Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/546342
FollowusonTwitterandFacebookforupdatesandmore. Ourafternoonstopwas at Lethbridge Research Center, a federal research center with Kim Stafford. It was like attending a Beef Improvement Feder- ation convention as they talked about using genom- ics to find what kills cattle with BRSVD. They were doing an antibiotic resis- tance study right now. Dr. Tim McCallister is doing research on organic vs. grain fed, and very lit- tle beef is truly organic. Our meat is safe and high quality. Diet affects fatty acid composition, with corn yielding yellow fat and barley yields white fat .Dr. Karen Beauche- min, is a research scien- tist, studying cost of pro- duction, impact of ani- mals on environment, and globally, livestock produce only 8-10% of emissions of methane. How much the animal eats is amount of methane produced. Forage produces more methane than a grain fed animal. Sex of animal made no dif- ference. She was working with cattle in a chamber to compare diet A, with diet B for a few days to mea- sure how much methane is produced. The cattle are calm and used to people, even halter broke. Then Dr. Tim Reuter, whose specialty is food safety spoke on compost- ing of a beef animal that died. A layer of straw 42 to 50 centimeters in depth, sawdust, manure or silage is used for the base to allow air in, then the body, and more ma- nure or compost on top. Takes 140 to 250 days, temperature shows how good it is working at 50- 70 C. The manure must have water to allow the bacte- ria to grow. At home you can test that 60% of ma- terial is water, but if you squeeze and water comes out it is too wet. The diseased animal will be destroyed, and the heat will kill the bacte- ria and viruses. Even the bones disappeared in 140- 250 days. That night about half of our group went to the Rocky Mt. Turf Club race track for the six horse races from 6 to 8 p.m. Free admission, and one dollar to place a bet. Linda and Kendra were breaking even until the last race. Suitcases out, and we were en route to the Jen- kins Ranch, Waterton, nearly at the border with MT. It was clear blue skies, grass to our knees, beauti- ful wild flowers and Angus cows and calves held by the pond by son Riley and daughter Colby on horse- back. Frank Jenkins gave us a history of the ranch. His grandfather was a veter- inarian for the Royal Ca- nadian Mounted Police in the 1880s, and established the ranch in 1920. They calve 1,300 cows, selling the steer calves at 550 lbs on the video, and keep the heifers selling them in the spring as not bred. They calve starting April 1, and wean in Oc- tober. The cows will be here until November, but it starts freezing in Sept. and the protein level drops. They can get several feet of snow here. The cattle are in six or seven groups on differ- ent pastures. The wean- ing weights are low on this ranch, so they had sorted the cows and these were all heifer pairs that we saw and took pictures of. The steer pairs were on better feed with their mothers. We were at 4,320 ft ele- vation according to some- one's smart phone app. They own 8,000 deeded acres and rent 4,000 acres. Where the busses were parked was Nature Con- servancy land of 1,800 acres. We noticed there was alfalfa, orchard grass, timothy, clover, fescue, and learned when it was owned by Palmer, they in- tensive grazed the 7,000 acres, as they AI ed 4,000 cows. The cows brought in the various seeds. After the 4 hour bus ride the previous day, ev- eryone was glad to see 2 pink and 2 blue porta pot- ties at this stop. I have never seen such a fancy auction ring as Fort Ma- cleod Auction, where we had New York steaks for lunch, with baked potato, Caesar salad, and straw- berry shortcake. There were leather chairs around the sale ring with phone attachments for order buy- ers. Benches with backs on an incline, with outdoor carpeting. They have car- pet because it is cold here, and the concrete floor is cold. Near the sale ring on the side were tables and benches, or you could eat in the restaurant on sale day. I was told there are big runs of cattle in the fall and spring, since they don't use video sales like we do. The corrals were made of 2-W panels. Our final stop on this tour was Lucasia Ranch, Claresholm. We thought we were lost as we drove up and down one hill after another, but the GPS kept saying the turn off was just ahead. Wayne and Judy Lucas have 4,000 acres for their Red Angus cattle, crossed with Red Simmental and Limousine. They calve in April on the flat, grazing the bottom lands now, and use the hills for fall and winter feed. They use large tires for water troughs with a ce- ment plug on bottom with three pieces of sucker rod, as they hold the wa- ter from the springs. Back- hoes dig out the head of spring, and black hose is inserted, sandstone, then covered with dirt, leading to the tire. On the hillside we saw a grey Percheron stallion with seven mares and was told on another ridge there was 15 mares with a black stallion. At the headquarters we saw four black Percheron's pulling a wagon as they prepared for a horse show in Calgary and the Calgary Stampede. They can handle eight guests at a time since they are also a guest ranch. Judy Lucas works with tour operators in Europe to advertise the guest ranch, and 30% are repeat guests. 80 % come from Europe, and last year they hosted 534 guests. They have five cat- tle drives every summer, and first week of June is branding time. An aver- age stay is one week with guests flying into Cal- gary. May to October is the season, and then there are hunters. No children un- der 12 years. The guests want open space to ride horses. There used to be seven bed and breakfast in the area, and now only two. During the six days we had driven 1870 kilome- ters visiting ranches and historic sites in South- ern Alberta, Canada. Usu- ally there are several ice chests with wine, soda pop and alcoholic bever- ages on ice in the back of the bus, but Canada doesn't allow drinking on the buses. This year the ice chests contained bot- tled water. We are looking forward to our next adventure in 2016 with Western Live- stock Journal and a group of friends. JeanBartonhasbeen writing her column in the Daily News since the early 1990s. She can be reached by e-mail at jbarton2013@ gmail.com. JEANBARTON A visit to Alberta cattle research center COURTESYPHOTO Fat cows with heifer calves were deep in green grass at Jenkins Ranch, Waterton, AB on the Alberta Wild Rose Canadian Ranch Tour presented by Western Livestock Journal. 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