Livestock Management
With the drought, brown pastures and dried-up dugouts, 2021 was a difficult year for beef producers on the Prairies. But, globally, 2021 was much, much worse for public perceptions of beef and cattle production. In the spring, Epicurious, a company that publishes recipes on the internet, announced it would stop providing new recipes for beef. […] Read more
Livestock Management
Cost sharing wanted for livestock insurance
The Saskatchewan Stock Growers Association says premiums for livestock price insurance should be cost-shared with governments similar to crop insurance. President Kelcy Elford said the organization has asked that cattle producers be treated the same as other producers, “that the weight of the premiums shouldn’t all be on the producer.” Currently Livestock Price Insurance premiums […] Read more
Footrot easy to treat but over-diagnosed in lameness cases
In all my writing over the years, I have never tackled footrot, perhaps because the response to antimicrobial treatments is very good. However, it is probably one disease that is very much over-diagnosed when it comes to lameness. With lame cattle, one has to have a good look and diagnose the lameness, whether it is […] Read more
Artificial intelligence identifies coat patterns
Managing milk cows includes monitoring individual animals with the use of ear tags and collecting data. Now, scientists in the Netherlands at the University of Groningen and the University of Wageningen have developed a method that can recognize Holstein cows in a milking barn by the pattern of their coats. The goal is to use […] Read more
CFIA suspends licence of Alta. meat processor
A southern Alberta meat processor has had its Canadian Food Inspection Agency licence suspended after inspectors found issues with its sanitation procedures to prevent cross-contamination of food and control measures for detection of E. coli. Bouvry Exports of Fort MacLeod was levied the suspension Feb. 17 and the CFIA issued a public notice about the […] Read more
Alberta commits funding to vet college
The Alberta government plans to provide $59 million to expand the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Calgary. The funding will “address a critical emerging shortage of large animal veterinarians in rural Alberta,” said Finance Minister Travis Toews. He made the announcement as part of a speech Feb. 24 outlining the provincial budget […] Read more
Barn biosecurity key with strangles
Bacteria can live on objects that have come into contact with an infected horse, such as feed buckets and bridles
SASKATOON — Horse owners near Saskatoon are urged to keep a lookout for equine strangles following recent cases of the highly contagious disease. Strangles is a bacterial infection of the upper respiratory tract in horses caused by Streptococcus equi subspecies equi (S. equi). As the slightly sinister name suggests, symptoms relate to abnormal breathing and […] Read more
Sask. producers want wolf hunting expanded
Landowners can shoot the predators on their property, but this doesn’t apply to hunters in most parts of the province
A cattle producer in southeastern Saskatchewan says wolves have moved into his area and he wants hunters to be able to shoot them. John Donaldson of Broadview told the Saskatchewan Stock Growers Association’s semi-annual meeting that farmers can shoot wolves on their own property but hunters cannot. “I think licensed trappers can take them also […] Read more
Measures can be taken to prevent mercury poisoning
We’ve come a long way from the days of “mad hatters.” Historically, hat makers, who used mercury in the process of turning the pelts of beaver and other fur-bearing animals (many of which originated in Canada) into luxury top hats, suffered from severe, debilitating neurological disease. Nowadays, the most common ways that people encounter mercury […] Read more
Biosecurity review recommended in latest PED outbreak
Porcine epidemic diarrhea is a viral diarrhea that has a high mortality rate in young piglets and production losses in the range of 10 percent of a farm’s annualized hog sales. Over the past two months, Manitoba has experienced a large outbreak of PED. This is not a new phenomenon for Manitoba, which has experienced […] Read more
