mrj said:
Re. "pain" of preg testing: I've always heard that the pain is in the shoulder of the person doing the testing. Amazing what one can learn on this site! Seriously, I've heard about quite a few people who either have had, or need shoulder surgery after years of preg testing. The ultra-sound seems to tell us more, and saves wear and tear on both the tester and the tested.
I do wonder how much of the 'anti' technology, animal care procedures, and such is based highly on activists who agitate against any use of animals that on any knowledge of fact.
For instance, many of us have experienced ourselves, or even our child getting an injury requiring a stitch or two, and the doc saying a pain injection would just mean an extra 'stick', and we gone with it. Or the practice of circumcision with no anesthetic (danger of pain killers were cited to us as the reason).
With animals, it seems to me the extra time for anesthetic and the brief amount of time needed by even a 'rancher expert' castrating a very young animal, or branding might add to the pain/fear experienced by the calf. Different animal 'personalities' seem to me to experience vastly different levels of 'stress' during normal 'procedures' on a ranch. Recently I noticed two different photo's of the same situation: calves were roped and dragged a few feet the Nord-fork, caught in it, and held for maybe two or three minutes while being castrated, vaccinated, and injected. One calf was bellering, fighting, and looking very frightened from the time the rope touched him until he was released and rejoined his dam at the edge of the branding area and trotted off. The other, really most of them, flinched at each touch, but didn't beller, or look overly scared or hurt except for when branded, and that was very momentary. It really seems that the fact they are being 'held or controlled against their will' was the most frightening part of it. And that they are returned to the cow immediately after being processed really helps with the stress to the calves. Most are nursing within a few minutes, or else moving away from the area immediately, to nurse further from the active area. The day after branding, there are very few calves that show any after effects, and those are mostly some stiffness for the steers, and they may all sleep a little more than normal.
Re. the other technologies, I wonder if we will find alternatives to some of the more effective ones. Like the implants which were developed to create more marbling and less external fat in the beef. That one was directly in response to what consumers said they wanted! Since there are no residues or other reasons to not use it, it seems irresponsible not to do so for 'feel good' reasons.
Is anyone pointing out to consumers that we cannot produce beef for them if they won't pay us for what we do? We all too often hear ourselves criticized as wanting to make a profit, stated as if 'profit' were a truly nasty swear word! Why is that, any way?
mrj
There are many ways of "Pregging without a sleeve". For less than $3.00 per head, we can draw blood samples and find out. Also, watching the cows or turning a cleanup kind of bull in and watching.....
mrj, your observations on calf reactions to branding kind of interest me. And, it seems to me one wave is more focus on lower stress cattle handling. That it isn't seen as a technology in this thread yet is a bit interesting. Part of technology IMO may be more recognition of talent handling cattle.
I was at Trinity Farms Bull Sale this week. I had designed a load out for a Bud Box fan a year or so ago. I called it a "parallel box. I kind of just took their facility and made a couple of gate adjustments to use what they had and the way they wanted to handle cattle at pretty minimal cost. Anyways, separately, two members of the family came up to tell me how well it worked and thankful they were. While I find that feedback rewarding, truth of the matter is the right people were using that design.
Another thing is dogs. And, using them right. It drives me nuts to watch youtube videos of trailer load outs using dogs and the handler is nowhere near the trailer. Set the cattle up to be used to the dog bringing cattle to/past you as the reward to less pressure. This makes load out/working cattle from the front a lot easier.
I kind of got side tracked here.
Preventative. I find it interesting that mass antibiotics is seen as preventative. I really feel good nutrition, vaccination, minerals and handling are far better preventative. I say this recognizing cases where mass antibiotics get you out of a potential wreck. We have used some pretty expensive Altech feed supplements at weaning this year with great results. So, I guess I am saying probiotic, mineral and feed technologies will grow and are here to stay.
Certainly, genetic testing and looking at correlations have gotten much cheaper and are here to stay.
I kind of take for granted cattle handling facilities and a lot of changes in the pipeline for granted because I work with them all of the time. It is amazing how much change is taking place. The commonness of Hydraulic chutes is an example. LOL, related, i was talking to a producer about his new Center Pivots in Western Washington. He said he wanted to ask his dad why he hadn't done it 25 years ago. I told him 60 cent calves and 60 dollar a ton hay is why. Same thing with these chutes. But the technologies coming into many of these products is pretty amazing. It will ultimately combine with other technologies on the farm to make the things safer, less stressful and maybe even result in fewer late life ailments.
I'll probably re read this thread and come up with a lot more. I think this is really interesting. LOL, as evidenced by my book long reply.
