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fatehbaz · 5 years ago

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6 October 2019: More news on the local extinction of endangered, rainforest-dwelling southern mountain caribou in the British Columbia and US portions of the Pacific Northwest. Indigenous leaders of Tsilhqot’in National Government (First Nation headquartered in BC) are aiming to create their own herd-management plan in the Chilcotin, Thompson, and Kootenay regions. The tentative First Nation proposal is in defiance of BC provincial government’s plans to move forward with wolf culls, resort development, and continued logging contracts. West Moberly First Nation will also consult on a caribou recovery plan in the coming weeks. The Tsilhqot’in announcement comes just days after the US federal government finally granted Endangered Species Act protections for all herds of southern mountain caribou, on 2 October 2019 - despite the fact that the last caribou within US borders went extinct in January 2019.

A quick primer: The so-called southern mountain caribou is a distinct ecotype and population of caribou which dwells exclusively in the mountains of the inland temperate rainforest and interior cedar-hemlock zone in the Columbia Mountains of eastern British Columbia, and previously lived in cedar-hemlock forest of northeastern Washington State, northern Idaho, and northwestern Montana. The caribou finally was declared formally extinct within the borders of the contiguous United States in January 2019, when the last 3 members of the South Selkirks herd of southern mountain caribou were taken from Idaho and relocated farther north in BC. Other ecotypes of caribou previously lived in the northern Great Lakes region and New England until their extinction in recent decades, but this is the first time that the entire reindeer/caribou species (Rangifer tarandus) has been extinct in the contiguous US. The South Selkirks herd was the only herd which the US had recognized as formally endangered. On 2 October 2019, though, the US extended formal endangered status to all herds of southern mountain caribou.

[Base layer source from BC government; labels/text by me.]

In this map from the animal’s Species at Risk Act recovery strategy report from the Canadian federal government, the distribution range of the southern mountain caribou is displayed in pink-ish/red-ish. [Full report available here.]

[Original caribou distribution range map, source; and inland temperate rainforest map source. Some labels/edits by me.]

“First Naiton in B.C. to devise own caribou herd-management plan, blames province for not doing enough.” [6 October 2019. Wendy Stueck. The Globe and Mail.]

A B.C. First Nation says it will come up with its own plan to manage dwindling caribou herds in the Chilcotin region, saying the provincial government is not doing enough to protect the animals. “We’re on the brink of extinction for caribou in the Chilcotin and we can’t just sit by and think the Province of B.C. is going to save our caribou – they’ve managed [them] almost to extinction,” Joe Alphonse, tribal chair of the Tsilhqot’in National Government (TNG), said in an interview on Oct. 4.

Mr. Alphonse said the TNG’s “herd management plan,” announced on Oct. 2, will involve asking snowmobilers and logging contractors to stay out of certain areas in the Chilcotin region, an area west of Williams Lake in the B.C. Interior. “There has to be a ban of logging in areas where there are woodland caribou, there has to be a ban of snowmobiling … when you ride through in the winter, what you’re doing is creating trails for wolves to hunt,” Mr. Alphonse said.

The First Nation’s decision highlights continuing concerns over caribou in British Columbia, where the provincial government recently proposed an emergency wolf cull in part of the province as a stopgap protection measure as a contentious recovery plan is reworked.

“For threatened caribou populations, decreasing the number of wolves in caribou habitat is the quickest and most effective management tool to reverse population trends in the short term," said a letter, dated Aug. 22, from the province to First Nations and other groups, including the B.C. Wildlife Federation. B.C. is home to 54 herds of woodland caribou, including the southern mountain caribou, a group of herds listed as threatened under Canada’s Species at Risk Act since 2003. Caribou numbers have been declining for decades because of factors including habitat loss, dropping from an estimated 40,000 animals 30 years ago to about 15,500 today.

In May, 2018, federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna concluded southern mountain caribou were at “imminent threat,” opening the door for an emergency order from the federal government. Such an order would allow the federal government to make decisions about resource development that is normally within the jurisdiction of provincial governments, such as logging and mining.

The province, wanting to head off an emergency order, worked on a plan with the federal government and the West Moberly and Saulteau First Nations. But when the province unveiled draft agreements this past March, there was a public backlash over potential restrictions on logging and backcountry access. [...]

In a letter to the province this past May, Ms. McKenna warned that the “prospect of an emergency order cannot be ignored” and urged the province to move quickly. But that emergency order never came. With a federal election campaign under way and the government in caretaker mode, Ms. McKenna’s office referred questions to the federal Department of the Environment.

Protecting caribou is “primarily a provincial and territorial responsibility,” but the department continues to work with all partners, including B.C., to support southern mountain caribou, spokeswoman Samantha Bayard said on Friday in an e-mail. Asked if Ms. McKenna had sought an emergency order, Ms. Bayard said any recommendations or deliberations regarding an emergency protection order are a matter of cabinet confidence. [...]

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Oct. 2 recognized 17 herds of southern mountain caribou as endangered species under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. Previously, the agency listed only the South Selkirk herd as a federally endangered species. The new ruling means habitat will be protected, even though the animals have disappeared from the United States in recent years, said Sean Nixon, a lawyer with Ecojustice in Vancouver.

“We have this bizarre situation where there are no caribou left in the U.S., but they’re protecting the species habitat so that caribou can return … while we still have mountain caribou in B.C. but the province isn’t providing any meaningful protection for the species’ habitat," he said.

A meeting of a “leadership table” on the caribou recovery plan is scheduled for this month, West Moberly First Nations Chief Roland Willson said. Mr. Willson wants to see more than stopgap measures, saying caribou need protected habitat to thrive. “Wolves are an issue, but the reason the wolves are an issue [is] because of development,” Mr. Willson said.

[Source.]

This is a cow waking up. She was one of the last 3 caribou to have lived in the contiguous US; she was part of the South Selkirks herd. In January 2019, the 3 caribou were taken from Idaho and relocated to near Revelstroke in BC. [Source: B.C. Ministry of Forests.]

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karebears56-blog · 6 years ago

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From deep in the bottom of his sleeping bag, in a recessed niche of the Snake River gorge in Idaho, on a cold late fall night, a hunter, warmed by a cozy campfire, slowly melts off to a well earned deep sleep.

The long futile day of hunting, still unable to bag his trophy elk, lends fodder to a dream of the big buck that continues to elude him.

Subconsciously, the events of the previous evening’s round of campfire storytelling shared by his hunting peers, spilled into his dream.

As is often the case with dreams, a round of good and believable storytelling by a bunch of guys sitting around a campfire would conjure images around in your subconscious for days! Then, taking into account the stories such as these are honed to a fevered pitch by hundreds of years of historical folklore and myths retold over and over, the story you hear today has no original truth to it!

The storyteller nonetheless swears to the authenticity of the story, as if the event just happened and testifies he witnessed the hungry, vicious, marauding wolves, and the toll these predators are taking on the elk population, “yes sir, these vermin kill for fun!” “There were carcasses half eaten, blood and gore everywhere-

Why those poor elk never heard it coming, didn’t have a chance, I tell you!” And then to drive home the point, he proceeds to collaborate further saying, his friends and neighbor ranchers have seen their cattle business take such a financial hit, due to the mass murder of their beloved bovine, because of WOLVES!

So, the stories does what good myths are designed to do, and the hunter’s dream mixes reality and sleep induced delusions into his subconscious, as dreams often do- and he reasons that this surely must explain why he cannot find the elusive buck!……..

The next morning, he rises early as this is his last day of the hunting trip. Today is the day he mutters to himself, I will not let any wolf deprive him of his 5 point rack!

Resolved that he would get his trophy elk, feeling irritated that the gray wolf is decimating herds and his chance at bragging rights!………

Whether dreamt, or perceived while wide awake, this is the opinion, testimony, and duty the hunter wears! Then with gusto and providence, he goes forth, spreading the lie that wolves are to blame for EVERYTHING!

I came upon an article posted by Idaho Department of Fish & Game recently. It was about the continued antics of Wildlife Services in Idaho, (division of U.S. Agriculture and Fish and Game). The picture showed a very large grey wolf, being held by its rear legs, head to the ground, a rancher smiling while holding up the dead animal.

The story told of how Wildlife Services would run ads soliciting hunter’s help. The at ask them to report any action people may see in the field of wolf depredation. Telling the hunter or rancher to report any and all dead or injured animals so that Wildlife Services can bring a quick end to problem. Saying, “the wolves would be taken care of!” In other words, killed. No proof needed that the wolf had a depredation! Just report, and leave the science to us!

Once again it seems the ranchers are claiming wolf attacks in order that the wolves will be killed. We all are aware of the brutality against wolves in Idaho.

My opinion is that Wildlife Services are there to kill, oh, wait…let me rephrase! “To control the the problem!”

So, if a rancher calls it depredation, then it is taken at full face value, whether or not their cow was killed by wolves or not! In this particular case, it turned out, they were justified in taking out the whole pack of wolves based on a ranch hand seeing a lone wolf near his property earlier that week, and it must have been what killed his cow! Although, it seems, no other wolves were around, the lone wolf and his family were “culled” in reparation to prevent further loss to the valuable commodity, “the cow”!

We continue to hear of the vast hatred of wolves in all areas. Wyoming continues its wolf hunt in trophy zones although the limit is nearly filled. Only 2 wolves out of 44 holding the death sentence are left for slaughter. Of course in predator zones, the killing continues. Word of mouth and bragging keep the count as it rises. We will not know until April 1, 2018 of exact number of wolf killings. They do keep a running record for predator killings, and hunter killing, but any wolf killed by a rancher or wildlife Services for Fish and Game, but no report will reveal facts until that date. And they will not release any name involved either.

But, I wonder if there isn’t something psychologically deviant to wildlife services work to control wolf populations. Clearly the message to cattlemen and hunters is that there does not need to be any proof that the wolf was to blame for a dead cow. Justification only needs to be a possibility and Wildlife Services can pad the culpability numbers to paint the picture, and the end (of wolves) justifies the means and the war on wolves rages on.

Their participation in “justified culling, or “wolf management” in what little is left of the wild world comes from a willingness to cede control. It’s easy to berate this compelling need to run things. We harness the wind. We control fire. We control wolves. We control elk and deer herds. Or at least we try. All of this seems ridiculous, to the point that the only thing that seems out of control is our attempt to domesticate the biosphere to the level that we ourselves have become domesticated.

Now here we are at the turn of another winter Solstice, an astronomical reality that does not care whether we, as individuals or as a species, continue into the future.

Man’s unbidden presence in this, the “right here and now” has depended to some degree on controlling a universe of wildness agnostic to our existence. Control is part of our animal need to persist and has served us well. But this compulsion to be constantly in command, even the illusion of it, only seems to feed the fire of species genocide, and to extinguish some piece of my animal nature!

So, tonight I’ll follow the music of the untamed wind, while being warmed and comforted at my campfire. I will not be regaled or thrilled by “folklore” stories. I will sleep soundly dreaming of the nobility of the wolf pack, somewhere in the wilderness attending to their own family’s needs of survival. The elk herd hid from the wolf AND the hunter for now.

Hearing a forlorn and long echoing howl cascading through the valley. The melodic cacaphany grows in testimony to the days events.

And I will be comforted and lulled into sleep by the awe inspiring call of the wild, the melodic tempo of distant drums reverberate in a primordial ancient subcontinent, recessed in folds of time and memory, that I am grateful to hear and feel.

Nature speaks often, and only a few of us today are privileged to hear her voice!

Sometimes we just need to let go of controlling the majesty of nature and give thanks instead, for a job well done!

by Karen LaFountain

WOLVES: THE STORY, THE MYTH AND THE TALES! From deep in the bottom of his sleeping bag, in a recessed niche of the Snake River gorge in Idaho, on a cold late fall night, a hunter, warmed by a cozy campfire, slowly melts off to a well earned deep sleep.

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josephkitchen0 · 6 years ago

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Weed Eating Goats Tackle a Noxious Problem

This is the secret life of weed eating goats. Imagine being trained to love a certain food. You start at home as a kid eating it with your mother. Later someone takes you, your mother, and all your friends through pastures, byways and hills guiding you to that food you love. This is your job.

Bonnie Jensen started out with about 350 Black Angus cows. She built up and worked the herd, but after a few years, she said, “I’d about had enough of it. I’d got run over and hurt enough that I decided, okay. Not for me.”

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Research and Readiness

Bonnie read an article about a woman in Colorado who was hired to take her goats to eat weeds in the parkways. Bonnie spent that winter researching. She discovered that goats like leafy spurge which presented a major noxious weed problem in her county. She contacted her local Agriculture Extension Office and talked with Shannon Williams, the Agriculture Extension Educator. Together they came up with a plan.

“I’d probably only been in the job two or three months when she came to me with the idea of buying a goat herd to graze noxious weeds,” Shannon told me. “We sat down and talked about it. I had basically zero knowledge of noxious weeds at that point. My learning curve was pretty steep. We did lots of research and then I was the technical support for her first SARE grant.”

A SARE grant allowed Bonnie to convert her ranch.

SARE (Sustainable Agriculture Research Education) grants help producers try new and innovative ways to be sustainable. They focus on profitability, stewardship of the land, and quality of life for farmers, ranchers, and their communities. Receiving the grant allowed Bonnie to do modifications to her existing cattle working facilities to allow for caring for goats.

Bonnie started out with a small herd of about forty cashmere goats. She chose cashmere because of their quiet, gentle temperament. If the weed business didn’t work out, she could still make money on their hair.

Through her contract with the Lemhi County Weed Control Agency, her goats needed to remove 90 percent of the leafy spurge with only 10 percent impact on the desirable plants. With a short season in which to accomplish that, she needed a lot more goats. She couldn’t find large numbers of goats to buy in the intermountain states, so she traveled to Texas and brought home a herd of Spanish and Savannah goats. She would discover that the breed didn’t matter when it came to eating weeds. They all ate the same amount once properly trained.

To train them, Bonnie first had to introduce them to the target weed. “We went out and actually cut some and gave it to them. We figured they were going to scarf it down like a bale of hay, you know.” But they didn’t; they nibbled at it a little and left it. She went back the next day and tried again. When figuring out what to feed goats, remember that goats need to be introduced to a new food slowly. Their rumen and liver need time to gear up to digest or detoxify compounds in the plants. They will wait after trying a new food to see if they get sick. If they don’t, try it again. Once they got used to it, they were hooked. It became their favorite food.

Bonnie discovered that the nutritional needs of nursing does made them even more likely to seek out the high protein found in leafy spurge. She timed their breeding so the kids were ready to go out on the range with their mothers as soon as it was time to be used as weed eating goats. In the fall she could sell the kids for meat to increase her profit.

Eating spotted knapweed.

In addition to working for the weed agency and several other jobs around the west, Bonnie worked with Shannon and the University of Idaho Research Center. Since no research existed to say whether weed eating goats would work on spotted knapweed, they did a three-year demonstration. They fenced the goats into separate plots with knapweed to discover when grazing would be the most detrimental to the plant and when the goats were most likely to eat it. They studied grazing at spring rosettes, bud to bloom, and fall rosettes. The studies showed the bud to bloom stage was the most effective but the goats alone weren’t going to be able to kill the spotted knapweed. The best they could do was reduce the amount of seed added to the seed bank of the soil. To work through that seed bank would take an estimated 15 years.

Herding with Dogs

When Bonnie first started, she read as much as she could about goats and noxious weeds, but she couldn’t find anything on how to herd goats. She had herded sheep before and figured it would be the same. It wasn’t. “A horse doesn’t intimidate them. Yelling at them, even crying doesn’t work. None of that. You’ve got to have some trained border collies: herd type dogs that can do trials, and that’s what controls your goats into making them a uniform working machine.”

Goats with a herding dog and a guardian dog.

Dogs trained for rigorous competitions called trials do not come cheap. Bonnie bought the failures — dogs not quite up to snuff for the competition. She still paid $1,500 to $3,000 per dog. She needed three dogs per herd of 500 nannies and their kids — two to work the herd and a relief dog. With three herds she needed nine of these specialized herding dogs.

She also kept two guardian dogs with each herd to deter predators. Llamas, donkeys, and some breeds of dogs can all be raised or trained to adopt a herd as their own and will go to great lengths to protect them from predators. Dogs work best on open range or in large pastures, while llamas and donkeys are most effective in fenced pastures smaller than 300 acres. Bonnie’s original llama retired to the ranch to guard older nannies or those that had late kids.

Unloading weed eating goats at a job.

Targeted Grazing as a Business

The business of weed eating goats presents more challenges than standard goat farming. Goats must be transported to and from project sites. Moving animals to an unfamiliar place can add stress and reduce intake or make the goats more susceptible to disease or toxins from accidental ingestion of poisonous plants for goats.

A higher level of monitoring is required to document how the vegetation is responding to grazing. This requires well-trained attentive workers who can put in long days. Such workers can be hard to find. Bonnie hired local ranch girls who wanted summer jobs riding their horses.

Weed eating goats are often used with other weed control methods. During the time that Bonnie’s goats were eating the leafy spurge, the BLM was working with insects for biological control. They provided her with GPS points of all the places where they were trying to get the insects established and asked that she not graze there. They missed a couple of sites and her goats ate the weeds in them. When the BLM went back to monitor the sites they found the insect populations had grown much more in the grazed than the ungrazed areas.

It Was an Adventure

Eventually Bonnie’s goats ate themselves out of a job. She bought her first goats in 2000 and sold her last herd in 2016. “It was a grand adventure,” Shannon Williams recalls. “Like I said, I started this job with no knowledge of noxious weeds because they hired me to work with beef cattle and 4-H which I was comfortable with. And so my learning curve was pretty much straight up. Bonnie and I had some wonderful adventures.”

Goats won’t walk or poop in the water so they are ideal for weeds around water treatment plants.

The paper Shannon and Bonnie wrote on the management of goats for controlling noxious weeds https://www.cals.uidaho.edu/edcomm/pdf/CIS/CIS1121.pdf

More information about using goats for weed management http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/rx-grazing/Handbook.htm

More information about grants for agricultural research and education https://www.sare.org/Grants/

All photos by Bonnie Jensen

Weed Eating Goats Tackle a Noxious Problem was originally posted by All About Chickens

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josephkitchen0 · 7 years ago

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Akaushi Cattle Provide a Delicious, Healthy Meat

By Heather Smith Thomas – The word Akaushi means red cow in Japanese. Akaushi cattle were introduced to the U.S. in 1994.

“This is the only free-grazing beef cattle breed in Japan,” says Bubba Bain, Executive Director of American Akaushi Association. “These cattle have been in existence as a distinct breed for more than 150 years and are a national treasure in Japan.”

Dr. Antonio Calles brought some to the U.S. when he was at Washington State University. “He saw that the Japanese were extremely healthy people. They don’t have problems with obesity or coronary heart disease and he wondered what they were doing different. The Japanese eat a lot of fish, but also consume a lot of beef. Dr. Calles started researching this, and found that meat from these animals had an abundance of oleic acid and mono-unsaturated fats. He imported eight cows and three bulls to the U.S. so he could build a herd and do more research to find out more about these cattle.”

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Calles started doing embryo transfers to produce more of these cattle in a short time, and created more than 6,000 offspring from those original cattle in 15 years. Many Akaushi cattle are located at Harwood, Texas. “HeartBrand beef owns these cattle and sells or leases cattle to other breeders. Many new members have joined our American Akaushi Association, which was started in early 2010,” says Bain.

Akaushi cattle are known for consistent, tender, flavorful, juicy, highly marbled meat. “Even though the end product is important, this breed has not sacrificed any other important traits such as reproduction and performance to get to the end result.

Akaushi cattle will put a good calf on the ground and the calves give good weaning weight, yearling weight, efficiency in the feed yard, grade and yield well on carcasses—and give you that consistent excellent cut of meat we’re all looking for. This breed performs well for the cow-calf producer, the feeder and packer, efficient all the way down the chain,” he explains.“Carcasses on full-blood cattle are highly marbled and prime or prime plus,” says Bain. “We also have a lot of data on half-blood carcasses; Akaushi cattle cross extremely well with all breeds. We can double the grade and improve the yield on the offspring of any breed we put Akaushi on.”

The American Project

Dr. Calles brought eight unrelated cows and three unrelated bulls to this country in 1994. This was the nucleus to start a breeding herd. “When you do careful selective breeding with this number you can prevent inbreeding. You mate bull number one with eight cows, giving eight lines of cattle. You mate bull number two with the same eight cows to give another eight lines, and do the same with bull number three. We also started using embryo work and using reciprocal crosses on daughters of the three bulls, and switched bulls to create more lines. Our inbreeding coefficient with this system was between 5 and 5.6, which is very healthy. An unhealthy inbreeding coefficient would be 14% and higher. Many cattle breeds have an inbred coefficient of 35%, which is very high,” he says.

“We have additional sire lines from another population that is also pure, to avoid inbreeding problems. These sire lines came to this country earlier, in 1976. I was able to purchase semen from these bulls in the early 1980’s. We have that semen in hand and plan to use it to create more genetic diversity,” says Calles.

“Hopefully we can also obtain more semen from different bloodlines in Japan. We are working in a very precise way with this breed, to maintain all the important traits—fertility, productivity, milking ability, etc. with no problems— in every generation.”

The first 11 animals arrived in New York in November 1994 and stayed six months. “It was cold and wet that winter. Then they went to Wisconsin for several years. The first three winters it was between 10 and 22 below zero.

Then the cattle were sent to Texas. They came all the way from humid, hot weather of Kumamoto to New York, to Wisconsin, to Texas.” These imported cows were hardy and long-lived, still productive into their early 20s. Calles was able to generate a large number of embryos from these cows, which shows their high level of fertility.

“When the animals came to the U.S. the bulls were confined in a collection center. We didn’t retire them from collection until 2009; they were producing semen for many years. Two of the three survived into their 20s. What is amazing is that the bulls were kept confined and stayed sound. They were very functional and very healthy. Not very many bulls of other breeds stay fertile or survive for that many years with inactivity; they have problems with knees and feet,” he says. Akaushi bulls have excellent conformational structure.

The biggest challenge for this breed in America was to get enough numbers— starting with such a small group—to produce enough cattle to supply the demand. It took several years to be prepared to offer semen for cattle producers. Now a growing number of people in various states are raising some of these cattle.

Several Idaho breeders have obtained Akaushi cattle. In 2010, Shawn Ellis, near Blackfoot, Idaho, signed a cooperator agreement to raise Akaushi cattle for Heartland Brand Beef. Ellis received 60 cow-calf pairs (some full-bloods and some half-bloods crossed with Red Angus) in April 2010.

Jack Goddard, the northwest director for the American Akaushi Association says this Idaho herd is helping show people how the animals perform in a colder climate than Texas. They are also doing very well in rough rangeland conditions.

Delicious, Healthful Meat

Eating satisfaction is truly remarkable. Muscle fibers tend to be longer and thinner, which helps make meat more tender. The fatty acid composition is also different. When you cook this beef, you can pour the fat off into a cup, and at room temperature, it stays liquid. Regular pork or beef fat, if you leave it sitting there, will solidify to a hard, white fat. Akaushi fat doesn’t do that.

Today you can find Akaushi meat in leading restaurants across the country. When people taste it, they are impressed with the flavor. “The Akaushi produces healthful meat with a high ratio of mono-unsaturated to saturated fats,” says Bain.

“There’s also a high amount of oleic acid in Akaushi meat (the healthy ingredient in olive oil). It is extremely heart-healthy. Our research at Texas A&M indicates this.”

Dr. Antonio Calles says oleic acid is recognized by people in the medical community and the American Heart Association as the good fat for the heart. “Akaushi beef in any form gives the highest amount of oleic acid per square inch of meat,” he says.

Bill Fielding, CEO of HeartBrand Beef, says the health benefits are a big plus for the consumer. “Customers are asking for healthful, tasty products. We’re seeing growth of this aspect of the industry — whether it’s grass fed or all natural beef. People want a healthier product with better nutritional value, and something that will reduce their bad cholesterol instead of increasing it. We strongly believe that if the beef industry started using these genetics and changing the way cattle are fed, we could produce a product that is better for you than pork, chicken, buffalo or any other meat,” says Fielding.

Calles says that people have been told red meat will increase cholesterol. “Now we must educate people to the fact that these fats are good for you.” People who must be careful what they eat no longer have to reduce their intake of red meat. This is great news because meat contains many nutrients our body needs, such as vitamin B12, which is not found in a vegetarian diet.

“Red meat is a great source of all the amino acids to produce a complete protein. It’s a package of complete nutrients, combined with eating satisfaction. This is an opportunity for the cattle industry to create something sustainable, with additional health value to the consumer. We can produce many millions of pounds of meat in this country, but we need to produce high-quality beef that is healthy for the human body. If we can combine palatability with the health aspect, that’s the way the cattle industry will survive. Our meat now has to be healthier, raised with no chemicals, no hormones, no additives,” explains Calles. That’s the only way we can compete with other industries such as chicken, fish, pork.

Akaushi Cattle

Akaushi cattle are red, horned, more heat-tolerant than black animals, which is a major issue in southern states, and have low birth weights. The cows calve easily with no assistance. Fullblood males average 72 pounds at birth, and females 68 pounds. Adults are moderate size.

Bulls weigh 1,700 to 1,800 pounds and cows are 1,000 to 1,100 pounds.

Disposition is excellent. Akaushi cattle have been extensively handled for many generations, selected for ease of handling. “There are many things they do with them in Japan that we can’t even imagine; these are very docile cattle,” says Bain. People working with Akaushi cattle view them as part of their family.

“We don’t claim to be number one on weaning weights or yearling weights, but a rancher will never be embarrassed about the weights of Akaushi calves,” says Bain. “Fullblood calves wean at 500 to 600 pounds. Crossbred calves have been averaging 600 to 700 pounds at weaning because of heterosis,” he explains.

You get maximum heterosis when crossing animals that are totally unrelated, with wide genetic diversity.

These cattle are not related to American breeds. “This produces more hybrid vigor than when crossing two American breeds, because most of our breeds have become crossbreds already,” he says.

“The way the Japanese selected these animals and worked with them for many decades; we don’t have to worry about variation on productivity or performance traits, feed efficiency and feed conversion,” says Calles. “These traits were already selected and fixed for many years.

All we need to do is provide a good environment for them, with good care and low-stress management, and these animals will reach their genetic potential 100% of the time,” he says.

Akaushi cattle are very hardy in a variety of environments. “They were developed in Kumamoto, which latitude-wise is the same as between Austin and Temple, Texas, in a very hot and humid climate, so they do well in the southern part of our country. If you move them to the northern U.S. they do even better.

Any time you reduce humidity and temperature in summer, they have less stress and less trouble dissipating heat. They do very well in the north, with ability to grow a good hair coat to withstand cold winters,” he says.

“The reason these animals thrive in a variety of climates is because the Japanese government in the 1940s took some from Kumamoto and put them in Hokkaido—the same latitude as between Seattle, Washington and the Canadian border. In winter it’s very cold, with a lot of snow. It took the Japanese 50 years to select genetics that do well in cold, dry weather, and infused those genes back into the general population of the breed, to improve versatility to handle any environment,” says Calles.

If you are new to raising cattle, here’s a helpful guide to cattle farming for beginners.

Countryside also has an excellent overview of Highland cattle, which are also prized for their delicious meat.

Originally published in Countryside in 2014 and regularly vetted for accuracy.

Akaushi Cattle Provide a Delicious, Healthy Meat was originally posted by All About Chickens

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josephkitchen0 · 7 years ago

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Akaushi Cattle Provide a Delicious, Healthy Meat

By Heather Smith Thomas – The word Akaushi means red cow in Japanese. Akaushi cattle were introduced to the U.S. in 1994.

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