Sponsored by:

Sunday, August 22, 2004

G’day from MSU,

You all will be pleased to hear that I have survived and thoroughly enjoyed the first month in North America. I have finally arrived at Farm House, Michigan State University, after weeks of touring around the United States and Canada.

On July the 11th I arrived in Kansas City and attended The National Junior Angus Show. I was blow away by the event. Over 1200 head of cattle were exhibited by 800 children and at one dinner they served in excess of 2000 people. What I most admired was the professionalism of how the event was run, together with the enthusiasm of all the participants and their parents. The show takes three years of planning and when you experience the grand scale of it all you admire the work and commitment put in by all towards the NJAS and the youth program as a whole.

For the week I was at the NJAS I almost melted. Coming from winter and temperatures, that struggled to get above 10oC, the Americans turned on the weather for me with temperatures above 38oC and very high humidity. For one that lives in South East of South Australia, it was too much and thank goodness the cattle shed had air conditioning!

The temperature wasn’t the only aspect I grappled with. The jetlag took a bit to get over and communication has been a slight problem. It is strange how the English language can vary. I never thought I would have trouble asking for a “coke” in America. The American diet also took a little while to get accustomed to. Despite the culture shock, the American people have been wonderful and the Angus breeders are like one big family and they have made me feel apart of it.

After the NJAS, I went to the famous TC Ranch for a couple of days. Needless to say, the cattle were of a high quality and what really impressed me were the udders on the females. Due to the high temperatures I wore shorts and as I walked around in lush green grass, I spent most of the time looking for snakes instead of at the cattle. I was assured there were no venomous snakes, but with brown snakes at home, old habits die hard!

Jim Bruce, Phoenix Genetics, picked me up at TC Ranch and took me across to Fort Collins, Colorado. Here I experienced contrasting scenery. I saw cattle in a feedlot situation and in the barren Pawnee Grasslands, where in a good year you can run a cow-calf pair to 20 acres and last year it took 50 acres. Most impressive was looking at quality Red Angus in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. The highlight of this stop was spending time with Lee Leachman of Leachman Cattle of Colorado. No longer are big framed cattle the aim, it has been replaced by an emphasis on carcass traits and having cattle with a high percentage of meat retail products. Lee wants to use bulls with a frame score of 5.5, in the top third for marbling and top 5% for muscle.

On the 23rd of July, Jim Bruce and I flew up into Alberta, Canada and toured with Harry Haney of Independent Breeders Services. The next day we spent not only looking at some fine cattle, but being eaten by mosquitoes. I was then dropped off at Chickadee Farms, the home of the famous Red YY Knight. From here I traveled to farms and saw cattle from such places as Red Top Angus, Red Bar EL, Towaw Cattle Co., Get-A-Long Stock Farms, KBJ Round Farms, Hill 70 Quantock, Geis Angus Farms, Six Mile, Justamere Ranches and Triple S Red Angus.

Despite seeing plenty of high quality cattle it was a shame to find the Canadian cattle industry struggling with the effects of BSE (Mad Cow Disease). Trade restrictions have been placed on the Canadians and now they can only export boxed beef into the US from cattle aged less than 30 months of age. Prices are at all time lows for older cattle at the markets, with some farmers getting a return of only a few dollars once expenses have been deducted. Most farmers are electing to keep their older stock and culls, hoping for better times ahead. They have been doing this for a couple of years and it is not unusual to find cows aged in the high teens and even twenties. Young stock have been selling reasonably, with the only one’s making any money are the processors who are making a profit of nearly 300% by buying stock in Canada and selling it in America. Interesting times are ahead with the 2004 group of calves to come onto the market in a few months time.

The cases of BSE are having the opposite affect in American. The cattle industry is buoyant with record high prices not far away. With no cattle coming from Canada, numbers of cattle in the feedlot are declining, increasing the demand and therefore the returns for farmers.

After spending over a month looking at cattle, I needed a break and took the opportunity to hire a car and take a drive through the Rocky Mountains of Canada. I had no trouble driving on the wrong side of the road; the trouble was staying there as I kept looking out at the scenery and staring up in awe of the mountains. My camera worked over time and I have plenty of photos to share when I get back home to Australia.

At the moment I am putting my feet up and relaxing in preparation for the start of classes at MSU. The campus covers 5,200 acres with 3,200 being farmland and 660 buildings situated on the other 2,000. Last year 44,542 students from all over America and about 125 other countries attended MSU, with a further 1,864 people studying abroad. Combine this with 4,500 faculty and academic staff and 6,000 support staff, MSU will soon been a busy place indeed!

I plan to go to the Canadian Western Agribition and the North West Stock Show in Denver later in my stay in North America. It was nice to find the stud breeders who I visited, were eager to have me work with them at these events. Combining working, catching up with the all the friends I’ve made and meeting more people, the shows seem as though they will be a busy and exciting time.

I would like this opportunity to thank Angus Youth, The Australian Beef Industry Foundation, Semex and especially Jim Bruce of Phoenix Genetics. The scholarship has already been a great experience and I am looking forward to studying at MSU, although it is a little daunting having been out of the school system for a few years.

Neil Davis