But experts at the Beef Cattle Research Council would say that genetic record keeping doesn’t have to be cumbersome for cow-calf or commercial producers, and there will soon be a course to get them started.

The key is to start by identifying an operation’s most valuable data sets and then keep things simple, the organization says.

“I think the bottom line for record keeping for genetics and record keeping in general is that you can start small. You don’t have to take on a whole big system all in one afternoon,” said Ellen Crane, BCRC extension co-ordinator.

“It’s starting somewhere that makes sense for you and identifying some goals for your operation so that you’re not chasing your own tail, so to speak. Then, you’re able to make measurable choices and decisions that hopefully will have positive impact on performance and, at the end of the day, improve the bottom line.”

Class in session

The course will be the latest in a range of tools the BCRC already offers to help producers backstop decisions with data.

Launching in January, the Cow-Calf Record-Keeping Course for Tracking Genetic Improvements will be a six-part program that walks producers through the process of tracking genetic improvements using practical record-keeping.

Producers will not have to carve any set class times from their schedules. The program is meant to be taken at the participant’s own pace, with content emailed in digestible bites every few days. Those materials cover topics like the rationale for keeping records, different system options, goalsetting and turning information into action.

“You can set it up so that it delivers as frequently as you want it to. If you want to see one email a week or two emails a week, that’s up to you,” said Crane.

“But the idea is to try and break down the record-keeping resources that we have so that it’s in bite-sized chunks. You might sit down one afternoon and do one section of the resource instead of trying to work through all of it in one sitting, maybe even go over it at a time in your production cycle that works better for you.”

Depth of data

Cow-calf genetic records don’t have to be comprehensive. Producers can focus on the types of data that are most pertinent to them.

That will largely consist of economically relevant traits directly associated with a source of revenue or a cost, according to the BCRC. That could include things like calving ease, weaning weight or heifer pregnancy weight.

A producer’s chosen traits will depend on their circumstances.

“Records are not a one-size-fits-all. If a producer has a buyer that is interested in another type of record, then those are going to be worth maintaining,” said Crane.

“If you know you’d like to improve your weaning weights, in addition to management, you could look for a bull that has the genetic potential to do that.”

The GOLD standard is one option to get producers started. This group of data categories stands for growth (growth of calves), open (number of open cows), length (length of calving season) and death (calf death loss).

“When it comes down to genetics or any records in general, the GOLD standards are really low-hanging fruit that any producer could be looking at,” said Crane. “They’re not just helpful for your production, but they indirectly go back to your genetics as well.”

The BCRC website at beefresearch.ca also lists other record keeping options.

“We try our best to outline the most practical [records] that make the most sense for producers,” said Crane.

The organization has tried to streamline available options to avoid overwhelming producers and “give you at least a decent starting point when trying to do record-keeping,” she added.

Crane also stressed the importance of simplicity.

“It isn’t a super easy topic to get your head wrapped around, but it doesn’t have to be so complicated.

“Especially for a commercial producer or a cow-calf producer wanting to keep better track of their genetics records, there can be some traits that are easier to keep track of and take some of this overwhelming aspect out of genetic records.”

More information on the BCRC course, and sign-up options, is available at beefresearch.ca.

The post Taking the angst out of cow-calf record keeping appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Despite some setbacks, she remains excited about what the technology has to offer, she said.

Mundt and husband Brenton are part of a pilot project testing the Australian-made Ceres Tag. Unlike other tracking technology, the tags don’t require any extra infrastructure because the data they generate is tracked by low-orbit satellites (which means they can even transmit data through tree cover). Alongside GPS location data, the tags also monitor ambient temperature and animal activity levels.

Mundt said that the mapping data (accessed through an app called Aglive) has been the most useful for her 150-head cow-calf operation — despite the herd staying in the home pasture all winter.

“We can set a fence perimeter on the software so that, should the tag cross the physical fence and a cow gets out, it sends us an alert,” said Mundt, adding she’s keen to see how the location data will also save on time and fuel costs once the herd moves to larger summer pastures.

Because the cows were kept close to home, the Ceres Tag’s cold-weather limitations weren’t an issue. Designed in Australia (where the coldest temperature ever recorded was -23 C), the tags are designed to shut off and conserve battery power at -21 C. However, the cold snaps didn’t kill them, said Mundt, and the tags came on again without problems when the weather warmed up.

Tagging was also a bit of an issue as the dual-pin tags contain delicate technology and require a special applicator and a gentle touch.

“You can’t just crunch it as hard as possible,” she said. “As experienced as we are at tagging cattle, I guess there’s maybe just a bit more for us to learn here.”

The tags also only upload data every four hours, which is less than Mundt would like — although since each one uploads independently, the gap between herd-locating pings isn’t that long.

“Even though we only had such a small sample of our herd tagged, it was really interesting to notice where they went, because that did seem to be generally where the herd was going to,” she said.

But the biggest barrier is cost.

An intro kit — 10 tags and an applicator — goes for US$2,999, although the Canadian Agricultural Partnership’s Farm Technology Program (www.tinyurl.com/bp99f86u) covers GPS tags and trackers.

“And that really makes a big difference because if you didn’t have this government funding available, then I would say that it’s probably out of reach for quite a few ranchers,” said Mundt.

Cost is definitely an issue, agreed Susan Markus, a livestock research scientist at Lakeland College.

“All these technologies, they’re expensive,” she said. “We’re trying to see, is there some other value-added components to these tags besides just knowing where the animal is?”

Because the tags measure movement and temperature, they have been described as a “fitbit for cows” and in her study, Markus wanted to see if they could monitor breeding activities — specifically, what was happening when a bull was close to a cow.

But again, the four-hour upload interval didn’t offer frequent-enough data points to get that picture.

Still, monitoring cows via direct-to-satellite GPS has a lot of potential, she said.

“The whole GPS concept is extremely promising because ranchers don’t want to have other infrastructure and towers and other things set up to capture that data,” said Markus, adding the Ceres Tag might suit producers who require less frequent location data.

While this particular tag didn’t have what Lakeland researchers were looking for, they will continue to study GPS cattle tags, and other monitoring technologies.

For example, they are currently studying a smart Rumen Bolus from a Hungarian company called Moonsyst International. It can detect heats, monitor calving events and track changes in behaviour that indicate health troubles. It can even track water intake via an animal’s temperature.

“If they’re not drinking water over a period of time, we don’t get those spikes in the decrease in the temperature,” said Markus. “And in the one case, the water had frozen up and there was no water to be drank. And they’re in a pen and there’s no snow to be licked. So they obviously had no water for the day and so just to know that was extremely useful.”

However, the Moonsyst bolus is not GPS enabled, and so cattle must be relatively close to a base station (which the company says has a range of 500 metres).

And it’s the tracking capability of the Ceres Tag that intrigued Mundt, who noted it would be particularly useful for ranchers who have issues losing animals or grazing them in hard-to-reach areas.

The post Satellite tracking of cows still a work in progress appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Or using drones to track your cattle while at the same time discovering the most nutrient-rich forage on your land.

These are just a couple of examples of current research that hold the promise of ushering in a new age of automated, precision technology in the cattle industry. Both hold the promise of significantly improving efficiency — on the ranch and across the value chain — and also producing healthier cattle.

Welcome to the world of the ‘digital homestead.’

“I think it’s kind of exciting,” said Vermilion rancher Sean McGrath. “With beef cattle there has been lots of new technology in the loop but not necessarily automated, mechanical types of things.

“Particularly some of the virtual fencing is pretty exciting. There are places on our operation where it is not possible to build a fence, ever. This has potential to actually improve range management.”

• Read more: High-frequency tags: Easier data reading, happier cattle

While crop growers have been reaping the economic and environmental benefits of GPS technology for years, the realities of dealing with live animals have stuck livestock producers in the decidedly non-digital world of moving fences and best-guess approaches to grazing management.

That’s about to change.

Managing cattle by satellite

Australia, home to vast cattle stations that cover hundreds and even thousands of square miles, is the leader in developing a suite of technology tools that researchers there have dubbed the ‘digital homestead.’

The goal is to create a ‘one-stop-shop online dashboard’ that would enable producers to do everything from in-field weighing of livestock and locating cattle to monitoring body condition, grazing conditions, and pasture health — all from their smartphones or computers. The Aussies are currently testing technologies such as ‘Walk Over Weighing’ stations (where cattle must walk over scales to access a watering station) and collars with wireless transmitters which can not only track an animal’s location but also indicate whether it’s eating, ruminating, or resting.

But a key to digital homestead research is the part that so intrigues McGrath — virtual fencing that uses satellite technology instead of poles and wire.

Virtual fences start with boundaries created from GPS co-ordinates that exist only as lines on a digital map. The boundary becomes real to the cattle when the solar-powered collars they’re wearing emit a sound as they near the virtual fence — a principle similar to the visual cue of a conventional electric fence. This, of course, means cattle would have to be trained to respond to the sound.

Few people — including the researchers themselves — believe this technology will entirely replace on-the-ground monitoring of cattle and pasture conditions. McGrath, for one, sees a flaw in the concept of training cows to recognize invisible barriers.

“If you had an imaginary line that went past a tree where the cow couldn’t go past, she would probably in the future associate that tree with a barrier,” he said. “We run lots of electric fence and when we roll up the wire, if the posts are still there it’s awfully tough to get a cow to go across where she remembers that wire being.”

However, he’s optimistic that some of the bugs in the system will eventually be worked out. “The potential is worth looking into or investigating further,” he said. “Take riparian zones. Instead of fencing out two miles of creek across difficult terrain you could put a digital fence in there, keep cows out of your creek, and move it as needed in a flooding event instead of having your fence wiped out.

“That kind of stuff I think has pretty neat potential.”

But he’ll want to see how effective the technology is and, as with any purchase, do the cost-benefit math before writing a cheque.

“I’d want to know it works before I go and spend money on collars and software. On the flip side, a mile of fencing is an awful pile of money, too.”

Never lose a cow

Much of the precision farming research occurring closer to home involves ultra-high-frequency radio frequency identification (UHF-RFID) readers. Meanwhile, the advent of drones has allowed people to better assess conditions on the ground for a number of purposes.

Can the two technologies be combined to track cattle and manage pasture?

That’s a question that Glen Kathler of SAIT in Calgary and John Church of Thompson River University in Kamloops, B.C. are trying to answer.

Their plan is to deploy drones equipped with thermal cameras and UHF-RFID readers to track and time cattle from the air. The cameras will also be used to assess plant health and biomass in pastures. They chose the B.C. Rockies as the project location in order to test the drones in an area hard to reach by conventional methods.

“In B.C., a large proportion of cattle producers use Crown grazing and most of the cows — let’s say 85 per cent — come home on their own,” said Church. “But there are always some stragglers — 15 per cent or so that you have to find and round up.

“The eastern slopes of the Rockies in Alberta are very similar in a lot of ways to most of the terrain we are having to deal with in B.C. So it’s a really good partnership in that way. If we can find them in that locale you can pretty much find them anywhere.”

The drone will use thermal imaging for what Kathler describes as an “early warning system.”

“From probably half a mile away we can already detect the heat signature of an animal,” he said. “By the time we get to a quarter-mile away we can probably detect from the thermal image what it is. Is it a dog, is it a coyote, is it a cow?”

Because drones fly so smoothly, ones equipped with UHF equipment can quickly and silently read the cattle’s ear tags without disturbing the animals, he said.

“We could fly over to the cow and read its RFID tag without waking it up or scaring it,” he said. “With the GPS information from the drone we could report back where that cow is within 10 metres of its location.”

Grazing is covered, too

In the process, the recording technology on board the drone can help create a database of animal movement producers can use to develop a grazing strategy.

“The drone can be set up to fly a particular grid,” said Kathler. “The software will stitch those grids together so if you’ve done three or four flights you can look at your map on the screen and know where to fly next.

“You can lay out your grazing area into a form that can be handled by these quadrants where the drone can fly and do an inventory management.”

The Alberta and B.C. researchers have created a drone able to carry all the equipment necessary to take photos, videos, and create a database of in-flight activity. SAIT has also developed a new UHF directional antenna to facilitate the research. Next up are full test flights, which are planned for later this year.

However, even without the full array of equipment, the drones have shown some success in finding lost cattle, said Church.

“This past fall we were looking for lost cattle in some actual real-world cases where producers couldn’t find their cattle. We were pleasantly surprised that even without the ear tags we were able to find cattle missing on the range.”

The post PRECISION RANCHING: Manage your cattle from your easy chair appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

However, the process can be painfully slow and inefficient. But researchers may have found a way to change that.

A three-year project conducted by SAIT’s Glen Kathler tested the ability of ultra-high-frequency RFID tag readers to process data from several cattle at a time as they’re walked through an archway. That’s an improvement on the current practice of putting cattle through a squeeze chute one by one and reading their data using low-frequency RFID technology.

“Our mandate from (project funders) Alberta Livestock and Meat Agency at the time was to be able to read up to seven animals through a 16-foot alley at 20 miles per hour. We proved that,” said Kathler.

• Read more: PRECISION RANCHING: Manage your cattle from your easy chair

While the efficiency of the UHF-RFID/archway prototype reveal some obvious benefits for producers, auction marts, transporters, and packing plants, there is also a strong animal welfare component.

“The biggest benefit — and the reason for researching it in the first place — was the fact that you can now sort animals and obtain their data with limited stress on the animal,” said Kathler.

“If you look at any of the research on animal handling in a squeeze chute, you’re going to lose between one and 1-1/2 per cent of their body weight every time they get squeezed.

“But when you move them through a wide alley for sorting between pens and a feedlot, you know exactly what animals you’re loading without that individual squeeze activity.”

Although all of the components needed to set up a similar system are commercially available, it may be a while before operations can create their own archway.

This is mainly due to the low supply — and therefore high expense — of UHF-RFID tags currently on the market.

“No one is actually selling a package that looks like (our prototype) and the reason for that is UHF tags are just kind of trickling into the industry, mostly in countries other than Canada,” said Kathler.

The post High-frequency tags: Easier data reading, happier cattle appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Darren Bevans

Darren Bevans, general manager of Deseret Ranches of Alberta Ltd., Raymond

Deseret Ranches has vertically integrated ranches in Canada and the U.S., a feed yard, and two centres where top genetics are developed, with bulls used on commercial cows.

We identified the priority traits to focus on, used the technology, and thought long term. When we have questions, we call the researchers and the professionals and ask.

When times are tough, that’s when focused management pays off. Productivity is an everyday progression to keep moving forward. We looked at our system in terms of efficiency and productivity, and decided to adapt our practices to better use the resources along the way.

We looked at our old pastures and saw pastures that were underperforming, and looked at improved technologies and forage mixes. We’re improving the resources to produce more with the same resources. As I look around the industry, I know that there are opportunities for forage improvement. And there are some really easy wins there, if we’re willing to do it.

(Because of our integration), we’re no longer fighting for our part of the profitability sector. We’re taking cues from the hog industry and its integration and trying to work closer together. I’m convinced that some of the biggest opportunities from the Canadian beef industry are to work closer together and find ways to capture the value all the way through, rather than fight against each other. The people south of the border think Canadians have an advantage in working together and sharing data and I hope we can capture that.

Leighton Kolk

Leighton Kolk, president and co-owner of Kolk Farms Ltd., Iron Springs

Kolk Farms grows irrigated and dryland crops and its feedlot operations produce 20 million pounds of beef annually.

When it comes down to efficiency and doing a good job and being productive, it comes down to the people. Without them, you can’t be productive.

We changed our pens to a roller packed concrete flooring. Mud costs us a lot of money. If there are mud and wet conditions, it’s taking about 10 to 20 per cent of our feed efficiency off the animal when it has to fight mud.

For data collection, chute side, we have a computer program that gives us instant data and captures everything the day the animal comes in. It ties it all to the RFID tag and it’s all in there.

This gives the staff instant access to what they treated the animal with and how much the animal weighed. If the animal is not being productive, they can take that animal and send it on a different course.

Pain control is important. Today it’s like Frank’s hot sauce, we use that sh#t on everything. We use it dehorning, castrating, and in surgeries; for any painful procedure.

We monitor our feed trucks. They’re hooked up to a system and tracked with GPS and we can track the feed rations. We also test our dry distillers (grains) and feed pellets. We teach low-stress cattle-handling techniques. It’s not a rodeo or a stampede when we work cattle. It’s a low-stress approach. We use low-stress cattle-handling equipment — which cost us a bunch of money initially — but now when cattle come through, they go back in the pen, and go (right) back on their feed.

Every heifer is preg checked on their arrival.

Genetics is one of the fastest ways we’re going to get efficient in this business. When we’re putting this much bark on the back of an animal to make it a Choice or Triple A, and then we’re cutting the fat off and throwing it out or selling it for four cents a pound, that’s terribly inefficient.

We have to think of productivity as industry groups or organizations. We need to get away from doing things twice. All of us working for the industry need to be better at reducing duplication, using information flow, leveraging promotional dollars and evaluating our goals to make sure they are relevant to our industry.

Kevin Blair

Kevin Blair, CEO of Blairs.Ag Cattle Company, Lanigan, Sask.

Blair’s Family of Companies is an agricultural retailer of crop inputs and owns a herd of purebred Red and Black Angus, Hereford, and commercial genetics.

We’re in the beef business and we need to stop fighting each other and work together. I want to challenge people about how they think about productivity. Our beliefs are part of what we do, which is part of productivity. We need to respect the past, but we should never compromise the future for the past.

People are important to the business. You can’t be productive in your operation if you don’t trust people, give them room to operate, and let them make mistakes.

You don’t need to look like everyone else. Don’t do what everyone else is doing because there’s no competitive advantage there. Productivity increases can be achieved through diversity at the seedstock level. An old commercial guy told me to remember that at your bull sale, everyone wants to see 100 bulls that look the same, but everybody doesn’t want to buy 100 bulls that look the same. Pick a type.

Don’t be so concerned about frame. Think about smaller, lighter versions. Listen to your customers and understand what drives them.

If the seedstock industry is going to survive, we need to be educated and focused. The seedstock industry needs youth in science, marketing, and branding. We need highly motivated people if we’re going to increase productivity by 2020.

Matthew Heleniak

Matthew Heleniak, manager of Norpac Beef, Norwich, Ont.

Norpac Beef has a processing plant, distributes boxed beef, and feeds 2,500 to 3,000 cattle at feedlots. It also has a small cow-calf operation.

Getting bigger isn’t better. We decided to have our own niche by doing different things. This makes it so we don’t have to compete with big packers. We have processing lines, we sell burgers, hotdogs, and ground beef, which allowed us to grow our business quite substantially and stay off the radar of some of the bigger companies.

We feed Limousin cattle with a corn ration with a high-end pellet. We use 24-hour feed and free-choice bunks with high-quality bedding.

We’re a numbers-based company. We tag every individual with weight and know what each individual animal gains on a daily basis. All feed is computerized and run through a computerized system. We know what each animal is eating.

There’s a lot of loss of productivity in the beef industry because of meat that isn’t tender. This can include dark cutters and carcasses that aren’t an enjoyable experience for the end consumer. As weird as it sounds, if someone gets a tough steak, it hurts the productivity of the whole business and people eat less beef.

To maximize tenderness at our plant, we make sure that cattle are in our facility 24 hours before slaughter. They have free-choice feed and water. We play Led Zeppelin and AC/DC on the radio, so they hear clamouring and banging and aren’t startled by gates or different voices.

Our main goal is to reduce stress on the animal so we get a more tender carcass. We have a good handling facility and different lighting systems so that cattle are as calm and quiet as possible.

The post Trust your people, dare to be different, and know your numbers appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“Sadly, in many cases, what it takes for producers to make the change is the ‘big problem’ where they get their butt kicked,” said Dr. Frank Garry, a veterinarian and professor at the University of Colorado.

“Then, eventually something changes — not because we want it to, but because it has to.”

So why don’t more producers put biosecurity measures in place before disaster hits?

“Tradition and habit,” Garry said at the University of Calgary Veterinary Medicine Beef Cattle Conference last month.

“Change is hard. It’s true, but in a certain kind of sense, it’s bullshit. It’s an excuse. The change will occur whether you do an active dance with it or not.”

Producers also think that biosecurity requires a lot of change — but that’s not the case, he said.

“Most biosecurity efforts don’t actually cost very much money. They cost a change in thought and in management.”

But on the flip side, infectious diseases do result in “ongoing loss and inefficiency.”

“You have reduced production because you cannot have infectious disease on an operation and not lose money to decreased productivity in the animals,” said Garry.

Producers make money through a simple equation: The number of animals sold multiplied by their weight and the price per pound. Decreased productivity and increased death losses hit two parts of that equation.

“For every calf you lose, you lose 500 pounds of revenue. This is true whether cattle prices are good or bad,” said Garry. “And for every single calf you lose to whatever infectious disease you want to name, you better increase the weaning weight of your next 10 calves by 50 pounds to equal your lost revenue.

“You’ll turn a lot of attention to getting that extra 50 pounds of weaning weight. My question is will you put the same energy and effort into something that actually decreases these losses?”

In most cases, implementing biosecurity measures simply means “being relatively thoughtful about a relatively few things.”

Three-pronged approach

Garry supports a three-pronged approach to disease management on the farm — using antibiotics, vaccines, and biosecurity in concert.

But prevention is worth a pound of cure, he added.

“Antibiotics are not a prevention tool. They don’t do jack to prevent problems in the herd,” said Garry. “You’re going to say, ‘I do prevent disease — I used vaccines.’ But do they really prevent disease? You are not going to vaccinate Johne’s disease away. It will not happen.”

Vaccines “modify” disease occurrence and decrease shedding of the infectious agents, but they can also be “questionable in their efficacy.”

“Without something else to back them up, vaccines are a waste of your money in many situations,” said Garry. “If you pair the vaccine with a biosecurity control program, now you have power. If you do not use both together, you will lose the game and squander a boatload of money.”

Unlike vaccinations, biosecurity is “not pathogen specific.”

“Most of the management practices that decrease disease transmission for one agent are effective against multiple. If you institute really good Johne’s disease control procedures, you will also decrease calf scours. They go hand in hand.”

How to build a plan

But in some cases, true biosecurity is impossible.

“There are so many infectious organisms that are already in the premise that, in many cases, biocontainment is more important for average everyday management than biosecurity,” said Garry. “We want management and hygiene practices that decrease the risk of introducing or spreading infectious disease, therefore reducing animal exposure.”

And that starts with a disease-monitoring and management plan.

“We want to prevent transmission, eliminate the agent, and increase immunity,” he said. “That requires a relatively specific strategy, which has goal setting, risk assessment, planning, implementation, and monitoring.”

The first step is education.

“You need to understand your target and what you’re doing. You need to know the agent and what it’s going to do,” he said. “Then you do a risk assessment. Where am I likely to have problems on the farm? From that, I develop a management plan, and only then do I decide what I’m going to do to test it.

“But what it really takes is commitment.”

Producers don’t need to be running a “100 per cent sterile operation” to make a meaningful improvement in the health of their cattle, added Garry.

“There are no fail-safes. There are no places where you can say, ‘OK, I did that — the disease will never be a problem on my operation,’” he said. “Instead, we put in multiple hurdles, and each hurdle reduces the risk, and when you combine them, you get incremental improvement.

“You don’t have zero risk, but you’re getting pretty darn close.”

The post Prevention truly is worth a pound of cure appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“Increased public concern with animal welfare, and also with antibiotic resistance in humans, has really drawn attention to the use of these kinds of products,” said Gabriel Ribeiro at the recent Feed Coalition workshop.

“We have to understand that demand drives production, and as beef producers, we have to produce what the consumer wants. And if that’s what the consumer wants in the future, we might have to change the way we produce beef.”

Right now, producers use beta-agonists and antibiotics to promote growth, improving everything from carcass gain to feed efficiency, he said.

And improved efficiency is critical as global demand for beef grows.

“By 2050, we will need around 43 per cent increase in beef production. That means a little over one per cent increase per year,” said Ribeiro, a visiting scientist at the Lethbridge Research Centre.

“The question is: How are we going to do that? Are we going to increase efficiency and improve the way we feed and raise our cattle? Or are we going to increase our area and our number of animals?”

Doing the former is going to be tough without growth promotants, according to a recent U.S. study.

“By removing this growth-enhancing technology, we would need to increase the animal population by 11.8 per cent and increase feed stuff by 10.6 per cent to produce the same amount of beef,” said Ribeiro. “We would also need to increase land area by 10 per cent, water use by 4.2 per cent, and carbon emissions by 9.8 per cent.”

But with federal legislation phasing out the use of antibiotics for growth promotion within the next three years and markets increasingly demanding implant-free beef, producers will need to start rethinking their production practices.

Five suggestions

“We have to think about the whole system and the points we can manage and change that can reduce problems,” said Ribeiro. “We have to think about preventing disease, not treating disease.”

Reducing stress during transport and handling is a major factor in preventing disease, he said.

“Nowadays, people have been moving their cattle more often, with animals changing groups, and that puts animals in higher-stress situations,” said Ribeiro. “If you’re always moving your animals between pens, you’re increasing this. Your animals are stressed, and the probability of having disease problems is higher.”

Diet also plays a role.

“That might be the easiest way nowadays to try to reduce acidosis and liver abscesses,” he said, adding that may mean bumping up fibre levels.

“People are feeding less than 10 per cent forage in their finishing diets. What we’re doing is transforming ruminants into monogastrics, and we can expect problems with that. That’s not in their biology.”

Proper grain processing also can reduce the risk of acidosis.

“We know if we increase processing, we increase fermentation in the rumen, but if we increase too much fermentation, it causes acidosis,” said Ribeiro. “We’ve got to fine tune that to have the minimum processing so that we can effectively use the grain, but not promote excessive acid production.”

Improved feed delivery could also help.

“Delivering the feed more often would promote the reduction of meal size,” he said. “We know that animals that eat too much have higher fermentation and more acid being produced.”

Reducing animal density would help drive down disease as well, he said. “We have lots of animals very close to each other, and maybe we will have to reduce the number of animals in a pen.”

These changes “will involve costs,” said Ribeiro, but eventually, those costs may be offset by higher prices, as was the case in Europe, where growth promotants are banned.

“These technologies have an impact on production, so if we remove them, it will be a problem. But if we can add value to Canadian beef, this loss might be reduced by the opening of new markets.”

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