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Last Updated on Friday, 01 August 2008 05:54

Written by Jennifer Womack

Nebraska – Based on his experiences in the swine industry, Walt Hackney says American cattlemen should proceed toward source verification with caution. Hackney is known as a cattle industry analyst, specifically for the feedlot sector.
    “I find no legitimate reasoning for the packing industry to have access to the actual source of feeder cattle,” says Hackney. “It would seem the only advantage in supplying that information to the packing industry is to give them first-hand access to superior grading and superior performing cattle in the feedlot.”
    Hackney says, “As a result of my thinking, I feel it will be within a year or two, if they attempt to legally enforce source verification or USDA makes it some sort of market preference that a cattle feeder has to comply with, that the packer will have his own representative at the source of supply.”
    While Hackney predicts initial contracts will be offered at a premium to ranchers with the better cattle, he doesn’t expect those contracts to maintain their premium value long-term. After offering a two- to three-year contract to a rancher, he says, “When that contract runs out that rancher is going to find out he only has one game in town as a marketing source.” With just one buyer left, the packer, Hackney says, “That buyer, knowing he has a strong lever, will come in with a totally different type of sales program.”
    “I saw it happen in the late-90s in the hog industry,” says Hackney. Saying there’s a distinct parallel between the hog industry and the cattle industry, he says many of the companies are the same. “It’s just different divisions,” he says. “The difference being that the packer doesn’t want, nor can he afford, the capital expense of buying cowherds and land like he was able to buy and build hog-producing units. He’ll do what he can to put the rancher under a supply contract.”
     While the packing industry doesn’t want Country of Origin Labeling that would allow consumers to determine source, Hackney says they do want source verification and he wonders about the reasoning.
    Jennifer Womack is managing editor of the Wyoming Livestock Roundup. Send comments on this article to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

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Last Updated on Thursday, 10 April 2008 11:57

Written by Jennifer Womack

Hearings will focus on what Wyoming wants, NAIS or a local program

Casper – While dates haven’t yet been set, the Wyoming Livestock Board (WLSB) is making plans to hear from Wyoming folks on the future of animal tracking in the Cowboy State.
    Some in Wyoming, a few of whom have written letters to this publication, have voiced opinions that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Animal Identification System (NAIS) should not be implemented in Wyoming. Enrollment in the state’s voluntary premises identification program has been modest with only around 2,000 producers enrolling to date.
    WLSB member and Gillette rancher Eric Barlow, speaking at the board’s late February meeting, said had it been a General Session the future of NAIS in Wyoming would have been debated on the floor of the Wyoming Legislature. A bill sponsored by Representative Sue Wallis (R-Recluse) could have severed Wyoming’s involvement in the national program. It was one of several pieces of similar legislation being debated in state capitol buildings across the country.
    Failing to get the necessary two-thirds vote for introduction during a Budget Session, Wallis’ bill did receive support from nearly half the legislators in the house of origin. Anticipating the legislation’s return to Cheyenne next year, Barlow stated, “I think we should lead this discussion.”
    “If you don’t like NAIS, what do you want?” said WLSB Director Jim Schwartz of what may become the overarching question at the upcoming hearings. It’s a question that should bring a new level of debate to the subject that has to date been addressed mostly from an angle of what producers don’t want.
    “I think the WLSB needs to do it,” said Hyattville rancher Keith Hamilton of any program that is to be implemented. Financial impacts, he said, must be a consideration. Unsure before a Foot and Mouth Disease presentation that took place in Cheyenne late February, Hamilton said he walked away thinking, “Maybe we don’t have a choice. Maybe we’re going to have to do it to save our necks.”
    “Personally,” said Chugwater rancher Judy West, “we’re using it as a marketing tool.” For the first time this year the Wests placed electronic I.D. tags in the cattle they sold and received top price. “With all the talk about the European markets opening, but that they have to be age and source verified, that’s the only way to go to get a premium price.”
    As far as protection from disease outbreaks is concerned West said, “I think our brand registration and our brand inspectors with the information they have, are probably going to be able to trace back Wyoming cattle almost as rapidly with the system that has been in place as they can with premises I.D.” West stresses that the program needs to continue to be voluntary.
    “If NAIS is not implemented in Wyoming we agree that there needs to be something in place in the event of an animal disease outbreak,” say Mike and Norleen Cheser who raise goats near Kaycee. “There are species-specific programs in place that are working, but could be enhanced or used more effectively. It seems most logical to enhance and fully utilize existing programs.” While they see room for improvement, the Chesers say the scrapies program has worked well.
    “I personally am not in favor of it,” said Big Horn Basin rancher Gary Rice of NAIS. “We’ve got our livestock identification here in the state and each individual ranch has their identification. We can handle it just as good, or better, than the national thing. I’m pretty skeptical of having the feds and their nose in everything. I think we ought to stick to our state thing.”
    When asked if the state’s current system would be adequate in the event of a disease outbreak Rice said, “I think that it’s just as efficient as this is going to be. Every individual knows his livestock and has them identified, pretty much. The way I’ve watched these electric I.D. systems, you’ve got to gather the whole herd and run them through the chute. It’s a big pain. Every livestock owner I know can go out and identify the animals they’ve tagged and branded. I think we’re all right without this federal government intrusion into our private rights.”
    “I don’t,” said Wyarno rancher Bridget Kukowski when asked if she supports NAIS. “The way it looks to me, all of the cost ends up on the producer, which I don’t think is fair or the way it should be. We have brand laws in our state and we’re able to trace back. I think individual states should come up with plans within their state. Our brand inspections are adequate and would cover our bases for traceback in the case of a disease outbreak.”
     Wyoming’s fledgling Independent Cattlemen of Wyoming (ICOW) group, like their national R-CALF USA affiliate, is calling for an end to NAIS. In a prepared statement issued late February ICOW member and Cheyenne rancher Dr. Taylor Haynes stated, “Wyoming already has an identification system in place that has effectively served the livestock producers of Wyoming for over 100 years. Why would we want farmers and ranchers saddled with the indefinite cost of a redundant, intrusive, federally mandated program when simple improvements to our existing systems would be highly effective?”
    “Economic viability of producers,” according to the ICOW statement, “should be the ultimate goal of an animal health program. Any proposed program should be measured, not by how well it tracks individual animals, not by how well it controls diseases, but by whether or not it is the most cost effective means to achieve an economically reasonable level of disease control.”
    “I don’t think they should be trying to force it from the top down,” said Rice. “If it’s got to be done let the livestock producers decide how they want it.”
     Watch future editions of the Roundup for hearing dates and times. Jennifer Womack is editor of the Wyoming Livestock Roundup. Send comments on this article to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

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Last Updated on Wednesday, 09 April 2008 08:52

Written by Jennifer Womack

Cheyenne – When bluetongue broke out among sheep herds in the Big Horn Basin last fall, Wyoming Livestock Board Agency Director Jim Schwartz says he had no way to contact area livestock producers.
    “I didn’t even have a list of the people who raise sheep in that region,” says Schwartz. “I really got egg on my face over that and I don’t intend to let it happen again.” Some of the information Schwartz needs to develop contact lists exists within the agency and he’s working to better organize that part of WLSB records.
    “We’re forming a contact database,” he says. “We’re looking up all the active brands, which is about 8,500 out of 30,000 that are registered. I also have animal health files, so we’ll be integrating the brand and health records into one confidential database that will only be used if we get an outbreak of something on the reportable disease list. We’re creating the list with information that’s already public.”
    “The database,” says Schwartz, “is going to give me some way to let the industry know in the case of an outbreak. I want to be open about it. I want producers to know it’s there to be used in the case of an emergency. As the WLSB is charged with protecting the state’s livestock industry we want to have a tool to provide updates in the event something happens.”
    Jennifer Womack is editor of the Wyoming Livestock Roundup. Send comments on this article to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

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Last Updated on Monday, 06 December 2010 08:32

Written by Christy Martinez

A livestock identification bill that will come before the Wyoming Legislature in the upcoming 2011 general session will not be specific to cattle, but will also incorporate sheep, swine and other livestock.
“USDA/APHIS has told us at recent meetings that, within a couple years at least, some categories of livestock will be required to have official identification at the time of interstate movement,” says Wyoming State Veterinarian Jim Logan. He adds that the meetings have included APHIS, the 50 state veterinarians and numerous producers and representatives from producer groups and tribal nations.
“There’s been talk about starting the requirement, and only requiring breeding animals to be identified at first, which would eventually evolve into a program where perhaps even feeder animals would be identified,” explains Logan. “I’m not certain where that’s going, but the key difference between what’s being discussed now on the national scene and the old NAIS is that APHIS has finally seen the light – that this will work much better if they do it like we told them they should, and let states develop programs through a state process, and include producers to help it stay industry driven.”
Logan emphasizes the state program in Wyoming would be voluntary, subject only to what the markets and other states dictate. “We’ll have to follow along if we want to continue to market Wyoming cattle,” he says.
The Wyoming Livestock Identification and Traceability program would incorporate existing systems to the maximum extent possible.
“We already have mandatory identification in the Chapter 2 brucellosis rules for female cattle 12 months old and older prior to change of ownership, and we also have an identification requirement in the vaccination requirement for female cattle,” explains Logan, adding there are also identification requirements for bulls in the state’s trichomoniasis rules, and that the scrapie rules for sheep and goats incorporate federal identification requirements.
“This identification program would incorporate those, and the idea would be that the Wyoming Livestock Board would promulgate rules through our state process to determine what we would do within Wyoming. I think we can make this a program that will enable producers within Wyoming to transition cattle very readily when the other states’ and APHIS’s requirements come down,” says Logan.
“We’ve been told by Colorado, South Dakota and Nebraska state veterinarians that ‘shortly’ their states will require official identification on breeding cattle, at the minimum,” he adds.
APHIS has said that official identification would include any device approved by the     APHIS administrator, including RFID tags, existing brucellosis vaccination tags or 840 tags.
“There’s opportunity to be fairly flexible with what type of tag is employed, but it will have to be considered ‘official identification’ for interstate movement,” says Logan.
Regarding management of the state identification system, Logan says that, to some extent, integration is needed. “If we can get animal health, brand inspection and the brand recording programs together, so we can retrieve comprehensive data, our capabilities to trace will be increased,” he says.
Of including the “voluntary” aspect of the program, Logan says, “If something is voluntary, and 90 percent of producers voluntarily participate, and I have a disease trace from one who chose not to participate, it will affect my capability for an accurate trace.”
However, he says having the word “voluntary” in the legislation is the reason the Wyoming Livestock Board supports going ahead with the bill. The Wyoming Stock Growers Association also passed resolution supporting “voluntary.”
“We support this bill as it’s written,” says WSGA Executive Vice President Jim Magagna. “I believe it can be market driven, including what the other state vets require us to do. We don’t believe it’s necessary or prudent to mandate animal identification, because we’ll get there. A high percentage of producers will do it in a few years, and if we need to come back and mandate to pick up the remaining five percent, that’s preferable to mandating 100 percent up front.”
“Industry support largely hinged on this being a voluntary program,” says Logan. “The reality is the market will drive this, whether we like it or not. It’s a matter of semantics, and will probably be a mandatory situation, whether we in Wyoming call it that or not.”
By mid-2011 APHIS expects to publish in the Federal Register a requirement for certain categories of livestock, such as breeding animals, to be officially identified prior to interstate movement.
“Other states are waiting to see what exactly the federal side does, but Colorado and Oklahoma, within a short period of time, will require all cattle, including feeder animals, to be identified,” says Logan. “This is imminent from a traceability standpoint, and to maintain the marketability of Wyoming livestock to other states.”
“We need to have something available for Wyoming producers to partake in, so they can take advantage of getting the tags from us, and we’ll have a system to record where those tags are distributed,” notes Logan.
“We do have feeders and weaned calves that leave the state without being identified, and that’s been a huge concern to many trading partner states, especially with cattle coming from the brucellosis designated surveillance area,” he continues. “They want the cattle identified.”
Logan says discussion at animal identification meetings for Wyoming has leaned toward going with an official button tag – perhaps gold and brown – at 35 cents each.
“The intent is flexibility and a variety of tag types approved by APHIS,” says Logan, reiterating that many current program tags would work, including the source and age verification tags currently in use by the Wyoming Business Council.
Wyoming State Veterinarian Jim Logan presented information on the livestock identification bill to the Joint Agriculture, State and Public Lands and Water Resources Interim Committee in early October. Christy Martinez is managing editor of the Wyoming Livestock Roundup and can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .