Debbie Furber

In the not-too-distant future, beef producers may be able to add reduced disease susceptibility, also described as robustness, to the list of beef animal traits when making breeding and management decisions. A study involving the universities of Alberta and Calgary and GrowSafe Systems of Airdrie is moving along nicely into the second year of a […] Read more

Mac and Pat Creech of M.C. Quantock Livestock just north of Lloyminster, have carved a niche for themselves in the Canadian cattle industry as Canada s Bull Supplier selling more than 8,800 purebred and hybrid bulls at some 42 sales they ve hosted through the years. Now, they have put together their first and perhaps […] Read more

The welcome mat was rolled out for some very special guests at three of Canada s veterinary medicine schools during the summer break. For the 13th year running, aspiring young veterinarians filled vet-med summer camps to the max at the Atlantic Veterinary College (AVC) in Charlottetown, P.E.I., and the idea has now caught on at […] Read more

A research team at the University of Manitoba is investigating the potential of using a needle-free injection device (NFID) for delivering vaccines to beef cattle. NFIDs use pressure to drive the vaccine though the hide into subcutaneous or muscle tissue. Mechanical pressure on the nozzle triggers the injection as it touches the skin, explains Michel […] Read more

It has been five years since a group of 13 feeders from Alberta and Saskatchewan broke the Canadian mold for selling finished cattle to the packers by forming Northwest Consolidated Beef Producers (NWCBP), based in Strathmore, Alta. Since then it has grown to 143 members across the Prairies and in 2010 marketed 112,000finished cattle along […] Read more

For a kid whose grade school teacher advised his parents that nothing short of capital punishment was in order to cure his disinterest in learning arithmetic, earning a place in the Livestock Markets Association of Canada’s (LMAC) Hall of Fame could be considered a remarkable accomplishment. Fortunately for the cattle industry, the teacher had made […] Read more

By the late 1990s, Canadian beef producers had begun to see the merit of value chains, which gave rise to producer-led initiatives such as Highland/ Spring Creek Premium Beef and Diamond Willow Organic Beef in Alberta, Atlantic Tender Beef/Atlantic Beef Products in the Maritimes, and Ontario Corn Fed Beef and Field Gate Organics in Ontario. […] Read more

There’s nothing more motivating for members of a beef value chain than walking into a store or restaurant and seeing their brand name on the store shelf or beside an entree on a menu, says Jim Clark, executive director of Ontario Corn Fed Beef (OCFB) and the Ontario Cattle Feeders Association (OCFA) at Woodstock, Ont. […] Read more

When Ted Soudant talks about Field Gate Organic’s (FGO) story, he wonders where the time went! It’s coming on nine years since a group of 12 organic beef producers approached him about the feasibility of forming a company to sell their beef. They had three goals: to gain more control in marketing, to receive a […] Read more

TEAM (The Electronic Auction Market) Auction Sales of Calgary rolled out its new look with streaming video and audio broadcast over the Internet live from the International Livestock Auctioneering Championship hosted by the Calgary Stockyards (CSY) at Strathmore as part of Calgary Stampede week. TEAM general manager Jason Danard says the event was a grand […] Read more