W.A. Ranches Newsletter | Fall 2021

Welcome to the Fall 2021 issue of the W.A. Ranches newsletter. We’re excited to share what’s been happening at the ranch this year, and the great things we’ve been able to achieve with the gift of this incredible resource from the Anderson-Chisholm family to the University of Calgary.

Greetings everyone!

I am so tired of how Covid-19 has impacted our university and society and like many of you, I had hoped that we would be finished with this virus by now. Unfortunately, at the time of writing this update, it appears that we are in a fourth wave. Although we have had to maintain some limits on ranch access, the great news is that things are well at WA Ranches.

First of all, I would like to congratulate, Mr. Jonny Bennett on his promotion to Ranch Manager. Jonny was promoted to this position in February, 2021 after the retirement of Mr. Matt Williams. Mr. Bennett was raised on a dairy farm in southern Ontario. He moved to Alberta to attend Olds College and then attended the Graham School for Beef and Dairy management in Garnett, Kansas. Jonny has spent the past 25 years living in the Cochrane area and working in the cow-calf sector of the beef industry. He has been on staff at WA for the past 4 years. When he is not at the ranch you will find him spending time with his family or with a fly rod hiking the creeks and rivers near WA.

This past spring/summer saw the largest number of research projects, yet be conducted at WA. These projects are featured within this newsletter. It has been very exciting to see the recent WA hires (introduced in the last newsletter) initiate their research programs at WA. This summer also saw the initial project (supervised by Dr. Claire Windeyer) of our Emergent Initiative, an initiative I’m co-leading with Dr. Jay Cross, and supported by a number of our faculty. The goal of the emergent initiative is to engage with faculty and industry and develop technology to support the cow-calf sector of the beef industry.

WA also experienced some educational firsts this past year. Dr. Jennifer Pearson, led three labs conducted at WA, as part of a forth year rotation. I understand that this was a great success and our Bovine Clinical Team are planning more educational activities in the future. We were also honoured to be part of the Advanced Beef Production Medicine Rotation offered to 4^th year students from across North America by Veterinary Agri Health Services Ltd. These types of activities are essential to educating and attracting students to large animal practice.

I am so pleased to announce the contribution of two gifts to support activities at WA.

First, at the personal level, Susan Church has donated funds to support a summer student stipend to be part of a research team conducting work at WA. This gift will not only assist the research projects of faculty but will help recruit students to the veterinary school and inspire current veterinary students to large animal The inaugural recipient of this gift was Lauren Stoffregen, a first -year veterinary student. Her project “Assessing the accuracy of CowManager ear tags in beef bulls by comparison with direct observation” is described in this newsletter. This was an incredible learning experience for our student. Thank-you Susan.

At the foundation level, I would like to thank the Canadian Cattlemen’s Foundation for their founding gift of $150,000 to launch a new youth development and outreach program at W.A. Ranches. This gift will attract bright young minds to an industry that is a key economic driver for Alberta and Canada. This is an incredible gift that supports the vision of our donors, Jack Anderson and Wynne Chisholm. At the time of writing this update we are in the process of hiring an individual to lead this initiative. Thank-you to the CCF!

I hope you have found this update informative and sense how exciting things are developing at WA. I will conclude my update as I did in the last newsletter. All of us at the University of Calgary and W.A. Ranches hope that you and those you care for are well. We look forward to the day we can host you at a W.A. workshop or public event.

Sincerely,

Dr. Ed Pajor, PhD
Director, W.A. Ranches at the University of Calgary.

Wednesday, September 22
3:30 - 5:00 p.m. (MDT) | Online

As consumers wander through the grocery store purchasing their food items, they are faced with thousands of decisions. Today, as the quality and choice of goods in our food stores continues to increase, so does the complexity of our choices.

This webinar will engage a panel of experts to help answer some of the most common consumer questions about one of Canada’s biggest agri-food products: beef. We will dispel some myths and bring some science and facts to the table and hopefully make your grocery shopping a little easier. We will also take you on a tour of a few parts of the complex beef industry supply chain.

There is no cost to register. Webinar will be hosted via Zoom in partnership with the School of Public Policy, University of Calgary.

We have had a very busy year doing regular ranching and with the added in extras of research and student experiences, I need to thank the hard working and willing crew here for making all things happen. The boots on the ground are what keep things moving forward, and everyone here contributes to the running of this unique ranch.

In the early months of the year, I was handed the reins from the retiring GM Matt Williams as new manager of W.A. Ranches. I am honored to be accepted for the task and the challenge of working with the University. I have enjoyed meeting new people that come to the ranch and forging stronger relations with our neighbors.

Winter went as per normal, with cow herd grazing swaths with supplemental hay and silage. Crew is working at electric fencing strips of the swaths, to manage the amounts the cattle consume and avoid wastage. Our cow herd stayed at the Cochrane North area right into April. Once the pregnant cows were at Cochrane Home, we moved into calving.

After the bad weather calving in 2020, a few changes were made to the calving program to try help the staff and livestock have a more successful season. We backed off the calving start date by two weeks, to avoid the early April storms. This year the weather was more favorable to calve in, with only a few colder nights when the crew had to deal with gathering chilled calves. With help from our veterinarians at VAHS, we developed a different calving rotation system, that kept the cows calving on cleaner grounds, and leaving calves in age group classes for better health in the neonatal calves.

Next comes the most intense time of year for us, as calving overlaps into the spring processing time. The cowboy crew spent many hours pairing off the bull calves and heifer calves into separate groups in preparation to do several processing research studies and have the pasture groups sorted for the grass that was ready in June. Fencing was one of the hobbies of the crew to get the many acres of deeded and lease land in forested lands west ready, where half the cattle herd graze the summer out. Meanwhile, the herd sire bulls were getting an exam for breeding soundness to be prepared to get put out with the cows in July.

We were lucky to get some timely rains to get things growing, as we saw a drier than normal year. Crop yields were down, as we rolled right into putting up the silage after the hay was wrapped up. We are grateful to have enough feed, and that the former owners of W.A. implemented the rule of having an extra years' worth of feed in storage, for years like this, when forage is less available. We work with an excellent farming contractor who helped us get the most out of lands to produce the right forages for our herd. Thus far, our pastures and water sources are holding up to keep the livestock going to grow out the calves.

Before we know it, we will be looking at marketing all our crews' efforts for the year, as the fall gather will happen to get the herd back to home base at Cochrane North. Calves will be weaned and shipped out and cows are pregnancy tested. Then here comes winter and we start all over with cattle wintering on the swaths. Although no two days are ever the same here, it's "Just Another Day at the W.A.!" as the cycle repeats.

Thank you again to the W.A. crew, partners at the University of Calgary, valued contractors, and neighbors for the support to make W.A. Ranches function!

Jonny Bennett,
Manager, W.A. Ranches

A gift from a livestock welfare advocate and long-time supporter of UCVM gave one student the opportunity to spend her summer conducting research at W.A. Ranches.

Susan Church worked for many years in Alberta’s agriculture industry and played a significant role in positioning the province’s livestock producers as leaders in animal care issues. Her gift to UCVM made it possible for second-year veterinary medicine student Lauren Stoffregen to gain invaluable experience.

"Thanks to Susan’s donation, I was able to experience Alberta’s forward-looking beef industry first-hand both at WA Ranches and Susan’s own ranch, and see academia through the lens of veterinary medicine,” says Stoffregen.

Church says Alberta’s livestock industry continues to make great strides in its focus on the well-being of farm animals and she’s pleased to support the work of UCVM. “Those at UCVM and WA Ranches are instrumental in the advancement of animal welfare research, industry extension and importantly public and societal outreach.”

(Left to right): Susan Church, with Lauren Stoffregen (veterinary student), Lindsey Arkangel (MSc student), and Jennifer Pearson, enjoying a meal after students experienced calf processing at her ranch.

Susan Church’s gift gave a second-year veterinary medicine student the opportunity to gain invaluable experience.

"Susan's generous gift helped fund one of UCVM's veterinary students to be involved in summer research projects at WA Ranches, as well as experience spring-time ranch operations such as calf processing and bull semen testing," says Dr. Jennifer Pearson, assistant professor of Bovine Health Management at UCVM.

Making a positive difference through this kind of support is close to Church’s heart and she feels it’s important for societal trust.

“My small, annual gifts are targeted to food animals and our need, as a society, to ensure humane practices are in place and always improving,” says Church, adding “I hope my actions will encourage others (with humble capacity to give) to direct donations to UCVM’s growing undergrad and graduate student growth.”

Bob Lowe believes it’s Canada’s young people who will lead an innovative and sustainable cattle industry in the future. That’s why the chair of the Canadian Cattlemen’s Foundation (CCF) and his fellow board members are excited for the CCF to be the founding donor of a new youth program at W.A. Ranches at the University of Calgary.

“This partnership will help grow awareness and understanding of what is required to sustainably grow and raise food,” says Lowe, a Nanton rancher who is also president of the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association. “We want young people to experience first-hand how our food finds its way to a supermarket, a restaurant, or a plate.”

A founding gift of $150,000 from the CCF will be used to launch a new youth development and outreach program at W.A. Ranches, to help attract bright young minds to an industry that is a key economic driver for Alberta and Canada.

The use of technology in animal agriculture for health monitoring is increasing. Many animal industries including poultry, swine, dairy, and feedlot have integrated technology, to measure animal behaviour as an indicator of the animal’s health status, into their production and management systems. Yet, there are limited resources and technologies available or validated for the cow-calf industry.

CowManager is a brand of technology currently used in the dairy industry to identify animals experiencing negative health events or who are in estrus (ready to breed). These ear tags measure the movement of the ear and have been categorized into four behaviours: eating, ruminating, inactivity, and activity. The purpose of this study was to validate the use of CowManager ear tags with direct observation of beef bulls as a method to record animal behaviour remotely.

A second-year veterinary student, Lauren Stoffregen, was hired as a Summer Undergraduate Research Experience student to collect and analyse data under the supervision of Drs. Jennifer Pearson and Ed Pajor. Twelve bulls from WA Ranches at the University of Calgary were enrolled and had a CowManager tag placed around their existing RFID tag. The bulls were housed in a small pasture and observed for two weeks. Lauren videotaped the bulls' behaviour and later analysed the videos to quantify the bulls’ expressed behaviours. She then compared the recorded data from the CowManager ear tags to the video data.

What we found was that the tags correlated strongly with eating and ruminating behaviours that were observed. The tags were moderately correlated with inactivity- and activity-type behaviours, and underestimated inactivity and overestimated activity behaviours. In summary, CowManager ear tags could be a useful tool in reducing the need for direct observations in behaviour research, especially when measuring feeding behaviours, but activity behaviours may need to be calibrated differently in beef bulls or measured in combination with other behaviour measurement devices for improved accuracy.

Dr. Jennifer Pearson places a CowManager ear tag onto the RFID tag of a bull at WA Ranches

Maria Ceballos Betancourt

“The first step in developing new technologies for cattle, whether for applications on the ranch or in research, is knowing that it does what you think it does and can survive the creative activities of cattle. This summer, UCalgary engineering student Jackson Cooper joined the UCVM's Drs. Christy Goldhawk and Ed Pajor to do just that with technology from Lotek.

Jackson applied his skills to develop computer programs that evaluate the output from sensors in Lotek collars that were placed on bulls in the pre-breeding and breeding season of 2020. The Lotek collars are often used with wildlife and cows to track movements via GPS, however, this version was built with the additional features of recording high resolution acceleration in three directions and also the timing and duration of proximity between devices. Jackson’s coding skills were the first step in streamlining assessment of previous data, as well as being used for studies in 2021 using similar collars on bulls and fresh calves.

As we continue to build on his work, we will be able to answer the question if the devices survived their time on the cattle and provided useable data. Ultimately, those answers will feed into assessing if the collars can be used to automate remote observation of cattle behaviour, increasing research efficiency and providing greater insight into the welfare of range cattle and responses to management practices.”

Developing computer programs to evaluate collar tracking equipment to be used for bulls, cows, and calves

Researchers used a drone to get close to calves and record their faces without any physical intervention.

Maria Ceballos Betancourt

Pain in beef cattle is a very important issue, as it adversely affects both animal welfare and the beef industry’s social license to produce. The objective of our study is to develop/adapt two assessment tools (a grimace scale and the Qualitative Behaviour Assessment -QBA-) to identify pain expressions in Angus calves. Furthermore, this project is the first step towards developing a precision livestock farming technology for identifying pain in Angus cattle.

To create a cattle grimace scale (facial expressions of cattle), we recorded the behaviour and faces of a group of 60 calves at various times (in a pasture with their mothers, during castration, and in a holding pen before and after castration) to identify behaviour and facial expressions related to pain. We used a drone to get close to calves and record their faces without any intervention. Before recording images, we got them well accustomed to the presence of the drone. We will use the same videos (those taken in the holding pen before and after castration) to adapt the QBA for the assessment of emotional states associated with pain. All videos are being analyzed by Mostafa Farghal, my PhD student, as part of his thesis research.

The tools developed in this project can be used as a practical, field-based tool for fast and accurate identification of pain in calves, which is essential help for beef producers and veterinary practitioners to make informed decisions about ways to minimize pain and improve animal welfare.

-Dr. Maria Camila Ceballos Betancourt, Assistant Professor, Production Animal Health, UCVM

The use of wearable technologies, similar to the smart watches so many of us wear today, is relatively common on dairy farms but much less so on beef operations. Wearable devices like collars and ear tags can be used to manage cattle inventory, reproduction, and health, but deploying these devices into the range environments, where beef cows and their calves typically live, has not been well tested. This summer, we put collars on 10 newborn calves, which measured their GPS location, body position and movement (e.g. time spent walking, standing, or laying down), and proximity to the cows. The 10 mother cows were fitted with proximity ear tags that were detected any time a calf was nearby. The behaviour and relative location of cow-calf pairs were observed every day during the 21-day trial by students at W.A. Ranches so we will be able to validate the accuracy and reliability of the devices on beef cattle in a range setting as the preliminary step in this research. The eventual intent is to use these and other devices to enable early detection of disease in neonatal calves out on pasture, as well as to study many other health, welfare, and productivity issues at the ranch.

- Dr.Claire Windeyer, Associate Professor, Production Animal Health, UCVM

A Calf with the antennae of the cow’s proximity ear tag showing as well as the calf collar

A calf with a collar including a GPS, accelerometer and proximity ear tag.

Claire Windeyer

Celine Newton fills a syringe to administer vaccines to calves during spring processing

Lindsey Arkangel

WA Ranches hosted three labs as part of a 4^th year rotation to strengthen the skills and knowledge of three bovine-focused veterinary students. Celine Newton, Jade Nicoll, and Rheanne Ritchie participated in a two-week rotation directed by Drs. Gordon Atkins, Bruce Stover, and Jennifer Pearson.

The goal of this rotation is to improve the everyday clinical skills and knowledge in our 4^th year students prior to their clinical rotations within the Distributed Veterinary Learning Community and to develop the skills they will use when they graduate and start practice.

The students experienced various hands-on farm calls for both beef and dairy herds where they performed palpations for pregnancy diagnosis, calf dehorning, calf processing, and bull breeding soundness examinations. The students also developed advanced knowledge in nutrition, health, and data management through didactic lectures by UCVM faculty.

To produce sperm with a normal shape that are motile and highly fertile, bull testes must be approximately 2 to 4 degrees Celsius cooler than body temperature. It is well known that hot weather usually reduces sperm quality sperm quality and fertility among bulls, although the extent of those reductions varies among bulls.

In a preliminary study conducted this summer at W.A. Ranches, Cochrane East, we had 6 bulls in pens; 3 bulls had access to a shelter and 3 bulls had no shelter. All bulls had a small temperature monitoring device implanted under the scrotal skin and we had a camera that photographed bulls within the shelter.

During this summer, we experienced many very hot days. Based on preliminary data analysis, bulls sought shade in the shelter when it was very hot. Furthermore, these bulls had better sperm motility than those without access to shade. We need to complete our data analysis and will replicate the work next year to get a better understanding. Our goals are to reduce the effects of heat stress and to improve cattle fertility, productivity, and welfare.

We are currently using these bulls for a research project for Year 3 veterinary students. We insulated the scrotal neck to cause a mild increase in testicular temperature, which will reduce sperm motility. We will be collecting semen from these bulls and freezing it. Prior to freezing, we will investigate laboratory methods to increase motility of post-thaw sperm.

- Abdallah Shahat (PhD student) and John Kastelic

DVM student Derrick Zhang setting up a monitoring station in a WA Ranches pasture, made up of insect trap, bat acoustic detector and camera traps

This spring/summer, Dr Mathieu Pruvot, assistant professor in the UCVM’s Ecosystem and Public Health department, along with collaborators in the Alberta Bat Community Program and DVM student Derrick Zhang initiated a pilot project to look at relationships between cattle and bats.

Bats consume insects - large quantities of them - to the point that they are recognized for their significance in pest control for agricultural production. Bats are sometime observed foraging in proximity to livestock, however, we do not know their significance for the control of biting insects which could benefit cattle production.

May through August, the team monitored insects, bats, and cattle in several pastures across the WA Ranches to identify how they are influencing each other’s occurrence. Understanding foraging behaviors of bats in relation to blood-feeding insects has the potential to inform the surveillance of biting insects and arthropod-borne pathogens, as well as to identify cattle production practices that support bat conservation and biting insect control, and therefore, contribute to supporting animal health and production sustainability.