Colt Knight: 00:00
So how have you been? Good. How are doing now that you graduated?
Ashton Caron: 00:03
I do sprinkler service sales. So moving around doing a little bit of everything at the company.
Colt Knight: 00:11
Still side hustling?
Ashton Caron: 00:13
Oh, yeah. Well, that’s that’s
Colt Knight: 00:18
you ready? Yeah. I’m ready when you are. K. Welcome to the Maine Farmcast.
Colt Knight: 00:22
I am your host, Dr. Colt Knight, associate extension professor and state livestock specialist for the University of Maine Cooperative Extension. And today, I have a special guest, mister Ashton Caron of Corinna, Maine. I have known Ashton for quite a while. When I first started here at the University of Maine, I had a program called GPS Cows, where we taught rural students about digital literacy, GPS, farming practices in the modern age. And we had a competition where they got to build their own GPS collar, design their own research project, and test it out on their own cows at their own house.
Colt Knight: 01:04
And then when at the end, we did a big poster presentation competition. And Ashton won that competition. By far and away, Ashton stood out above the rest of the contestants. He had a very professional speaking voice when he talked about his poster. He had a very well put together poster, and he had a a pretty good research project.
Colt Knight: 01:25
And I think that was years of showing. And is it 4-H that taught you to be a a good public speaker like that?
Ashton Caron: 01:31
Yeah. We always did through showing. We did a lot of livestock judging, which is a lot of public speaking to large crowds. So through the 4-H piece, yeah, that kind of got really comfortable speaking in a public setting in front of people.
Colt Knight: 01:45
We always say that that four H builds leadership in later life, and this is a prime example. So Ashton graduated high school, and he came to the University of Maine. He he had a, he was part of a a special project here at the University of Maine, graduated. Now he’s got a job working in industry, but he’s got side hustles, slinging cows, breeding stock, show stock. But more importantly, and the reason he is here today, he is also the vice president of the Maine Beef Producers Association.
Colt Knight: 02:21
And he came here today to talk about the beef industry in Maine and maybe promote our cattlemen’s college coming up in December. So, Ashton, let’s just start off with a little bit more about you. I’m assuming, were you born into an agricultural family or did your family get livestock when you were a kid?
Ashton Caron: 02:41
So kind of, sort of, a little bit of both, I guess, Both of my my mother grew up on a farm in Fort Kent. My dad comes from generations of potato farming up in the county.
Colt Knight: 02:53
And he still has a little bit of the French accent.
Ashton Caron: 02:55
Oh, wicked. Yes, he definitely does. But when when my family moved to Corona before I was born, we didn’t have any livestock. We actually got our first cattle in 2007. We started with belted gallows, and then it’s kind of just blossomed from there.
Ashton Caron: 03:13
But that’s where we we started with really the cattle was back in 2007. So we’re almost twenty years now.
Colt Knight: 03:21
Yeah. And you were heavily involved with the show industry here in Maine and even further away than that. Maybe go through some of your highlights of your show career.
Ashton Caron: 03:29
Yeah. So we, you know, started off showing when I was nine. From there, we, you know, we started with the Belted Galloways and we grew to showing all kinds of different livestock. I’ve shown out we do we as I got older, we did a lot more showing out in the Midwest. We’ve been to Simmental Junior Nationals.
Ashton Caron: 03:51
We actually me and my mother started the Belted Galloway Junior Nationals. I do a lot of showing out in Kentucky, Iowa, that kind of area. That’s that’s where the the big time shows are, so that’s where we like to try to go. But, yeah, I mean, we started off local. We used to go to almost every fair in Maine with cattle.
Ashton Caron: 04:13
And then as we got more competitive, we started going to less shows in Maine and we’d kind of hit the big ones. We’d go to start going to Big E more, and then we kind of just go further and further out every year, it seems.
Colt Knight: 04:25
So for the folks that are maybe used to the main show circuit, could you explain the difference between New England livestock shows and then somewhere like Iowa?
Ashton Caron: 04:37
Yeah. Absolutely. So the New England Livestock shows are very fair based. There’s a few that are, like, in the springtime before the fair start that are just shows, but they’re more fair based. So it’s part of the agricultural fair.
Ashton Caron: 04:52
So like, you go to Bangor Fair, you’ve got the Midway, and then you also have your livestock piece, and every fair is like that. When you go to the Midwest, they have more of what they call jackpot shows and more just shows period. So you might go and there won’t be the kind of carnival piece, the midway piece. It’s just you’re there to show livestock, whether it be cattle, hogs, sheep, whatever. And it still brings in a lot of public.
Ashton Caron: 05:20
A lot of people wouldn’t expect that. You still get a pretty good crowd at these shows, but it’s an event that is centered around only livestock showing, which gives it a bit of a different atmosphere. It it’s a lot more competitive.
Colt Knight: 05:35
Far more competitive.
Ashton Caron: 05:36
Yeah. It’s which, you know, if you’re into that, it makes it a lot more fun.
Colt Knight: 05:40
Well, I mean, you’re talking multigenerational families. Oh, yeah. That have been breeding animals just for the show ring for three, four, five, six generations. Yeah. And so they’ve got generational knowledge on the show ring.
Colt Knight: 05:55
They face a lot more competition just in terms of the number of animals and the quality of animals. And there’s a lot more money involved.
Ashton Caron: 06:05
Oh, I mean, we
Colt Knight: 06:06
Not just inputs, but outputs. So prize monies and everything.
Ashton Caron: 06:09
Yeah. No, there is an I mean, the the show world is is super unique in that piece of I was watching an online sale earlier this week and there were multiple heifers that unproven, no guarantees, over $200,000 apiece. It’s just it’s a whole new realm, a whole different realm, I should say, compared to what we typically see up here in New England.
Colt Knight: 06:33
I saw I saw one in Texas on the beef site sell for over $300,000 one And when you get into that kind of money, tempers can flare. You get into unfortunately, you get into some cheating. Yeah.
Ashton Caron: 06:52
I mean, there’s it’s a whole and we don’t again, we don’t see a lot of that kind of stuff up in New England, which is nice. You know, it’s but there’s yeah. I mean,
Colt Knight: 07:01
Much more it’s friendly, family focused Exactly. Doing it for the experience kind of thing. So there’s some monetary benefit, but not Not it’s not really worth it for the money up here. It’s just for the experience. The money is a side thing.
Colt Knight: 07:15
But in some of those other states, it’s it’s a business model.
Ashton Caron: 07:19
Oh, it is. Absolutely. And there’s I mean, there’s people that that’s how they make their living is selling show stock. And that’s, you know, that’s something here in New England I don’t quite think is possible yet. Maybe sometime in the future.
Ashton Caron: 07:33
But, yeah, in those Midwest states, that’s a that’s a living you can make is just selling show stock. It’s pretty
Colt Knight: 07:40
pretty I’ve a buddy in Texas. He’s he raises boar goats. Yep. He sells them to show folks $1,500 a piece for kids. Yeah.
Colt Knight: 07:48
Not even grown animals.
Ashton Caron: 07:49
Yep. Just kids. Yeah. And
Colt Knight: 07:52
that’s And that’s that sounds like a lot to us. But for some of these Midwestern and Southwestern shows, some of those people are paying tens of thousands of dollars for livestock.
Ashton Caron: 08:03
Yeah. No, it’s I mean, and that’s we see it even on the on the terminal side where these people are buying, you know, and we’re we’ve been when we were competing, you know, my sister was competing to win steer shows at, like, Frybrook Fair. That was kind of our big state fair. You know, that was we would spend a little bit more money. You know, we’d spend you know, it was never more than, like, $5,000.
Ashton Caron: 08:27
But we see these steer calves that are six months old sell out west for, you know, $2,030,000 dollars, and that’s a completely terminal animal. There’s no, you know, there’s the recouping that investment is just it’s just not gonna happen.
Colt Knight: 08:41
Well and and historically, livestock fairs served a couple purposes. One, it was to highlight the genetics of your farm, but more importantly, it was to give the farm kids a purpose. Yep. Teach them about livestock husbandry, gave them a job. They had to go out and feed, walk, practice with their animal every day.
Colt Knight: 09:00
You know, it built character. Yep. And so those kids were rewarded. They raised that animal all year. They took it to the fair.
Colt Knight: 09:07
At the end of the fair, you know, ribbons were given out, and then the animals were all auctioned off for slaughter. And and so they would get a paycheck. And generally speaking, most of the time, they just went for fair market rate. But some of the prize winning animals, was there a little bit of pride in the community, and some of those people would bid more than market rate. Yeah.
Colt Knight: 09:27
And so they would they would overpay, essentially, for those prize winning animals just to give the the kids it’s just to benefit charity, basically. And but you take that model historically, well, it morphed, right, into what we see now in the Midwest. And then like a jackpot show, those are not terminal shows. Nope. So there’s a couple of reason that terminal shows are really important.
Colt Knight: 09:52
Originally, it was to teach that kid about how farm life works. You know, you become friends with the animal, but there’s still food. Yep. And it it teaches the kids, you know, there’s still food. But, also, it’s a biosecurity concern.
Colt Knight: 10:06
So we we bring all these different farms together in one spot. If we then take all those animals back home, we bring all the diseases from every other animal back to every other farm. Yep. And so jackpot shows are can be a real issue for disease path for pathogen movement around. And so there’s a lot of folks that that don’t like jackpot shows, but also it’s a purely monetary competitive thing.
Ashton Caron: 10:33
Yeah. And a and a lot of them are. And, you know, that’s that’s how, you know, we draw in, you know, the spring shows that don’t have the fair piece of it. Even here in New England usually have a jackpot show that, again, it’s designed to bring people in so that they can, you know, win money. I mean, that’s really what it is.
Ashton Caron: 10:52
And it’s, you know, it’s a cool for the
Colt Knight: 10:55
big bears and the fall.
Ashton Caron: 10:56
Exactly. And in the Midwest, that’s usually brought to an even bigger level with more money, more bragging rights, and that piece too.
Colt Knight: 11:05
So the largest state fair, the Iowa State Fair. Yep. It’s the largest agricultural fair. There might be larger carnival type fairs, but if you’ve never been, it’s something else.
Ashton Caron: 11:16
I’ve been. I’ve been twice, I’ve been there for my fiancee, her and her sister showed sheep in the Midwest. So the last couple years I’ve gone out there for the sheep shows, it’s it’s pretty incredible. The the sheep barn
Colt Knight: 11:32
Yep. Or the pig barn, it’s a big open air construction barn, but imagine a large super Walmart and the parking lot that is smaller than these barns.
Ashton Caron: 11:46
Yeah. And they’re huge and they fall.
Colt Knight: 11:47
It’s like
Ashton Caron: 11:47
a little city. Thousands of animals. I mean, you it’s
Colt Knight: 11:51
And they don’t just have one of those. Oh, for every species. Barns plus two dairy barns. Yep. And then there’s an exhibition barn for the horses.
Ashton Caron: 12:00
Yep. No. That that’s I first time I went there, I was just flabbergasted. And we had been to, you know, like, we had been to major shows before, the North American, I’d been to Denver and that just to go there and see, like, this is their State Fairgrounds and those buildings with all those animals. It’s, you know, multiple show rings for each species.
Ashton Caron: 12:20
I mean, it’s just incredible.
Colt Knight: 12:21
And people are packed in elbow to elbow.
Ashton Caron: 12:23
Oh, yeah. Yep. It’s we had to get in there earlier or else you’re gonna sit in line to to get in through the walk in gate at, you know, 8AM. It’s
Colt Knight: 12:33
You you can walk through that fair in a day. You cannot see everything in a day.
Ashton Caron: 12:38
No. I spent a week there, and I’m still pretty sure I there was I know there’s pieces that I did not did not really see. It’s yeah. That that that is a pretty that’s that’s the one Midwest State Fair I’ve been to. Definitely set the bar high.
Colt Knight: 12:52
Yeah. It’s it’s crazy. The first time I went, I was amazed at just how big the livestock show was. I was expecting it to be a big state fair with livestock there. I was not expecting.
Colt Knight: 13:08
And and they can’t even hold all the livestock there in the same three days. They rotate them through. So all those barns are full for three days. Those animals leave. They bring in the next set.
Colt Knight: 13:17
And I think it goes for, like, two weeks. Is that what the law?
Ashton Caron: 13:20
I believe so. I mean, it’s it’s true. Like, we we moved in, like, on a Monday, and by Thursday, we had to be gone. Like, by Thursday morning, we were out of there so they could clean it and bring in the next batch. And the whole barn was empty.
Ashton Caron: 13:34
Like, just for a quick six hours, they cleaned, and then everything was back full again.
Colt Knight: 13:39
I got a funny story. The the groundskeepers drive around on those John Deere Caves, and there was a whole pan of those fainting goats that got out in the aisleway. Yep. And the guy came around the corner with garbage and stuff and that big and they all just fainted and passed out right in the middle of the alley. Just piled up on each other, and the groundskeeper freaked out.
Colt Knight: 14:03
That was pretty funny. But anyway, that’s that’s kind of your background. Yeah. And the livestock world is is primarily the seed stock and show.
Ashton Caron: 14:12
Yep. That’s mean, we do, you know, a lot of cow calves. We do have we do a decent amount of beef, but that’s I wouldn’t say that’s our primary focus.
Colt Knight: 14:20
Yeah. And I I do wanna say your family was was instrumental during the pandemic of keeping livestock fairs around and and keeping them going, because legally, four h had to shut down because of the pandemic. The Bangor State Fair all of a sudden decided, oh, we could use that space for a parking lot. Yeah. And then there was a lot of backlash to that.
Colt Knight: 14:41
And again, your family’s been instrumental at bringing livestock back to the Bangor State Fair. But while there was no Bangor State Fair, your family actually had fairs on your property and and kept things going for a couple years.
Ashton Caron: 14:53
Yeah. I think it was two or three years that, because by the time COVID had hit, the my mother was the was the four h leader for the Penobscot Livestock four h Club, and we’d already bought all of our projects. We were already financially very invested in this. And so we kind of rearranged everything at our house to be able to have a show and auction for the steers at the house. We did clinics.
Ashton Caron: 15:18
And, yeah, we did that for the steers and the lambs for the kids that had planned to go to Bangor Fair. And, yeah, I think we did that for two or three years until they brought Bangor back, which now my parents run the the ag portion at the Bangor State Fair, which is in the Cross Center.
Colt Knight: 15:34
It’s really nice.
Ashton Caron: 15:35
It is. And it’s it was I mean, we got to use use the experience from the bigger shows that we’ve been to and try to take a piece of that and make it so it was the best it could be for the exhibitors. I mean, it’s air conditioned. It’s it’s pretty nice. They’re one of the best facilities.
Colt Knight: 15:51
You’re on concrete. They bring in bedding and pens and it’s try something to
Ashton Caron: 15:56
make, I mean, we know what it’s like to be exhibitors. So we try to, okay, how can we make it as easy for people to come? And so we’re obviously, this was only year two, so we’re still making improvements every year. But I think we’ve got a pretty hopefully, pretty bright future having a big ag piece at Bangor.
Colt Knight: 16:16
I noticed a huge improvement this year over the last year’s, and I think you’ll you’ll keep making those improvements. And I think it’ll probably become one of the the nicer fairs around. So looking forward to seeing that next year. So we should probably transition into the reason you’re here is to talk about the Maine Beef Producers Association. So maybe you could tell us a little bit about what the Maine Beef Producers Association is, what its mission is, what people get for joining in.
Colt Knight: 16:41
And one of those is education, which is gonna lead to the the Cattlemen’s College that we’ll discuss here in a little bit.
Ashton Caron: 16:47
Yeah. So Maine Beef Producers is a nonprofit organization made up of beef producers from Maine, where essentially the mission is to help promote beef and promote beef producers in the state of Maine. We’ve got a bunch of different programs. The biggest one, we do calves for kids. That was something I got to do when I was a youth, where essentially we give a free calf through a whole application process to a youth member from the state of Maine.
Ashton Caron: 17:20
You know, pre COVID, we used to do sales every year, but we’re still kind of rebounding from COVID. Mean, it’s I think everything
Colt Knight: 17:29
is. Well, part of the the reason that you don’t do sales anymore is COVID drove the demand for local meat so high. You don’t have to auction off your beef cattle anymore. People are just buying them off farm, and no one raises enough to keep up with demand these days. There’s really not a need for auctions.
Ashton Caron: 17:44
Exactly. And that’s kind of what we’ve found so far. So but beyond that, you know, we do our goal is to support Maine beef farmers and to promote Maine beef and Maine beef producers throughout the state. And, yeah, a piece of that is also helping Maine beef producers, members and even non members to raise beef the best possible way or give them the tools that they need so that they can raise beef for the way that works best for them. And so we do that through programs like the Cattlemen’s College.
Colt Knight: 18:17
Yeah. And and I think we gotta go back to the calves for kids. You know, beef producers in Maine donate heifer calves Yeah. So that the Maine beef producers can give needy kids a free calves to show. And at the end of that time, they’re expected to get that heifer bread.
Colt Knight: 18:38
Yep. And they can either choose to keep So Keep keep the calf.
Ashton Caron: 18:44
Or donate the first heifer calf back. So, yeah, essentially, what it is is, you know, youth from throughout the state get to apply and it goes through this whole interview process that where essentially the youth are it’s made so that we can make sure whoever gets it is prepared to get it. And, you know, it’s it’s quite an intensive process. I remember when I went through it, was like, wow, this is this is pretty crazy. And it’s it’s it’s a lot.
Ashton Caron: 19:15
It was it was really good to help prepare me for like interview type settings. And then, yeah, they’re given a beef calf, which they’re expected, you know, they’re expected to raise and get bread. And then the idea is the first heifer calf that it has, they would either donate back to the program or they could buy it out and they could keep it. And then money would be given to the program so that they can go get another one.
Colt Knight: 19:41
So it’s like a self promoting Yep. Cycle. And that’s been run for years. Yeah. Don’t know when it started, but it’s it’s been going on ever since I’ve been here and even before then.
Colt Knight: 19:51
So been quite a quite a while.
Ashton Caron: 19:53
It must be at least twenty years. I don’t know off the top of my head, but I do know it’s been going on, yeah, a lot longer than I’ve been around,
Colt Knight: 20:02
I think And then part of the education aspect is not just the in person educational programs that we hold, you know, whether it be beef quality assurance, cattlemen’s college, artificial insemination trainings, is the scholarship fund. And that was started I was one of the folks that helped start that in maybe 2018. Yeah.
Ashton Caron: 20:27
I was just because that hasn’t been around for quite as long. I do know I can’t believe I forgot about that. I was the recipient of one of those
Colt Knight: 20:33
scholarships. You were one of the first recipients
Ashton Caron: 20:35
of that scholarship. But yeah, that is another big piece because that it promotes the kids that raise cattle and are involved in the main beef industry to then go get a postsecondary education to continue their studies in that.
Colt Knight: 20:49
Yeah. So if you come to one of the main beef producers event and there’s a silent auction or a raffle or something, the proceeds from those actually goes to fund the scholarship. Yep. So be sure to bid high and bid often on that stuff. But, yeah, we’ve we’ve we’ve given out between one and two scholarships every year since its inception, and there’s no and and that’s kinda set up where we hope we have enough money in the coffers that that can continue in perpetuity for the from here until whenever.
Ashton Caron: 21:22
Yeah. And that’s why we do, you know, a lot of the fundraising for it. Yeah.
Colt Knight: 21:27
So the next aspect is the actual educational opportunities. So folks have probably seen me around given beef quality assurance trainings. Maine beef producers always sponsors those events. So they’re they’re donating money for free lunches or materials or travel or or what have you. So they’ve been Maine Beef Producers has been really instrumental in having a lot of these educational opportunities.
Colt Knight: 21:51
The other thing that is really helpful is when we do live animal stuff. As a university, if I’m in charge of animals, I have got to go through an intensive Yeah. Institutional animal care and use committee process that could take six months or a year to get approval if I’m in charge of the animals. Whereas if the main beef producers are holding the event and they’re in charge of the animals and I just come and speak at the event, then there’s no liability on the university for that, and then we can have these events. And, you know, like our judging clinics that we’ve been holding in the spring, I couldn’t do that here at the university without the help of organizations like the Maine Beef Producers or the Windsor Fair.
Ashton Caron: 22:34
Yep. Yeah. And that’s a piece that, again, we are grateful that we have members who are willing to also help, you know, with us being able to use their facilities, with us being able to use our livestock. Yeah. Especially for, you know, that judging clinic, which is relatively new but has been grow has grown a lot.
Ashton Caron: 22:55
I’m actually very excited for how that continues to grow. It had a very good turnout this year.
Colt Knight: 23:01
So we’ve got big plans for spring of
Ashton Caron: 23:05
Yeah.
Colt Knight: 23:05
2026. We’ve got a gentleman coming from California who grew up like you, showing livestock, was a livestock judging coach in college, and now he’s a beef professor and runs the bull test at Cal Poly. So
Ashton Caron: 23:20
that’s exciting.
Colt Knight: 23:21
Big judging coach coming. That’s exciting. So I want folks to come out for that. I was gonna say some one of the other things that we’ve neglected to mention is the main beef producers also has panels and scales and things that you as a main beef producers member can utilize if you need it.
Ashton Caron: 23:40
Yep. I tend to forget about that. But, yeah, we do have we’ve got quite a stockpile of we have panels and stuff like that for our members to use. A lot of it’s from when we used to have the auctions and we still have all the equipment. We just we kind of hang on to it for when members do need it.
Colt Knight: 24:00
Yeah. Yep. It’s excellent. And then this fall, we’re gonna be having our I think this is our ninth annual Cattlemen’s College. I started the Cattlemen’s College when I came to Maine because I that’s kind of a thing out west, is they have an annual meeting Yep.
Colt Knight: 24:16
That includes the business meeting of the organization plus education. And they’ve they’ve always been called Cattlin’s Colleges. And I said, well, we should bring those to Maine. And we’ve been doing them in in different iterations throughout. We’ve done them formally and here on campus.
Colt Knight: 24:36
We’ve done them in extension offices. We’ve done them in the field. Yep. This year, we’re gonna have it at the Department of Ag Conservation and Forestry in one of their big meeting rooms in Augusta. So it’ll be Saturday, December 6, from about nine to five.
Colt Knight: 24:53
And this year, it’s all about reproductive performance in our beef animals and reproductive technologies like in vitro fertilization and artificial insemination.
Ashton Caron: 25:05
Yeah. I gotta say, I’m pretty excited about the topics. I think given where the beef industry is at right now, those are very important where we’re trying to maximize maximize ROI, maximize getting our cows bred, closing those calving windows, closing those calving intervals. Improving genetics. And that’s a big piece, too.
Ashton Caron: 25:26
We, at my farm, obviously, we utilize almost exclusively AI and embryo work. We don’t keep a bull on-site typically. So I’m pretty excited. You know, I’m excited to learn some new stuff. I’m also excited that our members are gonna be able to have access to some of that knowledge.
Ashton Caron: 25:46
I think it’s gonna be I think it’ll be pretty good. Yeah.
Colt Knight: 25:49
This this year is gonna be a little different than what we normally do. And so it’s gonna be a combination of hands on training and classroom training. We’re gonna start the morning off with some exceptional guest lecturers. Doctor Jessica Mota, she is our new reproduction physiologist. She’s gonna talk about embryo transfer and in vitro fertilization in beef cattle.
Colt Knight: 26:12
Doctor. Glenda Pereira, the dairy specialist for the University of Maine, myself, probably one other speaker that I haven’t haven’t formally announced yet. And then we’re gonna talk about artificial insemination. Not just should you use artificial insemination, but how do you artificially inseminate these animals? And we’re gonna bring in liquid nitrogen tanks, practice semen, artificial insemination equipment, practice dummies, and model simulators, and beef reproductive tracts.
Colt Knight: 26:47
Yep. And so everyone that comes to the Maine Cattlemen’s College, you are gonna get a condensed artificial insemination training that goes from theoretical to hands on, and you’ll get lots of practice while you’re there. And at the very end of the day, we do a competition to see who can do it the fastest. Because in real life, just because you have to thaw semen and handle semen and stuff, it it you don’t have all day to do it.
Ashton Caron: 27:15
Yeah. No. There’s Once a
Colt Knight: 27:16
you get good, you gotta be pretty quick. And so we get the we get the stopwatches out and a big whiteboard, and we’ll we’ll put everybody into teams, and we’ll have a little friendly competition to see who can who can go from liquid nitrogen tank to impregnating the That’s exciting.
Ashton Caron: 27:34
I mean, that’s, you know, I did I’ve done AI courses before. I think having the actual, like, model dummy there is gonna be really beneficial just because It’s
Colt Knight: 27:46
not a real cow, but on a real cow, you can’t flip the curtain and see what’s going on. Exactly. And so everybody that’s watching can actually see what the person they can only feel it because they don’t get to see what’s going on, but everybody else can watch what’s going on. And you can actually you get a you get a pretty good idea of what what you’re feeling for, what to look for, some of the pitfalls and everything. Plus, we’ll have real reproductive tracts there so you can feel it.
Colt Knight: 28:13
We’re not gonna have any, you know, live animal palpation, unfortunately, but there’s only so much you can do with a one day
Ashton Caron: 28:20
You know, I I can say when I’ve had when I’ve done live animal the first time I did live animal palpation, it was on cows that weren’t in heat. Yeah, they never are. They were just called dairy. That’s exactly what it was. And so going from that to the actual first time I bred an animal, was like, woah, this is not even remotely close.
Ashton Caron: 28:43
So I think it’ll I think there’s gonna be some benefits.
Colt Knight: 28:45
It’s way more difficult on those cold dairy cows. Yeah. Because they’re they’re they’re much larger than beef kettles. Their reproductive tracts are usually stretched out, so you have to, like, search for it. Yep.
Colt Knight: 28:55
Beef cattle are just nested really nice right in the right in the pelvic girdle. Yep. When they’re in heat, their cervix is nicely dilated, so you can pass your AI rod fairly easily compared to an animal that’s not in heat and that cervix is closed off like your fist. It’s really difficult to pass a rod through there. But that’s what’s nice about the having the tracks there.
Ashton Caron: 29:18
Yeah.
Colt Knight: 29:18
You can feel what it’s like to pass a rod through an animal that’s in heat because they’ve lost their tone, so they’re not squeezed tight anymore. And you can feel what it actually feels like and pass those rods through there without hurting live animals.
Ashton Caron: 29:32
Yeah. Exactly. That’s you’re you’re not really causing any damage there.
Colt Knight: 29:35
Yep. Because poking around reproductive tracts with a rod isn’t isn’t it’s not great.
Ashton Caron: 29:41
You know what you’re Yeah.
Colt Knight: 29:42
When you don’t know what you’re doing, and it’s it’s a little bit Once you know what you’re doing, it’s not doesn’t hurt anything. Learning, that’s the hard So it’s always good to practice on these simulators and reproductive tracts. Ashton, is there anything else you’d like to add about the, Maine Beef Producers Association or the Maine Cattlemen’s College before we wrap this up for today?
Ashton Caron: 30:03
I mean, I think we covered it. We’re, you know, Maine Beef Producers is, you know, we’re we’re just excited about a lot of the stuff we have coming in the future. Our next event that we’ll be a part of is gonna be the Maine Forage Conference, which is coming up here quite soon, October 27, I believe. We’ll have a booth there for the trade show. So we will not have a booth there for the trade show.
Ashton Caron: 30:27
Okay.
Colt Knight: 30:27
They just I don’t I don’t think they’re going to do a booth this year at the trade show and they’re gonna give out the awards. So every year, the Maine Beef Producers Association gives out awards for outstanding I
Ashton Caron: 30:40
apologize. I should have I should have spoke clear. The trade show that’s gonna be a part of the Maine Forge Conference.
Colt Knight: 30:45
Oh, the Maine Forge Conference. Yes. Is that still at the I have not heard. Governors? That’s where it was last year.
Ashton Caron: 30:52
I believe so. In Waterville Governors? In Waterville, the kind of the fireside in governors that’s there.
Colt Knight: 30:58
It doesn’t matter because this episode will come out after the Mount Well, Forest
Ashton Caron: 31:04
if we see you there, we were glad to see you. But, regardless, that’s we are excited, though, for for this new not the new for the Cattlemen’s College. I’m very excited for what we’re gonna have what we’re gonna have there for our producers. And but yeah. No.
Ashton Caron: 31:23
I think I think we covered covered a lot of the bases.
Colt Knight: 31:29
Yeah. So the Maine Forage conference, like you said, is October 27 at the Governor’s Ballroom in Waterville. Yep. So, yeah, there we go. This episode might air before then.
Colt Knight: 31:39
So we’re gonna promote that too.
Ashton Caron: 31:41
That. Perfect.
Colt Knight: 31:41
Maine Forage Conference, October 27. Yep. Governor’s Ballroom, nine to three.
Ashton Caron: 31:47
Nine to three.
Colt Knight: 31:48
Yep. But we were talking about the main beef producers awards. Yes. And so there’s the service award for outstanding service in the Maine Beef Industry, the Hall of Fame Award. Yep.
Colt Knight: 31:58
The the Best Beef Producer Award and then the Best Youth.
Ashton Caron: 32:04
Yeah. I think that’s all of them. There might be another one in there. But, yeah, we do annual awards to recognize some of the outstanding members that are a part of Maine Beef Producers and part of the Maine Beef Producing Community every year, which is pretty nice. It’s a good way to recognize folks that are working hard and and putting in the effort.
Colt Knight: 32:24
And we’ll actually be giving those out at the Maine Cattlemen’s College
Ashton Caron: 32:27
this Yes.
Colt Knight: 32:28
Yep. Saturday, October 6 at the Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry in Augusta.
Ashton Caron: 32:37
December 6? Yeah. December. Sorry. I thought you said October 6.
Ashton Caron: 32:41
No. December 6. December 6. Yeah. No.
Ashton Caron: 32:43
That’s perfect. Yeah. We’re excited to see everybody there. It should be it’s gonna be quite the event this year, I think. So
Colt Knight: 32:53
And just just keep in mind, usually when you take AI classes, artificial insemination classes, they cost $200-300 dollars Yeah.
Ashton Caron: 33:00
I saw one on Facebook the other day and it was they were $500 for a one day class. I could not. And that didn’t include lunch. That was that was part of the blew my mind. Even
Colt Knight: 33:10
include Maine Cattlemen’s College is going to be $75 for the general public or $50 if you’re a member of the Maine Beef Producers Association and lunch is provided. This is like a deal.
Ashton Caron: 33:19
Yeah. It’s it’s quite the deal. We’re gonna be definitely gonna be a good, good resource for main beef producers.
Colt Knight: 33:27
Yeah. Alright, Ashton. It was great to have you here on the podcast, and we hope to see you further along down the trail as as time progresses.
Ashton Caron: 33:35
Yeah. Thanks for having me. K. If you
Colt Knight: 33:38
have questions, comments, or concerns, please email us at extension.farmcast@maine.edu. Got it.