4-H on Parade Highlights

As some of you may know, last weekend was 4-H on Parade, the big finale of the 4-H year. I've talked a lot about beef cattle showing, and the beef shows at 4-H on Parade (or 4hop as some people call it) are quite a big deal for many. Unfourtantly, I had prior committments during the weekend and was not able to watch the shows.

But neverfear, here are some other highlights of some non-beef projects;

A sheep at the multi judging competition.

A sleeping draft horse foal.



 

Goats!



Market hogs.



Beef Hormones

It's that time of year again!

4-H beef club members are selling their steer projects. In relation to this, there has recently been a lot of hype regarding hormone implants in beef cattle and opinions on these are often quite mixed. From a more holistic point of view these are a very negative thing. From a producers point of view these are economically beneficial.

First of all, let me explain what hormone implants in cattle can be used for. In the beef industry the main drug of discussion involves a synthetic version of estrogen called zeranol is implanted beneath the skin. According to the Ralgro website (http://www.ralgro.com/implants/mag_qfar.asp), zeranol functions to "stimulate the pituitary gland of the animal to produce increased amounts of somatotropin, the animal's own natural growth-promoting agent..." Ralgro also claims that since the drug is not actually an estrogen, it does not accumulate in muscle tissues. Obviously this is a good thing for human consumption of meats. I would imagine that hormones are also used in dairy production, but I don't know enough about the subject to say anything concrete.

I did some research on the subject and came across a website called the Canadian Animal Health Institute (CAHI). This non-profit organization supports growth promoting hormones on a basis of strict laws which ensure the following;
- any new drugs which enter the market meet Health Canada regulations, and
- that there is no implant residue found in meat samples.

The CAHI goes on to make several other points, the most striking of which I will paraphrase here:
- the implanted hormones are already present in humans. Using estrogen as an example, an adult will produce about 136,000 ng of estrogen daily where the estrogen found in a 6-ounce serving of beef from a treated animal is 3.8 ng, and
- hormones are naturally occurring in other foods such as cabbage, milk and soybean oil.

The website also makes a valid point, stating that drugs were designed to improve cattle efficiency, thus making meat cheaper to produce and therefore buy. More information can be found at  http://www.cahi-icsa.ca/pdf/Beef-Hormones-Factsheet.pdf.

On the flip side, there is concern from consumers whether or not hormone implants could cause cancer or otherwise negatively affect humans. The major concern stems from a worry over humans ending up with hormone imbalances. Some people claim that animals given hormone implants excrete excess hormone in their urine which then can make its way into urban water supplies and thus cause hormone increase in humans. Links have been drawn between this and a startling number of young girls beginning menstruation at ages as young as nine. Whether or not these links are valid has not been fully researched but one would only hope that if there were harmful levels of hormones in water sources we would know about it!

In the end, how you feel about eating beef that comes from a treated animal is up to you. If you have concerns, there are a number of farmers who market their beef as hormone-free. The best way to ensure that you are happy with what you are eating is to learn where your food comes from and talk to those who are producing it.

What in the world is an Angus Burger?

Well.... Angus is a specific breed of cattle known for its marbled meat.

Marbling is a meat trait which means higher fat percentages within the meat which improves tenderness. Angus cattle are typically black or red and are usually of a smaller frame size than other cattle.


A Red Angus cow.
From http://brandlcattleco.com/redfemales.htm, accessed 26 May, 2011.

A Black Angus bull.
From http://www.bovin.qc.ca/en/the_quebec_beef_production/overview/main_breeds.php,
accessed 26 May, 2011

Another breed which exhibits this marbling trait are Shorthorn cattle. These cattle are also of a slightly smaller frame than average and they are often a roan colour.

A Shorthorn bull.
From http://www.showsteers.com/NAV/Sorted%20Sires/Shorthorn.htm, accessed 26 May, 2011.



To contrast this, Charolais cattle are typically larger framed cattle with red meat and that is leaner.  

A Charolais calf.
From http://www.mbfarviewfarm.com/Charolais-Cattle-Cows.htm,
accessed 26 May, 2011



That was just a brief overview of just three of the different breeds of cattle. There are actually many more breeds which, in the interests of space, I omitted. Often people will cross breed cattle in order to attempt to take advantage of the certain traits of both breeds.

I also came across a great resource today which nicely highlights the various beef cattle breeds. Check out the website http://www.bovin.qc.ca/en/the_quebec_beef_production/overview/main_breeds.php.

Q: What did you do for your long weekend?

A: I went to McKinnon's Feedlot!

That has been the story of my life since I was 10 years old because every May long weekend the Balzac Beef 4-H Club holds its Achievement Day on the Sunday. For those of you who aren't involved in 4-H let me explain what an Achievement Day is.

In the 4-H program, Achievement Days are set aside for members to showcase their final projects after a years hard work. Usually the projects are judged against their fellow 4-H members projects but this is not necessarily the case. In our club, the projects are judged. Now what, you may ask, does one do when showing a cow?!

There are several key steps involved in the cattle show world which may seem bizarre or surprising to those who are not involved in the cattle industry.

1. First of all, one must work with their cattle for a substantial period of time prior to any show. This ensures that the animal is well behaved and (relatively) calm in the show ring. A few times a week for a month in advance would be about the minimum you should do - and I mean the MINIMUM! When I say "work with your cattle," I mean that one should halter, groom and lead their cattle daily; as well as getting the cattle used to stimulus such as clippers, blowers, being bathed and standing calmly while activity is happening in the yard.

2. Prior to the show it is important to wash the bovine using soap and warm water. This ensures that the animals hair is clean and ready to style!

3. At most shows, animals are "fitted." This is a fancy way of saying that their hair is styled so that the animal looks good. This is done through the use of heavy-duty hair "glue," clippers, and sometimes aerosol paints. Obviously the better an animal looks, the better it will place in the show ring and there is big money in fitting animals if one knows how to do it - the website I got the below picture from was charging $200 an animal! Some shows are moving to a "dry brush" format which means that use of glues or paints are not allowed in preparing an animal for showing.



A fully fitted calf.
From http://www.austincattle.com/fitting/fittingservices.html,
accessed 22 May 2011.

4. Finally when a person is showing an animal, a special halter made of leather is used and the handler carries a "show stick" to help them in showing the animal. A show stick is a stick that is approximately five feet long and has a little hook on the end that is used for gently prodding the animals feet in order to make it stand nicely. Once it is standing nice, the little hook is used to scratch the animals belly and help keep it calm. Now this is all for beef cattle showing - in dairy shows the handlers walk backwards with their animals and always wear white pants. In beef shows it doesn't matter so much what the handler is wearing but it is still important that they look good and are wearing clean clothes!

Dairy Showmanship
From http://www.rutters.com/?m=201001, accessed
22 May 2011.





My last 4-H Steer, 2008. Lightly fitted, wearing show halter
and being handled with show stick.















5. After showing an animal, the glue must be washed out otherwise it can severely damage the hair, resulting in hair loss!

There you have it! Cattle showing in under 15 minutes!

How do bats crawl?

Today, while I was at work I was covered in mosquitoes. This is a fairly common occurrence since I work outside landscaping. Anyway, I made a comment to my coworkers that I hate it when the mosquitoes crawl on you like little bats. To my surprise none of my coworkers knew what a bat looks like when it crawls!

I couldn't resist sharing this with everyone so here you go:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EZgLhZNFKU.

Enjoy!

Water Usage and Meat Production

I would like to draw your attention to a recent letter to the editor on page 8 of the April 2011 issue of “The Canadian Cattlemen”. Ross Gould from Calgary, AB wrote the following letter:

2,400 litres of water to make a hamburger?

     I am referring to the “Eat less water” heading in the Special Information Feature in the March 12, 2011 issue of THE GLOBE AND MAIL. That item used one of the often-quoted estimates that it takes from just over 10,000 to 15,000 litres of water to produce a kilogram of beef.

     I totally agree that we, as humans need to look at our water footprint. At the same time the estimate of water use for beef production is vastly overstated.

     A very generous estimate of the water consumption of a mother cow and her calf until it reaches market is probably not more than 44,000 litres. Another thousand litres might be used in processing the carcass. The end product is a live animal weighing about 1,300 pounds and 442 pounds of meat that we can eat. Thus the amount used by the animal and processing a kilogram of edible meat will consume no more than 220 litres, probably less. A quarter-pound hamburger (125 grams) therefore represents a water consumption of 27.5 litres, just over one per cent of the 2,400 litre estimate quoted (by the GLOBE & MAIL). How can that be?

     The reason for this gross overestimate is because it includes all of the water needed to produce all of the grain and forage consumed by the cow and calf. This would be valid if that water had an alternate use. But that is not the case. Much of the life of a cow and calf is spent of dryland pasture, which would not produce any food but for these grazing animals. The rest is mainly from dryland crops. Even some of that is inedible crop residues. The rain which falls on this dry land is not available for any other use so it should not be included in the estimate of water required to produce a hamburger.

More information can be found at

 http://www.canadiancattlemen.com/.

"Nice 'Do"

So as some of you may know, halter breaking an animal involves a lot of work and time. While working with our animals, my sisters and I enjoy doing the hair on their heads in silly ways. The top of an animals head, where it would grow horns if it is a horned animal, is called the poll. On their poll, cattle grow a nice little tuft of hair and the following pictures demonstrate a few of the various styles available.



The Comb Over



Mine enjoys a look called "The Professor"



Livestock Safety

Cattle weigh anywhere from 65 lbs to over 1500 lbs, so obviously there is potential for injury. I've known many people who have hurt themselves handling cattle or running equipment. Rather than go into the dangers of PTO shafts, which I'm sure everyone knows about, I want to discuss livestock-related injuries.

The most common type of injury sustained when handling cattle is probably rope burn. This happens when a person is leading an animal without wearing gloves and the animal spooks (jumps) after seeing something scary while the handler still tries to hold onto the animal. The friction from the rope on the persons hands rips the skin. The easiest way to remedy this is to wear good fitting leather gloves while handling cattle.

Unfortunately, wearing gloves will not prevent a person from getting a crush injury. This can happen when an animal becomes defensive and attacks a person. Another instance where this can happen is if a person is working with an animal in a chute (a narrow pathway used for handling cattle in close quarters) and the handlers hand gets caught between the animal and the side of the chute. Although it is impossible to completely avoid any injuries, the occurrence of injury decreases when everyone involved pays attention to what is happening at the moment.

People can also be harmed from animals kicking them. Personally, I have had one family member break a leg from a calf kick and another family member get clipped in the lower jaw by a cows hind leg. Getting injured from a kick is one of the hardest injuries to avoid, and as such it is also quite common. The best way to avoid this is again to stay alert. If an animal is a known "kicker," the animals owners are responsible for alerting others at show grounds as well as keeping themselves safe from it.



A sleeping bull on the farm.



On our own farm, we personally select animals that are calm and docile. If animals already have a quieter dispostion, they are less likely to behave unpredictibly and thus they are relativley safer to be around.

In conclusion, the easiest way to avoid livestock-related injuries is to stay alert while working with animals.

Progress?

They say the third generation loses the farm.



Pristine farmland; pasture in the foreground with
cropland in the background.
A disappearing commodity in the Calgary region.



Whether or not this is true will remain to be seen, but it is most certainly looking that way for my family. Over the years, my family has experienced everything from people dumping garbage along our roadways to finding a chop shop to finding calves choking on plastic garbage bags that people have littered. Massive commercial and industrial developments have taken place in the region and these developments have greatly increased traffic in the Balzac area (where my family farms). To me, the most painful part of these changes is not the increased traffic in the area or the large scale of the projects. I realize that progress will happen one way or another. The most painful part is that land is allowed to be stripped and rendered useless to farmers before it is even purchased for industrial usage. The land then sits exposed without topsoil until it is fully developed. Since it is lacking its topsoil, noxious weeds grow in the exposed clay that is unsuitable for grass to grow in. These weeds then spread easily into crops, which farmers are then forced to spray with herbicides in order to maintain quality crops and a sufficient income. The stripped land can sit like this for years before it is purchased by a developer. This is exactly what happened with the construction of the CrossIron Mills mega-mall (the mall also had many other logistical problems due to its location which hindered its construction).

This spring, my family will see 120 acres of farmland we have rented for decades be stripped and become useless (one acre is equivalent to about the size of four city lots). We will also lose about 30 acres of pastureland to this process. It is sad but true that with the advance of the city into the Balzac region, pasture rental increases and therefore so does the cost of keeping cattle in the area. As I said earlier, I am not against progress, but one must ask the question; is it really progress that the world is experiencing a food crisis and we are allowing productive farmland to become useless? 

Chicks Galore!

This week my dad bought our first non-beef livestock and got 50 chicks - 25 layers and 25 broilers. We got them as day-olds on Tuesday and when we got them they were so soft and cute! They were so soft, you couldn't even feel them! After seeing the chicks as day-olds and then again yesterday, I was surprised at how quickly they had grown. My uncle was telling me how at the Stampede if you go into the agriculture exhibits to see the chicks they are always only a couple days old because that is when they are the cutest!

This is them at six days old, they're still pretty cute but they are nearly twice the size they were when we got them. The brown ones are the layers and the yellow ones are the broilers.

4-H and Other Terms.

Happy Mother’s Day!

After reading my previous blog post, I realize that I may have used some nomenclature that not everyone is familiar with!

First of all, I mentioned that I had been an active member of 4-H. 4-H is a youth program which began operating around 1902 in the United States (according to Wikipedia, so use this at your own discretion). The Canadian 4-H Council website describes 4-H as an organization which has “been helping develop well-rounded, responsible and independent youth since 1913.” Both my parents were active members of 4-H in their youth so it seemed only natural that my sisters and I would follow in their footsteps. I was a member of the same club that my dad was in when he was growing up. While I was in 4-H I participated in many mandatory activities including public speaking, bottle drives, highway clean-ups, as well as the fitting (which is cattle show slang for grooming an animal for showing) and showing of my 4-H projects. The skills that I gained through 4-H are numerous and I feel have really helped me excel in many other aspects of my life. An example of this is the huge level of responsibility that 4-H teaches to its members; responsibility for one’s own actions as well as the community and country are key values within the organization. I truly believe that this is a great program for youth of all ages and the benefits that it gives its members later in life are uncountable.

Yesterday, I also wrote that I had had steer, heifer and cow-calf pair beef 4-H projects. Hopefully the difference between beef and dairy cattle isn’t too difficult to spot but just in case;

- Beef cattle are used in food production for meat. This does not necessarily mean that every beef animal ends up on the plate. Many farmers raise beef animals for breeding in order to raise cattle that are productive and efficient producers of calves which will be used for food purposes. This is exactly what my family does with our purebred Charolais operation. The foundation of our herd is the females; this is because it is relatively easy to gain access to a bull with good genetics (through artificial insemination programs) but without good females to breed, good sire genetics are a waste.

- Dairy cattle are used for the production of...wait for it...dairy products!

Some other terms which may be of interest to you are...

A cow is a female older than two years.

A bull is an uncastrated male of any age, although usually if the bull is younger than a year it is usually called a “bull calf”.

A calf is of any gender and is younger than one year old.

A heifer is a young female younger than two years.

A steer is a castrated male of any age.

Welcome!

Hello!
Welcome to my blog!

My name is Amber Shuttleworth and I grew up on a mixed operation outside of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. My family farms over 4000 acres while finding time to properly maintain a herd of about 120 purebred Charolais cattle. Growing up, Calgary was a great place to live but within the past ten years there have been many large construction projects which have altered farming practices in the area. One of the major projects which has affected our family's operation has been the CrossIron Mills mega-mall project. The ups and downs of farming this close to a large city and in a market that is so dependent on the American market are much more complex than many people imagine. I was an active member of the Balzac Beef 4-H Club for eight years and during my time in the club I was lucky enough to participate in many exciting projects. Apart from my cattle projects, (steer, heifer, and cow-calf pair), 4-H gave me valuable public speaking skills as well as opportunities to travel, counsel camps, and increase my knowledge of the cattle industry through 4-H cattle shows, judging competitions and grooming workshops. Currently, I am a student at the University of Lethbridge working towards a combined degree in mathematics and education. After living in the city (even a city as small as Lethbridge), I have come to really appreciate the rural lifestyle.

I hope that this blog provides you with a unique insight into farming practices in the Calgary region. Enjoy!