Tag: cattle

A Study of Spacial Memory in Cattle


Recently, two studies were done to test the spatial memory of cattle. cow In one study, six heifers were trained in mazes.  The mazes were radial and parallel arm mazes in two levels of difficulty.  Grain was placed at the end of each maze then the heifers were individually released and allowed to choose their route freely until all the grain was gone.

When a heifer entered a previously entered arm, the choice was considered incorrect. When they tried the four arm level, the average of correct choices in the first four tries were 3.83 and 3.6 for the radial and parallel mazes, respectively. When they were put in at the eight arm level, the average correct choices in the first eight tries were 7.78 and 7.36, respectively. This shows that the heifers were a little more efficient in the radial maze where directional and distal cues were more pronounced.

In the second study, two sets of twin steers were trained in a radial-arm maze using similar procedures as the first study. The average number of correct choices in the first eight entrances was 7.68. A interval of delay was then placed between choices four and five.  The steers rarely made any errors when the delay was between five minutes and four hours.  After an eight hour delay, performance dropped slightly.  After a twelve hour delay, it dropped dramatically.  The average number of correct choices in the first eight entrances were 7.63, 7.29, and 5.8 for delays of four hours, eight hours, and twelve hours, respectively.  The study concludes that cattle have the ability to associate many locations with food resources and to remember those locations for periods of up to eight hours.

Labor Dept. Banning Farm Chores for Children


A proposal from the Obama administration to prevent kids from doing farm tasks has drawn lots of objection from rural-district members of Congress. Today it’s bring in barbs from farm kids themselves.

The Division of Labor is positioned to put the finishing touches on a rule that would apply child labor regulations to youngsters dealing with family farms, forbidding them from carrying out a checklist of works on their own families’ land.

Under the rules, the majority of kids under 18 can not work 62d6d3910dbf3f8f8038211beac1c061“in the storing, marketing and moving of farm product raw materials.”.

“Prohibited places of employment,” a Department press release read, “would include country grain elevators, grain bins, silos, feed lots, stockyards, livestock exchanges and livestock auctions.”

The new rules, initially suggested August 31 by Labor Assistant Hilda Solis, would also revoke the government’s approval of security training and qualification shown by independent groups like 4-H and FFA, replacing them instead with a 90-hour federal government training course.

Rossie Blinson, a 21-year-old college student from Buis Creek, N.C., informed The Daily Caller that the federal government’s plan will certainly do far more damage compared to good.

“The main concern I have is that it would keep kids from doing 4-H and FFA tasks if they’re not at their parents’ home,” claimed Blinson.

“I began showing sheep when I was four years old. I began with cattle around 8. It’s been extremely important. I learned a lot about responsibility being a farm kid.”.

In Kansas, Cherokee County Farm Bureau president Jeff Clark was out in the field– essentially on a tractor– when TheDC reached him. He claimed if Solis’s regulations are carried out, farming family members’ labor losses from their children will just be part of the trouble.

“What would be even more of an impact,” he said, “is not teaching our youngsters the values of dealing with a farm.”.

The Epa reports that the average age of the American farmer is currently over 50.

“Losing that work ethic — it’s so hard to pick this up later in life,” Clark said. “There’s other ways to learn how to farm, but it’s so hard. You can learn so much more working on the farm when you’re 12, 13, 14 years old.”

John Weber, 19, comprehends. The Minneapolis native grew up in the suburbs and learned about animals working summers on his loved ones’ farm.

He’s now an university Agriculture major.

“I started working on my grandparent’s and uncle’s farms for a couple of weeks in the summer when I was 12,” Weber told TheDC. “I started spending full summers there when I was 13.”

“The work ethic is a huge part of it. It gave me a lot of direction and opportunity in my life. If they do this it will prevent a lot of interest in agriculture. It’s harder to get a 16 year-old interested in farming than a 12 year old.”

Weber is additionally a little businessman. In secondary school, he claimed, he got a funding and acquired a few steers to raise for earnings. “Under these rules,” he described, “I would not be allowed to do that.”.

In February the Labor Department apparently backed away from what many called an unlikely grasp right into farmers’ households, resuming the public comment period on a section of the laws developed to provide parents an exception for their own children.

But the US farmers’ largest trade team is unimpressed.

“American Farm Bureau does not view that as a victory,” said Kristi Boswell, a labor specialist with the American Farm Bureau Federation. “It’s a misconception that they have backed off on the parental exemption.”

4-H Auctions: Teens Making Money


On the very first Saturday of the Minnesota State Fair, 18-year-old Tyler Otte’s champ Angus beef cattle made him $5,600.

That’s the price the Angus sold for in Saturday’s 4-H Purple Ribbon Auction, $1,400 more than the average in 2014’s public auction, according to fair authorities.

The mid-day prior to the public auction, Otte remained in the livestock barn brushing his Black Angus, and he was far from alone. Young adults from throughout the state were preparing their animals for the auction the following day.

The Purple Ribbon Auction occurs each year at the Minnesota State Exhibition. pix-0827ffaresultsjpg-ad5a9576513df593_large“It originated as an extra incentive for kids to participate in the fair activities”, stated 4-H volunteer Corky Modene, that raised animals for the 4-H auction himself in his more youthful years.

To get to the auction, young adults spend the year raising livestock and needs to win county fair competitions to get to the fair.

The auction makes big amounts of cash from purchasers. Kailey Davis of Freeborn County, who raised the champion of the 2010 Grand Champion Market Beef category– the one in which Otte competed– made $14,600. Eighty percent of auction profits go to the young people who raise the animals, while 20 percent, according to Modene, goes to 4-H scholarships and other curricula.

This will be Otte’s third year participating in the Purple Ribbon Auction, so he is no stranger to the process. Otte’s family has been raising cattle since he was in the second grade. “We keep buying them, so we keep raising them,” he claimed, casually.

Daily care throughout the year is the largest commitment when raising cattle for the public auction, Otte said. “You have to wash (bathe) them on a daily basis,” Otte claimed.

And the cattle call for unique, expensive feed, he said.

Bonnie Reed, a member of the 4-H Auction Committee whose kids used to join the auction too, claimed: “It takes hours a day to deal with them.”.

Another commitment in raising cattle is the issue of space to accommodate the animals; but Otte said that it wasn’t a problem for his family. “We live way in southern Dakota County, so it’s fine,” Otte said.

When asked about his feelings about raising cattle for massacre, Otte claimed that it’s not difficult to give them up at the end of the auction. “That could seem rough. But it’s what an animal is, I guess,” he stated, and also shrugged.

“It’s what it’s raised for,” added Reed.

Although Otte is not really connected to the cattle he raises, he is to the people he meets at the auction.

“You meet a lot of awesome individuals”, Otte stated. “You meet people from all over the state. We keep in touch.”

Otte considers visiting the University of Minnesota next year with a bunch of the people he has met via the 4-H auction.

Safety in Cattle Handling


Cattle handling is a dangerous task on milk farms, and cows are a significant reason for injuries to animal trainers. Even if milk cows are usually tranquil and docile, when situations happen that they perceive or remember as averse, they might come to be perturbed and harmful to take care of.

This research study intended to compare human-animal communications, cow habits, and trainer safety when relocating cows to day-to-day milking and relocating cows to much more seldom happenings, and also possibly hoof trimming. These procedures were noted on 12 Swedish commercial dairy ranches. The research study included behavioral observations of trainer and cows and cow heart rate recordings, along with tape-recording regularities of situations and also occurrences related to a boosted injury danger to the trainer.

cow-milkingWAt milking, cows were quite quickly moved making use of couple of communications. As anticipated, the cows showed no behavioral indicators of stress, anxiety, or resistance and their heart rate only rose somewhat from the baseline (i.e., the typical heart rate during an uninterrupted duration before managing). Moving cows to hoof trimming involved more strong and gentle interactions compared to relocating cows to milking. In addition, the cows showed considerably greater frequencies of actions a measure of hostility and worry (e.g., freezing, stopping, and also resistance), and a greater rise in heart rate.

The threat of injury to which handlers were subjected additionally boosted when relocating cows to hoof trimming as opposed to routine milking. Some interactions (such as strong tactile interactions with an item and pulling a neck strap or halter) appeared to be connected to possibly dangerous incidents where the handler was being kicked, head-butted, or run over by a cow.

To conclude, relocating cows to hoof cutting resulted in greater regularities of actions indicating fear, even more powerful communications, and also increased injury dangers to the handler than moving cows to milking. Improving possibly demanding handling treatments (e.g., by far better animal managing methods as well as prep work of cows to manage such procedures) can raise trainer safety, animal welfare, simplicity of handling, as well as performance.

To Plow or Not to Plow Your Farm


A couple of years ago, fresh from college and struggling to endeavor right into science writing, I participated in a workshop on crop biotechnology in Nairobi, Kenya. I clearly recall one man from an international biotech company extol participants that included some poor farmers, agricultural expansion officers, the media, members of parliament and also representatives of non-profit organizations, to consider integrating conservation tillage (CT) into Kenya’s agricultural policies.

constillage4Conservation tillage, he clarified, protects dirt nutrients and also reduces soil erosion. When he mentioned this, one participant soared, wanting to know how weed control would be done. “Make use of herbicides,” the man snapped.

This fired up a highly explosive argument regarding the benefits and drawbacks of conservation tillage that almost derailed the workshop. In a nation where farmers are consistently allegiant to typical farming techniques, conservation tillage showed tough to offer.

Organic Beef


download (9)Organic meat differs from normal meat in the way the farmer raised the animal before butchering. Organic meats must be certified by one of numerous certification organizations, including the Midwest Organic Services Association. Farmers must adhere to strict organic standards in the production of the meat product.
Meats certified organic are frequently born on farms and raised with the utmost respect and dignity. Beef livestock are not raised in pens yet are totally free to wander the ranch with unrestricted accessibility to water, food, sunshine and outside air at all times. Everything that goes into an organic farm animal must additionally be natural. The meadows the animals forage in must be accredited organic themselves. Organic forage and grains grown naturally have to be fed to the animals and also natural bug control should be utilized on these farms. No synthetic or chemical pesticides, herbicides or plant foods are applied to area fields or pastures.

Buy or Sell Your Cattle Online


cattle0013Buy Sell Cows website meets the needs of farmers by setting up an easy to use livestock auction, where you could bid on the sort of cow or bull you need for your farm. You can likewise sell your cattle. Farmers have a diverse range of demands for buying and selling cattle based on their annual livestock requirements. Farmers have all sort of livestocks offer for sale, including milking cows and beef cattle.

Possibly a farmer wants to change from raising livestocks for beef to raising cows for dairy. Farmers could also utilize the website to boost and then lower their headcount to adjust for farm size capacity to enhance ranch earnings and revenue.