Beef Cattle School
Saturday, October 17, 2009 
10:00 – 3:00 pm
Location: the Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, 200 Westboro Road, North Grafton, MA 01536. We will meet near the sheep barn.
Cost: $35 registration fee includes lunch and resource materials.
In this beef cattle school, you will learn the basics of raising, grazing, and breeding grass-fed beefers. The training will be divided into both classroom and practical skills components.
The morning classroom training will cover information on:
- biosecurity practices for your herd
- cattle health and disease management
- breeds and breeding systems
- reproduction and artificial insemination
- winter feeding and nutrition
- body scoring
- pasture management & grazing
- enterprise budgets and recordkeeping
- marketing & beef quality assurance
The afternoon practical skills training will cover:
- evaluating cattle for health and productivity
- preventive treatments and administering vaccinations
- assessing market weight
- handling cattle (moving, catching, corral safety)
- management practices, including: castration, ear tagging, injection sites
- fencing demo and overview of pasture rotation considerations
- other practical skills.
To participate in the training, please complete the registration form (pdf) and return to the New Entry Lowell office by mail, fax, or email to: nesfp@tufts.edu
Beef Production Resources:
ATTRA’s Livestock Resources website has many great articles on sustainable beef production.
University of Nebraska Lincoln has a series of home-study courses on beef production.
SARE has an excellent publication on How to Direct Market your Beef which features an illustrative producer case study throughout the publication.
Joel Salatin’s book, Salad Bar Beef, can be ordered from Chelsea Green and is an excellent overview of grass-fed beef production and rotational grazing.
The NY Center for Agricultural Development and Entrepreneurship (CADE) developed the Energy-Efficient Grass-Based Veal Production and Marketing Manual (pdf) which provides an overview of grass-based livestock operations and focuses on the production and marketing of grass-fed veal and beef, though the basic can be applied to grass-fed production of lamb, goat and pork.
For electric fencing supplies, visit Premier 1 Fence Company.