Best of both worlds
Tiestall and freestall housing options allow Perth county farmers to cater to individual cow needsBy DON STONEMAN
Steve Dolson and Karen Galbraith feel tiestalls and freestalls give them the best of both worlds.Late January they moved 70 Holsteins into a combination freestall-tiestall Coverall barn on their farm south of Listowel. Most of the herd is housed and fed in the labour-saving freestall area, while up to a dozen cows get the benefit of increased management that is practical in tiestalls. The parlour and milk house are in another structure.
The husband-and-wife team produces milk and also runs a breeding operation under the prefix Legacy Holsteins. Steve has served as president of United Breeders, one of the AI units that became part of Gencor two years ago, and has assumed other leadership roles in the province's dairy industry as well.
Karen, a veterinarian, now practises at home on the cow herd. She quips that she gets to do less work if Steve does his job right. Both of them agree that having good cows in the herd is more interesting than simply milking cows day in and day out. An added bonus of the new barn, they say, is a renewed interest in agriculture from their teenage children.
The couple milked 40 cows in a bank barn tiestall operation and had been contemplating expansion since 1995. Two years ago they formed a joint venture with another dairy family 40 kilometres away, combining herds and quota to fill up a new freestall barn.
But a year of commuting 25 miles each way to the herd took its toll. Steve and Karen decided to go back to milking on their own farm and looked for low-cost building alternatives.
Their choice was a 160-x62-foot Coverall barn. There is a wide drive-through alleyway on one side of the barn where Steve feeds the cows with a Lucknow Haymaster feed wagon. The freestall cows eat in a bunk that is 108 feet long. The 12 tiestalls share 48 feet of bunk space. Tiestall cows drink from continuous flow waterers. A small water pump in the milk house circulates water to the drinkers and back again. There is also an in-line heater to warm the water. This allows the use of regular water bowls in the uninsulated barn.
A full-length curtain on each wall opens up to eight feet wide to allow cross-ventilation. The curtains are controlled with an automatic system installed by Faromor Farm Systems of Shakespeare. The curtains are lowered when the inside temperature of the barn reaches more than 3C. In the summer, the curtains can be rolled up and out of the way until cooler fall weather sets in.
Ceiling ventilation is provided with four chimneys, each 30 inches square. They are manually closed only on the coldest nights. Karen and Steve say there is no condensation problem with frost inside the barn unless the chimneys are closed prematurely.
The cows are bedded on shavings in both freestall and tiestalls.
An alley scraper cleans the freestall four times a day, pushing the manure into a gravity flow system. The circular 90-x12-foot deep tank also handles parlour wash water.
A smaller 60x40 Coverall attached to the main barn holds four box stalls and a barebones double-six herringbone parlour. Milking takes about 90 minutes, plus cleanup time. The only concessions to luxury in the parlour are automatic takeoffs and a heated concrete floor.
"A heated floor is a must in this type of building," Karen says. Plastic panels beside the parlour can be removed to increase ventilation.
Dry cows and heifers are housed in the old bank barn nearby. When calving approaches they are moved to the new barn. Cows calve in the box stalls, then are moved to the tiestalls for a month to get accustomed to the milking line. The tiestalls let Steve and Karen give closeup cows the management they need. But the tiestalls could be removed to put in more freestall space.
Karen explains that a cow with bad feet doesn't have to compete with other cows for bunk space or for a place to lie down. Keeping treated cows separate from the untroubled freestallers also makes it easier for relief milkers to do their job.
Cows can be tied up for classification, or if a group is coming to see breeding stock. Ties are also handy for 4-H demonstrations. Steve is a local 4-H leader.
The rolling herd average dipped to about 190 from 220 when cows were first put into a freestall and remains at the lower level. Now that the stress of moving the herd is over, Steve plans to step up the ration to bring production back up again.
Last winter cows ate a one group TMR, with extra hay being topdressed in the tiestalls for transition cows. Feed is mixed in the Lucknow Haymaster feed wagon; it's big enough to take either big square or large round balage stored in tubes. Ingredients are added to match the amount of hay in the mixer. The big rounds weigh between 500 and 600 kg, the five-foot squares weigh about 400 kg.
Haylage was custom harvested and grain was taken to a local feed mill to be made into pellets. Most of the field work on their 200 acres of owned and rented land is handled by custom operators, including manure spreading.
Steve and Karen have scheduled an open house for May 8.
© copyright 1999 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.
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Going to bat against butteroil blends
Support from one member of the CITT panel gives farmers appeal hopeBY DON STONEMAN
The Canadian International Trade Tribunal has rejected Dairy Farmers of Canada's request to reclassify butteroil-sugar blends under another tariff line. The decision allows ice cream mix into Canada, but, as baseball great Yogi Berra said, "It ain't over till it's over." One member of the three-member CITT panel wrote a dissenting report, arguing in favour of the DFC position that butteroil-sugar blends be reclassified. DFC leaders are taking some heart from the fact that the CITT decision was not unanimous and early April were considering appealing the CITT decision to a federal court. They have until April 25 to make a decision on a possible appeal.The dissenting report indicates that some of DFC's arguments had validity, says its vice-chairman, John Core.
When butteroil and sugar are separate products they are subject to tariffs and import duties as they enter Canada. However, a butteroil-sugar blend can enter Canada tariff-free. DFC has argued that Revenue Canada should impose a tariff on this product now to prevent large quantities from disrupting Canada's supply management system.
The matter has become a long-standing issue for dairy producers in Canada. DFC views the butteroil blends as a major loophole in the border controls that underpin Canada's supply management system.
More than a year ago, delegates to the DFC annual meeting in Vancouver walked out of the meeting in protest against Federal Agriculture Minister Lyle Vanclief's failure to support them on the issue in the federal cabinet. The federal department of revenue had ruled that butteroil-sugar blends couldn't be reclassified without breaking trade laws and risking retaliation from exporting countries.
DFC believes the butteroil-sugar blends should be reclassified as a food preparation suitable for use as a butter substitute, says Shelley MacInnis, assistant director of policy and government relations for DFC: "We believe there are some flaws in the [CITT] decision."
If the issue is to be appealed it must go before the Federal Court of Appeals. Early April, Core said DFC lawyers in Ottawa were evaluating DFC's options. Taking the issue to a federal court to get the tariff line changed was one possible option.
In 1997, 8.6 million kg of the blend were imported into Canada, more than six times the amount imported when the practice was first noticed in 1995. Last year imports were down to 6.58 million kg, says MacInnis. DFC doesn't think the decline in imports is permanent. Sales into Canada were held back last year because of high butterfat prices in the U.S., MacInnis says. Exporters of butteroil blends were more tempted by the possibility of higher returns in U.S. markets. Last year countries of origin for the blends were the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Mexico. In 1997, Canada also received butteroil blends from the United States.
© copyright 1999 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.
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Colostrum could carry Johne's disease
Veterinarian suggests using colostrum collected and banked from cows that have tested Johne's-freeBy DON STONEMAN
Cows testing positive for Johne's disease not only shed the disease in their manure, but they can also spread it through their colostrum.Farmers should discard the colostrum from cows that are positive for Johne's or paratuberculosis, says veterinarian Jim Quigley, a calf nutritionist with the American Protein Corporation, Ames, Iowa. There isn't much farmers can do to treat colostrum carrying mycobacterium paratuberculosis (MP), the bacteria that causes the disease, he says.
Freezing will not always kill MP, particularly if the colostrum is not frozen at a very low temperature, or for a long period of time.
Nor is it certain that pasteurizing the colostrum will kill the bacterium, Quigley says. Pasteurization involves raising the temperature of the colostrum to about 71C for a short period of time. But the process only reduces the bacterial load, it doesn't eliminate it, Quigley says.
Colostrum is also denser than milk, making it more difficult to raise it to the appropriate temperature. Furthermore, colostrum contains many white blood cells that can carry the organism, making pasteurization less effective. On-farm pasteurizers also tend to be less effective than commercial machines, Quigley says.
When all the risk factors are added up, there is a high risk that viable organisms will be left in the calf's feed, Quigley says. He warns that batch pasteurizers can destroy the beneficial elements in the colostrum by heating it for too long, so they should be avoided.
Quigley says, however, that farmers do have options for dealing with colostrum.
He suggests using colostrum collected and banked from cows that have tested Johne's-free. It may take two or more milkings to collect enough colostrum to meet all of your calves' needs, so the colostrum's effectiveness will be diluted. Quigley suggests stretching the colostrum from a second milking by adding a commercial supplement.
Quigley says colostrum's immunoglobulin (IgG) concentration is key to calf survival. Calves need about 100 grams of IgG in the first 24 hours after birth.
Calves shouldn't be fed pooled colostrum; it's more likely to be contaminated. Quigley says cows not showing clinical signs of Johne's can be shedding the disease.
The best preventative measure a farmer can pursue is to establish a comprehensive testing and eradication program. Quigley says the incidence of the disease will fall as the cost of testing goes down and the procedure's reliability increases.
© copyright 1999 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.
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Vegetarianism just hype, consumer study says
Only 2.7 per cent of consumers don't eat pork, beef and lamb, and less than one per cent of Canadians eschew dairy products, BIC poll concludesBY DON STONEMAN
When it comes to vegetarianism, lots of people talk the talk, but few walk the walk.The hype about the growing trend toward vegetarianism appears to be just that, concludes a new Canadian Eating Trends study, conducted for the Beef Information Centre (BIC). The study showed that occupants of 97.3 per cent of Canadian households eat red meat, the same number as a decade ago.
More than 16,000 Canadians responded to the survey last July, leading to the conclusion that in a decade there has been no increase in the number of vegetarians in Canada. The study says only 2.7 per cent of consumers don't eat pork, beef and lamb, and less than one per cent of Canadians eschew dairy products.
Leslie DePodesta, a registered dietitian contracted by BIC to present study findings, says the survey was conducted by Canadian Facts, an independent polling firm. About 24,000 questionnaires were sent to households across Canada.
Vegetarianism remains a static trend, and not as significant as the media makes it out to be, DePodesta says: "It's a small group. It is not a growing group."
Of the 2.7 per cent of consumers who consider themselves vegetarians, many still eat fish, poultry and dairy products. Less than nine-tenths of one per cent of consumers won't eat dairy products, and less than half of one per cent are vegans, eating no animal products.
Kerry Wright, a registered dietitian who works for the BIC, says the survey is good news for the beef industry: "People are talking about adopting [vegetarianism] to their lifestyle. It hasn't come that far."
As well as dispelling an apparent myth about the significance of vegetarianism, Wright says the survey has put BIC on track to promote beef to a segment of the population where consumption is weak.
The study revealed many women fail to eat the two servings of meat per day recommended in the Canada Food Guide, she says. The BIC will be targeting women in magazine advertising this fall.
Nutritional deficiencies brought about by eating insufficient meat will be the focus, Wright says. Women who don't eat enough meat tend to be short on vitamin B, protein, calcium, iron and zinc.
Women in the 14- to 24-year-old age group are particularly at risk, she says. They are the segment most likely to be trying to embrace vegetarianism.
© copyright 1999 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.
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Feeder cattle import rules remain
New "regionalization" policy is expected to allow cattlemen to import more U.S. feeders, but it's a slow processBY DON STONEMAN
Ontario feedlot operators will not be getting unrestricted access to American feeder cattle any time soon.The old rules for preventing introduction of blue tongue and anaplasmosis - a ban on imports of unquarantined cattle between March and October - will be in place for some time. Cattlemen had hoped that a new policy called "regionalization" would free up imports, but the policy is a long way from being implemented in the U.S.
Regardless of where cattle are being sourced in the U.S., they must all pass the same health requirements. If there was an outbreak of a disease in one part of the U.S., imports of all U.S. cattle would be banned by Canada, which enjoys a superior health status.
The southeastern U.S. in general, and Kentucky in particular, have cattle that would be of interest to Canadian feeders, says Woodstock cattle trader Doug Kaufman. The major concern remains blue tongue. Because Canadais free of the disease, as well as anaplasmosis, purebred cattle exporters have a clear track to sell into most countries of the world.
"We don't want to mess up our health status," Kaufman says, but freedom from disease comes at a high price as far as feedlot operators are concerned. They would like to be able to access cattle from states that are declared disease-free. That is where regionalization comes into play.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is working on the regionalization issue, says Penny Greenwood, staff veterinarian based in Nepean. She says progress has been slowed by lack of resources, and disrupted by the priority given to getting American pigs cleared for slaughter at Canadian plants.
American states must be convinced that getting clearance to export into Canada is not a passive exercise, she says. "A large part of our job is raising awareness of what their job is," Greenwood says. "There is some homework to be done by whoever wants to apply."
For example, American veterinarians aren't required to report some diseases that are a concern in Canada. Anaplasmosis isn't reportable in the U.S.; states wishing to export to Canada will need to put a surveillance program in place before they can declare a state or a region free of a disease.
Disease-free regions could be defined in a variety of ways: a geographic region surrounded by mountains, for example, or bordering a river that prevents a disease vector from being transmitted.
© copyright 1999 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.
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