By Matt Leubbe, UNL Feedlot Extension
Beef feedlot managers, owners, employees and supporting industry personnel attended presentations for the latest in feedlot health, nutrition, environment and economics. The Roundtables were offered in Nebraska with 6 remote links to sites in Iowa with Iowa State University Extension. Selected topics and speakers were recorded as webinars for those that were unable to attend. The first two presentations in a series of webinars that will be made available are from Dr Dee Griffin and Rob Eirich.
FDA eliminates antibiotic use for growth promotion and efficiency: what does this mean for producers?- Dee Griffin https://connect.unl.edu/tebmcie.uayimp/
Dee Griffin discusses the FDA’s December 2013 feed antibiotic control announcement to cattle producers at the 2014 Feedlot Roundtable. This is the final step in a series of events that started almost 20 years ago. The FDA received input from the Center for Disease Control on concerns about antibiotic resistance in animal agriculture and the potential relationship with resistance to antibiotics for human treatment. Dr Griffin walks through the changes that will be implemented and the challenges and opportunities cattlemen will have with these new regulations during a webinar at the 2014 Feedlot Roundtables.
Feedlot audits- Rob Eirich https://connect.unl.edu/trphpb6.konhrm/
Third party audits are not new to cattlemen but this topic has regained interest because consumers want to know how and where their beef is raised. Rob Eirich identifies what information is being requested and how this will help to improve product integrity and consumer confidence. There are several key elements included in a 3rd party audit Rob identifies during the presentation recorded at the 2014 Feedlot Roundtables. Producers have access to the tools needed to prepare for 3rd party audits using Beef Quality Assurance Assessment (BQA) worksheets available at http://bqa.org.