Colt Knight: 00:28

Welcome to the Maine Farmcast. I am your host, Dr. Colt Knight, associate extension professor and state livestock specialist for the University of Maine. And today, we have a repeat guest, my good friend, Dr. Dean Fish from Arizona. And if you’ll remember the last time Dr. Fish was on the podcast, he talked about growing up in the Southwest, his ranch. We even talked a little bit about equine therapy and animal therapy, and, they turned out to be one of our more popular episodes.

Colt Knight: 01:00

I invited Dr. Fish to come to Maine this week to help our youth out with a livestock judging clinic. And so we’re extremely excited to have Dr. Fish back on the podcast. Dean, welcome to Maine.

Dean Fish: 01:14

Hey. Thanks for having me again, Colt. It’s certainly a pleasure to come up here. Certainly a pleasure to come from Arizona where we I was telling you, we haven’t had any measurable rain since September. So to come up here and see some water and some green plants and stuff is is a nice little break before, hopefully, we could start raining in about six weeks down there.

Colt Knight: 01:35

Have you broke to a 100 degree?

Dean Fish: 01:37

We have. We have. But, yeah. And it’s gotta get hot to build that energy for those monsoon storms to come up. So I’m okay with it being hot as long as it’ll rain.

Dean Fish: 01:46

That’s what we’re looking

Colt Knight: 01:47

forward don’t kick in till what? July or August, though. Right?

Dean Fish: 01:51

Yeah. July 1. So in Mexican Catholic folklore, or again, maybe not folklore, but the faithful believe that they have days that they pray to saints. And so June 24 is a feast day for Saint John the Baptist, and he is the patron saint of water. And so the the common thinking is is that it’s going to rain on June 24 because he’s if you if you pray hard enough and and are devoted enough to to Saint John or San Juan in Spanish that you’re gonna get some rain.

Dean Fish: 02:28

So I’m not taking any chances. I’m still gonna pray to him. But, anyway, we’ll you know, the the long term forecast I mean, they say at the end of every drought is a rain, and so it’s gonna rain. And so every day that goes by is one day closer to when it will rain. So that’s, so that’s all good news.

Dean Fish: 02:45

So we’re we’re in good shape.

Colt Knight: 02:46

Having lived in Arizona, you you go through a hundred plus days of over a 100 degree weather. The the concrete absorbs all that that sun heat, and you can walk outside at nighttime, and it just radiates heat from the ground up. And those monsoons are such a welcome

Dean Fish: 03:07

relief from that. Absolutely. Yeah. No. Just just, you know, the cloud cover that comes in the afternoons and, you know, you build up that you get a little moisture there.

Dean Fish: 03:17

And, yeah, it just makes you know, then you get vegetation growing, and it just makes everybody’s spirits better. Know? And I where I’m at, I’m right on The US Mexico border. I’m about 3,800 foot elevation. So, you know, we don’t necessarily get those high you know, those long extended over a 100 degrees.

Dean Fish: 03:35

You know, we have, but not, you know, more than a hundred days, but but it still is a welcome relief to have that that moisture come. And it and it’s just good for the environment and natural resources and our water tables and all that stuff that we’re so dependent in a narrative environment on that that, you know, right now, this that’s kind of our focus right now.

Colt Knight: 03:55

Well, we invited Dr. Fish down to judge our our livestock judging clinic. And so if you’re not familiar with that, we are going to teach our youth how to judge livestock, not not just judge them as they show their livestock. That’s why they can get a better understanding and appreciation of what judges are looking for. And I always like to bring out outside judges for these type of things so that the the kids can get a more broad perspective and not just what’s happening here in Maine kind of thing. So they get judges clear from across the country, and I think there’s a lot of value to that.

Colt Knight: 04:35

And so tomorrow will be the Northeast Livestock Expo, and we are going to kick in our second annual beef judging clinic. So we’re looking forward to that. But but maybe we should discuss what are all the factors that really go into livestock judging. And I think, we started judging livestock as a way to teach our youth what makes good market animals. You know?

Colt Knight: 05:05

How do we raise the next generation of good, productive market animals? And I think some of that has degenerated into its own show format in some locations. In some locations, they still stick pretty true to that market formula.

Dean Fish: 05:22

Yeah. So I think kinda backing up, am tickled to be here in Maine and get to work with with some young people. To to back up even further, as a young person, as a 4-H member in Southern Arizona and Arizona, I grew up showing cattle. I showed one hog, but well, that’s another whole whole story there. But but I showed cattle, and one of the things that I participated in was livestock judging as a young person.

Dean Fish: 05:56

And one of the cool things about livestock judging was that I showed against some pretty competitive individuals that had maybe more resources or had better cattle. And so it’s hard sometimes to win grand champion when you’re competing against some pretty elite livestock. But livestock judging was an arena where work ethic and elbow grease and really paying attention to those critical factors and how do you evaluate livestock, that’s not tied to any financial resources. So anybody has an equal chance just like showmanship. Right?

Dean Fish: 06:36

Know, showmanship in our livestock shows is a is a equal playing field for everyone. If they work hard and work hard enough their animal practice, get some good guidance, some good coaching, they can be pretty successful in showmanship regardless of whether they have, you know, a $10,000 steer or $5,000 barrel. I mean, it’s gonna it’s gonna be a pretty even playing field. So showmanship and livestock judging were always areas that I shined because I didn’t have a lot of resources to go out and have, you know, pretty, you know, very elite animals. And so livestock judging was important for me when I later became an extension agent.

Dean Fish: 07:13

As I became an extension agent, I realized that, boy, this is a place that I can really help make an impact to young people’s lives. And there’s so many different skills that that young people get from livestock evaluation. You know? So number one, you you alluded to it earlier. So young members that are raising livestock, the more livestock that they can evaluate and get practice on and learn what judges are looking for, learn what makes a good one versus a bad one, the better they’re gonna be and the more successful they’re gonna they’re gonna be in their own projects.

Dean Fish: 07:45

You know, they’re gonna be able to pick those feeder calves out or those little barrels or, you know, those weathers or whatever, you know, project that they’re in, they’re gonna be able to start seeing those little pieces of structure, seeing the potential in how those animals may feed out. You know? And that’s never a guarantee. But the more you look at and the more you evaluate, the more you’re gonna be able to read some of those things that are gonna be successful as either market or breeding animals down the road. And so so that’s kind of the first thing is that that livestock evaluation and judging does, is it exposes them to more experience in evaluating livestock, which in turn makes them better able to pick and start their own projects.

Dean Fish: 08:24

So then building off of that, so the actual livestock judging and livestock evaluation program, in addition to those critical thinking skills that they get by figuring out which one they are gonna pick, most of them will have a reasons component to it, and that can be oral or written, and sometimes it’s just a questions class. But that is a way to help young people learn how to defend their own decisions. So a typical livestock judging contest or class will have four animals, and those four animals will have a purpose. It’ll be a breeding or a market class. So let’s say it’s a market steer class.

Dean Fish: 09:00

So the ideal so you’ve got to think about as a young person or a judge, okay, what is the ideal or what’s the standard for this class? So if I look at a class of market shares, I’m looking for a calf that I think is going to have a reasonable yield grade. So in other words, have a decent cut cutout or cutability or percentage of that carcass that’s gonna be boneless, closely trimmed retail cuts. So there’s gotta be a muscle component to it. And then there also has to be a finish component.

Dean Fish: 09:28

So finish or fat is tied to what we call quality grade, which fat, as we know, in in meat animals creates flavor, tenderness, and juiciness. And so the more, to a point, is better. It’s gonna create a more flavorful, more satisfying eating experience for a consumer. So I’m trying to balance those two things, muscle and finisher fat, with the overall structure and eye appeal of that animal, and then trying to compare that to what the standard is. What does the perfect market steer look like, and which one of these steers in this class or which two of these steers in this class most closely resemble that?

Dean Fish: 10:07

There’s no perfect animal out there, but we wanna try to get as close to the standard as we can. So in most livestock judging classes, you’re gonna have a class of four animals that if you have enough animals to pick from, you’ll have some logic to that class. You may have two good ones and two bad ones. So you have a top pair and a bottom pair. You may have a really good one.

Dean Fish: 10:29

You may have a really bad one and a tough middle pair. And so you kinda as as you approach that class, you kinda have to sort those classes out and kinda figure out, okay, What do we have here? What are we kinda looking at? And a lot of times, one thing that I made a mistake on when I was young and judging was your first impressions are usually pretty close. You’re not gonna have to go back and and second once you start overanalyzing and second guessing, that’s when you kinda start making mistakes.

Dean Fish: 10:57

But, you know, I when I train, you know, some of my judging students, you know, it was pretty simple. Good ones up, bad ones down. You know, put the good ones up in the top pair, bad ones in the bottom pair. And then you can kinda sort out some differences there. You may have some pair switches there.

Dean Fish: 11:13

But if you do that, you’re gonna be pretty successful evaluating livestock. So in addition to being able to critically evaluate livestock, being able to defend the reasons why you place those livestock in a certain place, the networking part of livestock judging is really, really important. So I have friends that I still talk to today that I judged livestock with forty years ago. And a lot of those people may or may not be involved in the livestock industry or or even agriculture, but they’re lifelong friendships that I developed. The other thing, I had a chance to help coach as an associate coach some of the University of Arizona livestock judging teams.

Dean Fish: 11:53

And so we got to go and travel and work out at different places around the Southwest and see some of the most elite livestock in Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, California, and not only see that livestock, but actually meet the producers and and put a put a face to a name and just make those connections. So for a young person that’s judging, to be able to have those opportunities, that’s a really, really big deal. So

Colt Knight: 12:20

And it’s not just a skill that they’re learning now that they’ll forget about. If they’re gonna be in the livestock industry, being able to evaluate those animals is is critical. Right? You own a ranch. When you go and look at calves or bulls, you’re looking at those exact same criteria that you learned in livestock judging to evaluate potential additions to your herd.

Colt Knight: 12:45

Or when you look at the calves that you have on your ranch, when you look at those replacement heifers, you’re looking for those exact same characteristics. Right?

Dean Fish: 12:53

Right. No. That’s exactly right. Yeah. And translated into just a lifelong passion for but, you know, also liking good livestock.

Dean Fish: 13:02

So I raised meat goats for a while. I hate to admit that. You know? But no. I raised meat goats for a while, but but kinda the same thing.

Colt Knight: 13:11

Boar.

Dean Fish: 13:11

Right. Boars. Yeah. Boar influence. But good animals are good animals.

Dean Fish: 13:19

And so being able to kinda pick out which ones are gonna work for your situation. You know? So a cow for me in Arizona is gonna be different than a cow in Maine. Right? So a cow in Maine has a different environment that she lives in.

Dean Fish: 13:32

So I’m gonna have to I’m gonna have to select a more moderate type cow for my commercial thing. But I’m also raising show cattle as part of my business, part of AnchorF cattle. And so those show cattle have to fit a certain criteria. It doesn’t matter whether they get shown in Texas or Oklahoma or Mhmm. New Mexico or Arizona.

Dean Fish: 13:48

They’ve gotta fit a certain criteria. So I’m looking at different evaluation things for those cattle. So you you hit it right on the head. I’ve got to evaluate, okay, what are those qualities that I’m looking for that are going to influence some of my shortcomings that I have in my cow herd. Right?

Dean Fish: 14:07

So select that bull that’s gonna match up with those cows or vice versa. So, yeah, those translate all the way down. And then, again, just those relationships that I talked about. I know several of those the top breeders in the country, and I have relationships with them through livestock judging or, you know, where they let us work out or they brought animals to a judging contest or or whatever. And so being able to, you know, put a, you know, put a face to name and being able to go up and say, hey.

Dean Fish: 14:37

I’m really interested in, you know, this so and so bull and tell me about them and and, is is really important.

Colt Knight: 14:43

Yeah. And kind of the basis, the structural integrity of the animal, legs, especially the back, really important because if those animals have got poor confirmation, they’re more likely to have feet and leg issues, lameness issues in the future, which will mean that they’re not gonna grow as quick. They’re gonna be poor reproductive performance. Right? So we’re we’re really looking at those the structural integrity of their legs and skeletal system.

Colt Knight: 15:17

We’re also looking at their potential for growth and how much muscle and fat that they’re putting on. Because like you said, fat is king when it comes to to flavor and and everything. When we really look at at beef quality, there’s two main things that the human palate are sensing, tenderness and juiciness. And so the tenderness is the actual sheer force that it takes to cut those muscle fibers in half. And we could measure that with a machine.

Colt Knight: 15:48

It’s like basically taking a fake bite out of the meat. And then the juiciness. And where do we get juiciness from? The fat. And so if an animal has more intermuscular fat, that’s the the the marbling or the striations of fat within the muscle, your palate senses that as more juicy.

Colt Knight: 16:10

And if something is more juicy, it tricks the human palate into thinking it’s more tender. So it might have a higher sheer force value. But if it’s more juicy, we think it’s more tender. And so you can if you combine tenderness and the juiciness together, you get the best of both worlds. Plus, that’s where all of our flavor is, is in that fat.

Dean Fish: 16:30

Yep. No. You hit it right on the head. You gotta start evaluating ground up, you know, especially breeding animals. You know, my my part of the world, you know, it’s not unusual for, you know, for us to have, you know, six cows per section per 640 acres.

Dean Fish: 16:45

Right? You know, so that’s anywhere from 60 to a 100 acres per cow on a year round basis.

Colt Knight: 16:50

Some traveling.

Dean Fish: 16:51

So they’ve gotta do some traveling. So they’ve gotta have that structural integrity. So you gotta start with feet and legs on your bulls, on your cows, and make sure that that, you know, that that’s there. Right? And that’s that’s when and breeding animals, like I’ll I’ll teach your students tomorrow, you know, that’s where we start with breeding animals as we talk about that functionality.

Dean Fish: 17:11

What is that, you know, what does that rib shape look like for them to be able to to ingest, you know, a certain amount of fiber to convert that into that safe, wholesome, nutritious beef product. Right? Or to be able to carry a calf to full term. You know, what are those angles through that shoulder? What is that the levelness of that top line?

Dean Fish: 17:30

How do they, you know, how are they level from hooks to pins? You know, all of those little structural things all add up to make a complete animal. And then as we get into the market thing, you you hit it exactly right. You know, tenderness is a factor of, you know, youth. Right?

Dean Fish: 17:45

So age. So as they get older, they get less tender. But it’s also a factor of genetics. There’s a genetic component that is a predisposition to an animal being tender or not being tender. So if you actually look at muscle fiber in that research, you know, we can identify animals that are have the ability to create a more tender product.

Dean Fish: 18:09

But you gotta also have those animals to have the ability to put on that fat because that fat, that marbling, is that other additive factor in there. And you gotta have both of them. So so it’s kinda cool. So, like, kinda maybe a little off the judging thing. But, you know, I think right now for a young person that’s interested in beef industry, you know, or or even the meat industry, this is an exciting time for them.

Dean Fish: 18:30

Think about, like, all the technology that, you know, I’m a generation ahead of you, Colton. So, like, EPDs were, like, kind of my Mhmm. You know, like, the big game changer in the, like, say, the eighties. Right? You know, when those kinda came out and started being popular, you know, in the eighties and nineties.

Dean Fish: 18:44

And now, you know, your generation, you kinda were at the tail end of that starting genomics. Now think about the young people that have all of this genomic information, you know, with DNA markers for tenderness, for feed efficiency, for, you know, whatever you’re really looking for, and that’s gonna just keep getting more and more advanced. So it’s a really, really cool time to be in the in the beef industry for these young people. And it’s gotta start with being able to evaluate them. Right?

Dean Fish: 19:10

So even though we have all the science, we have all those data, we’ve gotta be able to also evaluate them on a hoof. Because it doesn’t matter how good they are genetically. If they can’t get around the feedlot, if they can’t travel up to, you know, a harvest facility, it doesn’t do any good.

Colt Knight: 19:24

And and I’ve probably told this story before, but in the seventies, human nutritionists started telling everyone that that red meat was bad for you, that fat was bad for you. And so we bred all the fat out of our animals. You know, pigs became the other white meat. They had no fat whatsoever. Beef cattle got down to less than an eighth of an inch of external fat.

Colt Knight: 19:51

And chicken, I mean, there wasn’t you still can’t hardly find fat in chicken these days. And so what did that do? It killed the flavor of our beef. And when the beef council did their audit in ’91, one in four people had a negative eating experience with beef. And Dean and I are old enough to remember, if you wanted a prime steak, you had to go to a prime steakhouse.

Colt Knight: 20:17

You couldn’t go buy that at the grocery store. You weren’t gonna get that at your Longhorn steakhouses or whatever. Nowadays, we can go to Sam’s Club, and they’ve got an entire section of prime beef because and I and I give the the beef council a big boost on that because they kicked off the beef quality assurance program, and they did a lot of education both for consumers on how to properly prepare beef and producers on how to properly raise better quality beef. And because of that, we now have really good quality beef. And then we in then we interjected those Japanese genetics in there, and then you can really put some fat on some animals these days.

Dean Fish: 20:59

Yeah. And I’ll I always think that you know, I think there’s you know, you talk about genetics, and genetics fascinates me. You know, I try to create those breeding matchups for different purposes, you know. But I’ve I’ve always also thought that there’s probably more diversity within a breed than there is between breeds. So you can find good Angus and bad Angus, good Wagyu, bad Wagyu.

Dean Fish: 21:23

You know, just kinda find the ones that kinda suit you for your environment, your production system. You know, because think about Angus cows. Angus cows at maturity can weigh anywhere from probably 950 pounds to 1,600 or 1,700.

Colt Knight: 21:38

Mhmm.

Dean Fish: 21:38

Right? You know, that 1,600 or 1,700 pound cow is probably not gonna be productive in an arid environment like like mine, but she may be great in Missouri where she’s got plenty of of feed resources. So, you know, and and and you can maximize the return on that cow. So there’s nothing wrong with this 1,600 pound cow in a right environment if that’s what what works for you, you know, versus take that 950 pound cow and put her in Missouri, and you’re wasting a lot of resources. Right?

Dean Fish: 22:08

Because she’s not being as productive as she could be. So so, yeah, it it the whole genetics thing fascinates me, and it’s gonna get even more interesting over the next ten to twenty years, I think.

Colt Knight: 22:19

Oh, yeah. Yeah. And and now we have what’s called CRISPR technology where we can actually inject genes into a genome. Now none of that is approved for food usage, But for medicine right now, we can take pigs and and different things and, like, inject or create cancer causing genes so that we can study cancer treatments in pigs and really in advanced human medicine. And I have a feeling that in the future, when we have to feed 9,000,000,000 people by the year 2050, or maybe even more people, I think some of those genetic advancements are are gonna really help us do that.

Dean Fish: 23:03

Right. Yeah. And I think and I think as as you alluded to some of the nutrition research and how how nutrition thoughts have changed, you know, think about over the last ten years, how nutrition thoughts have changed regarding beef and protein and animal proteins and animal fats. And, you know, we’ve gotta be able to, as producers and, you know, as as good university extension people, help help meet that demand for that protein because it is an important part of our diets. And and and the research has shown more and more that that we need to kinda go back to some of those basics.

Colt Knight: 23:37

Well, and it’s when we look at from, like, the nineteen forties to the nineteen nineties, we produced the same amount of beef with half as many cattle as we did in the forties. Excuse me. Most of that was due to our feeding and systems. Now the advancements are coming from genetics. And so we’re really looking forward to seeing what we can do with that.

Dean Fish: 24:03

Yeah, it’s cool time. It’s really cool time.

Colt Knight: 24:06

But getting back to the judging aspect. So we really looking at the structural integrity of the animal. We’re looking at their ability to put on muscle and fat. What are some other characteristics that are really important?

Dean Fish: 24:19

Yeah, no, go down to, know, we’ll talk about priority traits. They’re breeding cattle, that functionality, those things like balance, how they’re structurally put together, rib shape. In breeding cattle, we call it condition, not finish, because condition changes. So that’s the amount of fat cover that’s on that breeding animal. Because like I said, in Arizona, right now, there’s not a lot of condition.

Dean Fish: 24:46

This is the lean time of year for those cows, right, before it starts raining. August, you come back after they’ve been on green grass for sixty days. They’ve got condition. They’ve got and so that changes so that in breeding animals, we call that condition. So we evaluate condition and what her propensity is to be able to maintain or or to or to put that on.

Dean Fish: 25:09

And then there’s also has to be a little bit of of, you know, whether we’re evaluating bulls or females, there has to be a little bit of of I’m trying to think of the right way to but but there’s gender differences. Right? Mhmm. There’s a bull needs to look masculine, you know, when you’re evaluating them. You can’t be confused if that’s a steer or heifer and that’s a or if that’s a bull.

Dean Fish: 25:34

You want them to look like a bull. Same thing with a heifer. You want her to be feminine. You want her to balance up, look pretty from the side, have an attractive head, look feminine. That’s what you want a cow to look like.

Dean Fish: 25:45

And so as you get into some of those more detailed traits like that, those are things that that you kinda look at. You know, femininity, what are the breed characteristics? You know, Angus is known as an all black animal. So if they got white for their navel, they’re not eligible for registration. You know, same thing with, like, some of the Hereford markings, say, for example.

Dean Fish: 26:05

You know, if they got a if they’re a lineback, you know, that’s not desirable for breed characteristics.

Colt Knight: 26:11

You know, one of the the coolest things about the Hereford breed, you know, they’re that reddish brown color with a white face. But that white face and those pink eyes attract a lot of flies and they can get pink eye from the from the flies landing on them. And I thought it was really cool that some of the more progressive Hereford breeders are breeding a brown ring around those animals’ eyes within the white face to cut down on some of that pink eye issues.

Dean Fish: 26:39

Yeah. That piglet’s a big deal for sure, especially in the Southwest where they’re exposed to a lot of sun. Yeah. They’ll get pink eye and then later on in their life cancer eyes. Yeah.

Dean Fish: 26:48

And so they’re really prone to to both those I had

Colt Knight: 26:51

to deal with a lot of that in South Dakota.

Dean Fish: 26:53

Yeah.

Colt Knight: 26:53

And, you know, some some of those animals that get real bad, you gotta inject antibiotics in their eyes, cover their eye with a patch to keep the sun out, you hope that it doesn’t develop into cancer eye, because then you have to remove the eye and that’s not ideal situation.

Dean Fish: 27:08

Yeah. You know, and then we think about, you know, you’re talking about bee quality audits. You know, we’ve gone from you know, one of the big things, I think, with the beef quality audit and beef quality assurance program was moving the side of our injections. Right?

Colt Knight: 27:19

Mhmm.

Dean Fish: 27:19

We’ve done from the rump or the loin, the higher value cuts into the neck. Right? You know, but the more recent beef quality audits, people are consumed, our consumers, our customers are concerned with how beef is raised. They’re not so much worried about the quality or

Colt Knight: 27:33

Well, we got the quality down now.

Dean Fish: 27:35

We’ve got the quality advanced. We’ve got a lot of that stuff done.

Colt Knight: 27:38

Now it’s all about animal welfare. Correct. How the animals are treated and how we interact with them. That’s exactly right.

Dean Fish: 27:44

Know, so we think about having to treat that cancer iCow or having to, you know, I think one of the things for me is, you know, talking about castration, you know, is banding better than cutting, you know, than surgical removal of the testicles? I don’t know, you know, because banding seems on the surface to be more humane, less painful. Right? But it’s a longer extended period of pain.

Colt Knight: 28:10

There’s there’s been quite a few research studies done on that. And cutting castration, there’s more pain up front, but they heal quicker. Correct. Whereas the banding, it’s lower pain threshold, but it’s extended over a longer period of time. And so that’s kind of your philosophy on what you think is better.

Dean Fish: 28:31

Yeah. No. And so so anyway, so just a lot of philosophical things that as livestock producers, we need to think about because that I mean, that that’s one. Right? You know?

Dean Fish: 28:39

So you I try to think about when I’m on my my ranch doing something with livestock, if someone who did not agree with my lifestyle or did not agree with eating meat or whatever saw the practices that I used on my in my herd, would would they be acceptable to them? They’re not gonna like them. Right? You know? I mean, that’s just we know that.

Dean Fish: 29:03

But would they be acceptable to them? And are they acceptable to someone who doesn’t know what livestock practices are? You know? So that that castration’s a tough one.

Colt Knight: 29:13

Dehorning would be another one.

Dean Fish: 29:15

Dehorning is probably the biggest one. I think that is the hardest one to justify. That probably causes those animals the

Colt Knight: 29:23

most Yeah, so can avoid that whole thing with just bull selection.

Dean Fish: 29:26

Correct. Yeah. So using pulled bulls, yeah, is is a is a yeah. You can do that with the genetics. And so that’s that’s a really easy one to at least start fixing.

Dean Fish: 29:38

Mhmm. Yep. Yep.

Colt Knight: 29:41

We’ve had you up here to to give some low stress handling clinics on how we handle livestock where we’re not whooping on them. We’re not yelling at them, and we can really ease their stress levels just by how we just by how we handle and move those animals.

Dean Fish: 29:56

Yeah. No. It’s you know, those animals are making the ultimate sacrifice for us at one point. You know? And so, you know, it’s our job as producers to give them, you know, the most comfortable life that we can, you know, the most stress free life that we can.

Dean Fish: 30:08

You know, I’m not I’m not necessarily gonna tell you that cows emote. Right? You know, emote emotions. Right? But that’s redundant.

Dean Fish: 30:17

Anyway, but but but I do know that I can tell you when a cow is content and when she’s comfortable and when she’s not stressed. And so keeping her in that state of mind, you know, not only is just a good practice and it’s just a decent thing to do, you know, but there’s also a profit part of that too. The less stress that we put on these animals, the more responsive they are to feed, the more responsive they are to antibiotics if they get sick.

Colt Knight: 30:43

Doesn’t stress their

Dean Fish: 30:44

immune system. Their immune system that they’re and they’re gonna go do their job. They’re gonna go eat, and they’re gonna gain weight and put on that good marbling and do those things that we ask them

Colt Knight: 30:53

to do. And you’d mentioned condition on our breeding animals. And when we we’ve been talking mostly about beef cattle. But when we look at body condition score on our beef cows, if they’re in a and we grade body condition score on beef cows one through nine, one being about to die and nine, you know, super fat jelly roll kind of thing. If we look at a dead middle score of five, if we have a animal that’s body condition score four if our herd is body condition score four, we’re looking at lower conception rates and lower calving rates, usually in, like, the sixty percent range.

Colt Knight: 31:33

And and then when we jump to a body condition score five, we get, you know, closer to the seventy five, eighty percent. And then when we go from five to six, we’re getting up in the upper 80%, lower 90%, and then we can jump to a body condition score seven, and we only get, like, a two or 3% boost. But those animals are way bigger, and they eat a lot more feed, and it costs way more to keep them in that body condition score seven. So, ideally, we’re looking at that somewhere in five and a half to six and a half range in most conditions. Now if you live in the arid Arizona rangeland, you may never be able to keep a herd at six and a half, but you can definitely keep them above five.

Colt Knight: 32:20

Right?

Dean Fish: 32:21

Yeah. No. If you had enough money, you can keep them anywhere you want. But Yeah. You know, that’s that’s but that’s the challenge, right, is to balance your resources.

Dean Fish: 32:29

You know, we we think, you know, that a body condition score seven or eight cow is is a cow that’s too fat that you put resources into that she probably doesn’t really need.

Colt Knight: 32:36

Because her intake is based on how much she weighs. Correct. And if she’s got an extra 150 pounds of fat on her because she’s body condition score seven, she’s gonna eat a lot more feed. Right. She’s only gonna have one calf.

Dean Fish: 32:49

Right. You know, so, you know, so so so that, I guess, common wisdom or or what a lot of the research that, you know, has been done since the sixties on body condition scoring is tied to to reproduction, you know, is that you know that cow’s gonna lose weight once she calves. Mhmm. So if you can calve her in a five and a half, six

Colt Knight: 33:14

And lose a half a half.

Dean Fish: 33:16

You know, she loses down to four, four and a half, but is gaining again by the time breeding season comes around, you’re gonna be fairly successful, and you’re gonna get those better conception rates. You know? And and, of course, the better that you can maintain that, the better that you’re able to increase that conception rate. You know, if you if she get if you cab her out at four, she goes down to three, there’s there’s way catch up. There’s just no way catch Right.

Dean Fish: 33:44

You think about what is that what is that nutritional demand? And you’re the nutritionist.

Colt Knight: 33:48

Well, body condition score in beef cattle is about 75 pounds. Some of our larger cattle may be 100 pounds, but on average, it’s 75 pounds. And so they have to eat eight pounds of good feed to gain that one pound. Right.

Dean Fish: 34:02

And about, you know, what is the hierarchy needs of a first calf heifer that just calved at two years old.

Colt Knight: 34:09

Mhmm.

Dean Fish: 34:09

So she calves at two years old. She’s still trying to grow, you know, so that’s you know, so she’s gotta take care of her own metabolism first. She’s trying to take care of growth. She’s trying to now lactate, And she’s just trying to maintain all of that. Right?

Dean Fish: 34:24

In addition to thinking about reproduction, reproduction is the last thing that’s on that hierarchy of needs from nutrition.

Colt Knight: 34:30

That’s usually when we see the biggest reproductive hurdles is those three year olds.

Dean Fish: 34:34

Absolutely.

Colt Knight: 34:35

Because they calve it too. Usually we take really good care of those heifers, so we don’t have any problems with them getting pregnant and calving. If we did good bull selection, they’re not going to have any calving difficulties. But man, they crash hard that first first calf.

Dean Fish: 34:50

Yeah, that’s really, really

Colt Knight: 34:51

important to take Those three year olds rebred.

Dean Fish: 34:55

No. And so you know, so what so what do you do? Do you have them at three? No. And and lose that whole

Colt Knight: 35:01

year for math doesn’t work on that either. Yeah. There’s some cool stuff done with early weaning

Dean Fish: 35:06

Right.

Colt Knight: 35:06

To give us some more recovery time on those those heifers that that works pretty good. But, you know, honestly, good cattle, keep them fed. Yeah. Make sure they’re in the right body condition score when they calve the first time, and they’ll be fine.

Dean Fish: 35:21

Yep. Good management. Yep. Pay attention.

Colt Knight: 35:23

But these are real world of examples of where learning how to judge cattle is really important.

Dean Fish: 35:31

Yeah, that’s the fundamental part of that. And I know we kind of got off track there, but that’s that base of it, is being able to just pay attention, being able to make a decision, and being able to justify it. That’s what judging is all about. Whether we do that with a steer or market steer class, whether we do that with a chicken or rabbit or or, you know, a set of ball caps. Doesn’t matter.

Dean Fish: 35:53

That judging is is about those things, making a good critical evaluation and justifying that evaluation. Yep.

Colt Knight: 36:02

Is there anything else that you wanted to point out on our judging criteria? Or

Dean Fish: 36:08

No. I don’t think so. I mean, know, I think we’ll try to kinda go over the format of how, you know, how how you would put a set of reasons together a little bit. You know? You know, we talk about them in pairs.

Dean Fish: 36:18

You know? You have a top pair, a middle pair, and a bottom pair. You know? So why is the top one better than the second one? Why is the second one better than the third one?

Dean Fish: 36:27

You know, and like I said, there’s no perfect animal, but there’s always something good to say about every animal too. So trying to remember to find the good parts of those those animals too, you know.

Colt Knight: 36:37

So we’re we’re teaching these kids actual life scales that they can use in in livestock farming. But I think more importantly, the research shows that these kids that compete in four h events, they go on to become leaders at a much higher rate than their their cohort classmates that are not engaged in these type of activities. And so we’re building character in these kids that are they’re gonna they’re gonna use throughout their whole life.

Dean Fish: 37:07

Yeah. That’s that’s I’ve talked to a couple of different judges. Not not in a professional circumstance, Cole, but, you know, but I’ve talked to a couple of different judges, and they say it’s very, very, very rare that they have a four h or FFA or a youth livestock person that comes before them. You Those kids kinda stay out of trouble. They’re usually harder workers.

Dean Fish: 37:26

Yeah.

Colt Knight: 37:27

When you say judge, you’re talking about criminal.

Dean Fish: 37:28

Yeah. Criminal judge. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

Dean Fish: 37:30

Didn’t mean a livestock judge. Yeah. But, you know, but the you know, the kids that choose this lifestyle that kinda stick with it, they’re kids that are that are not gonna get in trouble. They’re kids that are gonna work hard that you know, they may or may not be food and fiber producers down the road, but they’re gonna be at least better informed decision makers. They’re gonna understand where food comes from and have an appreciation for it and be just better citizens and better voters for us.

Colt Knight: 37:57

And I teach college classes. I teach the introduction to animal science class, the freshman class. And I have to say when I get four h FFA students in, they make better students than the average freshman student.

Dean Fish: 38:10

Yeah. And that’s tied to their livestock production background, you know, and and just being part of an organized program that, you know, you think about agriculture and how to grow food.

Colt Knight: 38:19

And, know, a lot of youth these days, they they spend their whole life on phone, on computers, and, they don’t have a lot of interaction skills because they’ll sit in a room and text each other instead of talk to each other. And these four h competitions where they are forced to give oral reasons, give presentations, it’s building some life skills that these kids are are able to transition into other parts of their lives. So we appreciate you coming up and helping us educate our Maine youth, and we look forward to seeing what the Maine youth do with those skills in the future.

Dean Fish: 38:58

Yeah. Well, thanks for having me. I I’m always tickled to come up. So good to see you and your family and get to spend a few days up here in beautiful Maine.

Colt Knight: 39:05

Yeah. I I hurt my back, so I can’t take him fishing this time. But

Dean Fish: 39:11

Hey. No. No. We’re all working. No fishing.

Dean Fish: 39:12

No no nonsense here.

Colt Knight: 39:14

It’s all work. But I think I will get him lobster. It’s it’s kind of a mandatory thing. I don’t pay real well, but I do make sure people get fed. Perfect.

Colt Knight: 39:25

Yep. So if you have questions, comments, concerns about the podcast, please send us an email at extension.farmcast@maine.edu.