Farmers and Ranchers Take Center Stage
This week nearly 250 regional, state and national farm, ranch and agribusiness organizations sent a heartfelt "thank you" to Chrysler Group Chair and CEO Sergio Marchionne for its outstanding XLVII Super Bowl commercial "So God Made a Farmer." The ad kicks off a campaign declaring 2013 "The Year of the Farmer," and features still images from ten noted photographers. The commercial's crowning glory, however, is legendary radio broadcaster Paul Harvey's recitation of his essay on the virtues of the American Farmer, which he originally delivered at a Future Farmers of America conference in 1978. Harvey passed away in 2009.
The letter praised Chrysler for providing a vital message to the millions who watched the game, reminding them that farmers and ranchers - those who feed and clothe this country and much of the world - must not be taken for granted, but instead recognized and appreciated for what they do and how well they do it.
"For two captivating minutes Sunday night, the values and future of American farming dominated a very large stage," said Clint Krebs (Ore.), president of the American Sheep Industry Association (ASI), "The commercial really inspired the ASI leadership as it did sheep producers across the country. Because of the response, ASI joined the other agriculture groups by signing on to this letter to Chrysler."
The letter continued, "America's farmers and ranchers are the most professional and productive in the world. Being the best at what we do benefits us all. No other nation rivals our ability to pro-duce the highest quality, safest, most abundant and affordable meat, poultry, eggs, dairy, crops, fruits and vegetables in the world.
"We sincerely thank you for recognizing us; we thank you even more for reminding the rest of the country - and a big part of the world - of how vital our daily contribution is to their quality of life."
The video can be viewed at www.youtube.com/watch?v=sillEgUHGC4. To read the letter and for a complete list of the letter's signatories, visit www.animalagalliance.org/current/home.cfm?Category=Letters&Section=Main.
Straight Talk
Scott and I traveled to San Antonio to the ASI convention and had a good time visiting with sheep people, some I hadn’t seen and frankly some I didn’t expect to be around anymore. Hudson Glimp, that takes me back to Dwight Holaway era was there and I was very much surprised to see him. I had an encounter with the PETA people who were protesting, I am not sure what or why. They asked if I knew that people were actually breeding sheep to have longer wool and that 30% of them died during shearing. You can about envision what happened after that. It was ok, they were gone the next day.
I really have difficulty with the way we defend our right to raise animals under the animal husbandry practices that we choose. A well cared for healthy animal is always the most profitable and there is no substitute for sound animal welfare practices. Yet animal rights advocates continue to harass are efforts and continue to influence corporate giants to impose standards that in fact compromise animal welfare. There was a recent poll taken about gestation crates and the majority of the public either disagrees with the welfare advocates or don’t care. In the EU they are presently slaughtering 40,000 illegal pigs per hour that haven’t complied with the gestation crate ban. When free range eggs cost $12 a dozen the public won’t really care whether the hen was in a cage or not. In the dairy industry it went the other way, from stanchions to free stalls. I haven’t seen a difference. I would argue that health was better in stanchions because they got more individual attention. The food stampers on the two coasts will never figure it out because they think it all comes from the grocery store.
What is the take home, stand your ground, be proactive and don’t cave in. You are actually productive and a part of creating a product.
McDonalds is at it again, they are going to serve only sustainable fish. Wonderful marketing scheme.
Now for the rest of the story. Their sandwich is made from Pollock that is harvested by Draggers, the scourge of the sea. They destroy habitat by tearing up the ocean, say nothing about the by catch that is returned dead to the ocean. Hundreds of thousands of pounds of valuable fish including halibut gone to waste and their sustainable breeding value lost.
Who is dumber McDonalds or the customer. Looks like McDonalds wins. How dumb can the consumer be? Is that consumer you?
We are starting to get into lambing about 180 in next group, with the Katahdins that usually equates into 360 lambs so we will be busy as I still have my day job too. My blog site http://askavetsheep.wordpress.com/ has been active for about a month now and I am adding cur-rent problems and conditions almost daily. You can join me on face book where I post the most current questions and answers. This is not a chat site and I don’t respond to face book questions. If you have questions you can submit them direct gkennedy@pipevet.com
President Barak Obama nominated Sally Jewel, President and Chief Executive Officer of Recreational Equipment Inc. ,to become Secretary of the Interior Department, can’t hardly be a positive for western grazing.
National Scrapie Eradication
Hats off to all those responsible for the National Scrapie Eradication Program and to the U.S. Sheep Industry. In the most recent annual report we are down to only three infected source flocks in the U.S. In 2012 over 10,000 sheep were sampled, most of which were cull ewes sampled at slaughter. Only 6 samples were positive for scrapie with all six (100%) traceable to the flock of birth. This is truly a success to celebrate.
Scrapie was first identified as a problem in the U.S. Sheep Industry in 1952. Honestly little progress was made in the control of scrapie until 2000. This was due to a variety of reasons: 1) low prevalence, 2) no live animal test, 3) no confidence in release of quarantine, 4) fear of implications of quarantine resulting in “shoot, shovel and shut up” mind-set in producers. The breakthrough in control came with genetic susceptibility testing, and implementation of genetic testing in release of quarantine of source/infected flocks. This allowed producers to survive quarantine without losing all of their genetics. Furthermore, it placed value on genetics with greater resistance to scrapie (RR at codon 171). This has increased the prevalence of the R gene in the U.S. sheep population.
The next big breakthrough was the implementation of tagging to have reliable traceback to the flock of birth and thus likely infection. Critical to control is the ability to identify a positive animal to the source of infection. When I first heard of the plan at a meeting I honestly saw this as an insurmountable task. Basically we are looking for a needle in a haystack…and trying to figure out what factory the needle came from. Well in 2012 there was 100% traceability on the six positive samples and over the past ten years the average traceability was 88%. These numbers are out-standing.
According to the USDA in 2012 the percent of cull ewes that were sampled that were positive for scrapie was .0057 percent. This is extremely low as the level has dropped over 10 fold in the past ten years. Whether you look at this as a measure of success for the National Scrapie Eradication Program or an instrument part of it (it is both) this is great news. Every year the prevalence of scrapie is decreasing, the traceability is increasing and the percent of genetic resistance is increasing. Furthermore our confidence in the ability of the Federal Government to find scrapie and trace it back to the flock of birth has increased.
Above all, the U.S. Sheep Industry with great assistance from USDA has shown the rest of animal agriculture a successful eradication program based on science, producer involvement, cooperation, and fiscal management. If we keep diligently looking for a needle one year we will not find any and a few years later we can be confident that the problem is solved.
OPP… A Second Look
About the time I would like to put this controversial issue to bed it raises its ugly head again. People new in the sheep business contact me wanting to know how to test for OPP and how to join the Voluntary Scrapie Program. The only Scrapie program that is necessary is the mandatory program and that program has been very effective. Purchased ewe and rams should be QR or better when possible. Sheep with one R or more cannot be infected with Scrapie.
Back to OPP, scientists have put together fantastic research revolving around OPP, spent thousands if not millions of dollars studying a disease that has no economic significance in the American sheep industry. They now have identified genes that provide resistance to the disease. So how is that different, the gene involved with Scrapie prevents infection. With OPP it provides resistance once the animal becomes infected.
Some of the newer breeds, Finns, Romanov, Texels and others are more susceptible.
Dr. Norman Gates wrote an article published in April 1990, and the goal of writing the article was to lend some balance to the controversy regarding OPP. In 1978, 2110 ewes were tested for OPP. 51% were positive. There was no difference in lambing percentage, born alive, lambs weaned and pounds of lambs weaned between OPP positive and OPP negative ewes. Finn sheep at that time had a significantly higher infection rate than other breeds. This information was reported in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association in 1978.
The validity of the trial was questioned so Gates redid the trial this time involving 2917 ewes. The results were: NO DIFFERENCE in total born, lamb viability, birth weight, number of lambs weaned, lamb growth rate, mature ewe body weight or grease fleece weight between OPP positive and OPP negative ewes.
The other myth the OPP advocates would have you believe is every case of hard bag is OPP. Good luck with that one. A high percentage of sheep carry a titer to OPP and the older they get the higher the percentage. A positive test doesn’t indicate infection in the udder.
I am a production veterinarian, wouldn’t it have been great if someone had listened to Dr. Norm Gates and spent the money on a meaningful disease.
