Love is in the Air

I remember it like it was yesterday. This photo was taken in Denver, CO last summer when I visited for the first time. I attended the Cattle Industry Summer Conference as a National Beef Ambassador. I absolutely love this photo, because the red in my shirt and the red in the flowers dominate the picture. Red is defined as the color of passion, and this shirt saw a lot of passion in my term as a National Beef Ambassador. Seeing as today is Valentine's Day, I wanted to reflect on the love that I have in my heart. My love is spread out to all of the things in my life, and to my life in general.

Naturally, as February is I Heart Beef Month, I love beef as well! You can show your support by adding an I <3 Beef twibbon to your Facebook page or Twitter account, and don't be afraid to share with people your love for beef!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! What better way to show your sweetheart that you love them with a nice, juicy top sirloin for dinner tonight?

Love, Agriculture
~Malorie

The Other Side of the Barbed Wire Fence

Hi!

I know how much I love beef, and I'm pretty sure you know how much I love beef, but I decided to take a different route today. For my Dairy Science Feeds and Feeding class we had to write a paper on the history of the California Dairy Industry. In case you wanted to know, here is a brief summary for you about something I enjoyed learning about!

California hasn’t always been the leading dairy producing state in the nation. Wisconsin was in the lead until 1993 when California passed it in leading dairy production. Yet the industry in California began well before the Gold Rush. It all began when the Spanish settled California and began the state’s history as well as the dairy industry’s existence. In addition to the herd if Longhorn cattle that roamed the land, each soldier was awarded two milk cows, according to a law of 1795. The native missionaries who taught the word of God also taught the soldiers how to make what is now the equivalent of Monterey Jack cheese. When American’s began to arrive to California around 1840, they brought with them the love for fresh cheese and milk. Women were responsible for tending to the cows that the families were able to keep, but in 1848, when gold was discovered in California, the dairy industry in California changed drastically. California’s dairy industry has come a long way since its creation!
With the population increasing greatly in California due to the Gold Rush and the demand for dairy products rising, the need to expand homestead dairies was extremely necessary. By 1860 California had about 100,000 milk cows in areas around San Francisco and Sacramento, the states two most populated areas. Butter was the primary product in the beginning stages of the industry starting at 25 cents per pound! However, by the mid-1850s the Steele family had settled in the San Francisco area from Ohio and changed the face of the industry. Mrs. Steele had hired an Indian man to rope some near-by cattle which she milked. She used her grandmother’s English cookbook to create cheddar cheese from the milk of those cows.
The family’s success in the dairy industry led to an expansion from their original Point Reyes expansion. Their dairy is known as the first in the United States to become a commercial dairy selling high quality cheese and butter. However, shortly after the beginning of their success the Steele family did not own the only dairy in Point Reyes. The Laird family operated a dairy close in location to the Steele family’s dairy and in 1859 the Laird cheese took first place from the Steele family at the California State Fair. Yet, as settlement continued, more and more people gained interest in the dairy industry. The Shafter brothers, attorneys from Vermont settled the Point Reyes peninsula in an ownership dispute, which resulted in the growth of the Point Reyes dairy industry, making it the largest in the western United States. As time passed by and the diary industry grew, changes were made to production cycles. At the peak of its business, the Point Reyes dairies peaked at 31 ranches. They were located on mostly flat ground, and the milking was done outside in a well-drained central corral, as it rarely rained. Each milker took on about 20-25 cows and could milk them in about two hours. The butter of Point Reyes was so popular that dairies around the area were counter fitting it. The Shafter brothers discovered this and began stamping their butter boxes with P.R., creating the first brand on a consumer product in California.
As dairying became more popular in the state of California venturing into areas like the San Joaquin Valley and San Luis Obispo County areas, California was well on its way to becoming the leading dairy state in the nation. With the introduction of new technology like cream separators and the first creamery in Ferndale in 1889, the California dairy industry began to explode with surplus. This led the dairymen in California to export their products. In 1891 the Dairymen’s Union of California (renamed the California Dairy Association in 1893) was created to improve distribution of the dairy products. Since the 1990’s consumers have become more concerned with food safety and product handling. For more than 100 years, the dairy industry has worked toward achieving regulatory success with its products. Today dairy products lead the commodity list in California, and California leads the nation in dairy products. Dairymen produce a high quality product with ease, because of advancements in milking technology and herd health practices!


Source: "Two Centuries Of Prominence And Personalities | California Milk Advisory Board." California Milk Advisory Board | The California Dairy Press Room. Web. 08 Feb. 2011. .

Thank you very much for reading! I hope you learned something new!

Love,
Agriculture

JBS/Five Rivers: An Extended Stay at the Spa

Hello hello!

It is quite a glorious day! Happy Friday! While I'm sitting at my computer, I figured I'd tell you about my trip to the JBS/Five Rivers feedlot in Kersey, CO over the weekend. As some of you know, I was in Denver, CO for the National Beef Speakers Bureau training. I met nineteen of my fellow American National CattleWomen there, and we spent the weekend working on public speaking and presenting skills. It was a great experience! To wrap up our training we took a special trip to the JBS/Five Rivers feedlot on Monday to tour the feedlot and visit their corporate offices. I was expecting to write a blog on my trip there, but I wasn't sure how to write about it. I know that people who are unfamiliar with the beef industry, and even some of those who are involved in the beef industry, feel that feedlots (often referred to as CAFO's--Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) are a "bad" part of our industry. Well, about five minutes into the tour, I realized how I could explain a feedlot in a way that many people would understand. Yes, you read the title of this blog correctly. I am comparing a feedlot to a spa. You might ask, "Why? She is plain crazy!" But I hope by the end of this post you will understand!

First of all, I had the opportunity to tour the same feedlot over last summer with the National Beef Ambassadors. They were just in the beginning stages of their remodel then, which was completely finished when I visited this time. When we first arrived we huddled into the feedlot office, as it was snowing outside, to listen to a brief presentation about the feedlot. There we learned that it costs roughly $.22/head/day to house the beef cattle on the feedlot. At any given time there are around 93,000 head on the feedlot. This means that there are 1,400 head/employee working at the feedlot.
My favorite quote of the day was said by a staff member of JBS/Five Rivers. "The quickest way to get fired from a beef cattle operation is to abuse one."



We learned some other statistics, took a group photo, and then headed out into various vehicles to begin the tour.

While we were in the nice warm pick-up, I pondered how the snow-covered steers and heifers felt. Then I was quickly reassured that they hardly knew cold because of their weather resistant hide, which gave me comfort. However, we were shown the shade/wind break that double as either/or during the summer and winter seasons. I thought they were new, but I realized that they were shades when I was there over the summer, and now they were wind breaks for the sub-zero winds. We learned that the cattle get fed three times a day, with their "breakfast" served very early in the morning to start their digestion off right! Their diets are formulated by a nutritionists on staff at the feedlot that professionally chooses the rations so the cattle reach the most efficient digestibility. There are roughly 300 head/pen which gives them ample room to live comfortably. I actually witnessed--and I kid you not--a group of steers playing tag. At one end of the pen stood one steer facing the feed bunks, while the others ran the other direction and dispersed across the pen. It took about ten seconds before all of the steers were running around, quite literally playing some sort of version of steer tag! When our tour leader asked why the cattle were running around, I replied without pause "Well, that one's 'it'!" He laughed. Because it was SO true!

This particular feedlot was designed with the help of Dr. Temple Grandin. Each animal is individually processed once arrived to the feedlot. A hydrolic gate determines which pen each animal is sorted into by weight. This feature was probably one of my favorites! Part of the new renovation between 2009 and 2010 included the slope of the pens. The feedlot used to have mounds in the center of the pens, but the drainage is much more efficient if the slope of each pen is tilted toward the center drainage pipe! My tour leader said this system had proven itself with the first rain, as the pens managed to stay dry.


Each pen is equipped with its own water trough, which does not freeze in cold weather because of constant water movement around the trough. Each pen is also equipped with sprinklers, so in the summer time they control dust and keep the cattle cool! The pen riders keep a watchful eye over the cattle, making sure they are all healthy and not getting bullied. If this is noticed, the pen riders separate them into the sick pen at one of the two hospitals on the feedlot or into a pen known as the "buller" pen, otherwise for those cattle that are mounted or picked on by other cattle. When the cattle are separated they receive a special colored ear tag for ease of identification.

I realize now that I could go on and on about my tour at JBS/Five Rivers. But I hope that you see how I can compare the feedlot to an extended stay at the spa! Every single beef animal that I witnessed looked happy and healthy (or well on their way to becoming healthy again!).

I am a big fan of the number one beef feeding business in the world! I would speak highly of the JBS/Five Rivers feedlot company again and again!
Thank you for reading this udderly long post. Hehe. A little cow humor for you!

Sin-steer-ly,
Malorie

There is No "I" in Beef!

Good afternoon!

Some of you may be later in the afternoon than I am, as I am very familiar with time zones these days, but nonetheless I'd like to thank you for reading my blog!

I was just recently in Colorado for the National Beef Speakers Bureau training. This is a brand new program designed to help spread the truthful message about animal welfare in the beef industry. Nineteen of my fellow American National CattleWomen and I gathered in Denver for three days this past weekend and worked together on our speaking and presentation skills. I used up all of the sheets of paper in my notebook that I brought taking notes, jotting ideas down, and thinking of ways to help spread our message. The teamwork among the group was commendable, which led me to think that there really is no "I" in beef.

There we were, all gathered in the middle of the United States, one mile high, and most of us were away from home, or the ranch, for that matter. If we were there, and our cattle, horses, ranch dogs, and house-hold pets were home, then we certainly weren't taking care of them firsthand. This led to the conclusion that husbands, family friends, mothers, fathers, siblings, or significant others were taking care of our animals, and most of them with no questions asked. However, something that did catch my attention was the communication between the homestead and the CattleWomen at the training. Weather reports were given over text messages, animal updates were shared via brief phone calls on breaks. Yet that wasn't even half of the whole. Many of the CattleWomen were calling to check on their animals even if an update phone call had already been made. Seeing this made me conclude that CattleWomen care. Hands down. Hooves down. Paws down. Claws down. CattleWomen care.

All of this really brought our message home to me: that no matter what, rain, shine, sleet, snow, or travel our animals are well taken care of. They are put into the hands of someone we know and trust, and we work our hardest to ensure that our animals are safe while we are gone, and while we are home. To me this is a beautiful thing. This might be why the CattleWomen are my favorite group of ladies in the whole entire world.

I am honored and proud to be an American National CattleWomen!Please look forward to my blogs this week and into the weekend celebrating I Heart Beef Month, as well as my travels to the JBS/Five Rivers feedlot and headquarters, and the stories that I have been able to share since then!

Thank you very much for reading! Remember, there is no "I" in beef, but that doesn't mean that YOU can't love beef just the same!

Sin-steer-ly,
Malorie