Alberta Farm Express – Full Article

Morrie Goetjen was always bothered by one of the springs on his land and considered the muddy patch it made an eyesore.

But he didn’t really know what to do with it until he was invited to participate in a pilot program that offered eight ranchers a chance to implement technology that would improve their operations. Some worked with drones, some tried out financial management software, but Goetjen knew he wanted to develop the springs on his land, and chose to do that from a list of about 20 options.

“There were two springs in particular that I wanted to develop,” said the Cremona-area rancher, who is a former director of the Foothills Forage and Grazing Association.

“The spring was really high, on top of a hill, and the drop to the bottom of the hill was 100 feet. I hadn’t taken advantage of it at all.

“For many years, I’d been talking about what I should do, and I went on tours and field days, and I saw what other guys were doing with springs.”

Then along came the Rancher Researcher Pilot, which offered participants some funding to access expertise and cover part of the costs for adopting a new-to-the-ranch innovation or technology.

What Goetjen did was pretty simple — some piping and poly watering troughs being the main elements.

“There’s not an awful lot of technology involved in what we did. It’s a fairly basic system and it’s relatively inexpensive to do,” he said.

Goetjen found a local fellow who had developed a few springs, and contracted him.

“He did a fabulous job at a reasonable price,” he said.

One of Goetjen’s springs now runs at over five gallons a minute, while the other runs at three gallons a minute. Goetjen currently waters 100 pairs and 125 cows in the wintertime on his springs.

“Primarily, they were really inexpensive to install and basically maintenance free, except I will have to replace the tank eventually,” he said.

The second spring was a puddle on the side of a hill. Goetjen and his contractor dug down about eight feet until they found enough water flow to develop a watering system.

“The potential for that one is better than the other one because it can serve more pastures,” he said. “My next goal is to get my guy back and to trench — probably as much as a quarter-mile — into two paddocks, maybe even a third. It’s high enough, and the slope is perfect to run a water line.”

Since he came in under budget on the project, he was able to develop a third spring on the neighbour’s side of the road that didn’t require much excavating and run water into a big tank. Goetjen, a longtime advocate of rotational grazing, said he was pleased with both the results and the process. The major hoop to go through was to show that the new watering sources would allow him to add more cows to his operation, and hence boost his bottom line.

“For me, I knew what I definitely wanted to get done,” he said. “I just didn’t know the cost or how to stretch the dollars, but it turns out I stretched them pretty good.”

The project was first proposed by the Alberta Beef Forage and Grazing Centre, and was further developed by federal and provincial ag officials and Alberta Beef Producers.

“One of the objectives was to improve the process of information flow from scientists to the ranchers,” said Chinook Applied Research Association manager Dianne Westerlund, who served as the liaison for eight applied forage and research associations (which each found a participating rancher for the first pilot).

“It was an opportunity for them to take a couple of the technologies and apply them to their situation and provide some feedback to the scientists.”

The second round of the project will begin this year (with 20 participants already chosen by 10 applied forage and research associations), and results will be monitored until 2022. In the expansion project, ranchers receive $2,000 to go towards their innovation, which must be matched with their own funds or in-kind contributions.

The second pilot will have a more focused list of innovations, but participants will still choose one they think will have a significant impact on their operation. They will also be given a list of contacts, including scientists and other ranchers who are knowledgeable about the innovation that they’ve chosen.

The whole process is designed to get ranchers more engaged in adopting technology — and monitoring what sort of difference it makes, said Westerlund.

“We wanted to see the economic benefit, and there’s benefits that aren’t measured by dollars as well,” she said.

Participating ranchers have been recruited for this 3-year project that follows the Rancher Researcher Pilot that was initiated by the Alberta Beef, Forage and Grazing Centre (ABFGC) in 2017 and was completed in 2019.

The pilot’s goal was to address the gaps in the flow of information between ranchers and the scientific community. It provided 8 ranchers located in central and southern Alberta the opportunity to try out various innovations and technologies. It connected them with appropriate scientists and then evaluated the impact of those new practices on their operations.

The innovations covered in the first pilot project that ranchers pursued were projects like DNA parentage testing, precision ranching (use of drones), soil testing, pasture rejuvenation with legumes, dugout improvements, cost of production analysis, improving access to water, herd information management, low-stress weaning, BlueTooth technology (scale), pasture health/utilization/animal movements software, and DNA hybrid vigour testing.

‘Following the pilot, we felt that it was valuable to duplicate it on a larger scale with producer associations around the province,’ explains Dianne Westerlund, manager and forage agrologist of Chinook Applied Research Association (CARA), as well as the association liaison for the ABFGC and this project.

‘Each of the associations involved select 2 ranchers and work with them on innovations that they want to apply to their operations, and that have some potential to enhance the success of their operation,’ she adds. ‘The 2 producers we are working with at CARA are very interested to determine the innovations that are the best fit for them.’

Twenty new operations have been recruited by applied research associations in the province, including Battle River Research Group, CARA, Foothills Forage and Grazing Association, Grey Wooded Forage Association, Gateway Research Organization, Lakeland Agricultural Research Association, Mackenzie Applied Research Association, North Peace Applied Research Association, and Peace Country Beef and Forage Association.

Westerlund says that one change moving from the pilot to this expansion is creating a more in-depth process to help the participant pick the innovations to be used over the next 3 years. It includes an interview to focus on finding the innovation that could have the most potential value and make the biggest impact to benefit their operation. Participants are also provided an extensive list of experts in the innovation technologies, and the pilot producer contacts who have experience adopting and using the innovations they are considering. This allows for a more robust evaluation and understanding of the challenges and benefits they might encounter by adopting the various innovations.

Each rancher has access to a maximum $2,000 to put towards the adoption of a technology new to their operation. The rancher needs to provide the necessary matching dollars – 50% for expense items or 80% for capital items.

As with the pilot, participating ranchers are encouraged to use AgriProfits or a similar economic analysis package. Baselines are collected at the beginning of the project, and the use of the new technology will be monitored. The impact on production and economic benchmarks will be tracked, and participating ranchers will have the opportunity to discuss those impacts with a consultant.

‘Looking at the big picture,’ says Westerlund, ‘we are enhancing the information flow so that producers are aware of some of the innovations that are going on. We’re making that connection so researchers are getting feedback, too. We can let them know if they are moving in the direction that would be of real value at the ranch level.’

Funding for this project was provided by the Governments of Canada and Alberta through the Canadian Agricultural Partnership under the Adapting Innovative Solutions Program. In Alberta, the Canadian Agricultural Partnership represents a federal-provincial investment of $406 million in strategic programs and initiatives for the agricultural sector.

This project is also supported by the Alberta Beef Producers.

You may be wondering how to connect with other producers who have hay for sale, or you may have feed to offer for sale.  While more traditional methods such as the local paper or word of mouth might still work, consider looking to one of the other online resources for hay sales:

Alberta Agriculture Hay Listings http://www.agric.gov.ab.ca/app68/hay

Alberta Hay and Feed Directory https://bit.ly/2peYPQg

Ag Buy Sell www.agbuysell.com

Hay / Feed For Sale in Saskatchewan, Alberta & Manitoba https://bit.ly/2OufIS5

Kijiji Hay Bales https://bit.ly/2xhh2Bl

SCA’s Feed & Forage Wanted and For Sale https://bit.ly/2xqzbM8

Internet Hay Exchange has listings in Canada and the US http://www.hayexchange.com/

When searching for hay, be aware that there is no standard way that hay for sale is listed. It may be in short tons or metric tonnes, cents per pound or often by the bale. Be sure to ask what the bale weights are, and to ask for feed analysis to be sure the hay you buy will meet the needs of your livestock.

Do you know of any other sites? Share the link on our facebook in the comments and we will add it to this list.

Summer has arrived but there are many areas that don’t get enough runoff water to adequately fill the stock ponds, forcing producers to move cattle looking for forage and water. When drought causes a great reduction in surface water available in farm ponds, the issue of water quality becomes nearly as important as quantity of water available.

Water is the one most important nutrient required by livestock. Decreased intake can adversely affect health, reproduction and growth. Excessive salinity (salt) in livestock drinking water can upset the animals’ water balance and cause death. Unsafe levels of salt and toxins depend on the age of the animal, its stage of production and the amount of water consumed each day.

Water consumption is dependent on many factors. Water intake for dry beef cows is around 1-1½ gals./100 lbs. of body weight and this estimate can double for cows nursing calves.

Oklahoma has many potential sources for run-off pond water contamination.

•  Soil minerals and salt leaching from the ground.
•  Oilfield drilling sites and saltwater disposal wells.
•  Agriculture application of nitrate and sulfate fertilizer.
•  Animal manure and human waste control systems.

Suggested uses of livestock water containing different levels of contaminants are listed below: (remember 1ppm = 1mg/liter of water)

Nitrates: 100 ppm or less should not harm livestock.100-300 ppm should not harm livestock by itself, but beware of additive effects when animals are exposed to or grazing foodstuffs containing increased levels of nitrates (sudan, haygrazer and johnsongrass).
Sulfates: Water levels of 2,000-2,500 ppm and sulfate levels in foodstuffs allowing the animal to attain a level of 4,000 ppm or greater; can be associated with a neurological disease in cattle causing blindness.
Total Salts:

•  Less than 1,000 ppm: These waters have a relatively low level of salinity and should present no serious burden to livestock.
•  1,000-2,999 ppm: These waters should be satisfactory for all classes of livestock. They may cause temporary and mild diarrhea in livestock not accustomed to them, but should not affect their health or performance.
•  3,000-4,999 ppm: These waters should be satisfactory for livestock, although they might very possibly cause mild diarrhea or be refused at first by animals not accustomed to them.
•  5,000-6,999 ppm: These waters can be used with reasonable safety for dairy and beef cattle, sheep, pigs, and horses. It may be well to avoid the use of waters approaching the higher levels for pregnant and lactating animals.
•  7,000-10,000 ppm: These waters are unfit for pigs. Considerable risk may exist in using them for pregnant and lactating livestock. In general, their use should be avoided, although older animals may subsist on them for long periods of time under conditions of maintenance and low stress.
•  Greater than 10,000 ppm: The risk of these high salinity waters are so great that they cannot be recommended for use under any conditions.

A routine water analysis performed at a lab with the help of your county Extension educator or local practicing veterinarian can be very helpful and cost very little. This would take all the guesswork out of trying to decide which animals would be safe to drink the water and which pastures might be able to be grazed.

As ponds start drying up, the concentration of salt and toxic ions begins to increase in them. Do the young calves in the group have a mild diarrhea due to salty water or coccidiosis? Do the distillers by-product feeds (which can be high in sulfur) have the potential to cause blindness in creep fed to my calves? Are pregnant cows at risk while grazing sudan forage and drinking water possibly containing nitrates? All these questions might be answered by a simple, routine livestock water analysis.

Rules of Thumb for livestock Drinking Water Quality Article link

Cook Book Pdf available for download and viewing here:

LCC Cook Book 2018

The Cook Book will be available as a hardcopy version. If you wish to order a hardcopy version please contact the CARA office at 403-664-3777 or email Olivia at cara-3@telus.net. There will be a printing and mailing fee for the hardcopy version.

However, the discovery of a small number of cases on a southeastern Alberta ranch last fall sparked renewed interest in the disease.

READ MORE: http://www.producer.com/2017/02/bovine-tuberculosis-poorly-understood/

For more information, please reference the CFIA information sheet at http://www.inspection.gc.ca/animals/terrestrial-animals/diseases/reportable/tuberculosis/investigation-southeast-alberta/eng/1477438380160/1477438380659.  

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