Welcome to BCI Cattle Chat! Please click on the links below to be taken to any sources mentioned in the podcast. Keep an eye out for news about our exciting upcoming guests on both Twitter and Facebook.
For more on BCI Cattle Chat, follow us on Twitter @The_BCI, and check out our new website, ksubci.org. If you have any comments/questions/topic ideas, please send them to bci@ksu.edu. Don’t forget if you enjoy the show, please go give us a rating in iTunes or Google Play.
Welcome to BCI Cattle Chat! Please click on the links below to be taken to any sources mentioned in the podcast. Keep an eye out for news about our exciting upcoming guests on both Twitter and Facebook.
1:00 Dr. Joe McMeniman – Meat & Livestock Australia Feedlot Project Manager
2:30 Ag Economic Questions
7:30 National American Society of Animal Science Meeting
11:45 Pre-Conditioning Calves
17:00 Top 5 Tips for Mid-Summer Pre-Conditioning
18:45 Australian Issues
For more on BCI Cattle Chat, follow us on Twitter @The_BCI, and check out our new website, ksubci.org. If you have any comments/questions/topic ideas, please send them to bci@ksu.edu. Don’t forget if you enjoy the show, please go give us a rating in iTunes or Google Play.
“Sure, where to? We made great memories when we traveled to
the nutrition conference in Miami on the beach a few years back. When and where?”
“June 20, 2019 at
Hy-Plains Education & Research Center, Montezuma, KS. Be sure to wear close-toed shoes.”
And that is all it took to get my friend Paula Ghazarian,
RN, leader of the Infection Control oversight team at one of the largest
hospitals in Kansas for many years, to attend the “Appropriate Antimicrobial
& Use & Stewardship” conference several hundred miles away. She is a life-long learner who pursues
learning no matter what the time or setting.
Paula was raised in West Virginia and has stories about raccoons,
squirrels and prized coon dogs that make you laugh so hard your stomach hurts,
but we soon found that cattle chat was a foreign language to her. The cattle talk took us to other
health-related topics. I could feel some
common ground as she shared her frustration with parents who choose not to
vaccinate their children, resulting in outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases. This easily translates to the cattle business
as our customers want us to stop using antibiotics to treat food animals.
We arrived at the Hy-Plains feedlot a little early, and Tom
Jones took time to give Paula a tour of the cattle processing area. Her morning started off with amazement. “I had no idea it would be so calm, quiet and
clean. I was expecting chaos and very
bad odor.”
Paula asked a few questions that were easy to answer, as well
as some that don’t really have answers. She
was disappointed that a retailer she held in high esteem due to their stand
against antibiotics in chickens has created a trade-off that includes a
negative effect on animal welfare.
Increasing animal mortality is not the outcome she wants.
As the day went on, speakers discussed opportunities in our
business to reduce stressors that drive how we currently use medically
important antibiotics Modern beef
production is a highly specialized business in which technology has allowed
farmers to produce more food for a growing world and still stay in business – a
cattleman’s ultimate definition of sustainability.
Two different times during the day, questions came from the
agriculture audience wondering what the human medical community is doing to
address appropriate use and stewardship.
We know, and they know, that there are opportunities. Paula shared multiple examples on our return
trip of how practices and procedures have changed, such as simple oversight in the
ICU to remove Foley catheters after three days which had an immediate impact on
infection reduction. She also shared case studies that her
specialized infectious disease team worked with that would break your heart.
One Health recognizes that the health of people is connected
to the health of animals and the environment.
Research and industry collaboration are essential. I was proud to have my friend see and hear
the efforts that are going on in the agriculture community to make change so
she will trust our food supply and want to
continue to eat beef.
My hope for future meetings is to include more human health professionals
in our discussions. Let’s hear what
initiatives they are working on and address antimicrobial use together.
Thru the eye of an infection control nurse not familiar with USA Beef production:
How do the animals get out of this chute? How do you get them back to the pen?
Why do you track “days on feet”? Aren’t they always on their feet?
What are “check off dollars”?
I have never heard of ionophores in human medicine. What are they?
There is a lot to know about.
How to the producers at the farmer’s market fit into this model?
There are trade-offs.
I never thought about how we grind different animals together to make hamburgers.
Antibiotic resistance is everyone’s problem. We have a lot of examples of changes we have made in human medicine, as well as a lot of challenges this group might be interested in.
Welcome to BCI Cattle Chat! Please click on the links below to be taken to any sources mentioned in the podcast. Keep an eye out for news about our exciting upcoming guests on both Twitter and Facebook.
For more on BCI Cattle Chat, follow us on Twitter @The_BCI, and check out our new website, ksubci.org. If you have any comments/questions/topic ideas, please send them to bci@ksu.edu. Don’t forget if you enjoy the show, please go give us a rating in iTunes or Google Play.
Welcome to BCI Cattle Chat! Please click on the links below to be taken to any sources mentioned in the podcast. Keep an eye out for news about our exciting upcoming guests on both Twitter and Facebook.
1:30 Hy-Plains Feedyard Conference
9:45 Listen Question: New Cattle Producers
13:25 Top 10 Tips for New Beef Producers
16:15 Invasive Species
20:10 Top Traits for Beef Cows
25:30 Transition Plan Poll Question
For more on BCI Cattle Chat, follow us on Twitter @The_BCI, and check out our new website, ksubci.org. If you have any comments/questions/topic ideas, please send them to bci@ksu.edu. Don’t forget if you enjoy the show, please go give us a rating in iTunes or Google Play.