When many countries including the United States closed their borders to ruminant exports on May 20, few realized that livestock such as llamas and alpacas were included in the ban. It has been a difficult blow for breeders who rely on free movement across the borders to buy and sell camelid genetics. Including these animals […] Read more
Barbara Duckworth
Stories by Barbara Duckworth
Anxiety builds over cull cows
WINNIPEG – Cattle producers are facing their worst marketing dilemma in decades as this spring’s calf crop is weaned and cows pregnancy checked. Typically, cows failing to get pregnant are sold to the meat market. Weaned calves go to auction and eventually feedlots. While calf prices are holding fairly well, older cull cows and bulls […] Read more
Cattle herd hits record
Statistics Canada’s July census figures reported that cattle numbers reached a record level in June following the closure of international markets. Lower slaughter figures added to the higher than normal population. The herd increased by nearly two percent to 15.7 million head, of which nearly five million were beef cows and one million dairy. Alberta […] Read more
Producer urges sour gas documentation
COWLEY, Alta. – The ill effects of industrial pollution on livestock became a personal worry for veterinarian Chris Jensen when his cattle were exposed to sour gas emissions in the early 1990s. He and his neighbours at Lacombe, Alta., ultimately banded together to make five oil companies stop flaring sour gas wells near their farms. […] Read more
Beef rendering expensive, complicated in wake of BSE
WINNIPEG – Disposing of ruminant byproducts is a continuing problem for rendering companies, which face international regulations and soaring costs to segregate ruminant material because of concerns over transmissible encephalopathies. Everything changed for renderers when the American market closed on May 20 after it was announced BSE had been found in an Alberta cow, said […] Read more
Canadian beef crosses border
Canadian beef is starting to flow back into the United States. Two 16,000 kilogram truckloads, which left Lakeside Packers in Brooks, Alta., on Sept. 10, were the first shipments to the U.S. since that country banned beef exports from Canada on May 20 following the announcement that bovine spongiform encephalopathy had been found in an […] Read more
Cattle ID required
Now that the cattle identification deadline has passed, authorities across Canada are moving to the next phase. “All we are doing right now is to enforce the regulations,” said Julie Stitt, manager of the Canadian Cattle Identification Agency. As of Sept. 1, all Canadian cattle must have identification tags or their owners face a $500 […] Read more
Family copes with reversal of fortune
ENCHANT, Alta. – In 1998, Rick and Marian Stamp were named one of Canada’s outstanding young farmers. They were on top of the world with four healthy children living on a prosperous, diverse certified seed farm in southern Alberta’s irrigation country. But two years later they feared they might lose their 1,000 acre farm located […] Read more
Work required to gain markets
New import rules allowing Canadian slaughter plants to segregate cattle by age should remove some obstacles to shipping beef to the United States. The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency hammered out a proposal Sept. 4 to allow cattle older and younger than 30 months of age to be processed within […] Read more
Export ban riles goat producers
RED DEER – Like so many others in the livestock industry, Ann Marie Hauck remembers exactly what she was doing on May 20 when she heard Canada had a single case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy. The Alberta goat breeder was in Monterry, Mexico, attending a livestock show and business meetings to finalize purebred exports. Now […] Read more
