Earlier this month (June 2017), the U.S. and China confirmed that U.S. produced beef would be exported to China for the first time since 2003. That’s a 14 year loss of export opportunity to U.S. ranchers, feeders, and packers. Prior to the ban, the U.S. was the largest supplier of imported beef to China. What changed in 2003 and in 2017? When China initiated the ban in 2003, it was “stated” that it was over
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Veterinary Feed Directive – Part 2: Oral antibiotics in the feedyard
In part 2 of our series on the Veterinary Feed Directive, Dr. Scott McGregor discusses four questions with concern to the use of oral antibiotics in livestock operations.
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What is the Veterinary Feed Directive (VFD)?
The “Veterinary Feed Directive” is a new document that better allows the government to audit the use of oral antibiotics used in Beef Production. Why do we care? Well, there is concern both in animals and humans that we are seeing a rise in bacteria that are becoming resistant to our commonly used antibiotics.
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How Do We Make Decisions?
I have also spent most of my career conducting large field trials to help answer the questions we have, in the areas of health, production, performance and most of all animal well being. I love my job!
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1.5 Million Years of Meat
Your ancestors were meat eaters and we’re not just talking about Grampa on the farm 50 years ago. Scientists date meat consumption by our human ancestors to somewhere around 1.5 million years ago. The Paleo Diet, Atkins Diet, and most other nutritionally complete eating plans all include meat. “Don’t you want to know why”, to quote Strother Martin in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid? Those guys were all meat eaters, by the way. If
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Meat Safety Benefits From Science
Food safety may be getting a new boost from nature. Bacteriocins are substances that kill or inhibit the growth of disease causing (pathogenic) bacteria. The good news is...
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Male Meat?
While sitting at a sidewalk cafe last week, a older woman at another table struck up a conversation. She seemed lonely and wanting to talk to someone, anyone. Having a difficult time hearing because of the sound from the fountain, I got up and walked over to her table. “You look familiar, where do you work”, she asked. I explained that I taught Animal Science classes at the local Community College for 20+ years. As
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The Great American Cattle Shoot
Awhile back a blog post came across the desk discussing the horrors of cattle handling procedures during processing. The blogger was particularly offended by the use of the “cattle shoot”. Confused, I kept reading, all the while wondering who in the world was out there shooting cattle and why would they bother processing cattle they were going to shoot? Are you as confused as I was by now? After reading the whole article a couple
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What Children Know About Food
Guest blog by: Dr. Tiffany Lee, DVM A few months ago I was asked to create a PowerPoint presentation for children. The subject was to be “Where our food comes from.” Easy enough, right? I thought so too. As it turns out, the task was far from easy. I started by opening the PowerPoint program. I titled the first page “Where our food comes from.” I was rolling along pretty well, huh? Then it hit
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Is there such a thing as humane slaughter?
When teaching Beef Production at community college, I had the opportunity to take students to a commercial processing plant. Whether they were from ranching families or had no livestock background, rarely had any of them witnessed the commercial processing system. On the hour drive to the plant each semester, the dialogue would begin, one student at a time. “Ms. Gardella, I want to go on this tour, but I don’t want to go on the
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