Debbie Furber

Last year, Alberta beef and forage specialist Barry Yaremcio was fielding all sorts of drought-related questions about balancing rations when utilizing various alternative feeds and supplements. Come spring, producers who hadn’t balanced rations were dealing with impaction problems, thin cows, downer cows, and weak calves with poor immunity. It’s the reverse this year. Most regions […] Read more

A study recently completed at the Agriculture Canada Lethbridge Research Centre has shown that triticale dried distillers grain with solubles (DDGS) can replace a portion of the barley grain as well as part or all of the barley silage in finishing rations without having adverse effects on animal performance or carcass quality. Most of the […] Read more

Louis and Karen Hebert would have to say the driving force behind their commitment to agriculture has been their desire to build a farming operation that would be viable to pass to the next generation. Cattle — sometimes more and sometimes less — have always been part of the vision for their farm near Fairlight, […] Read more

argill buyer Tyler Friesen of Moose Jaw, Sask., and JGL order buyer Alan Jackson of Prince Albert, Sask., gave participants at this year’s Western Canada Feedlot Management School in Saskatoon some timely tips about what they look for when purchasing finished and feeder cattle. ARE THEY FINISHED? What Friesen looks for in a finished beef […] Read more

Time and time again producers attest to the benefits of winter bale grazing out on pastureland. Not only does it eliminate the cost of starting a tractor to feed bales and clean corrals, but they see that the manure and urine deposited by the animals, along with litter from the bales is greatly improving the […] Read more

Andy and Margaret Schuepbach of Lilybrook Herefords run anywhere from 500 to 700 purebred Horned Herefords on their ranch east of Claresholm, Alta. As such they have a shared history with Fredrick W. Stone of Guelph, Ont., who imported the first Herefords from Britain in 1860. Stone’s experiment worked so well that others started to […] Read more

What’s the value to me?” That’s the first question producers ask of any new product or service and, as such, it became the founding principle of Cow/Calf Health Management Services (CCHMS), owned and operated by Dr. Troy Drake from his clinic on the farm near Kathyrn, Alta. CCHMS is a unique package of herd health […] Read more

Did you know that a cow may spend up to eight hours every day chewing her cud for as many as 30,000 chews a day? Or, that all of the nutrients that the calf worked so hard to digest make the meat full of ZIP — zinc, iron and protein? If you are involved with […] Read more

Johne’s disease (JD) is a condition of ruminant animals that has warranted a brief mention in most practical animal health manuals since it was first described in Germany by Heinrich Johne more than a century ago. Most beef producers skimmed right past it with the idea that it is more a disease of dairy cows […] Read more