If you have young kids I am sure that you have heard that song from the Frozen soundtrack. The one that your kids have played over and over in the car hooked to their ipod. Maybe even your ipod if you are honest with us. Some of you probably know all the words as well.... Read More
Category: Cattle
To mark Antibiotic Awareness Week, The Lancet published an editorial last November entitled Antibiotic resistance—the need for global solutions. In it, the twenty-six contributors addressed the need to move on from "blame and shame" and collaborate on the growing issue of antimicrobial resistance. RealAgriculture published an article shortly thereafter to summarize the points made in... Read More
The Western Livestock Price Insurance Program (WLPIP), announced by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and Western provincial ministers on January 24, 2014, is now taking applications. Cattle and hog producers may now use this new livestock price insurance product to help manage unexpected livestock price declines. This new insurance product offers protection against an unexpected drop... Read More
On-farm data collection is invaluable and collecting it, though time-consuming, isn't all that difficult. It's that journey the notepad needs to take to get to the computer that can be more than treacherous. By the time said notepad makes it to the office, it's often a few years old, all but sanitary and open for... Read More
Apps continue to grow and evolve in all aspects of agriculture, with crop commodities eons ahead of their livestock counterparts. Discussions are no longer bound by the confines of a physical community, with information being shared on Twitter, Google+ (check out #cattle and the Cattle Community for a taste of each), Facebook, Instagram and others.... Read More
We're in the thick of calving season, and if the sight of healthy new calves frolicking doesn't put a smile on your face, calf prices will. Year-over-year calf prices are rosy indeed, and the price improvements move all the way from calves, to cows, cow/calf pairs and on into the cull cow market. In this... Read More
As evolution should dictate, there are substantial benefits to social behaviour in animals, provided that behaviour increases their fitness (or likelihood to reproduce). We see unique social behaviour in many species, including ourselves and our bovine counterparts. In cattle, social behaviours range from grooming to bonding, and witnessed accounts of cows protecting their young and... Read More
Cattle producers all along the supply chain now have access to a new, free market prices app based on historical Canfax data. Using Canadian pricing and continually updating with new pricing information, the CanFax CFX Pro mobile app is applicable and useful for all Canadian cattle producers, says Brian Perillat, with Canfax. Developed with industry... Read More
There's a saying about horses — no foot, no horse. To apply it to the ranch, it may go: no grass, no ranch. In Grant Taillieu's case you can compound that problem by adding "no money" to the mix. When Grant and his father Gerry Taillieu took over management of the Tomahawk Ranch, it was... Read More
Feedlot operators are constantly running through a cycle of market highs and lows. When cattle prices are down and feed prices are up, cutting feed costs and improving feed efficiency are top of the list for producers. It was out of one of those particularly tough times in 2011 that the industry began to look... Read More