STRATHMORE, Alta. – A five stage private research project has begun at Cattleland Feedyards.
Located north of Strathmore, Cattleland has become the largest applied research centre in Canada. It is owned by Greg and Candace Appleyard with Karen and Joe Gregory.
This facility also has a 25,000-head feedlot with the tie-in of a 5,000-head bull test centre as well as a 2,200-head research component.
A main feature of the research centre is the ability to carry out large scale net feed efficiency trials.
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Smaller pens are available for small scale research projects paid for by private operators or in co-operation with public researchers through universities or government research centres.
“With our bull tests and research we can cater to individual groups and tailor trials to whatever they want to do,” said Scott McKinnon, who manages the research side.
The protocol for feed trials has been developed with Olds College and Alberta Agriculture. Grow Safe feed tubs containing radio frequency and wireless technology measure each animal’s feed intake and transmit all the information to a central computer in the yard office.
Each animal is individually identified with a radio frequency tag and description. While the technology is proving itself, the human factor remains.
“Our biggest challenge is to train our feed truck drivers to fill the tubs properly,” said McKinnon.
