A well-known beef research facility in central Saskatchewan will add new blood to its research herd beginning this spring.
The Western Beef Development Centre in Lanigan, Sask., will spend roughly $800,000 over the next three years to buy 300 Black Angus cows.
The cows – two- and three-year-old purebreds – will replace an aging commercial, mixed breed herd that is used to conduct cow-calf studies, feeding trials and other types of research.
The new cows will be introduced 100 per year over the next three years, meaning a complete herd of 300 newcomers should be in place by the summer of 2009.
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The first animals are expected to arrive at the centre in the next month or two, along with their spring calves.
Paul Jefferson, WBDC vice-president of operations, said the purebred cows will make new types of research possible and provide more consistent research results than the animals that are now used.
“One of the things that came up in our discussions (with research partners) was that if we don’t know the genetic background of our animals … then it’s very difficult to do some of the new types of research that involve molecular biology and looking for (genetic) markers and specific genes,” Jefferson said.
“We realized that we need to have a purebred herd to be able to pursue some of those new opportunities.”
The decision to buy Black Angus cows came after lengthy consultations with genetics experts, beef nutritionists and other researchers who will be working with the cattle.
“They needed a breed that had a diversity of bloodlines (within the breed) … and the Black Angus breed has that feature,” Jefferson said.
“There’s many bloodlines and there’s also lots of breeders out there that we can obtain genetics from.”
A buyer representing the research centre will be contacting selected Black Angus breeders across the Prairies in the coming months.
Jefferson said there were concerns that some research conducted on a purebred herd may not be applicable to commercial cow-calf producers, most of whom have mixed breeds and diverse genetics in their herds.
However, researchers felt they would get more bang for their research dollars if they used purebred animals.
The majority of research conducted will still be relevant to commercial producers, they added.
The $800,000 herd renewal project will be financed through a $1.1 million funding arrangement approved by the federal and provincial governments.
The remaining $300,000 will be used to buy new equipment for the centre, including a tractor, post pounder, bale processor and truck-mounted feed box to measure feed supplements.
Discussions are underway to decide how to disperse the existing research herd, which is owned by the Horned Cattle Trust Fund.
