The-Ledger_Summer2018

ABERDEEN  SUMMER REGIONAL NEWS

instruments. Without the data you couldn’t get enough information to fly the plane and there would be a wreck. Here is where I segue into the Midwest Aberdeen As sociation (MAA). We sent a 31-question survey to every American Aberdeen Association member in our region. The good news is we got almost 70 responses, the bad news is that is only 35 percent of the total members in the region. The survey will help us get the data to help you, MAA members. So please, if you didn’t answer the survey or didn’t re ceive it, please contact me at todd.bohlmeyer@gmail.com and I will send it. We would like to get as many responses as we can to help our members. We would like to thank Jeff Canterbury and Kristen Ev ans for their hard work putting on the MAA-sponsored Iowa Beef Expo. We had a great turnout and beautiful, balmy (Not!) 10-degree weather every day. The potluck dinner the night before the sale was the really great part. Kristen had slow-cooked Italian beef sandwiches. We all brought a side and visited well into the evening. The camaraderie that night (face to face, not Facebook) is really the most under sold and over-delivered benefit of being in this breed. It made it feel a lot warmer than it really was! The MAA has two upcoming events – the Focus on Effi ciency Sale and Breeding Seminar and the National Junior Show and Competitions. Find more details about these events on page 6. Our new website, www.midwestaberdeenassociation. com , is live and active. Jump on and check it out. Southern Aberdeen Breeders Association BY BILL CABANISS, PRESIDENT I’ve had several calls this year from individuals who were looking for advice as to what cattle they should purchase to get them on the road. The initial great divide is to decide whether they want to have fullblood or percentage Aber deen cattle. Once that has been established, they are left to decide whether they want immature heifers, bred cows or bred heifers. In my opinion, open cows are not a wise choice for the inexperienced cattleman, except for immature heifers. Anyone who has raised cattle for a while has had animals that don’t breed at all or don’t breed back as quickly as oth ers. However, it takes a bit of experience to decide whether that animal is worthy of our time and effort to get it bred or to put it into the soup pot. I think some of my cows have a sense of when I am about to send them to the processor. Suddenly, they show up pregnant. Go figure. When starting out, you want to have the best opportunity for a good expe rience, and open cows can be a problem. Now, let’s talk about immature heifers. This is my first recommendation for individuals with no cattle experience. Acquiring recently weaned heifers is even better because these youngsters still have a bit of separation anxiety. They are looking for someone to bond with. This is the best time to halter break your animals, if you are so inclined. If you supplement their grazing with cattle cubes or alfalfa cubes, they will quickly look to you as their provider. By the time they are ready to breed (about 15 months on average), you will have gained invaluable experience and will be ready to move on to the next step – getting them bred. This six- to nine-month growing period will give you the opportunity to get your working pens built and a head gate/squeeze chute set up. Establishing a relationship with

Eastern Aberdeen Association BY DUSTIN BENDER, SECRETARY Hello, everyone. I hope the start to summer finds everyone well. In the middle of March, the Eastern Aber deen Association (EAA) had a booth at the Ohio Beef Expo Trade Show. It was a good three days where we worked to advertise, market and educate cattlemen about our breed and the benefits we provide. We had a lot of interest in the name change and, overall, very positive feedback. On June 9, in coordination with Ohio State Univer sity Beef and Extension teams, we will be hosting a Beef Quality Assurance (BQA) certification and field day for any interested cattlemen. This is not the BQA that many think of for 4-H and FFA members; this is a full-blown national certification program. There are several industry leaders who will be requesting certifications. For example, United Producers Inc. (UPI) and Wendy’s International. Beginning Jan. 1, 2019, a large group of buyers will no longer bid or buy a consignment from any producer who does not have a BQA certification on file with UPI. Fewer people bidding on your animals equals fewer dollars in your pocket. Our BQA certification will be a hands-on chute-side class and will cover many facets of cattle husbandry – injections, movement and transportation. Lunch will be provided by our county cattlemen’s association, followed by a field day. The afternoon field day will cover many of the topics the American Aberdeen Association Board is addressing with the newly revised Breeder Services Committee. We will be covering tattooing and herd ID; DNA collection and sub mission; artificial insemination certificates and breeding documents; record keeping; and a discussion with large animal vets about terms, health papers, health require ments and upcoming changes. Please visit www.BQA.org for more information about the national program that is driving our field day. Members in our region should have received a mailer that includes information about this field day, along with past and future projects EAA is working on. Good luck to all those attending the Junior National Show and Competitions in Ames, Iowa. It looks like it will be another great event! Visit www.easternlowline.com for more updates. And join the conversation with us on The Official Eastern Aber deen Association (EAA) group on Facebook. Have you ever flown a plane before? Since the statute of limitations is up, in my late teens I had a best friend who was trying to be a pilot and, to do so, he had to put in a lot of hours getting to certain flight-hour thresholds. So many times as he was renting the Cessna or Bonanza to log the hundreds of hours needed, he taught me how to fly. What always amazed me was what they had to do in order to earn their instrument rating. To get it they wore a hood that resembled a Star Wars helmet and they landed the airplane guided only by the instruments until the last 50 feet off the ground. That, folks, is flying from 10 miles out or more being able to see nothing but the instruments until the last 50 feet, which is intended to simulate landing in clouds, rain, mist or fog. It is incredible but only possi ble by utilizing the different data you get from the plane’s Midwest Aberdeen Association BY TODD BOHLMEYER, BOARD MEMBER

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