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
