Back to school

Busy day again yesterday. Had a great morning in the Ag science dept at Oklahoma State University with the teaching/research and extension staff. There is so much work being conducted on beef cattle improvement throughout this country its embarasing how little we have going on. Thank goodness what we lack in quantity we compensate for in quality. Long live SAC and AFBI.



The extension service continues to impress me with their practical cattle background yet academic knowledge and the down to earth way they do things. Im delighted to say that many of the people Im meeting are the pioneers in their fields who have created many of the processes used on farm. Im heading back to OSU this afternoon to meet one of the Professors I met yesterday to visit the 300 cow commercial research herd they have in addition to about 200 pedigree cows. Quite a resource for a university!

There is a lot of interesting things going on, in many areas of beef production including genetics of fat composition and a study monitoring cattle temperatures using rumen boluses. This is really fascinating already documenting temperature drops in cows priior to calving and posible uses in disease detection before clinical signs develop.

The university also run a bull test called OBI (I will update website links with this one soon) which has a pretty high expectation for its bulls with the bottom 30% not making it to sale. It has gained a lot of respect and demand for their test bulls.

The University has several pedigree herds for teaching and practical experience for the students. Poll Herefords, Black Angus and a few others in smaller numbers. Web site to follow.


It was interesting that the problems we have with EBV's that I thought our American colleagues had overcome arer still major problems. The extension staff are actively working on this and have been for many years but the challenge is tough. All sorts of media are used, in print, web based and on radio and television as well as the usual courses and clinics. Acceptance is growing but event with their practical backgrounds its tough to get the messag through. The dangers are not always apparent but single trait selection is certainely a big one as well as having a goal in sight to make buying decisions against.