration for at least two weeks before weaning to give the rumen time to adjust while calves still have access to pasture and milk.”

Let the mother cows teach the calves that something good will happen when the feed truck rolls by. Calves learn from their mothers all the time — from hiding in the grass to avoiding predators, to going to the trees during a storm, to grazing habits. There’s no mistaking bunk-broke calves when they arrive at a feedlot, he says.

He suggests spreading feed on the ground, providing it’s good hard ground, when you first introduce calves to dry feed.

This limits competition and the chance of calves getting hurt fighting with the cows over feed on the bunk line.

Some people might think that introducing calves to an automatic water bowl before weaning is a minute detail, but calves that aren’t drinking aren’t eating and their chances of getting sick and needing treatment will go up.

A water bowl can be a strange contraption to calves that spend their first six months drinking from creeks and ponds.

Saretsky recalls hauling snow from the rink after the Zamboni cleaned the ice for a group of cattle from the Aleutian Islands that had never seen a water bowl or trough, but they did know how to eat snow. Eventually they caught onto the water bowl.

His final tip is to fenceline wean if you have the facilities to do it. Giving the calves the benefit of the sensory interaction with their mothers works wonders to ease stress, but if you have terrible fences, it will create more hassles than benefits.

The best setup he has seen had calves in a feedlot pen with the cows set up in an area alongside or behind.

“Weaning really is the battle that wins the war in this type of system,” he stresses.

“If weaning goes well, chances are that backgrounding will go well, and if backgrounding goes well, finishing will probably go well. Mess up at weaning, and chances are your daily gains in the lot will be off, meaning missed shipping dates or lighter carcass weights.

“Little things can’t be overlooked because by default you lose efficiencies by not using growth promotants and antibiotics. You need to do everything else very well to stay competitive. Overall, there is power in simplicity and getting back to the basics of good animal husbandry. There is power in having a good plan, but maintaining flexibility, and the power of having good people is absolutely crucial.” c

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 grazing

By Steve Kenyon

Winter Options

O

ur summer is winding down and the evenings are starting to cool off. It won’t be long now until our killing frost hits us. This happens usually sometime in mid-September for us here in Busby, Alberta. We have had a good summer this year with plenty of moisture and we left extra residue all season. After four years of drought, it is high time to feed the soil a bit extra. We still have a few months of grass ahead of us and this is the time of the year that I can now predict how late we will be grazing. We need to plan our winter grazing strategies.

We will dormant-season graze our pastures well into December or January this year. Some producers save stockpiled grass to graze in the spring but we like to use it up in the fall if possible. With all leased land, we risk losing stockpiled grass if we don’t use it. You never know what can happen over the winter.

If you own the land, by all means, save some grass for the spring. It is a great option for spring calving or even just to get some animals out on grass early.

The stockpiled grass plus the new spring growth makes for a great ration for spring grazing.

Every year we also look around to see if there are any grain farmers with some crops to sell. We have developed ourselves as a market for grain farmers. We can buy crop residues, salvaged crops, under-seeded crops or whatever they have available. 2015 was a severe drought so we managed to find 450 acres of pea straw

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to graze for that winter. We bunched the straw, which made the piles easier to find under the snow.

Last year, most of the hay was rained on a few times so the quality and price of hay was low, which made bale grazing the best option for our winter grazing plan.

Every year is different so we need to maintain some flexibility and look for the most economical option. Using the same winter grazing strategy every year is not always the best option because each year the margin on whatever production practices you use can be different. Let’s look a little closer at our winter grazing options.

The most economical winter grazing option is intensive rotational grazing of your summer pastures. Yes, the summer is the most important part. Not only does good grazing management make you a better margin during the growing season, it allows you to reduce fall and winter feeding costs by grazing late into the dormant season. If you’re grazing, you’re not feeding.

If we have managed our grass well during the summer and we have good quality “stage two” grasses when the killing frost hits in September, we end up with goodquality standing hay in our pastures. This can be grazed well into the winter and in most cases, I have had very high-quality feed. This is the advantage that our cold climate gives us. Our growing season is short but with good management, our grazing season can be extended quite a bit.

I also like to save my lowland grasses for

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the winter if I can. Most of these riparian area plants are not very nutritious in the summer due to the high water content so I like to save them for winter grazing.

They dry out in the winter and are much easier to get at on the frozen ground. You might want to supplement a bit of protein depending on the class of livestock and the feed test. Supplementing on pasture is usually cheaper than full out feeding.

Residue grazing is another great way to reduce your feed costs. This is simply utilizing the chaff and straw that comes out the back of a combine and allowing your livestock to graze it in the field. You just turn off the spreader on the combine and leave the residue in a swath or add a Chaff Buncher and leave the residue in small piles all across the field.

I believe strongly that every grain farmer should be using livestock on their land to help recycle the nutrients back

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

grazing

into the land. With residue grazing it is important to ration the feed with an electric fence. This stops them from picking through all of the feed to get the best at the start and ending up with a very lowquality feed at the end of the graze period.

I usually use a graze period of one to three days but this will depend on how your margin calculates.

I would also recommend a feed test, a mineral package and some supplement feed be added to the ration. Even if the feed is high enough in protein and energy, I have had issues in the past when only supplying a monoculture ration (just one type of plant). Add a bale or two of hay every day to add some polyculture to the ration. This will help ward off any nutrient imbalances that can occur with a monoculture crop.

If there are enough weeds in the crop, or if you were able to interseed in a cover crop, then the crop becomes a polyculture and the issue is resolved, which is another reason not to worry so much about weeds.

Swath grazing is another tool that I use that is just another step up from

residue grazing. This is where a full crop is grazed by the animals. It may be a salvage crop that is damaged, not worth combining or a crop planted specifically to graze. The type of crop can vary, but whatever the crop you still need to feed test it and possibly make up for any shortfalls in the diet.

Again, monocultures are not the best thing for our animals, always feed test and supplement as needed.

I also bale graze quite often. Some would argue that I am not really grazing; however, bale grazing is a great way to lower traditional feeding costs. It is a form of feeding, but done on a pasture. Similar to residue or swath grazing, we ration off the bales with an electric fence. We are bringing in feed but instead of feeding it, we are grazing it. If done right, this can lower our labour and equipment costs substantially for the winter feeding period.

Picture a pasture with a few months’ worth of hay bales spread across in rows.

To ration off this feed, we now move an electric fence every few days to allow access to another row of bales. Or maybe

we have a few days’ worth of feed in different paddocks and we simply open a gate for another graze period. The key to bale grazing is to lower the labour and equipment costs.

A variation of this could also be silage grazing where the cattle have access to silage that is rationed off with a wire instead of being fed to the cattle. Again the key is to lower the costs. You could ration it from a pile or from bags, whatever works for you. Just make sure that you’re making a profit off of it.

These are just a few of the options that I have used in the past. Your winter grazing system will be different than mine.

Remember, it is all about the margin! Run a calculator and see what works for you.

Be sure to include your labour and equipment costs and make sure that your winter plans include having a positive margin. c Steve Kenyon runs Greener Pastures Ranching Ltd. in Busby, Alta., www.greenerpasturesranching. com, 780-307-6500, email skenyon@ greenerpasturesranching.com or find them on Facebook.

Canadian forage and grasslands provide both economic and environmental benefits to Canadians from coast to coast.

Profit Above: Forage has over 70 million acres in production in Canada and a direct economic value of $5.09 billion.

8th Annual CFGA Conference

Wealth Below: Perennial forage crops contribute significant carbon sequestration benefits to Canadian society.

Next Generation Forage Cropping Systems:

Profit Above, Wealth Below

The 2017 CFGA conference will highlight how the Canadian forage sector supports sustainable growth and development throughout the Canadian agriculture industry.

Image courtesy of CNH Industrial America LLC/New Holland

Key topics for discussion during the conference include: v high performance, profitable forage systems v animal and forage management systems overlaps and mutual benefits v carbon and climate change policy in Canada and the role of forages v soil health benefits of forage on the landscapes v forage export growth opportunities for Canadian agriculture

Register Now! Nove m b er 14-16, 2017 D e l t a G u e l p h H o te l & Co n fe re n ce Centre G u e l p h , O nt a r i o

Early registration deadline: September 29, 2017 For all details go to www.canadianfga.ca Contact: by e-mail to conference@canadianfga.ca or call 1-800-868-8776

 Free Mar k et R e flect i o n s

By Steve Dittmer

Round Two

T

wo rounds of NAFTA renegotiation have been held and the three participants have been sizing each other up. While the three nations laid out their objectives in the first round, the second round was more about consolidating the things all three can agree on and cutting out the things that will be more difficult or impossible.

When we look at the most strident rhetoric from President Trump and compare it to the statements of Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer who agreed to first “do no harm,” there are obvious contradictions. Trump has referred to NAFTA as a terrible agreement and said the U.S. will likely have to pull out. Meanwhile a parade of U.S. agricultural and manufacturing trade groups have expressed to everyone in the administration that the agreement is crucial to their business.

Canada and Mexico have so far been united in wanting to keep the dispute settlement mechanism in NAFTA, while the U.S. wants to scrap it. Since dispute settlement is critical to all the rest of the agreement, that could be the most worrisome conflict. Chapter 19 panels draw expert members from both countries involved to examine antidumping and countervailing duty disputes. Simon Lester of the Cato Institute suggested some compromises might be possible, including allowing countries the option of using Chapter 19 dispute panels or the accused countries’ trade agencies and domestic courts, then conducting studies to compare the results. Another option, says Lester, would be to appoint a joint working group to develop an entirely new dispute resolution system.

In other issues, like the percentage of auto parts required to be sourced in NAFTA countries, the three parties can start out with differing percentages and work their way to a compromise. However, that process might depend on Trump’s apparent insistence on a percentage for U.S. parts, the effect on consumers if the percentage of cheaper Asian parts is lowered and the possible upward pressure on auto parts prices if Canada and the U.S. insist on labour reform in Mexico.

Low labour costs are not the only reason manufacturers have located in Mexico. Mexico’s Free Trade Agreements with 45 countries, including the EU, is another crucial factor.

But labour advocates from all three countries say Mexico’s minimum wage of $4.50/day, with $1/hour plus benefits being typical for manufacturing and $100/week being the best manufacturing wage, is unfair competition for U.S. and Canadian workers and hobbles Mexico’s economic growth. Peter Navarro, one of the most protectionist of Trump’s trade advisers, has said without wage increases Mexico will “never have a robust middle class and (the U.S.) middle class will wither and die.”

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U.S. and Canadian trade officials want Mexico to institute labour reforms such as the right for workers to organize unions without reprisal. But there are other factors involved in Mexico’s low wage rate, including a 75 per cent increase in population in the last 30 years, low productivity in the 80 per cent of the economy not involved in manufacturing exports and 60 per cent of workers working off the books, according to the Wall Street Journal. Competition from Asia is another pressure holding down wages.

The Globe and Mail reports Canada is asking the U.S. to pass federal legislation banning right-towork laws. Such laws, which prohibit unions from forcing employees to join a union to take a job, exist in 28 states and are spreading. I would expect that to be a non-starter with U.S. officials.

Trump’s comments regarding “being taken advantage of ” and Lighthizer’s first round comments that NAFTA had “fundamentally failed many, many Americans and needs major improvements,” apparently refer mainly to manufacturing jobs, especially auto makers and parts manufacturers, mostly lost to Mexico. However, while NAFTA is a convenient whipping boy for leftists and unions, it is hard to separate the effects of automation, robots and computerization on manufacturing of all types from the effects of NAFTA. Unions typically ignore the effect their rules and restrictions have on manufacturing costs and efficiencies. Put that together with environmental rules, and they can have a big impact on manufacturing costs.

Another factor overshadowing the negotiations is the U.S. trade deficit with Mexico that is somewhere around $60 billion plus. The U.S. had a small trade surplus (US$7 billion) last year with Canada. Hopefully, trade deficits will fall off the agenda for they are a very poor measure of the benefits from trade agreements.

Mexico has said before that it would leave the table if it didn’t get a fair deal. But Mexico and Canada have made it known recently that should the U.S. actually pull out of NAFTA, they would stay in.

Rarely mentioned in NAFTA discussions are the impact high taxes and onerous regulations have on operating profitably for some U.S. companies, which encourages relocation to Mexico. It doesn’t help that promised tax reform legislation has not even been introduced in Congress, let alone finalized and passed. If tax reform happened this fall, that might make it easier for the U.S. administration to agree to a NAFTA deal without the draconian changes Trump has trumpeted. With important tax reforms in hand alongside Trump’s regulatory reductions, U.S. businesses small and large would celebrate.

Both the U.S. and Mexico want NAFTA renegotiated before their 2018 elections. c

Steve Dittmer is the CEO of Agribusiness Freedom Foundation, a non-profit group promoting free market principles throughout the food chain.

He can be reached at steve@agfreedom.ag.

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

BUILDING TRUST IN CANADIAN BEEF

Cargill launches Canadian Beef Sustainability Acceleration Pilot Cattle wanted: Volume needed to kick-start Canada’s beef sustainability brand

N

etflix and Blockbuster are well known brands. Netflix as an entertainment power player, Block­buster as a market leader that failed to adapt and disappeared.

That’s the thing with windows of opportunity. They can close.

Beef producers have an opportunity to be active in what many believe is a major window of opportunity in their business, launching a brand for beef sustainability.

To that end, Cargill has partnered with the VBP+ and the Beef InfoXchange System (BIXS) to launch the Canadian Beef Sustainability Acceleration Pilot.

It’s designed to build a dependable cattle supply, ready when a beef sustainability brand is launched.

The Canadian Roundtable on Sustainable Beef (CRSB) is building a brand standard on how to validate that an operation is sustainable and what the terms are for making that claim, says Emily Murray. She oversees the McDonald’s beef portfolio for Cargill in Canada and the U.S. “We’ve attracted strong initial interest but not scale. You can create a standard and launch a logo, but if you don’t have the cattle numbers behind it to meet requirements then we are not going to get anywhere very fast. Consumers have access to many viewpoints and unless we can deliver our message quickly, they may look elsewhere.

ada be on the leading edge of this sustainability movement.

Consumers want to eat beef, but they want to know how that animal was raised and how the environment was handled.

They want to give themselves permission to enjoy the product, says Murray.

“We want to give them that confidence. We want sustainability to count for something as CRSB has defined it, before somebody else defines it in another way.”

Information on the Acceleration Pilot at CBSApilot.ca or from a VBP+ co-ordinator.

“The new pilot is intended to build volume,” says Murray. “We know the fundamentals of the CRSB brand program will work so we don’t need to wait until they are finished to get going on it. We need to get in front of consumers sooner than later.”

Why participate?

There are two major reasons for producers to participate in the acceleration pilot.

In the short term there will be economic benefits. Producers registered with VBP+ who sign up with BIXS for the pilot will receive a financial credit for every animal that moves through an entire verified marketing channel.

Longer term, producers can help Can-

Partners in place

With VBP+ and BIXS, Murray says the partners are in place to anchor success. McDonald’s and Swiss Chalet (Cara Foods) are also on board, funding the credits for beef delivered to their restaurants from fully sustainable supply chains.

Other partners — like restaurants, retailers and groups or organizations that can help promote the effort — are welcome,” says Murray.

Major push needed

“We are going to do our best to get the word out on the importance of participating in this pilot,” says Murray, “but we need help.

If you are VBP+ Registered and you participate, that’s great and we thank you. But get other folks in your chain to participate as well. The real value of this effort is in fully sustainable supply chains.”

B U I L D I N G T R U S T T H R O U G H S U S TA I N A B L E B E E F P R O D U C T I O N

Cattle Stand Out

 straigh t f ro m t h e h i p

By Brenda Schoepp

Statement of Claim

T

he oil and gas industry in Canada should be taking note of the potential change in fossil fuel use in the future. China has just announced its proposal to ban the production and sale of fossil fuel in the near future. The country produces and sells 28 million cars annually and is a major market for luxury vehicles.

This was not lost on Jaguar Land Rover as they target 2020 to have electric versions available to fill that need.

Volvo has stepped up with a commitment for electric options in China by 2019, with Ford promising electric options in China by 2025. The U.K. has targeted 2030 for implementation of electric vehicles as has France with a target date of 2040.

These are high population countries with massive fuel use and in the case of China, large production facilities.

It would seem that there would be an expectation of a reduction in conventional resources such as oil and gas as the changes are implemented. With the price of oil as a basis for the strength of the Canadian dollar, this is an especially intriguing time for Canada. Currently, reports are that the industry is avoiding the inevitable even in the renewable energy space. While renewables such as wind power have an annual growth rate of 7.6 per cent with 1.6 per cent growth in gas and 0.7 per cent in oil, several companies are still trying to convince shareholders that the future is in oil and gas.

Not believing change is happening for a reason, particularly in the public interest, is like ignoring the 2016 growth in electric car sales in Canada of 56 per cent. Hybrid and electric cars are a disruptive technology and things will change. Consider the technology of cell phones. Not very many years ago they were interesting, large, limited and used by a few. Then they became smaller with larger capacity. Along the way the key pad was switched for a touch screen. And now they have full computing capability and built-in services that are potentially life saving. Over half of Canadian homes have cancelled their land lines in favour of the cell phone, leaving traditional communications companies struggling to keep their clients.

If this all sounds familiar, it is. It was just a few years ago that electric cars were a “niche” market, something like “no hormone added” “natural” or “organic” were in the beef industry. Most certainly a luxury meat like beef was considered not to be susceptible to the change in public opinion, and much like the oil and gas industry, tended to believe that changing consumer preferences were a passing phase, and sales would go up — eventually. Arguably, many folks will have to buy protein on price point but if they have the privilege of choice or have a national policy of no hormones or GMO or some other restriction, they will buy accordingly.

And so I am concerned over the broad and sweeping

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statements of claim that are endemic in the beef industry against players within it for their pursuit of niche markets or execution of a brilliant marketing strategy.

Internal conflict demonstrates a lack of self-confidence to the end user and alienates creative thought towards palatable solutions. When someone eats cereal, say, Cheerios, they do so out of choice. The cereal is a brand built on trust and it is familiar as even little babies can let the oat based O dissolve in their mouth. On the box you will see a claim of gluten free, an area that was once claimed to be a niche, yet is not questioned now. That claim is true and positions the product in the marketplace. It does not create internal cereal wars.

How does this differ from branding a product as “no added hormone,” “hormone free,” “local” or even “raised right?” These characteristics are there for the purpose of assuring the client of content, protocol or process and are not attached to wilfully degrade or diminish other products. We don’t take away from the baby because of the claim of gluten free nor do we question the use of a cell phone because the technology has changed with the consumer demand. Industry, any industry, be that auto, communications or food must embrace change that is driven by the buyer.

The protein industry is especially vulnerable as we head into demographic change which drives diet and purchasing power. Younger and more diverse populations have different needs and the strong middle class in our country allows them the privilege of choice.

And they will choose according to their core values and beliefs — using the newest cell phone, driving an economical car, feeding their babies a cereal they trust and eating the beef they want to. Literate, informed and curious enough to take part in the discussion of food production and value, animal welfare and emerging technology in production, processing and the preparation of food, our new client may choose plant protein over animal protein or “no hormone added” over the product that lacks the label of assurance they asked for. Whatever it is — time is wasted in the lobby for the gas guzzlers and landlines of the world.

As for those electric cars, it is true that they need charging and currently are somewhat limited in distance and affected by the cold. Technology will address these issues and policy and places will change to accommodate production and plugging in. At the end of the day, everyone wins except for the principles that choose not to change in attitude, perspective and appreciation of both their stakeholders and their clients. c Contact Brenda through her website: www.brendaschoepp.com.

All Rights Reserved. Brenda Schoepp 2017

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

A special supplement brought to you by Canadian Forage and Grassland Association

Forage & Grassland Guide is produced in partnership by the Canadian Forage & Grassland Association (CFGA) and Glacier FarmMedia LLP and distributed through Country Guide, Canadian Cattlemen and Le Bulletin des agriculteurs. It focuses on forage and grassland issues of importance to crop and livestock producers across Canada.

Putting a value on forages A new project by the Canadian Forage and Grassland Association will establish protocols for high-performance forage management

W

ith over 70 million acres of dedicated Canadian cropland and a direct economic value of $5.09 billion, forages are the country’s third-largest crop, just behind wheat valued at $5.2 billion and canola at $7.3 billion. There’s no doubt forages are good for the economy.

Perennial forages play an environmental role with the ability to reduce carbon — their root systems can store up to 2.7 times more carbon than annual crops. Carbon is sequestered deeper in the ground and because less ploughing is done on forage and grassland fields, slow

the breakdown and release of carbon into the atmosphere.

“The magic of forages make agriculture one of the only industries that can actually put valuable nutrients back into the ecosystem,” says Cedric MacLeod, executive director of the Canadian Forage and Grassland Association (CFGA). “So, while livestock producers are often criticized for high greenhouse gas emissions, an effective forage management system can help offset emissions.”

One study of the Alberta forage industry revealed the province could generate approximately $14 million in the provincial carbon off-

By Trudy Kelly Forsythe

set market, pending the approval of forage-related offset protocols.

Other environmental benefits of forages and grasslands include reduced nitrogen fertilizer use and costs — as well as the energy costs associated with applying nutrients, increased soil quality, better control of soil erosion, improved water filtration and internal drainage, and managing herbicide resistance when forages are introduced into a grain rotation. There are also growing opportunities for forages as a source of biomass fuel and biomaterials which can help reduce Canada’s dependence on fossil fuels. 

One of the aims of the CFGA initiative is to show that forages reduce greenhouse gases by storing carbon and not requiring application of nitrogen fertilizer.

2017

Forage & Grassland guide

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A special supplement brought to you by Canadian Forage and Grassland Association

Continued from page 33

The environmental value While the benefits of forages are known, and studies to date indicate the monetary value of their environmental impact is at least double the direct economic value, the exact value of their environmental worth is unknown.

To determine that value, the CFGA has launched a project called “High Performance Management Systems to Reduce Greenhouse Gases in Canada’s Forage and Grasslands.” This will also help the association develop and test a carbon-reduction protocol built for high-performance forage management systems in Canada.

The CFGA began the project in February by reviewing existing quantification protocols and greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation research from across Canada and around the world.

“This literature review will provide an understanding of what is currently out there,” says project lead Josh Lamont. “Our goal is not to duplicate existing quantification protocols but to fill and improve on the gaps that presently exist.”

The CFGA is also working with producer groups and experts to identify the beneficial management practices (BMP) for forage and rangeland producers to improve the ability to sequester carbon in the soils.

“These BMPs will be developed into the manual that will outline the methodology in the quantification protocol and showcase how producers can use the BMPs to implement carbon projects,” says Lamont.

The BMP manual, which will be written for farmers and agronomists, will include information on highperformance management systems such as the use of certified seed for highly digestible forage species and varieties; intensive rotational grazing systems; intensive forage harvesting systems; forage stand establishment, fertility and management for highperformance yields; and advanced

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“The magic of forages make agriculture one of the only industries that can actually put valuable nutrients back into the ecosystem.”

— Cedric MacLeod, CFGA crop production systems for perennial and annual forages such as notill cropping and crop covers.

“Our immediate next steps are to highlight the findings of our literature review, both science and BMP, with researchers and producers from across Canada at the CFGA’s upcoming annual conference in November,” says Lamont.

Later in the project, the CFGA will pilot the BMPs and quantification methodology on several test sites across Canada where producers can see the implementation of the protocol in action. This phase will include a series of knowledge transfer workshops and crop tours over two growing seasons, five demonstration sites located at various academic and/or applied sites and measurement and analysis of the economic and environmental impacts of pilot farm activities.

“The pilot is intended to gauge the sector-wide opportunities for enhancing carbon sequestration and creating carbon offset credits for Canadian grassland managers,” says Lamont. “This phase will field test the protocol and identify any outstanding gaps and challenges in protocol implementation, and test the ability and willingness of primary producers to maintain the necessary records management systems to allow for farm-scale GHG quantification.”

GHG reduction

The CFGA project is one of 20 new research projects taking place across the country thanks to the $27 million, five-year (2016-21) Agricultural Greenhouse Gases Program (AGGP), which covers four priority areas of research: livestock systems, cropping systems, agricultural water use efficiency and agro-forestry. The purpose of the AGGP is to help create technologies, practices and processes

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to help the agricultural sector adjust to climate change and improve soil and water conservation by developing new farming practices and methods. It is also expected to help farmers increase their understanding of GHG emissions.

The Canadian forage and grasslands sector is the single largest land use component of Canadian agriculture with roughly 36 million acres devoted to native rangeland and the remaining 34 million dedicated to the production of annual and perennial tame forages, including 675,000 acres of corn silage.

“While it is well known that forages create valuable carbon sinks, to date, no approved carbon sequestration quantification protocol has been approved for Canadian conditions,” says Lamont. “This creates two distinct challenges.”

The first, he explains, is that the value of the ecological goods and services provided by the grasslands sector to Canadian society cannot be quantified.

The second is that individual landowners cannot quantify the economic value of contributions they make to increase soil carbon storage through the adoption of beneficial management practices and/or the use of new, high-performance forage genetics. That means no carbon offset credit value can be assigned to improvements at the farm level.

“Without an approved protocol to quantify carbon sequestration, the significant contribution of the Canadian forage and grasslands sector to combat climate change will continue to be undervalued,” Lamont says.

“Additionally, addressing these issues will support agri-food supply chain sustainability initiatives to instill public confidence in the management practices of Canadian farmers.” n Forage & Grassland Guide

2017

Double cropping growing in popularity in northern regions

By Trudy Kelly Forsythe

Double cropping, the growing of two crops in one year, is a common practice in the Southern United States, but is often overlooked in northern areas due to shorter growing seasons. However, research and some pioneering northern farmers are showing it can be done.

Tom Kilcer, a certified crop advisor with Advanced Ag Systems in New York, recommends producers grow an energy crop like corn or sorghum in the spring then plant a winter cereal or grain in the early fall. His preference for a winter crop is winter triticale which can be removed in May and give producers ample time to get in with the summer crop.

BENEFITS Kilcer says by incorporating double cropping into their management systems, producers can directly increase their yield per acre by 25 to 35 per cent, simply because they are getting two crops in a single year instead of one.

“We’ve been getting six to 10 tonnes per acre of very high quality silage,” he says.

“The protein is equal to good quality alfalfa and the energy is about equal to corn silage. We have a lot of farmers who grow it to put in their cows’ diets in the summertime because of the high fibre digestibility because it maintains milk production through the hot weather.”

Another plus is the benefits to the soil.

“We find increased corn yields the year

CANADIAN FORAGE & GRASSLAND ASSOCIATION www.canadianfga.ca Ph: 506-260-0872

Fermented Winter Triticale Forage Samples Average

Low

High

DM

24.28

19.93

27.5

Crude Protein

20.35

19.71

21.07

ADF

25.42

24.06

27.53

Lignin

1.02

0.44

1.87

Sugar

6.16

4.81

7.11

NDFD 30

68.21

65.57

70.21

TTNDFD

66.45

64.11

69.44

RFQ

193

176

206

Kd%/hr

5.74

This table shows winter triticale forage quality results from fermented samples taken at optimum flag leaf stage.

after because you’re always improving soil health,” says Kilcer. “It increases soil health, stops erosion, conserves nutrients and you get high quality forage on the other end.”

Farmers on clay soil see the further benefit of increasing surface permeability by up to sevenfold. Fields also dry out faster in the spring if there is a winter crop growing than if the soil was cleared. This in turn means farmers can get on the ground a lot earlier in the spring, which can help extend the growing season.

“I’ve been working on this for 18 years now and it’s really helped farmers’ profitability and milk production and is good for the soil itself,” says Kilcer. “Farmers just have to get their heads around growing two crops.”

PLANTING TIPS Kilcer says the best time for producers to plant in the fall for the spring harvest is 10 days to two weeks before they’d typically plant wheat for grain. “By planting earlier, they get more nutrient uptake, more erosion control, more yield and can harvest earlier in the spring than if they planted late.”

Kilcer will speak more on the subject of double cropping during the Canadian Forage and Grassland Association’s 8th Annual Conference in Guelph, Ontario, Nov. 14-16 when he presents Double Cropping in the North: Making Money on Both Ends. Learn more on the CFGA conference website: www. canadianfga.ca/conference.

A special supplement brought to you by Canadian Forage and Grassland Association

Fighting floods and drought — with grass Manitoba’s forage group is leading a project which will allow more control of water on the landscape

By Duncan Morrison

Unlike the table-flat Red River Valley to the east, western Manitoba has a range of elevations such as these along the Birdtail River.

F

loods one year, drought the next.

As we’ve seen this year, it’s a fact of life for residents of southern Manitoba and Saskatchewan, but a project led by the Manitoba Forage and Grassland Association (MFGA) may help reduce the extremes.

It’s being conducted by Aquanty, a Waterloo, Ont. company that has developed a HydroGeoSphere (HGS) modelling system to measure and predict how water flows on the landscape.

It’s being applied around the basin of the Assiniboine River, which starts in Saskatchewan and then runs through North Dakota and back north into Manitoba.

The project is focusing on the role of forages and grasslands in times of flood and drought in the area, referred to as the Assiniboine River Basin (ARB).

“As a decision-support tool, the MFGA Aquanty Project model will provide farmers, ranchers, land man-

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Photo credit: D. Derlago/MFGA Aquanty project

agers and government agencies with the ability to make informed decisions around forages and grasslands by putting these grasses into modelling scenarios that will provide the most benefits to society,” says MFGA chair Dave Koslowsky who, along with wife Rhonda and family, runs a mixed farm near Killarney, Man. Koslowsky says the project can provide benefits for both rural and urban residents in the ARB, including in towns and cities such as Virden, Brandon and Estevan, which have had severe flooding in recent years.

Tracking water flows

The project model will help decisionmakers to understand the relationship between surface water, groundwater and soil moisture. It will model several land use scenarios under varying degrees of grass and forage cover and climate scenarios such as the 2008-09 and 2011 and 2014 floods.

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Project manager Henry Nelson says the intention is to demonstrate how forages can mitigate both droughts and floods.

“Forages and grasslands offer more overland flow resistance as well as greater infiltration capacity, which can help buffer the hydrologic impact of flood events,” says Nelson, whose family farm skirts the banks of the Assiniboine River near Portage la Prairie, Man. “When it comes to flood and drought preparations, we want to slow it, hold it or store it and the soil and grasses play a direct role in all those happening and the MFGA Aquanty model will help us all make decisions that utilize what grasslands and forage crops we have, where we can and should add, and stress what we need to keep across the ARB,” says Nelson.

Aquanty’s lead scientist Steve Frey says the development of the HydroGeoSphere simulation platform began in the early 1990s at the University of Waterloo. He says the wide range of weather in the Assiniboine River Basin, including snow accumulation and freezing and thawing, is a perfect fit for the model.

Frey says five HGS models will be constructed, including one of over 150,000 square kilometres for the whole basin plus smaller ones for watersheds in the basin.

“This allows hydrologic information to be translated across multiple models so that small-scale, very highly resolved simulations can reflect the influence of large-scale regional hydrologic processes, such as groundwater flows or widespread snowmelt or precipitation events.”

This will mean enormous amounts of data, hence the participation of ISM Canada (an IBM company) based out of Regina, to develop the public usability and access to the model.

“ISM’s advanced data analytics and visualization tools will be used to interpret output from the HGS models, and the simulations will be run on an IBM cloud-based high-performance computing platform,” says Travis F o rag e & G ra s s l a n d G u i d e

2017

Juffinger, a consultant with ISM. “The combination of advanced data management technology provided by IBM and state-of-the-art water resources simulation science provided by HGS will result in a decision support tool for the Assiniboine River Basin that is best-in-class at a global level.”

Marketing to users

The next step is marketing of the Aquanty model licence to users. A key feature is the collaboration it has already received from the MFGA project steering committee, made up of members of potential user groups.

The members are kept up to speed on the project’s progress via regular meetings and report back to their respective organizations.

A key ally is the Assiniboine River Basin Initiative (ARBI), made up of representatives of the three jurisdictions through which the river flows.

ARBI chair Dr. Allan Preston serves as co-chair on the project management team and steering committee.

As the project proponent, MFGA will hold one of two licences — AAFC’s AgriRisk Inititiatives is the other — and will co-ordinate user groups that purchase the rights to use the model. MFGA wants to make the licence accessible to as many groups as possible and is working on a fee schedule based on use potential and agency size. Koslowsky says that as a non-profit producer-led group, MFGA’s interests are in making the decision support tool as widely available as possible.

“We are farmers and producers and we know how we all feel about user fees,” says Koslowsky.

He says the Aquanty model can help farmers decide how to prepare their own land for drought and flood and where to plant forages. But “where the model thrives is in the aggregate groups of farmers who bring forward their wants and wishes to conservation districts, water stewardship groups or rural municipalities.”

Koslowsky sees the further potential to have these groups bundle their

2017

F o r a g e & G r a s s l a n d g u id e

interests and approach other departments and agencies on a unified front. The bigger the agency, he says, the more land and the more citizens they represent.

“When the model is being run with the largest land base and greatest benefit to the populace as a foundation, this is where the model can shine the brightest and provide the most impactful scenarios for the ARB,” says Koslowsky.

“We are not trying to replace annual cropping by any stretch. But these operations also flood and need water too. This model represents the common ground we’ve all been

searching for as a solution from our ag lands. We are a producer-led group bringing a solution to producers provided by producers.”

Funding for the MFGA’s Aquanty Project is chiefly provided by an Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada AgriRisk Initiatives (ARI) Program — Research and Development Stream funding commitment of $1,145,800 and Manitoba Agriculture’s commitment of $180,000 to the twoyear project. The remainder of the $1,732,300 total project funding will be provided by partners and supporters via a combination of in-kind and cash contributions. n

MFGA AQUANTY PROJECT STEERING COMMITTEE • Keystone Agricultural Producers (KAP) • Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan (APAS) • Manitoba Beef Producers (MBP) • Manitoba Conservation Districts Association (MCDA) • Upper Assiniboine River Conservation District (UARCD) • Brandon University (BU) • Assiniboine Community College (ACC) Manitoba Forage and Grassland president Dave Koslowsky, seen here with his wife Rhonda on their farm near Killarney, Man., says the project can provide benefits for both rural and urban residents, both of whom have had severe flooding in recent years.

Photo credit: D. Derlago/MFGA Aquanty project

“When it comes to flood and drought preparations, we want to slow it, hold it or store it and the soil and grasses play a direct role in all those happening…”

— Henry Nelson, Aquanty project manager

• Manitoba Sustainable Development • Manitoba Infrastructure • Manitoba Agriculture • City of Minot, North Dakota • Town of Virden, Manitoba • Aquanty Inc. • ISM Canada — an IBM Company • Assiniboine River Basin Initiative (ARBI) • Manitoba Forage and Grassland Association (MFGA)

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A special supplement brought to you by Canadian Forage and Grassland Association

New coldtolerant clovers The first arrivals are cover crops, but forages are on their way

By Ralph Pearce, CG Production Editor

W

hen it comes to trying something new, it’s common for growers who rely on their forages to stick with what works. That’s understandable, given the demands for consistency, especially by dairy producers. Yet standing still is rarely a path to success on the farm.

Now, in spite of growing concerns surrounding climate change, one seed company is expanding its offering of cold-tolerant clover varieties in the U.S. and Canada.

Grassland Oregon, a seed company based in Salem, Oregon, has launched FIXatioN Balansa and Frosty Berseem clovers, making them available to producers in Canada. Both varieties are capable of withstanding temperatures as cold as -26 C and -5 C (without snow cover).

At present, the primary focus is on using them for cover crops but eventually the plan is to have them available as forage varieties.

FIXatioN Balansa and Frosty Berseem have been in the breeding pipeline for more than 10 years with evaluations starting in 2004. According to Don Baune, co-founder of Grassland Oregon and partner in sales for North America and Canada, the process began after noticing that some Berseem and Balansa plants survived the cold winter conditions in Oregon.

Initially, the research team was simply testing 800 to 900 different selections of the two varieties, when more than 99 per cent died that winter. But the team became intrigued and encouraged by the survivors and began the selection and screening process, with the goal of developing tolerance to colder temperatures.

“A lot of times when you start to breed into those things, as one trait is developing, you’ll lose something from a variety,” says Baune. “You’re going to get cold tolerance but you might lose disease resistance, or a lot of times when you develop these things, you start to lose yield.”

By the fall of 2014, however, Grassland Oregon breeders were making their selections. Since then, the company has been involved in the patenting process, as well as choosing three Canadian companies through which they can market their varieties, first as cover crops and then as forage crops.

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One of two new cold-tolerant clovers, FIXatioN Balansa will come into Canada as a cover first, then as a forage. Photo courtesy of Grassland Oregon

Riding the wave

Marketing the varieties as cover crops is helpful as it’s building on the growing recognition of soil health as a vital component to improved production. Growers, extension personnel and researchers all see the need for building organic matter, improving water-holding capacity and reducing the impacts of compaction. And use of cover crops is one way of accomplishing all three of these goals.

Scott Bowman, general manager of Speare Seeds, one of the Canadian companies chosen by Grassland Oregon, echoes many of Baune’s statements concerning the soil health angle that goes with cover crops. He acknowledges that the subject of cover crops has become a huge issue, and that growers are showing greater interest, not just in one or two types of covers, but multi-blends.

“We were able to get our hands on some seed for these two varieties for this year, and we continue to bring in more,” says Bowman, who’s based at the company head office in Harriston, Ont. “This is our first real exposure to these as cover crops for our growers, so it’s still pretty new to us. We’re trying to have Don educate us, and then we’re trying to educate our growers and learn from their success stories, and that will take place later into this fall and even into next spring.”

Baune has heard from several farmers who have been very pleased with Frosty Berseem’s and FIXatioN Balansa’s  Forage & Grassland Guide

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Continued from page 38 adaptability as cover crops, and he has corresponded with one grower who said they did better on wetter ground because of their ability to withstand lower temperatures. Such traits suggest the varieties could be popular candidates for a feed crop as well.

Forage forth

“We haven’t quite got all of the ‘Xs’ and ‘Os’ filled out with it, to be using them as a forage, under Canadian regulations, although they’re extremely good forage,” Bowman says. “They have excellent palatability and digestibility, and they’re ideal because of their nutrient values and huge yield potentials. We’ve had crude protein range — in our tests in the U.S. — anywhere from 22 to 28 per cent with a relative feed value ranging somewhere around 277, so they’re going to make excellent forage when they become available.”

In some regions in Oregon, the company says it has seen as high as 10,000 lbs. of extremely high-quality dry matter from a single cutting.

On the NDF and ADF values, the two have tested out at 25.4 and 17.1, respectively, lower than typical values for alfalfa (around 36 and 30).

But one other advantage of Berseem and Balansa is their ability to drive through plow pans and break the compaction cycle. Both varieties send a tap root more than 30 inches deep before winter and into early spring as a crop comes out of dormancy.

“Its aggressive nature below ground during the off-season breaks up that hard pan, and creates large channels for improving water infiltration and opens airways into the soil, which also helps the microbial growth into the soil,” says Baune. “It’s also excellent for mining nutrients deep down in the soil and bringing them back up into the plant, so that when you’re terminating it (as a cover) it’s all right there and breaks down very quickly for the subsequent crop.”

Additional benefits Baune has seen the cold clovers used as a cover crop for vineyards as well, where some producers have seeded

“It’s also excellent for mining nutrients deep down in the soil and bringing them back up into the plant.”

— Don Baune, Grassland Oregon

Frosty Berseem, can help with compaction issues and mine N from deeper in the soil.

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Photo courtesy of Grassland Oregon

the runways with triticale, oats or phacelia, in an effort to loosen the soils. Baune spoke to one operator who initially expressed doubt about either variety, wondering about how it might grow under the vines. But when he saw a penetrometer knife through the soil, he told Baune that he’d figure out a way to make it work.

There’s also a fertility advantage with these clovers. With the deep tap root, Baune says growers are seeing more of a short-term payoff planting into their cover crops. Using triticale or fall rye, they might get a little less compaction or a spot in a field where they were mining more of the nitrogen and returning it to the surface.

“In some of our areas, we’ve been able to produce up to 300 lbs. of N per acre the following year,” adds Baune. “Farmers are starting to see this and it’s adding up a little bit faster with these annual clovers before we released them four years ago.”

Another advantage of the two varieties is in the newly emerging trend of no-till forage production. Baune agrees that farmers can broadcast their seed — with an inoculum — during that mid-August to mid-September planting window, or it can be seeded within that same time frame.

With its current registration as a cover, Bowman also believes cold clover has a place as a no-till option.

“What we’re finding is that farmers want to move to a no-till situation, and they’re trying to figure out — when it comes to a cover crop — what is the best cover crop that they’re going to be able to grow?” says Bowman. “And the issue with cover crops that are designed to overwinter is that as the springtime temperatures rise, those fields sometimes become tough to no till into.”

Bowman doesn’t anticipate any issue with Frosty Berseem or FIXatioN Balansa, although he concedes that working with cover crops can create some reluctance in growers: they may not be set up for such a move using their current farm practices or equipment. n Forage & Grassland Guide

2017

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 vet aDvi c e

Preg-Checking Scorecards

P

regnancy checking remains one of the most underutilized management tools in the cow-calf business. Overlooking the chance to gather herd information as cows come off pasture in the fall is a missed opportunity for the cow-calf producer. A trip through the chute in fall should be much more than determining which cows to keep and which ones to cull based on their pregnancy status. There is a story to tell in every herd by gathering and analyzing fairly fundamental information gathered chute-side. Your veterinarian can be a big help in doing this.

To make matters easier, there are simple applications, now downloadable onto cell phones, that cipher information as it is entered. As the last cow leaves the chute, the veterinarian and rancher can tally the scorecard over pizza and coffee.

On average, less than 20 per cent of producers routinely preg-check cows after grazing season. The figure climbs to 70 per cent for herds over 200 head, representing roughly 60 per cent of the cow herd (U.S. figures). Raw economics makes it hard to dispute whether pregnancy checking pays. It’s when an open cow eats $400 to $500 worth of winter feed (based on feed supply) will go back out to pasture and consume $150 worth of grass that should have gone to a cow nursing a calf to accrue $600 to $700 of cost for the year without contributing to the bottom line.

Handling cows through a chute in the fall is an opportunity to check for the nine main reasons cows are culled: 1. Age or bad teeth 2. Pregnancy status (open or aborted) 3. Temperament 4. Other reproductive problems 5. Economics (drought, herd reduction, market conditions) 6. Producing poor calves 7. Physical unsoundness 8. Udder problems 9. Bad eyes Total body energy reserves have a great impact on overall reproductive performance. Most importantly, if cows are thin at calving, reproductive performance in the subsequent breeding season will suffer. Maintaining a 365-day calving interval,

42

requires maintaining cows at a BCS of 2.5 to three (Canada). Anything less and you lose ground. In that fifty per cent of fetal growth occurs during the last 60 days of pregnancy, inadequate protein and/or energy intake by the dam during this period is a primary cause of poor calf health. The lack of protein during the last trimester of pregnancy has been proven to be the primary predisposing factor for weak calves at birth. Cows need to be either maintaining or gaining BCS the last 60 days of pregnancy. If they’re going backward, the potential calf health is diminished.

In September 2016, Kansas State Diagnostic and Analytical Services released a new mobile app developed by Kansas State University’s Beef Cattle Institute. Pregnancy Analytics allows producers and veterinarians to manage pregnancy diagnosis information better. Designed to serve as an instant data collection and analysis tool, the app will facilitate the transformation of data into actionable information for individual herds.

The app accepts information like: • Pasture ID/herd name • Breed • Cow ID • Age • Body condition score • Number of days bred From this information, projected calving dates are generated and graphs created to display the distribution of the producer’s next calving season.

Another useful app is South Dakota State University’s Extension Beef Management and Reproduction Score Card.

Basic information at preg-checking time allows: • Earlier identification of open females.

• Better management of opens and culls — should open/cull cows be sold right away or is their profit in feeding them until higher prices return in the spring (March – April).

• Plan calving and pre-vaccination protocols and labour needs.

• Value-added marketing: Utilize pregnancy results to strategically market cows/calves.

Examples: sell bred females by calving date, sell ET, AI, or gender-specific pregnancies.

• Set herd goals: By days 21, 42 and 63 of the

C at t l e m e n · O c t o b e r 2 , 2 0 1 7

breeding season (three cycles) have 61, 85 and 94 per cent of cows bred, respectively.

By day 30 of the calving season, have 70 per cent of cows calved.

• Herd management: Pregnancy detection is one of the best investments one can make for the cow herd as it allows cow-calf producers to increase reproductive efficiency and profitability of their operation.

By knowing the overall season pregnancy rate, they can identity where problems might have occurred during the breeding season and discuss these issues with their herd veterinarian. By identifying early calving cows, a more profitable herd can be designed as heifer calves born earlier in the season have greater pregnancy rates and longevity in the herd (Funston et al., 2011). In addition, steer progeny also benefit from being born during the first 21 days. Opens, culls and late-calving cows are best removed from the herd as a starting point to save forage if dry conditions continue through the fall.

• Pregnancy rate (percentage): Pregnancy checking can determine the overall fertility of the cow herd. If pregnancy rate is lower than desired, areas such as type of breeding program and bull-to-cow ratio should be analyzed to pinpoint where adjustments are needed. Also, evaluate pregnancy rates by sorting cows into age groups to see if a certain age group is falling out of the herd, such as two-year-olds or old cows.

• Pregnancy distribution (number of cows that became pregnant during days 1-21 of the breeding season, days 22-42, days 43-63, days 64-84, and 85 or more days after the start of the breeding season): Analyzing pregnancy distribution can be used as a guide to prepare for the calving season. Not only can the barn be ready by the time the first calf hits the ground, but you can also determine when the majority of the calves will be born, and adjust labour and feed resources accordingly. c Dr. Ron Clarke prepares this column on behalf of the Western Canadian Association of Bovine Practitioners. Suggestions for future articles can be sent to Canadian Cattlemen (gren@ fbcpublishing.com) or WCABP (info@wcabp.com).

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

 prime cuts

By Steve Kay

A SALUTORY SUMMER SLIDE

I

t sure was a salutary summer for U.S. cattle feeders who hadn’t hedged their cattle. Fed cattle prices plunged more than US$14 per cwt live from the third week of July to the end of August. Yet the market after that was still struggling to find a bottom.

That’s certainly not how anyone expected the market to behave. Prices had come off their highs for the year in early May and declined as expected to US$119.33 per cwt live or US$198.74 per cwt dressed the week ending July 23. Prices eased the next three weeks (to just over US$115 live) but many participants felt the low was in at that level.

Markets, though, can confound both bulls and bears.

Prices kept falling and the averages the last week of August were US$104.66 live and US$165.71 dressed.

This column was written the first week of September. But the market’s direction throughout the month seemed to be as unclear as it had been in the two prior months.

How could prices drop so much when cattle feeders had continued to market cattle aggressively to keep their market-ready supplies more than manageable? This showed up in the number of cattle on feed 150 days or more at the start of each month. Analysts calculated that the number on August 1 was 74 per cent of a year earlier.

The September 1 number was 82 per cent of a year earlier while the October 1 number was down 10 per cent.

These numbers suggested that cattle feeders were extremely current in their marketings and could have held out for higher money once prices reached the US$115 per cwt level. Markets, though, don’t operate just on the fundamentals. They also operate on expectation and psychology.

Live cattle futures had remained at a deep discount to cash prices throughout July and August. With up to

three-quarters of all U.S. cattle-on-feed hedged, their owners took advantage of the extremely positive basis between cash and futures prices and kept selling cattle aggressively at lower and lower prices because they were still making money on their cattle.

This, though, was devastating to those with unhedged cattle as they saw their profit margins evaporate. The last week of August was the first time that most cattle sold at or below their break-even of US$102-103 per cwt live. Break-evens in September increased to more than US$108 per cwt. October’s are expected to be around US$113, November’s at US$116 and December’s at US$118. This meant most cattle feeders saw red ink in September unless the cash market rallied sharply and we will see even more red ink in the fourth quarter.

Another factor in the market’s decline is that cattle feeders gave up any leverage over packers by accepting lower prices. Wholesale beef prices had their own deep decline in July and August. But fed beef processors kept harvesting well over 500,000 steers and heifers per week because cattle costs kept going down even faster than boxed beef prices.

Packers were also able to sell the additional beef they were producing because boxed beef prices fully restored retailers’ beef margins. This allowed retailers to feature beef more aggressively in August and lower their everyday prices slightly. This helped packers sell the most beef (cuts, grinds and trim) in the third week of August since the last week of January 2015. Labour Day retail beef sales were better than last year because of the aggressive features. This trend was expected to continue through September into October. The fortunes of the beef industry thus continued to hang on consumers’ appetite for beef. c

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C at t l e m e n · O c t o b e r 2 , 2 0 1 7

43

 CCA repo rts

By Dan Darling

Keeping tabs on nafta

T

he Canadian Cattlemen’s Association (CCA) attended the second round of North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) trade talks in Mexico City September 1-5. CCA executive vice-president Dennis Laycraft participated to ensure the industry’s key objectives were heard. In addition to maintaining NAFTA’s terms of trade for beef, the CCA seeks to improve the flow of trade for beef and cattle through greater regulatory alignment.

Addressing regulatory co-operation issues is key to eliminating or mitigating regulatory impediments to trade. One area of interest here is meat inspection at the border. For instance, although Canada and the U.S. consider each other’s meat inspection systems equivalent, Canadian beef sent to the U.S. faces greater regulatory burdens than U.S. beef exported to Canada. Specifically, after clearing U.S. customs, Canadian beef is diverted to an inspection house for a second inspection after it has already been inspected in Canada. Such re-inspections not only add cost, but denigrate product safety by breaking the cold chain under which imported product moves.

To mitigate the re-inspection issue, the CCA suggests a pre-clearance approach to meat inspection with any additional oversight at the originating federally inspected facility. The CCA proposes a NAFTA renegotiation include a regulatory co-operation chapter in which a mutual recognition principle that goods produced in or imported into one NAFTA country that may be lawfully sold in that country, be permitted to be sold in the other NAFTA countries without meeting any additional compliance requirements.

CCA was in Washington, D.C., for the first round of talks and will participate in talks planned for Canada in September, and Washington in October. The U.S. wishes to have the talks concluded by year’s end, ahead of Mexico’s presidential vote in 2018 and U.S. midterm elections that fall.

Another area of intense focus for the CCA are the proposed changes to the taxation of private corporations announced by the Government of Canada purportedly to close loopholes aimed at the wealthy. However, many family farms are also private corporations and, if implemented, the proposed tax changes will have a significant negative impact on cattle producers and farm families across Canada.

The most notable areas of change for private corporations — including family farms — are income sprinkling, passive income in a corporation and capital gains.

The changes would see small business owners such as ranchers restricted from sharing income with family members within the farm corporation. Additionally, the proposed changes could limit certain types of saving within a small business, putting cattle producers at more risk during volatile economic conditions and reducing their ability to invest in innovative practices and growing their business in the future.

44

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Changes to capital gains rules will also make it more problematic for cattle producers and farmers to transfer the operation to the next generation. The added complexity created by these proposed tax changes could undoubtedly make it harder to keep multigenerational farms within the family and make succession planning increasingly difficult.

The CCA is working to ensure lawmakers in Ottawa are aware of cattle producers’ concerns about the proposed tax changes and stand ready to work with the federal government to examine whether changes are needed and offer solutions. The CCA would like to think these unfair consequences for farm families are an unintended outcome of the proposed tax changes; the Barton Report, a set of recommendations from the Government of Canada’s Advisory Council on Economic Growth, highlighted agriculture as a primary industry for growth and exports for Canada, with an objective to increase agricultural exports to at least $75 billion annually by 2025.

We have also joined forces with more than 30 organizations representing small business under the Coalition for Small Business Tax Fairness. Collectively, the group is recommending that the Government of Canada take these proposed changes off the table and launch meaningful consultations with the business community to address any shortcomings in tax policy without unfairly targeting independent businesses.

In September, the unprecedented wildfire situation in B.C. continued and despite some containment on some fires, the situation was far from under control. Indeed, the fires may not be truly out until next spring or summer. Most of land lost to fire is what B.C. cattle producers depend on for grazing and raising their herds.

We applaud the Governments of Canada and British Columbia for their concerted effort to quickly provide up to $20 million in AgriRecovery assistance. Assistance for affected ranchers and farmers includes feed costs and transportation to feed livestock through the recovery period, to re-establish safe winter feeding facilities and general cleanup, and up to 70 per cent of the market value of breeding animals for mortality. Assistance is also earmarked for expenses associated with veterinary mustering, transportation and rental of temporary production facilities, labour costs to repair private fences and other critical infrastructure not covered by insurance.

This information will help affected producers make the necessary management decisions and go a long way in alleviating the huge emotional and mental toll on them.

AgriRecovery does not cover income losses, however, and there will be a huge impact in loss of growth as well as ability for affected B.C. producers to market their animals per usual. The CCA continues to work closely with B.C. Cattlemen’s Association on this evolving situation.

Until next time. c

Dan Darling is president of the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

 TH E IN DUST RY

NewsRoundup Feed

Fine-tuning forage corn agronomics

The first year of a three-year corn silage study in Saskatchewan showed a trend toward yield differences between two seed brands across the province’s corn heat unit (CHU) zones.

“One brand out-yielded the other in short-season zones and the other brand had the best yields in the longer-season zones,” says Dr. Joy Agnew, project manager with the Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute at Humboldt.

This project is reviewing nitrogen application rates and taking a closer look at seeding rates at two sites in each of three distinct CHU zones from Melfort in the north to Redvers in the south. The Saskatchewan

map of average CHUs for silage production shows that the Redvers area receives 24002500 CHU from May 15 to the first killing frost (-3 C), whereas, Melfort averages 2100-2200.

DuPont Pioneer and Monsanto selected a hybrid for the short-season (northern) sites and a hybrid for the long-season (southern) sites. This year, each seed supplier provided a short-season, mid-season, and long-season hybrid.

The typical seeding rate of 100,000 seeds per hectare is being compared to a low seeding rate of 75,000 seeds per hectare and a high seeding rate of 125,000 seeds per hectare on 30-inch row spacings with a SeedHawk corn planter, giving in-row plant spacings of 10, seven and four inches.

“There was no yield difference between the low- and mid-seeding rate, but there was a trend to higher yield at the high rate compared to the medium rate. It may make sense to go with a higher rate if your goal is to get yield,” Agnew suggests.

Nitrogen was applied at low, mid- and high rates of 100, 150 and 200 pounds actual N per acre, respectively. As expected, more nitrogen produced more yield; however, going to the high rate did not result in significantly more yield than the mid-rate.

The final report will also include feed quality results and a detailed economic analysis of production costs in the various CHU zones to help beef producers decide Continued on page 46

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Table 2. P rojected Loss/Gain Compared to No Preg-check and Cull in Spring ($/head) Cow price fall low

Continued from page 45

on seed choices and agronomic practices to make the most of their investment in hybrid corn seed and fertilizer for silage corn.

research

The economics of preg-checking

By Beef Cattle Research Council

The major economic benefit of preg-checking is the money saved by not wintering open cows. However, it has been noted that preg-checking is not always worthwhile, as the increased revenue due to higher prices for cows in the spring and the additional weights put on in the winter could more than offset winter feeding costs.

Table 1. Overwintering Systems Cost of production ($/day/head)

Average daily gain (lbs.)

$1.78

1.44

Swathed barley

$1.22

0.58

Bale grazing

$0.98

0.88

Standing corn grazing

$1.78

1.17

Drylot

Drylot

Swathed Barley

$1.00

-26.00

-3.54

-19.47

3.00

-27.11

-4.64

-21.78

0.68

-23.83

-3.51

-17.96

2.36

-25.37

-5.05

-19.82

0.50

$0.90

-21.65

-3.47

-16.46

1.71

-23.63

-5.46

-17.85

0.32

$0.85

-19.47

-3.44

-14.95

1.07

-21.89

-5.86

-15.88

0.14

The economics of preg-checking depends on the cull cow market price, the management system employed by the producer, feed and overhead costs, and veterinary costs. As market dynamics change every year, it is important to consider the current market situation when making preg-checking decisions.

Alberta cow prices experienced an impressive rally in the first half of 2017 but the seasonal decline has been sharp since June. Cow prices are under pressure this summer due to cattle supplies, dry pasture conditions in southern Alberta and Saskatchewan, and low exports to the U.S. On the other hand, the sharp decline in beef imports from Australia could result in stronger demand for domestic lean trim products and support cow prices this fall.

Using the Beef Cattle Research Council’s (BCRC) Economics of Pregnancy Testing Beef Cattle Model, the potential economic

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gain or loss can be estimated for the following three options: • Preg-checking and culling cows in the fall, • Preg-checking and feeding open cows separately, or • Not preg-checking and feeding cows over winter under different overwintering management systems and price scenarios.

Basic cow herd information and fall cull cow prices are needed for the calculation.

The 2005-14 cull cow price data used in the model has been updated to the current 10-year (2007-16) average for this analysis.

The analysis assumes a 160-day overwinter feeding period and a 7.7 per cent herd open rate. The assumptions on cost and average daily gain (ADG) for the overwintering systems are shown in Table 1. For the separate feeding scenario, the cost of production is assumed at $1.90/cow/day, ADG of 1.6 lbs., and a 140-day feeding period.

Regarding cow prices this fall, cow supplies typically trend larger moving into fall, and bottom in the fourth quarter. The decline from summer peak to the fall low over the last five years has averaged 15 per cent and implies cow prices around $95/ cwt this fall. Given the big swing in prices this year, the seasonal decline could be steeper. A 20 per cent drop would bring prices to $90/cwt around the five-year average low, and a 25 per cent decline would bring prices closer to the 2016 low of $85/ cwt. Over the past five years, the seasonal decline had ranged from 16-33 per cent, with 2014 being the only exception as prices traded counter-seasonally higher in the fall.

Cow prices have increased from November to March in nine out of the past ten years (2007-16), with the exception being 2015.

The percentage increase ranged from 14 to 55 per cent with an average of 27 per cent.

Based on the long-term price seasonality and the above assumptions, the model generally projects economic losses for the “preg-check and cull in the fall” option compared to the “no preg-check and cull in spring” option. For the swathed barley and

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NEWS ROUNDUP

standing corn grazing winter management scenarios, the model projects economic gains for the “preg-check and feed separately� option compared to the “no pregcheck and cull in spring� option Higher cull cow prices favour not pregchecking and culling in spring over pregchecking and culling in the fall as every additional pound will be worth more. It should be noted that the projections above are based on a 27 per cent price increase from November to March. If cow prices are flat during this fall to spring 2018, preg-checking and culling early could be worthwhile. Reducing the assumption on November-March price increase to five per cent, the preg-checking and culling in the fall option will be worthwhile in most price scenarios for the drylot, swath barley and standing corn grazing winter management systems (Table 3).

The above scenarios show that feeding cull cows separately provides the greatest economic benefit this year for the swathed barley and standing corn grazing management systems. The gains are driven by the higher price in the spring, ADG of the separate feeding group, and the length of the

Table 3. Projected loss/gain of ‘preg-check and cull in fall’ versus ‘no preg-check and cull in spring’ with assumption changed to five per cent increase in cow prices from November to March Cow price fall low

Drylot ($/head)

Swathed barley ($/head)

Bale grazing ($/head)

Standing corn grazing ($/head)

$1.00

-0.34

3.88

-2.95

3.15

$0.95

0.56

4.22

-2.42

3.87

$0.90

1.45

4.55

-1.89

4.59

$0.85

2.35

4.89

-1.35

5.31

Table 4. Projected Loss/Gain of Preg-check and Feed Separately versus No Preg-check and Cull in Spring. Changed Assumption to a 90-day feeding period and 1.8 lbs. ADG Cow price fall low

Drylot ($/head)

Swathed barley ($/head)

Bale grazing ($/head)

Standing corn grazing ($/head)

$1.00

-21.23

-14.70

-22.34

-17.01 -15.94

$0.95

-19.95

-14.09

-21.50

$0.90

-18.67

-13.48

-20.65

-14.87

$0.85

-17.39

-12.88

-19.81

-13.80

feeding period. Changing these assumptions could result in a different conclusion. For example, if the separate feeding period was shortened to 90 days, even with an increased ADG to 1.8 lbs., the separate feeding option is projected to result in economic losses compared to the no preg-

check option in all scenarios (Table 4), as the increased revenues from the additional weight gain were not large enough to offset the additional costs.

The BCRC’s Advanced Economics of Continued on page 48

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Join us for two great conferences in one!

News Roundup Continued from page 47

Pregnancy Testing Beef Cattle Model provides the flexibility of entering your own overwintering costs, ADG, length of winter feeding period and other variables. To test it out visit the decision making tools section of the BCRC website at www.beefresearch.ca.

December 5-7, 2017 Edmonton, AB Featuring: Gabe Brown, Ray Archuleta, Jim Gerrish, Odette Menard, Efren Cazares, Dr. J.C. Cahill, Dr. Allen Williams, Tim Hardman, Dr. Yamily Zavala, Dr. Richard Teague, Dr. Alan Iwaasa, David Brandt and more!

For the agenda & registration info visit:

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Community

BI helps get cattle out of the fire zone

Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health has purchased a portable cattle handling system to help ranchers affected by the ongoing wildfires in British Columbia’s interior.

The equipment includes a tub and chute on wheels and freestanding range panels, six feet high and 24 feet long, heavy enough to handle range cattle, says Maury Grant, Boehringer Ingelheim’s rep in British Columbia. He and Miles Crandall, the company’s producer liaison at Ponoka, Alta., got the ball rolling on this project as a way to help ranchers gather their cattle for processing or shipping this fall and thank TEAM Auctions for also helping out with the venture.

“This is a stop-gap measure to give ranchers time to rebuild proper facilities,” says Grant, who is working with ranchers to co-

Answer our survey — and have a go at winning one of our caps We have a goal to be the best beef cattle magazine in the business. But we need your help. If you could just fill in this survey and return it to me, you would be helping us set the future editorial direction for Canadian Cattlemen.

All you have to do is tell me what you like about the magazine, and what you don’t like. There’s also some space for you to tell us what you would like to see in future issues.

ClIp And EnCloSE youR MAIlIng lABEl. Each month, we will draw one name from all the surveys sent in and send that person a Cattlemen cap. It could be you!

We’d appreciate it if you could tell us a little about yourself. It makes it easier for us to keep your main interests in focus  I’m ranching or farming Enterprise Total beef cattle Yearlings on feed/pasture Registered cows Fed cattle (sold yearly) Commercial cows Horses Calves on feed/pasture Other livestock

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If not an owner/operator of a farm, are you:

 In agribusiness (bank, elevator, ag supplies, etc.)  Other (please specify)______________________ My approximate age is:  a) Under 35  b) 36 to 44  d) 55 to 64  e) 65 or over

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Regular Columns Straight from the Hip Prime Cuts CCA Reports

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Justin Grier (l) and Jordan Grier (r) with their grandpa, Dean Miller, at Chilco Ranch, Hanceville, B.C. Photo supplied by Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health

ordinate moves from ranch to ranch. There’s no cost to borrow the system other than moving it on to the next place.

At the end of August, the system was in use for the first time at the Chilco Ranch near Hanceville, west of Williams Lake.

The Williams Lake and Clinton areas have been the hardest hit, Grant says, but there’s no telling how many ranches and cattle have been or will be affected because wildfires are still burning.

As of September 2, the B.C. government reported 161 fires burning in the province. Since the April 1 start to this year’s fire season, 1,189 fires have burned across nearly 1.1 million hectares, or 11,000 square kilometres.

Many “fires of note” (those that threaten public safety or are highly visible) since early July have been in prime cattle country throughout the Cariboo (Williams Lake region) and Kamloops region and lately in the southeast district.

Grant says some ranches have been hit more than once when the initial fire blazed through so fast that it left fuel behind to feed a turnaround burn. Barns and corrals were the first to go up in flames because all the effort had to go into saving homes. Some producers eventually lost everything.

“The reality of all that’s been lost is really just settling in as ranchers get out on the range to further assess damages,” Grant adds.

Fences and pens taken for granted because they’ve been there for generations were quite adequate with repairs made as needed. Now they have to be replaced.

Grass is gone for the season due to continuing hot, dry conditions and some ranchers have been feeding their winter hay supplies. Some have lost stackyards, too.

There’s no telling when people will get a clear breath of relief because of dry thunderstorms with lightning strikes that ignite new fires. These fires can get into roots and peaty areas to smolder underground only to flare up miles away or again next spring.

If the Fort McMurray, Alta. wildfire is any indication, it could be a year or more before some of the B.C. wildfires can be officially declared dead. That fire started May 1, 2016, burning nearly 6,000 square kilometres and was deemed extinguished on August 2 this year. Wildfires are officially out when heat coming from the ground is no longer detected.

For questions about how to book the handling system call Maury Grant at 250-307-0849.

Canadian Red Angus Promotion Society 45th Annual

Canadian RED ROUND UP Show and Sale, October 20 & 21 2017 at The Westerner Park, Red Deer, AB

Come and see some of Canada’s BEST Red Angus Heifers and Bulls!!

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Continued on page 50 www.canadiancattlemen.ca

C at t l e m e n · O c t o b e r 2 , 2 0 1 7

49

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research

Technology Access Centre chalks up its first year

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The Technology Access Centre (TAC) for Livestock Production at Olds College, Olds, Alta., has moved from a funding announcement little more than a year ago to a full-fledged service under the umbrella of the college’s applied research arm, the Centre for Innovation.

TAC was established with a National Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) grant under the council’s College and Community Innovation Program with the aim of connecting researchers and industry to help guide research and to take discoveries from the labs to commercial applications in the working world.

As Canada’s only TAC for Livestock Production, the Olds College TAC programs and services are available to producers and industry across the country.

“Our goal is to support research and development for the beef and sheep industries,” says Olds College TAC manager

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Shannon Argent. “We’re here to help producers, researchers, and small- to medium-agriculture enterprises gain access to appliedresearch experts and testing facilities to improve, test, and validate new technology and products.”

TAC has a strong focus on extension activities to put new technologies into producers’ hands. This involves traditional activities including webinars, hands-on training and seminars at the college, as well as new types of programming such as the project to offer grants and consultations for producers on the use of Delta Genomics’ new EnVigour HX test for parentage and breed composition analyses (see related story this issue).

Integrating students with TAC projects gives them an opportunity to learn about and work with new technologies.

The TAC team has access to Olds College’s established livestock and beef facilities and labs to support an array of applied research services. One example is the ongoing residual-feedintake testing with GrowSafe Systems feeders. The Canadian Hereford Association has bulls from Alberta and British Columbia on test and bulls from individual producers are scheduled to be tested this winter.

TAC is also working on feed and new hardware projects that address production efficiency, animal health and welfare issues, and environmental sustainability.

The Olds College TAC for Livestock Production joins TACs for dairy cattle, organic production and honey production as the only agriculture-related TACs. The grant of $325,000 per year for five years to support core operations is renewable after five successful years. c

3IN1FEEDERS limit intake. After 5 minutes of licking, stock can no longer obtain feed with their dry tongue. This results in stock consuming small amounts of supplement 10-15 times/day.

The benefit of the “little and often” system means that the microflora in the rumen can operate to its full potential - the supplement builds the microbial populations and then they can digest the feed contents more thoroughly.

Trials have shown that supplementing 2lb/day of grain through 3IN1FEEDERS reduces pasture intake by 6lb/day. This makes your pasture last much longer and prevents you having to off load stock when prices are depressed.

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 NEWS ABOUT YOU

By Mike Millar

PurelyPurebred n During the 2017 Canadian Simmental Association (CSA) National Convention, held August 10-13 in Fredericton, N.B., members attended a Simmental Innovations Symposium featuring presentations

by CSA breed improvement consultant Sean McGrath, Maritime Beef Council general manger Ellen Crane and CSA general manager Bruce Holmquist.

Frank Robblee of Crapaud, P.E.I. was elected to the board of directors replacing the retiring Kelly Ashworth during the CSA annual meeting. Lee McMillen of Carievale, Sask., serves a second year as president following his re-election for a second year term on the board. Also reelected was second vice-president Blair McRae of Brandon, Man., joining first vice-president Garth Rancier, Killam, Alta.; Dan Skeels, Rimbey Alta.; Francis Gagnon, Cheneville, Que.; Roger Deeg, Strathmore, Alta.; Marlin LeBlanc, Estevan, Sask.; and Larry Barkley, Ingleside, Ont., on the 2017-18 board.

At the annual convention banquet Joe and Doreen Steeves of New Brunswick, Don Godfrey and family of Prince Edward Island and Melvern Simmentals of Nova Scotia were inducted into the CSA Hall of Fame.

“It’s an exciting time to be part of the Simmental breed as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of Simmental in Canada” stated CSA president Lee McMillen. “We look forward to the presence of the Simmental breed growing as we continue to work at supplying superior Simmental genetics to the Canadian beef industry.” n The 2017 Young Canadian Simmental Association’s (YCSA) National Classic in Fredericton, N.B., was well attended by YCSA members from across Canada and the U.S. As part of the YCSA service pro­ ject for 2017, the YCSA partnered with the Fredericton Community Kitchen to help provide meals to those in need.

At the 2017 National YCSA show, the Friends of Canadian Simmental Foundation presented a cheque for $12,500 from its annual auction proceeds to the youth association to fund ongoing youth activities.

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C at t l e m e n · O c t o b e r 2 , 2 0 1 7

Suggestions are always welcome. My phone number is 306-251-0011 Email: mike.millar@ fbcpublishing.com

The 2017-18 Salers Association of Canada board of directors are (l to r): Peter Watkins (treasurer); Werner Grundke (vice-president); Michael Topp (director), Travis Depalme (director), Gar Williams (president). Missing: Jacob Morin (director). For more information go to www.salerscanada.com.

n The Salers Association of Canada held its annual general meeting at the Coast Lethbridge Hotel in Lethbridge, Alta. earlier this summer, featuring guest speaker Michelle Miller, the CEO of Delta Genomics, a bus tour and a social gathering. Gar Williams of Borden, Sask., was elected president of the association joining vice-president, Werner Grundke of Alberta Beach, Alta., and treasurer Peter Watkins of Calgary on the executive. The remaining directors are: Michael Topp of Darwell, Alta; Travis Depalme of Red Deer County, Alta.; and Jacob Morin of St. Felix de Kingsey, Que. n The October 15 deadline for this year’s Simmental Federation of Americas Conference during Canadian Western Agribition November 20-25, 2017 is fast approaching. In conjunction with this event, Agribition will also play host to the Canadian National Simmental Show, and the CSA’s 50th anniversary celebration banquet the final event of the 50th anniversary of Simmental cattle in Canada. Tours of the RCMP Heritage Centre, the Saskatchewan Legislative Building and Double D Farms are include in the week-long event. Registration for the Simmental Federation of Americas Conference is now available on the CSA website www.simmental.com.

n The Canadian Red Angus Promotion Society Purebred Breeder of the Year for 2017 is the Shiloh Cattle Company, a fourth-generation ranch located in the Hand Hills just southwest of Hanna, Alta. The ranch was established in 1909 by Blake Morton’s great-grandparents. His parents, Merle and Irene, purchased the home quarter in 1959, along with the rest of the family ranch, and over the years combined the two.

Although Morton has always been actively involved in the ranch, it was not until 1995 that he moved back home to ranch full time after spending a few years as an industrial millwright. In 1996, Darcy Olesky moved to the ranch and shortly

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

PURELY PUREBRED

runs about 285 cow-calf pairs, two-thirds of them purebred, on 3,500 acres.

In addition to this award and being named the 2016 Alberta Angus Association’s Purebred Breeder of the Year, Shiloh Cattle Company has won five consecutive Canadian Angus Association National Red Angus Calf Championship Awards from the Canadian Angus Association (CAA) Gold Show Circuit, including two in 2016 for the CAA Red Angus Bull Calf Champion and Red Angus Heifer Calf Champion of Canada.

Aside from their success in the show ring, their main focus remains on rais­ing high-quality beef seed stock with the commercial producer in mind.

The Shiloh Cattle Company Annual Bull Sale is held the last weekend of March on the ranch. They sell approximately 40 purebred Red Angus bulls and a handful of Angus/Simmental-cross yearling bulls, along with several packages of purebred and commercial, red and black replacement heifers. thereafter the ranch was registered under the name Shiloh Cattle Company.

After several years of building up their commercial herd, Morton and Olesky purchased their first 11 purebred Red Angus

cows in 2004 from Hugh and Marylee Wilkie of Tomahawk Red Angus. In 2007 they added another 90 head of Red Angus cows along with the bull calves from Tomahawk Red Angus. The ranch currently

Continued on page 54

Beaver Valley Grazing Corp is seeking a

PERMANENT, FULL TIME, YEAR ROUND n The 2017 Friends of Canadian Simmental Foundation (FCSF) auction held during the Canadian Simmental Association annual convention raised $83,638 to support the foundation’s programming. A bred heifer donated by the Robblee family of Tryon Simmentals raised $15,000 and a Simmental 50th anniversary buckle sold to a group of breeders for $14,500.

Among the weekend’s busy events the FCSF held its annual meeting and elected a board of directors for the upcoming 2017-18 year. Ron Nolan, Markdale, Ont.; Deanne Young, Breton, Alta.; and Mark Shologan, Westlock, Alta., were re-elected for three-year terms. They rejoin president Ken Lewis, Spruce Grove, Alta.; vice-president Brian Bouchard, Crossfield, Alta.; treasurer Marlin LeBlanc, Estevan, Sask.; and other fellow directors Roger Deeg, Strathmore, Alta.; Glenn Wotten, Little Britain, Ont.; Lee McMillen, Carievale, Sask.; and Garth Rancier, Killam, Alta.

PASTURE MANAGER beginning Jan 1, 2018.

Beaver Valley Grazing Corp seasonal pastures 18001890 cow/calf pairs and winters approximately 70 bulls.

The pasture is located south of Admiral, Sk. and has excellent living accommodations and out buildings.

Manager Duties and Expectations: Contract position. Responsible for cattle welfare and handling (May-end October). Must supply own horses and tack and Hire and supply one seasonal rider. Must be willing and able to ride horseback daily to check cattle including doctoring. Must supply truck and fuel.

Stock trailer supplied. Maintain infrastructure (fences, corrals, buildings). Must manage grass and water (dugouts). Responsible for wintering bull battery.

Minimal record keeping. Excellent long term opportunity for the successful candidate.

For further information regarding salary and benefits contact

Dwayne Guenther @ 306-297-7466 or Leon Ruest @ 306-297-8420 Email: guentherranch@sasktel.net Back row (l to r): Glenn Wotten, Marlin LeBlanc, Lee McMillen, Mark Shologan, Garth Rancier, Roger Deeg. Front row (l to r): Brian Bouchard, Ken Lewis, Deanne Young. Missing: Ron Nolan.

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n Cattlemen’s Young Leaders for 2017-18: Ben Wilson is a full-time independent filmmaker and creative professional, operating his freelance and consulting company, Benjo Productions, from the rural community of Bashaw, Alberta. Born and raised in Ponoka, Alta., Wilson has always had a thirst for adventure and a passion for food and the environment. He has Ben Wilson travelled across Canada from coast to coast in a two-seater airplane, and backpacked from Cape Town to Cairo, among other overseas adventures. The art of visual storytelling began as an amateur attempt to share these adventures with his friends and family, but soon developed into the craft of documentary filmmaking and freelance corporate video production.

After a very short-lived career in aerospace engineering, Wilson discovered his true calling when he married a farm girl and joined the FarmOn.com team as video production manager in 2009. His own company, Benjo Productions, is now a full-time venture and serves a wide variety of clients across Alberta, primarily in the agriculture industry, including several stakeholders in the beef value chain. Wilson’s passion for the cattle industry continues to grow with each beef-related video project he works on, ranging from forage and grazing topics to animal care, sustainability, farm safety, culinary education and beef marketing initiatives. His love for filmmaking, no matter what the topic, stems from a strong desire to help people share what’s most important to them, and to create visual art that has a deep emotional impact on audiences.

Matt Kumlin is a fifth-generation rancher southwest of Cochrane, Alta., in the community of Jumping Pound. After completing his agriculture degree at the U of S in 2010, he transitioned into the DVM program at UCVM in Calgary, graduating in 2014. Since that time he has worked as a cow-calf and advanced reproMatt Kumlin ductive veterinarian at Bow Valley Livestock Health and Bow Valley Genetics in Brooks, Alta. Starting in January 2018, Kumlin, along with his wife Angela and son Wade, will be moving back to the ranch in Jumping Pound. They plan to continue to expand their commercial and purebred Red Angus herd. Kumlin will also be working as a part-time cattle veterinarian at Veterinary Agri-Health Services Ltd. in Airdrie, Alta. Kumlin is looking forward to growing his network of young cattlemen as well as the mentorship the CYL program has to offer. He is very grateful for this opportunity to partake in this excellent mentorship program.

Quinn Anderson Folk grew up on the Anderson Ranch south of Fir Mountain, Sask. She is still involved with this multi-generational cow-calf, backgrounding, and farming operation. Anderson Ranch has been recognized for its extensive efforts with species-at-risk and the environment.

Anderson Folk has completed a bachelor of Quinn Anderson music in voice (performance) and a bachelor of Folk education. She works in education and as a private music teacher in southwest Saskatchewan. Anderson Folk currently resides outside of Swift Current with her husband Keith and their son, Quade. c

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 Market Su mma ry

By Debbie McMillin

TheMarkets Fed Cattle The Canadian fed market continued to move lower in the first half of September, facing ample front-end supplies of market-ready cattle, a stronger Canadian dollar and a weak U.S. cash market. In three weeks the Alberta cash market dropped $8.50 to $133.58/cwt.

Not that it helps, but that is still $4.84/cwt better than last year, when the dollar was five cents cheaper against the U.S. Basis levels are moving contra-seasonal and are historically strong. The five-year average for the cash-to-cash basis in September is $-9.17/cwt. Last year it was $-7.56/cwt while the same week this year we saw a basis that’s near $+6. A strong basis is positive to the fed cattle market; however, it’s uncertain if this contra-seasonal basis will continue.

Steer carcass weights are still under year ago levels, suggesting feedlots are current and packer demand good. In the first week of September the average carcass weight was 906 lbs., 15 lbs. lighter than last year. The average year-to-date is 882 lbs., which is 32 lbs. lighter than the same period in 2016.

Steer slaughter is up three per cent over last year at 1,012,495 head to date. Heifer slaughter is up 11 per cent, at 560,040 head, which confirms the lack of growth reported in the Canadian cattle inventory numbers. Fed cattle exports are up eight per cent year-to-year at 205,346 head.

Feeder Cattle Feeder cattle prices at the start of the fall run held reasonably steady. Lightweight calf volumes were still light with good quality groups selling well. There is no substantial evidence that drought-related sales are taking place, although pasture conditions are still deteriorating and those numbers will pick up soon. 550-lb. feeders averaged $204.50/cwt the second week of September, which is still $16/cwt higher than the same week in 2016.

The grass yearling run has brought steady prices on heavier calves as they come to town off pasture. Even as the Canadian dollar

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increased and the fed cash market decreased 850-lb. feeder cattle have held somewhat steady in the mid-$180/cwt range, dipping a bit to $183.22/cwt the second week of September, which is still $16.17/cwt better than 2016.

Cattle sold on electronic markets with forward delivery dates have fetched prices steady to higher than current cash sales.

As with fed cattle, the 850-lb. feeder basis has been exceptionally strong through the past weeks. August generally sees a stronger basis level; however, in the last six weeks of 2017 up to our press date, it has averaged $+7.02/cwt. At the start of September it was +9.38/cwt higher than the same week last year.

The average 850-lb. basis in 2017 is $-1.34/cwt while last year in the same time frame it was $-11.23/cwt.

Non-Fed Cattle Cull cattle prices are experiencing seasonal pressure due to increased numbers of cows available as well as the rising Canadian dollar.

D1,2 cow prices remain at a premium to U.S. canner cows which limits exports. At the start of September, D1,2 cows averaged $89.62/ cwt., down about $10 from mid-August, and $6/cwt under last year. The number of cows arriving at auction has certainly increased; however, not enough to reflect some of the extreme dry pasture conditions in parts of the Prairies. Year-to-date cow slaughter in Canada is up 15 per cent at 286,470 head. Total exports of cows for slaughter for the U.S. to the end of August was 90,164 head, roughly 32 per cent fewer than during the same eight months last year.

Butcher bulls at the start of September averaged $108.54/cwt, which is down from $120.61/cwt a year ago. Both domestic slaughter and exports of butcher bulls are up in 2017, with a 42 per cent increase in slaughter at 11,743 head and a one per cent increase in exports at 35,907 head to the end of August.

Debbie McMillin is a market analyst who ranches at Hanna, Alta.

 DE B’S OUTLOOK Fed Cattle Historically, the fed market makes its annual low in September or October. This trend should hold in 2017 with the seasonal flow of cattle into the market and slowing beef demand. The Canadian market has the added risk of a stronger dollar going into October, or weakness in the basis levels. On the brighter side, beef prices and demand generally push cattle prices higher towards the fourth quarter of the year.

Feeder Cattle Given the shift in feedlot profitability the past couple months it’s hard to say if the profit margins of late 2016 and early 2017 will be enough to give some stability to the feeder run, or if the lack of current hedging options combined with a rising Canadian dollar will take its toll on this market.

Feedlots have been profitable in recent months and the latest Canadian cattle inventory report confirms a tight supply of calves outside of feedlots, both of which support buyer interest, especially in good-quality groups of calves, and can potentially limit the downside.

Non-Fed Outlook Cull cows have a relatively strong seasonal pattern, part of which leads us to expect a decline in prices as calves are weaned and management decisions are made regarding cull cows. Cow supplies are expected to increase as pastures deteriorate. The big unknown remains the Canadian dollar. Expect prices to remain under pressure in the near term.

More markets 

C a t t l e m e n · o c t o b e r 2 , 2 0 1 7 55

M A R K ETS

Break-even Prices on A-Grade Steers

340

210 ALBERTA

190

(500-600 lb.)

250

150

220

130

190 Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

210

160

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

160

ONTARIO

190

D1,2 Cows

140

170

120

150

100

130

80

110

Steer Calves

310 280

170

110

Market Prices

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

Canfax weighted average price on A-Grade steers

Break-even price for steers on date sold

2017 2016

2018 2017

60

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

Ontario

Alberta

2017 2016

2017 2016

Ontario prices based on a 50/50 east/west mix

Market Summary (to September 2, 2017)

September 2017 prices* Alberta Yearling steers (850 lb.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $184.17/cwt Barley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.32/bu.

Barley silage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54.00/ton Cost of gain (feed) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66.52/cwt Cost of gain (all costs) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97.86/cwt Fed steers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137.95/cwt Break-even (February 2018) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150.26/cwt Ontario Yearling steers (850 lb.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $177.21/cwt Grain corn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.56/bu.

Corn silage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38.48/ton Cost of gain (feed) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72.74/cwt Cost of gain (all costs) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106.86/cwt Fed steers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132.74/cwt Break-even (March 2018) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149.07/cwt *Mid-month to mid-month prices Breakevens East: end wt 1,450, 183 days West end wt 1,325 lb., 125 days

2017

2016

Total Canadian federally inspected slaughter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,870,748. . . . . . . . . . . 1,739,101 Average steer carcass weight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 882 lb.. . . . . . . . . . . . . 914 lb.

Total U.S. slaughter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21,734,000. . . . . . . 20,541,000

Trade Summary Exports 2017 2016 Fed cattle to U.S. (to August 26). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205,346.. . . . . . . . . . .190,639 Feeder cattle and calves to U.S. (to August 26). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92,374.. . . . . . . . . . .149,554 Dressed beef to U.S. (to July) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342.53 mil.lbs.. . . . .332.03 mil.lbs Total dressed beef (to July). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 467.71 mil.lbs.. . . . . 432.31 mil.lbs IMPORTS 2017 2016 Slaughter cattle from U.S. (to July) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0 *Dressed beef from U.S. (to July) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145.52 mil.lbs. . . . . . 143.86 mil.lbs *Dressed beef from Australia (to July) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24.49 mil.lbs. . . . . . 45.60 mil.lbs *Dressed beef from New Zealand (to July) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25.05 mil.lbs. . . . . . .28.08 mil.lbs *Dressed beef from Uruguay (to July) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19.09 mil.lbs. . . . . . . 22.53 mil.lbs Canadian Grades (to September 9, 2017) % of A grades +59% 54-58% Prime 0.1 0.4 AAA 15.2 21.1 AA 21.3 11.0 A 1.7 0.3 Total 32.8 38.3

EAST WEST

Total graded 413,518 1,484,887

Yield – 53% Total 1.1 1.6 20.9 57.2 4.8 37.1 0.1 2.1 26.9 Total A grade 98.0%

Total ungraded 18,223 10,754

% carcass basis 82.2% 86.5% Only federally inspected plants

56

C at t l e m e n · o c t o b e r 2 ,

2017

www.canadiancattlemen.ca

 market ta l k

By Jerry Klassen

Tight Barley Supplies will Encourage Corn Imports

F

eed barley prices have been under pressure through the harvest period as yields across Western Canada have come in better than expected.

It appears that the drier conditions in the southern regions of Alberta and Saskatchewan were more than offset by timely rains in the central and northern areas of the provinces. Barley selected for malt production is also much higher than earlier projections. Feedlots in the Lethbridge area were buying feed barley in the range of $190/mt to $195/mt in early September while Red Deer operations were showing bids from $180/mt to $185/mt delivered. I’ve received many inquiries from cattle producers with regard to the feed grain outlook; therefore, in this article I’ll discuss the fundamental situation and the price forecast for the next six to eight months.

Statistics Canada estimated the 2017 barley crop at 7.2 million mt, down from the 2016 production of 8.8 million mt. The average yield was pegged at 63.2 bushels per acre, down 10 bushels per acre from last year but up three bushels per acre from the 10-year average. The crop quality also came in better than anticipated. The favourable conditions in central and northern Alberta and Saskatchewan more than offset the drier regions in the south. It appears that malt barley production will be about 2.5 million mt to 3.0 million mt. This will be consumed for domestic processing, and exports of 1.45 million mt will be mostly malt quality barley. This leaves about 5.5 million mt for domestic feed usage. I’m forecasting a carry-out of 1.0 million mt which is considered historically tight. Notice the 10-year average carry-out is 1.7 million mt so if stocks are below the 10-year average, prices are usually above the 10-year average.

Given the smaller crop, the function of the market will be to ration demand through higher prices later in the crop year. Approximately 85 per cent of the wheat and durum crops will grade in the top two milling categories.

The burdensome feed wheat supply from last year’s production has been absorbed and feed wheat is now trading at a $15/mt to $20/mt premium over feed barley. This will eliminate the use in feedlot rations. Therefore, this means that barley prices in southern Alberta will have to trade at a premium to imported U.S. corn and distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS). This will make the barley market highly correlated with the corn futures market.

The USDA estimated the corn crop at 359.5 million mt (14.1 billion bushels), which is down from the 2016 production of 385 million mt (15.1 billion bushels). In 2016, Brazil had a major drought on their second corn crop which resulted in lower exports; however, in 2017, both Argentina and Brazil experienced record corn production which will result in sharp year-over-year increases in their exportable surplus. This will take market share away from the U.S. The USDA is projecting the

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Argentina (million mt)

Production

Brazil

Exports

Production

Exports

2015-16

29.0

21.6

67.0

14.0

2016-17

41.0

27.5

98.5

35.0

*Source USDA

2017-18 corn exports at 47.5 million mt, down nearly 10 million mt from last season. Therefore, the corn market will function to encourage demand which will make U.S. supplies more prone to be railed into southern Alberta.

At the time of writing this article, U.S. corn was quoted at $215/mt track southern Alberta. The U.S. corn harvest will move into full gear later in October so the market may experience harvest selling pressure at this time. However, this means that Lethbridge barley will have to trade at around $210/mt to $220/mt in late fall or winter. Given the historically tight carry-out, the barley market may have to divorce from the corn market during March through May of 2018 which could result in prices as high as $240/mt delivered Lethbridge. c Jerry Klassen manages the Canadian office of Swiss-based grain trader GAP SA Grains and Produits Ltd., and is president and founder of Resilient Capital specializing in proprietary commodity futures trading and market analysis. Klassen consults with feedlots on risk management and writes a weekly cattle market commentary. He can be reached at 204-504-8339.

Supply and disposition of Canadian barley (’000 tonnes) StatsCan 12/13

StatsCan 13/14

StatsCan 14/15

Estimate 15/16

10-year average

Estimate 16/17

Estimate 17/18

7,405

7,083

5,880

6,527

7,828

6,390

5,771

Acres harvested

6,797

6,554

5,279

5,812

6,985

5,493

5,239

Yield (bu./ac.)

54.10

71.70

61.90

65

60.2

73.40

63.2

Opening stocks Aug. 1

1,195

983

1,950

1,217

1,862

1,442

1,946

Production

8,012

10,237

7,115

8,226

9,080

8,784

7,212

19

7

136

161

56

60

60

9,226

11,227

9,200

9,604

10,999

10,286

9,218

Exports

1,250

1,587

1,675

1,173

1,502

1,400

1,450

Seed

249

209

228

223

268

200

225

Acres seeded

SUPPLY

Imports TOTAL SUPPLY USE

Human food/industrial 1

886

969

1,023

916

964

990

990

Feed-waste-dockage

5,858

6,512

5,057

5,850

6,582

5,750

5,550

TOTAL USE

8,243

9,277

7,983

8,162

9,316

8,340

8,215

983

1,950

1,217

1,442

1.683

1,946

1,003

TOTAL CARRY-OVER

1 includes barley processed domestically and then exported as malt. 10-year average is 2005 through 2014.

C at t l e m e n · O c t o b e r 2 , 2 0 1 7

57

 GOINGS ON

Sales&Events Events October 12

lberta Livestock Expo, Exhibition Park, A Lethbridge, Alta.

17-18 One Genome, One Health: Our Animals, the Environment and Us, Chateau Lacombe Hotel, Edmonton 19 Off-Site Waterers and Watersheds Workshop, Standard Community Hall, Standard, Alta.

25-28 Manitoba Ag Ex, Brandon, Man. 26-27 Canadian National Charolais Show and Sale, Keystone Centre, Brandon, Man.

November

1-2 N ational Environmental Farm Plan Summit, The Westin, Ottawa, Ont. 1-4 JTL Industries Stockade Roundup, Exhibition Grounds, Lloydminster, Alta.

3-17 The Royal Agricultural Winter Fair, Toronto, Ont. 8-9 BeefTech Farmfair International, Edmonton, Alta.

8-12 F arm Fair International, Edmonton, Alta.

14-16 Canadian Forage and Grassland Association Conference, Delta Guelph Hotel and Conference Centre, Guelph, Ont. 18 Maritime Bull Test Station AGM and handling workshop, Nappan, N.S. 20-25 Canadian Western Agribition, Regina, Sask.

20-25 Simmental Federation of America’s Conference, Regina, Sask.

21-23 AgEx, Agricultural Excellence Conference, Ottawa, Ont. 22-23 People’s Choice Gelbvieh Bull Futurity, Agribition, Regina, Sask.

23 Gelbvieh Sweetheart Classic, Sale, Agribition, Regina, Sask.

23 Western Canadian Gelbvieh Sale

December 5-7

estern Canada Conference on Soil W Health and Grazing, Radisson Hotel Edmonton South, Edmonton, Alta.

 ADVERT IS ER I ND EX

 Event listings are a free service to industry.

Page Advanced Agri-Direct Inc. 50 51 Advantage Feeders 50 Airdrie Trailer Sales Alberta Vet Labs 11, 21 Bar Pipe Hereford Ranch 25 53 Beaver Valley Grazing Corp.

BKT Tires Canada Inc. 22 Boehringer Ingelheim 31 Calgary Stockyards Ltd. 46 Canadian Angus Assoc.

50 Canadian Charolais Assoc.

OBC Canadian Forage and Grassland Assoc. 29 Canadian Hereford Assoc.

IFC Canadian Limousin Assoc.

50 Canadian Red Angus Promotion Society 49 50 Canadian Shorthorn Assoc.

Canadian Simmental Assoc.

50, IBC Canadian Speckle Park Assoc.

50 8, 9 Case-IH Gallagher Power Fencing 13 Hi-Hog Farm & Ranch 50 John Schooten & Sons Custom Feedyard Ltd. 46 46 Klassen Agriventure Ltd. Merial Canada Inc. 17 15 NDE Canada 5, 45 Northlands Farmfair International Peace County Beef & Forage 48 Provincial Exhibition of Manitoba 51 46 Stettler Auction Mart 47 Tru-Test Inc.

Your contact is Mike Millar at 306-251-0011 or mike.millar@fbcpublishing.com

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 Sale listings are for our advertisers.

February 2018

4-18 F oothills Forage and Grazing Association, Spain and Portugal Ag Tour

Sales October 16

J ustamere “Sale of the Year” 18th Annual Female Sale, Lloydminster, Alta.

19 Speckle Park Influenced Feeder Sale Dryland Cattlel Trading Corp., Veteran, Alta.

20-21 45th Annual Canadian Red Roundup Show and Sale, The Westerner Park, Red Deer, Alta.

November 13

18 28

S peckle Park — Presort Feeder Sale, Heartland Livestock Services, Lloydminster, Sask.

Fenton Hereford Ranch Fall Production Sale, Irma, Alta.

Bar Pipe Hereford Ranch Sale, at the ranch, Okotoks, Alta.

December 8

cMillen Ranching Ltd. Herdbuilder17 M at the ranch, Carievale, Sask.

January 2018 31

oose Creek Red Angus 2-Year-Old Bull M Sale, at the ranch, Kisbey, Sask. c

The Canadian Simmental Association board of directors. Back row (l to r): Marlin LeBlanc, Francis Gagnon, Frank Robblee, Roger Deeg, Dan Skeels. Front row (l to r): Garth Rancier (first vicepresident), Lee McMillen (president), Blair McRae (second vice-president).

C at t l e m e n · O c t o b e r 2 , 2 0 1 7

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