Ready-to-go calf sales take off
Both buyers and sellers see value in vaccinated calf sales across the provinceBy DON STONEMAN
When the Simcoe-Dufferin Annual Calf Sale went to an exclusively vaccinated calf format at its annual Cookstown yard event three years ago, the sales committee figured they would lose some sellers."They actually increased," says sale chairman Tom Somers. Now the annual sale claims to be among the largest calf sales in the province, with 1,500 head going on the auction block in one afternoon, this year on Nov. 10.
Vaccinated sales are taking off across the province. More than a dozen will be held this fall. The sales' popularity has a lot to do with the value that is perceived by both buyers and sellers.
Compared to regular sales, cattlemen figure they got an extra $75 per head for the double-vaccinated calves they sold at the Simcoe-Dufferin calf sale last fall.
A buyer who has trouble with a calf can call up the sales committee, which then deals with the producer, says Somers. Along with the vaccine, producers eartag the animals to identify the farm of origin. "We are trying to get producers to stand behind what they sell," says Somers, who farms at Beeton, south of Barrie.
The sale dates back to when the Ontario Public Stock Yards were still in Toronto. Somers says farmers discovered that calves advertised as vaccinated brought an average of six cents a pound more than similar unvaccinated calves.
"It got to the stage where 80 per cent were vaccinated and a lot were double vaccinated," Somers says. A mandatory vaccinated sale was the next option.
A key to keeping buyers happy is putting the eartags on animals, Somers says. Problems with animals were limited to one or two producers, he says. "We provide [the producer] with guidance on how to vaccinate, castrate and dehorn."
Last spring, area vets ran clinics in the county to give farmers a chance to perform proper procedures on the animals.
Producers must treat calves twice with a four-way vaccine for IBR, P13, BVD and BRSV, at least two weeks apart and at least three weeks before the sale.
Producers are also required to castrate bull calves with a knife four weeks before to eliminate bulls going through the sale. Proper dehorning is also mandatory and calves weighing less than 350 pounds are turned away.
There's no requirement that calves be pre-weaned, but Somers says that may be an option. Many of the calves sold are already introduced to feed.
This year, double vaccinations will be mandatory for the first time at the Peterborough-Victoria county cattlemen's stocker sale held in Lindsay in early November. Sales chairman Wayne Telford, Peterborough, says ideas were borrowed from the Simcoe-Dufferin sale with an additional requirement of a haemophilus somnus vaccine and another added touch: Calves are identified with Bio-Link eartags at $1 per calf charged to the seller. Additional tag costs are borne by the operator of the Lindsay sales barn. The tags let producers get access to information on how well their calves yielded at the packing plant.
Bunk-breaking is mandatory at one of the pre-vaccinated sales at Keady. Gary Kuhl, who runs the Keady sale, says response to the sale has been positive. All the calves have a Bio-Link eartag so they can be traced back to the owner at the slaughterhouse with information on marbling, genetics and carcass weights.
"It should start to improve the quality of our cattle in Ontario," says Kuhl. BVD and IBR are costing the industry millions of dollars annually, he says. Furthermore, information on genetics will help producers put better beef on the table for consumers.
© copyright 1998 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.
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Scientists debate hay vs. corn
U.S. scientists refute recent study citing hay as the solution to E.coliA widely publicized study that says feeding cattle hay for five days before slaughter wipes out E. coli bacteria in the gut is coming under fire. Don't yank your market-ready steers off grain corn yet, warns Peter Doris, special projects manager for the Ontario Cattlemen's Association.
Questions are being asked about the reliability of a Cornell University study published in the Sept. 11 issue of the weekly journal Science. The study implicates high grain diets fed to finishing cattle in the creation of acid-resistant E. coli bacteria.
The study, widely publicized by the mainstream media, went on to say that feeding hay to feedlot cattle for five days before slaughter reverses that acid balance, reducing the number of potentially toxic E. coli bacteria in the animal's gut.
The 0157 strain of E. coli was implicated in the deaths of children who ate contaminated hamburgers from a fast food chain in Washington State back in 1993.
The strain causes bloody diarrhea and can lead to kidney failure.
Washington State University (WSU) scientists plan to publish a critique of the Cornell University study. The WSU scientists charge that the Cornell study has gaping holes in it, and that it should have been subjected to review by other scientists before it was made public.
Other scientists have produced studies contrary to the Cornell report, the critique says, pointing to a number of studies showing no difference in E. coli populations between grass-fed and feedlot cattle. Nor have other scientists found a difference in the acid pH of cattle rumens between animals fed on grass and those fed diets with as much as 90 per cent grain, the WSU group charges.
Furthermore, it is unlikely that contamination found in meat samples came directly from cattle intestinal tracts, the critique says. A more likely source is the animal hides, where bacteria can live for weeks before it is transferred to equipment in a packing plant.
The WSU group also expressed concern that a rapid switch in diets will cause metabolic distress and may even set the stage for colonization of the animal's gut by salmonella, another potential source of food poisoning.
Subjecting cattle to a special diet before slaughter is a problem in itself since most market-ready cattle are sorted from pens in feedlots no more than 12 hours before they board the truck to the packing plant, Doris points out.
"Before we get to that point, we need to clarify if the research findings are valid," he says.
The prevalence of E. coli in beef cattle is low, Doris says, citing research presented by scientists at a meat workshop in Guelph last spring.
At that time Kansas State University-based scientists Jan Sargent said E. coli is widely distributed between herds and individual animals. Any herd has between one and three per cent of cattle shedding E. coli bacteria in their manure. "Sometimes these animals can change," Doris says.
Animals that test positive for E. coli can be negative on a second test. Similarly, animals that tested negative the first time can show up as positive later.
Doris recommends "a cautious approach" on this issue. It remains questionable as to "whether the science is sound or not," he says.
In the meantime, the study is already being used as a trade tool, Doris says. The Irish beef industry is using it to promote its claim that Irish beef is cleaner than other products because cattle raised there are grass-fed. - Don Stoneman
© copyright 1998 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.
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U.K. cows get passports
Animal identification in the U.K. is getting personal. Last month, the first British cow got a barcode tag in her ear and was logged on to the British Cattle Tracing System. While passports were issued more than two years ago for every animal born or imported into the U.K., their movements were not recorded.The new barcode system will trace animal births, diseases and deaths in a herd, creating a full life story and a medical record of the beasts.
The U.K. government is paying £35 million (C$70 million) to start up and run the system for the first year. The venture, a legal requirement under European Union regulations, is aimed at convincing both European and U.K. consumers that beef is safe to eat.
"The government has decided to launch this as a response to the BSE crisis and is a key part of commitment to the European Union," says a U.K. government spokesman. "Knowing where a cow has been from birth to abattoir is of immense help in guaranteeing whether something is safe to eat or not."
The system has operated in Northern Ireland for several years. It combines a sophisticated barcode reader and a recognition device that can decipher hand-written numbers and letters.
Alternatively, farmers can input the information themselves on a central computer if they have access to the Internet. - Don Stoneman
© copyright 1998 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.
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Where welfare and cash flow connect
The Lintons aim to balance animal welfare and the bottom line on their 100-sow Brussels operationBy ROBERT IRWIN
The Lintons have received a lot of attention in the past year for claims that their switch to straw bedding is best for animal health and welfare. Dave Linton and wife Brenda have also raised some eyebrows with their views on financing, but they're convinced their approach is best for the operation.The couple run a 100-sow farrow-to-finish operation near Brussels with their four children. Dave maintains they've had only positive feedback from their views, which are sometimes critical of conventional pork production.
The Lintons once had tethers for dry sows and then switched to stalls. Dave recalls the loose housing idea took shape "when our 13-year-old son started asking questions [about animal welfare] and I really couldn't give him any good answers."
He says an outdoor setup was considered, "but birds were a disease risk."
What finally emerged was a naturally-ventilated, straw-bedded 40- X 100-foot barn with capacity for 120 dry sows.
Linton maintains his housing system is no more labour intensive than a conventional slatted facility. He estimates he spends about half an hour twice a week moving manure to an outdoor concrete pad with his tractor and front-end loader. A twice-weekly washing regimen keeps the sows clean and minimizes odour, he says.
The Lintons stress that their different approach shouldn't be construed as criticism of fellow producers. But Dave maintains that this summer's low pork prices and poor crops have reinforced his conviction that he's right in bucking the "factory farm" trend.
This year his soybean yields ranged from a high of 35 bushels to a low of 14 bushels from no-tilled seed on his heaviest clay in the drought-stricken area. His corn yields are down from a normal 130 bushels to 95.
He says this proves that equity is still an important pork production goal. The Lintons run their estimated $1.2-million operation with a $200,000 mortgage and a $20,000 operating loan, which he's still paying down despite tough times.
Linton graduated from Centralia College in 1971 and by 1973 had purchased his first 50 acres. This has expanded to 370 acres on which he plants 330 acres to a three-year corn, soybean, wheat, rotation that receives manure once every three years.
He says a stint this summer fielding consumer questions at the Central Canada Exhibition pork information booth strengthened his view that animal welfare is an emerging issue. "I described to [consumers] how these sows come out of these farrowing crates and into these stalls and then back into the farrowing crate. They just looked at me and said that can't be true," he recalls.
"We're going along merrily trying to figure out how we can industrialize this whole thing. Once consumers figure out what's going on I think a lot of them aren't going to be too impressed," he argues.
Linton says his participation in Ontario Pork's former Quality Assurance pilot project opened his eyes to widespread medication use in the industry. In March this year, in an effort to reduce costs and improve the wholesomeness of their product, the Lintons cut back on their use of feed medicators.
"When you're factory farming you pretty well need this stuff. We haven't noticed any difference yet," he says of the lack of medication. "I'm not saying we won't have problems next month and if we do, we'll put it back," Linton reasons.
He speculates that there may come a day when a chain store "might prefer our pork."
The family hopes to expand further with a straw-bedded finishing barn. They would also like to upgrade their nursery and finishing facilities.
The Lintons wean at three weeks. They average 22 pigs per sow per year. That's less than the numbers boasted by many Segregated Early Weaning (SEW) units, however Linton says his production costs average $1.10 per 100 kg compared to $1.40 and higher on heavily leveraged SEW units facing onerous interest costs.
Linton says it would make sense to update the nursery and finishing facilities soon to enable the family to maximize returns once the industry returns to profitability. But that would mean financing the work with more borrowed money, so construction will have to wait until the plans can be carried out with cash flow surpluses.
© copyright 1998 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.
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