University of California-Davis beef cattle veterinarian John Maas, left, shows a student how to check a cow's teeth and gums during a workshop Aug. 24 at Shasta College in Redding, Calif.
REDDING, Calif. -- Surrounded by students, farmers and ranchers on a recent warm summer evening, John Maas maintained a firm grip on their attention.
The beef extension veterinarian at the University of California-Davis mixed humor with down-to-earth language as he taught producers how to spo ...
Thursday, September 02, 2010 10:29 AM
FORT COLLINS, Colo. -- Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Attorney General Eric Holder got an earful from each side over proposed changes to the Packers and Stockyards Act when they held a workshop here Aug. 27 on antitrust issues in the meat industry.
But by the end of the day it was not ...
Thursday, September 02, 2010 11:09 AM
ETNA, Calif. -- By learning how to maximize irrigation efficiency and making changes in herd management, ranchers can make do with less water than they're accustomed to, experts say.
Water is "the most critical input" for ranchers and "the most difficult to manage," said Steve Orloff, a Unive ...
Thursday, September 02, 2010 9:29 AM
Defenders of Wildlife changes focus as government creates similar program
BOISE (AP) -- A conservation group is ending its program to compensate ranchers for livestock killed by wolves, prompting criticism from Idaho officials including Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter.
The program by The Defenders of ...
Thursday, September 02, 2010 10:35 AM
Allan Sents knows what it's like to be a small fish in the big pond that is the meat marketing industry.
The owner and operator of a 10,000-head-capacity commercial cattle feedlot in central Kansas, Sents said he has sometimes had difficulties getting access to the market and has occasionally ...
Thursday, September 02, 2010 11:05 AM
VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) -- Western Canadian beef producers have found a novel way of putting the "bar" in barbecue.
Angus cattle in British Columbia's Okanagan wine and cattle region are being fed red wine with their grain. Chefs in this Canadian Pacific Coast province said it makes ...
Thursday, September 02, 2010 10:02 AM
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Premium Standard Farms has been given a two-year extension to install technology at its hog confinements to reduce odors after it failed to meet a July 31 deadline established by a Jackson County court six years ago.
As part of the deal between the company and ...
Thursday, September 02, 2010 9:09 AM
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms, the two Iowa farms at the center of a salmonella outbreak and massive egg recall, have been visited by federal agents again.
Spokeswomen for the farms said the agents who arrived Tuesday worked for the Food and Drug Administration ...
Wednesday, September 01, 2010 7:49 AM
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) -- A judge has ruled that a McLean County rancher's cattle should not have been seized by law officers.
The Sheriff's Department seized 258 cows, calves and bulls from Layton Reynolds of Douglas on Friday. State's Attorney Ladd Erickson said in an affidavit that the cattl ...
Wednesday, September 01, 2010 7:49 AM
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) -- North Dakota's Agriculture Department is offering ranchers a voluntary registry they can use to prove the age and birthplace of their livestock.
Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring (GOHR'-ing) says some countries, including South Korea and Japan, require age and sou ...
Thursday, September 02, 2010 10:09 AM
By CHRISTINE METZ
The Lawrence Journal-World
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Their names seemed to be pulled out of a science-fiction novel: Rift Valley Fever, exotic blue tongue, Chinese porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome.
But on Monday at the Biosecurity Research Symposium in Ka ...
Thursday, September 02, 2010 10:09 AM
Washington State University Extension's swine artificial insemination school will take place 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sept. 20 at the Grant County Fairgrounds, 3953 Airway Drive NE in Moses Lake, Wash.
The school offers the basics of artificial insemination, according to a press release.
National exp ...
Thursday, September 02, 2010 10:09 AM
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) -- State officials sought Tuesday to revive gray wolf hunts in the Northern Rockies, even as they entered talks with wildlife advocates whose lawsuit recently restored the animal's endangered status.
Hunters in Idaho and Montana killed 260 wolves last year in the firs ...
Thursday, September 02, 2010 9:29 AM
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Food and Drug Administration investigators have found rodents, seeping manure and even maggots at the Iowa egg farms believed to be responsible for as many as 1,500 cases of salmonella poisoning.
FDA officials released their initial observations of the investigations at ...
Wednesday, September 01, 2010 2:09 PM
FORT COLLINS, Colo. (AP) -- Hundreds of impassioned ranchers from around the country clashed at a workshop Friday over a proposed federal rule that aims to preserve competition in a livestock industry dominated by a handful of corporate giants.
Attorney General Eric Holder and Agricul ...
Tuesday, August 31, 2010 9:55 AM
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Food and Drug Administration is planning to inspect all of the country's largest egg farms before the end of next year following the massive recall that has sickened as many as 1,500 people.
An Obama administration official says inspectors will visit about 600 large ...
Sunday, August 29, 2010 4:48 PM
GALT, Iowa (AP) -- The owner of an egg farm at the center of a massive salmonella recall was able to expand his egg empire despite being branded a "habitual violator" of Iowa's environmental laws -- a label that was supposed to ban him from building any more farms.
Documents rev ...
Sunday, August 29, 2010 3:28 PM
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- State regulators said Friday they were reviewing whether the Iowa feed mill where investigators found salmonella linked to the nationwide egg recall should have been licensed and inspected.
The mill at Wright County Egg hasn't been regulated by the state Departmen ...
Sunday, August 29, 2010 12:09 PM
HELENA, Mont. (AP) -- An advisory council endorsed a state plan Thursday to pay $16.5 million to buy and maintain a 27,000-acre ranch near Deer Lodge for hunting, fishing and recreation.
Members of the Natural Resource Damage Trustee Council voted unanimously to recommend the purchas ...
Sunday, August 29, 2010 8:49 AM
PASCO, Wash. -- USDA officials say they hope by April to introduce a proposed rule laying out the states' roles in a new system for tracing animal diseases.
The department held its final public hearing on the new traceability plan -- formerly called the animal ID plan -- Aug. 24 in Pasco, Was ...
Saturday, August 28, 2010 10:09 AM
U.S. meat exports finished the first half of 2010 with strong upward momentum, fueled partly by dramatic increases in beef shipments to South Korea and Russia, a trade group reports.
June beef exports were 25 percent above their volumes a year earlier, totaling 212.9 million pounds, while the ...
Saturday, August 28, 2010 10:09 AM
Feeding a high-nutrition diet before harvest is the most effective way to improve the carcass red meat and fat yields in cull cows, a researcher has found.
Other ways to enhance the quality of the cattle include using growth-promoting implants or postmortem aging and calcium chloride injectio ...
Saturday, August 28, 2010 10:09 AM
The National Pork Producers Council is lamenting that a top U.S. export destination is imposing a 5 percent tariff on most pork sent there.
Mexico, which last year bought $762 million worth of U.S. pork, recently added the meat to its list of products hit with tariffs in retaliation for the s ...
Saturday, August 28, 2010 10:09 AM
BELLINGHAM, Wash. -- Diana Ambauen-Meade's business isn't just chicken feed. It's also turkey, goat, sheep, pig and pigeon feed.
But it was a chicken feed recipe that got her started on the road to her new business, the newly operational Scratch and Peck feed mill.
A few years ago, her fel ...
Saturday, August 28, 2010 10:09 AM
CORVALLIS, Ore. (AP) -- A $5,000 reward has been offered for information leading to an arrest in the disappearance of a prize sheep from the Benton County Fair.
The ewe named Millie was raised as a 4-H project by 13-year-old Michael Lorain, of Philomath. She vanished from the fairgrounds in early ...
Thursday, August 26, 2010 10:16 AM
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Missouri pork giant Premium Standard Farms's plan to install new technology that will prevent odors from its hog confinements from polluting the air outside its farms violates a previously set deadline and the company should expect to pay a fine, state officials sai ...
Saturday, August 28, 2010 11:28 AM
