Tentative Dates for Carcass 101 – For those who came out to the Beef Code of Practice workshop with live demos on October 26, you heard about the 2-part carcass 101 workshop series in the works for January 2019. This will be a workshop series you won’t want to miss! Part 1 will focus on carcass basics, carcass quality, grading, and sanitary slaughter. This session will be led by a certified grader and meat inspector and part of this session will take place at Thunder Bay Meat Processing so people can see carcass differences up close.
Part 2 of carcass 101 will be led by Dr. Phil Bass, who works with Certified Angus Beef and is a meat scientist with the University of Idaho. Dr. Phil Bass is an incredibly knowledgeable and engaging speaker. While breaking down a side of beef, Dr. Bass will be explaining the different cuts, the selling points and price of points of different cuts, how breed and feed translate into carcass attributes, and much more! The tentative dates for part 1 and part 2 are January 12 & 26. Mark your calendars and plan to be there! More details to come.
Feed Testing & Analysis for Beef Cattle – Feeding beef cattle is the most expensive part of a producer’s costs of production, typically accounting for 60% of costs. Check out this Beef Cattle Research Council fact sheet on how to forage test, understand lab results, and learn how forage testing can help prevent problems early on. The factsheet also shows the different nutrient requirements of pregnant cows versus bred heifers and how energy, crude protein, and other nutrient needs change by trimester. Check it out and remember your local OMAFRA office has a forage probe that can be borrowed for sampling forages! There is also a soil probe you’re welcome to use.
Body Condition Scoring – Fall is a great time to measure body condition! It will give you time to add condition on thinner cows before winter sets in. Body condition scoring is a low cost, hands-on method to determine the condition (amount of fat cover) of cattle. Looks can be deceiving so check out these tools on the Beef Cattle Research Council website on how to body condition score, why it’s important and what to do if your animals are underconditioned.
Registration open for the 2018-2019 Beef Cattle Research Council webinars – This year’s BCRC webinar topics include an update on the upcoming changes to antibiotic use, grazing management, animal transport, and other practical, science-based information for Canadian beef producers. BCRC webinars are available free of charge. Register by clicking this link. You can also view a whole host of past webinars here.
