Brands can be found on nearly everything in our daily lives, from posters and websites to equipment, vehicles and apparel such as sunglasses, hats and bunnyhugs (a.k.a. “hoodies” for my non-Saskatchewan readers). Entire companies are built on the business of branding and promotion, but the inspiration for modern-day brand names had humble beginnings in practical and permanent livestock identification.

Branding calves is an age-old ranching practice rooted in heritage, yet it has real-world relevance today in ranching culture. While some argue branding is outdated, in our experience, it’s a valuable part of management.

We graze cattle in many pastures scattered across several miles. We’ve had to sort our (or others’) critters out of large herds in big pastures. We’ve also had random cattle walk into our yard seemingly out of nowhere. A quick look for a brand is the first step in solving a minor bovine mystery or a major sorting situation.

With present-day technology, there are certainly other ways to identify cattle and mark down who belongs where. We use those methods too. Dangle ear tags, metal ear tags, government-endorsed radio frequency (RFID) tags, tattoos and even DNA samples are all identification strategies we employ to verify ownership of our animals.

The trouble is, I can’t read the RFID tag of an animal from 50 feet away; dangle tags fall out; and maybe I don’t want to wait six to nine weeks for the DNA lab to get back to me with test results.

As well, when you encounter errant cattle, they aren’t always in a real obliging mood, or you may be on horseback in a big field, or along a road allowance at a weird time of night. Those other identification methods, while useful in some circumstances, are not as quick and handy as reading a traditional brand. It’s a darn good feeling to spy a brand on a hip, rib or shoulder.

Having an experienced person apply a brand to clean, dry hide on a safely restrained calf, using a hot iron, can be done in 10 seconds or less. We give calves vaccinations and parasite control at the same time and administer medicine to help manage their pain. (At the end of the day, the human branding crew usually passes around a bottle of Advil too.)

Going to a rope-and-drag branding is an event in itself. A branding brings together the helping hands of friends and family. Big or small, everyone of all ages works side-by-side with a sense of purpose.

You can’t mistake the smells and sounds of a branding. And somehow, amid the ropes, sharp knives, needles, horses, humans, cattle, hot irons and roaring fire, there is a reassuring rhythm of controlled chaos.

When the job is done, you sit down together — as dirty and possibly sunburned as you’ve ever been — and eat the best meal you can imagine, while swapping a few stories and creating more.

You reminisce about when your kids were the young ones holding the “berry” pail, and today they are roping and wrestling and helping the next crew of ambitious kids. Horsemanship and roping skills are encouraged by a community greater than the sum of its parts.

For ranchers, a brand can be important for their identity, their heritage and their finances. It’s also one of the last permanent, physical, legal methods of staking your claim in a high-stakes industry.

When we load liners of cattle that represent our life’s work and investment, I want my brand on them.

Like all businesses, cattle producers have a lot of irons in the fire. We take pride in a reputation founded on quality, a handshake — and, in many cases, a brand. Literally.

The post The ranch tradition of branding is based in the cultural and the practical appeared first on Grainews.

Throughout the growing season, as interesting plants pop up in ditches, fields and pastures, I get texts, tweets and messages with photos of mystery plants from friends requesting identification. “Is this a good plant? Is it a weed? Does it grow here often? Is it toxic?”

My interest in plant identification started young with my mom, a former ag rep and agrologist, who is the original plant ID matriarch of the family.

As a kid, I remember neighbours and even strangers dropping by with puzzling plants for her to look at. I learned from her that the right plants can add beauty and bucks, but the wrong ones can cost you money and a lot of grief.

When I got older, I gravitated toward summer jobs that leveled up my weed, forage and rangeland plant identification. I quickly learned there are a lot of identity-obsessed plant experts, and I’m fortunate to have an inner circle of plant gurus to lean on for more information.

Whether a plant is welcome or not will differ according to region, soil type and goals; what might be a preferred plant on one farm is a weed on another.

Farmers and ranchers spend a lot more time identifying plants than perhaps they realize. Plants provide us with many clues about what is happening on our land. For example, we use weed identification in our annual crops to determine potential problems, including herbicide resistance. Being aware of common weeds helps us decide which crop protection products to use.

The threat of invasive weeds has many farmers vigilant and on the lookout for infestations of leafy spurge, toadflax or scentless chamomile. Risks like the movement of feed, the use of equipment between “contaminated” sites and clean fields, and industrial development and construction can all lead to a productivity-sucking invasion. In this sense, accurate plant identification can be the difference between swift eradication and a costly, multi-generational fight against invasive weeds.

Of course, there are plenty of good plants to take note of, too. For example, some plants only grow in moist habitats and their presence can indicate pockets of sub-irrigation, making them helpful in deciding where to potentially source a new well or dugout. These riparian plants can also filter out sediment and nutrients, helping to improve standing water quality.

Plants are also a part of our culture, and we look to them to signal the beginning or end of seasons. The familiar ritual of seeking out a prairie crocus confirms the arrival of spring; the ripening of saskatoon berries is a summertime staple; and the turning of leaves on a dogwood or Manitoba maple is a beacon of colder weather.

My favourite group of plants are those that are native to our Prairie grasslands. These plants have spent the past 10,000 years (give or take) adapting to be resilient against whatever disturbance is thrown at them.

Range plants each occupy a different, valuable niche on the landscape. In addition to providing benefits such as forage, carbon sequestration and biodiversity, many range plants fix nitrogen, like one of our many native milkvetch species.

Other species, such as creeping juniper, reduce hillside erosion. Shrubs such as buckbrush and silver sagebrush help trap snow and provide habitat for songbirds. Winterfat, a beloved prairie shrub, looks similar to sagebrush but lacks the smell. It’s known as the “ice cream” species because it’s preferred by both livestock and wildlife, and its robust presence can be an indicator of a healthy prairie pasture.

There are several regional plant ID books and you can also find answers to plant questions at your local extension office. There is also a wonderful website that helpfully categorizes wildflowers according to colour.

The next time you see a plant that piques your interest, ask yourself why it might be there. What are our plants telling us about our environment?

The post Plants and their identity crises appeared first on Grainews.

Through the system’s growing pains, lots of lessons have been learned and the system is being fine-tuned. Producers are deriving more and more benefit from using farm management systems linked to readers linked to scales, all based on the ability to read the radio frequency identification (RFID) tags. From lost animals, to identification at export, to transport, to traceability, a lot hinges on the tag being present so it can be easily read.

The purebred beef breeds are also using them somewhat for breed identification, in the sense that the different-coloured backs indicate a breed such as Angus (green backs) or Simmental (blue backs).

Some breed organizations have given incentives to register early and receive tags — which are positive ways to ensure use.

The standard tags are still yellow and many of the different sire groups, as well as some of the purebred breeders, are sticking with straight yellow. Many purebred breeders raise two different purebred breeds, so have elected to stay yellow as well.

The bison industry has the white tags, and a marketing fee is attached to them, but it is really easy to see if a producer has put in the wrong tag.

All these options help with marketing or differentiation, and lately I have not seen one microchip fail.

Made to last

Emphasis is now being placed on retaining tags. Before 2020 about 18 per cent of tags were lost by about six years — which most beef cows get to. Dairy cattle on average would not get that old before being shipped. Breeding bulls are usually done by around five to six years on average, so we need to have tags we know are going to last for at least those six years.

From wear and tear, to ultraviolet light, to freezing and thawing in Canada, there is a lot the tag manufacturers are trying to compensate for — and they are doing it.

In tags, the industry leader, and current leader in market share, is Allflex. I know it has been working to strengthen the neck of the tags and a new tagger on the market (the white one) has replaced its green predecessor. It has slightly longer handles, gives more mechanical advantage and even fits smaller hands better. This makes it easier to tag and reduces fatigue if tagging many animals in a day.

If a pin is bent or broken it’s imperative that the same type of pin be used in the same brand of tag. They are all slightly different.

If there is ever a report of excessive tag loss, an investigation, involving either the tag manufacturer or the Canadian Cattle Identification Agency (CCIA), may follow. In every case I have heard of, the incorrect tagger or pin was used, application was in the wrong area or weather conditions were the potential culprit. Be careful when installing tags in extremely cold weather, as cold tags are not flexible enough.

One must try and put the tag in an area where it’s least likely to be caught or ripped out. An RFID tag should be put ideally a quarter of the way out from the head and in the middle, so the male back end is behind the ear and the thick radio frequency part is in the inside of the ear. This has been found to increase tag longevity. If placed in the top of the ear, the backing frequently gets caught.

I have seen many tags almost rubbed too thin by bulls; they are hard on tags, especially dangle tags, whether from fighting, rubbing, or throwing up dirt with their heads. This abuse gradually wears out the tag backing.

It will be interesting to see if ultraviolet light has any negative effect on some of the new coloured backs. Both the yellow and white tags have been good that way, so time will tell.

Robust systems

If we can keep the retainability creeping upward, tags may be incorporated with other devices that might measure temperature or ruminal movements and could detect disease earlier. Such tags are on the market, but not yet married to CCIA tags.

Even though the U.S. does not have a true national identification system, countries with lots of cattle, such as Brazil, are getting rather robust ones, so the world is changing.

It is great to see tags starting to give back valuable information to owners, and that the beef breeds see this as a valuable step in differentiating themselves. It is positive from world trade and food safety standpoints.

The changeover to ordering CCIA tags from the CCIA office or through the breed association has also gone rather seamlessly.

I encourage everyone to check out the CCIA website and learn the 10 guiding principles for tag application; some have been mentioned in this article.

There is also a user-friendly Canadian Livestock Tracking System (CLTS) mobile app where your password allows input and retrieval of your data. The technology is here; let’s use it.

I see RFID tags applied early in a calf’s life and I see good management, usually. Don’t buck progress, as it only makes lives easier, and traceable marketing improves.

The post More cattle tags being retained appeared first on Grainews.

The regulatory proposal would address what the agency calls “gaps” in the current system, including:

• adding goats and cervids as animal species that share diseases with other regulated livestock, and therefore subject to traceability requirements,
• shortening the time period allowed to report an event to better support an efficient response to disease outbreaks,
• adding a requirement to provide information about the geographical location of sites where animals are located, and
• requiring the reporting of domestic movements of livestock.

CFIA is asking producers who own sheep, goats, pigs, cattle, bison or farmed cervids or are involved with livestock production or handling, to share their feedback during the consultation period, which opened Saturday and runs to June 16.

Some affected livestock groups are already making moves in anticipation of the new rules.

The Canadian Sheep Federation (CSF) AgroLedger, a digital traceability program, launched a pilot program in July 2022 for early adopters before its sector-wide release.

The CFS-funded program was made available at no cost to Canadian sheep producers to bring them in line with the government regulatory amendments.

“We understand that all the users, farmers included, are going to face a lot more work in terms of meeting regulations. The ultimate goal here is to make that easier, less complex, less work wherever possible for producers,” CFS executive director Corlena Patterson said at the time.

The post CFIA seeks feedback on traceability, animal ID amendments appeared first on Grainews.