2012 Joint Annual Meeting

The 2012 Joint Animal Meeting is just around the corner. This year it's in beautiful Pheonix, AZ and some fantastic news: registration is free for students who are members of the American Society of Animal Science (which is also free to join for students). There are a ton of amazing ticketed events like a course in genomic selection in livestock, a reproduction symposium, and food...lots of food. I will be trying to make an appearance this year and highly encourage anyone else interested to take advantage of this awesome opportunity! Not only will you learn a lot, but there will be lots of opportunities for networking with some of the major universities. More information can be found here.

Also, if you aren't a member already, please join the American Society of Animal Science. Upon registration, students will gain free access to the Journal of Animal Science which you will use. I have numerous times in the year I've been a member. You can register here.

Have a wonderful week, fellow animal agriculture enthusiasts!

Summer Research: Day 1

Good evening, Interwebz and happy Derby Day, Cinco de Mayo, and Comic Book Day. More important than all these lovely events: the first day or our summer research at the APSU Farm. Dr. Mills, Chad, and I trekked through 16 of our 17 pastures, collecting samples for analysis and taking pictures. The picture taking was done by yours truly. Every 20 feet or so at a diagonal, pictures were taken of our forages. We will be placing a grid over each of the pictures in order to identify different species of grasses, legumes, weeds, and woody species. This is to get an idea of what our ground cover consists of. This should keep me busy all summer. Looking forward to it! Everything went smoothly after the morning rain subsided, and we accomplished a lot. Next time I will remember to take an allergy pill before hand. I've included a few pictures of our journey. Enjoy and stay tuned for more fun!

 

Our Funtastic Wild Type Random Forage Selector. Chad threw it like a champ. What else do you expect from the third grade Frisbee throwing grand champion?

 

Our first sample collection. Molly was super curious and decided to photo-bomb the picture. I forgive her. She's adorable. 

 

 I can't NOT throw in a picture of our cows. I have a plethora of cattle pictures from today.

 

Oh, it's me. This is rare. Dr. Mills made me get a picture of me taking pictures to prove my existence. 

Summer Research. Get excited!

Good morning, fellow animal lovers! I am pleased to announce that my research will begin bright and early tomorrow morning. This summer we will be accessing forage quality with the ultimate goal of switching to a grass-fed system for the beef cattle herd at the Austin Peay Environmental Education Center aka "The Farm". With the current trends in population growth, it is anticipated that the human population will increase to more than 9 billion by 2050. That means we have to increase meat production by nearly 75% with fewer resources available! More meat production with less land? Huh? How do we accomplish this? Efficiency, efficiency, efficiency! We need to be more efficient in production without over-exploiting our natural resources. This is where our research will be put to use. Our goal is to gain an understanding of our forage availability in order to properly manage our pastures. Forage management is vital to profitability as it is the lowest cost feedstuffs available. Oh, and not to mention that it is less laborious than feeding hay everyday!

We will also be analyzing the productivity of our beef cattle herd in order to identify our most efficient cows for future breeding. Perhaps my EPD charts I did for Dr. Mills will be of use! I am extremely excited about this wonderful opportunity and I will be documenting my adventure here, so be sure to stay tuned!

Picture courtesy of Erin at Keeping it Real: Through the Lens of a Farm Girl