The Cattle Producers of Washington will hold their annual Legislative Days Wed., Jan 21 and Thurs. Jan 22 in Olympia. The legislative reception will be held on Wednesday, Jan 21 from 5 to 7:30 in the Columbia Room in the legislative building on the capitol campus.
CATTLE PRODUCERS OF WASHINGTON BANQUET TO FEATURE FULL SPEAKER SCHEDULE, ACTIVITIES
The 2014 CPoW 10th annual banquet is rapidly coming up on Friday, Oct. 31 at Northern Quest Casino in Airway Heights, www.northernquest.com
The meeting will feature a full agenda of interesting and informative speakers, followed up by a prime rib dinner and auction. All day tickets that include dinner are $85 per person. Dinner only tickets are $40. Tickets can be purchased at the door the day of the event.
Below is the updated speaker schedule for the event:
10:00 Check-in
10:30-11:15 Mike Thoren, JBS Beef
11:15-12:00 Washington Beef Commission
12:00-1:00 LUNCH
1:00-2:00 Washington State Department of Agriculture
2:00-2:30 Carbon Cycle Crush on canola cattle feed supplements
2:30-3:00 Leffel, Otis and Warwick on tax preparation
3:00-4:00 CPoW annual business meeting
4:00-5:00 James Robb, Livestock Information Marketing Center
5:00-6:00 Social hour
6:00-8:30 Dinner and auction
The event will also feature a number of activities, including a “Cow Plop” game on the concert patio behind the casino. Squares are only $20 and the pen will be divided up into 36 spots, making for good odds. Need not be present to win. A video of the event will be uploaded to Facebook for those who want to see the action but are unable to attend. Email us at cattleproducersofwa@gmail.com or call Jamie Henneman at 675-1209 to reserve your spot today!
As the CPoW 10th Anniversary banquet is just over a month away, now is the time when businesses can still take advantage of the opportunity to promote their product or services at the event. The banquet will be held at Northern Quest Casino in Airway Heights on Oct. 31 from 10am-8:30pm and will include great food, great speakers and great company.
So far over 11 businesses have stepped up to be part of the event including:
Spokane County Cattlemen
Stevens County Cattlemen’s Association
Clifton Allen Larson
Sunny Okanogan Angus Ranch
Big R, Spokane
Connell Grain Growers
Lawrence Oil
EPL Feed
WA State Beef Commission
Crossroads Cattle Company
RANGE Magazine
Make sure to take advantage of this opportunity while there is still time! Below is the link to our sponsorship form:
Come join us in celebrating 10 years of CPoW’s work as an organization!
Our annual banquet will be held at North Qwest Casino in Airway Heights from 10am-8:30pm.
All day tickets include a morning coffee, lunch and dinner for $85. Prime-rib dinner only tickets are $40. Speakers will include James Robb from the Livestock Marketing Information Center who will present on, “Cattle Market: Where To From Here?”; Mike Thorne from JBS Five Rivers cattle feedlot; Washington State Department of Agriculture and the Washington Beef Commission. For more information, email cattleproducersofwa@gmail.com
Fish and Wildlife Commission denies petition on codifying wolf policies
The Cattle Producers of Washington recently applauded a decision by the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission to deny a petition by the Center for Biological Diversity and other environmental groups to codify parts of the Washington Wolf Plan, essentially creating inflexible rules for dealing with wolf related issues.
The Commission denied the petition put forward by the Center and seven other environment groups, including the Kettle Range Conservation Group, to establish artificial parameters for the lethal removal of problem wolves. Among other provisions, the Center’s petition wanted for four separate, documented kills on four separate days in a four month period before a problem wolf could be removed. The Center filed a similar petition last year that was also denied. Instead a Wolf Advisory Group (WAG) was formed to help the Washington Fish and Wildlife department craft policies to address wolf concerns with the input of diverse stakeholder groups. However, the Center said that ,”livestock producer and sports-hunting groups on the committee” refused to agree to the inflexible, prohibitive rules suggested by environmental groups on the WAG, so they proceeded to petition the Commission again.
CPoW President Dave Dashiell said the most recent petition by the Center shows that they are not in favor of sensible wolf management, but are driven to pursue a particular agenda.
“This petition disregards the work that the various groups serving on the WAG have completed this year and shows an inflexible, flawed perspective by some environmental groups who are only interested in a radical agenda,” said Dashiell. “We know that every problem situation involving a wolf is going to be different and there needs to be a great deal of flexibility to make sure the situation is resolved in a fair manner for all involved.”
CPoW worked with four other likeminded groups: the Stevens County Cattlemen’s Association, the Spokane County Cattlemen, the Stevens County Farm Bureau and the Science First Coalition to send a letter to the Commission against the petition from the Center.
“We appreciate that the Fish and Wildlife Commissioners recognized how changing the wolf situation is with every year and at every location. It is important to keep all options on the table, particularly when dealing with a predator species that is coming back onto the landscape,” Dashiell said.
A recent telephone survey conducted by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife indicated that while some Washingtonians may accept the presence of wolves in Washington, they do not want it to be at the expense of ranchers. The survey that obtained a total of 904 responses also indicated that many Washingtonians support lethal removal of wolves.
Here are some of the survey results:
*Of those surveyed, 63 percent support some level of lethal wolf control to protect livestock compared to 28 percent who oppose it.
*Over 70 percent of those surveyed were concerned about the impact wolves night have on livestock, with 29 percent saying they were “extremely concerned” compared to 22 of total surveys percent who were “not at all concerned.”
*After wolves are removed from the state Endangered Species list, 63 percent of those surveyed support the establishment of a wolf hunting season compared to 28 percent who opposed. A Wolf hunting season to address livestock attacks or depredations was supported by 65 percent and opposed by 25 percent
A few accepted variations on the letter A. From left to right: Crazy-A, Flying-A, Lazy-A, Walking-A (image: Texas Brand Registration) A few accepted variations on the letter “A” from the Texas brand book
Branding has been a traditional way of identifying animal ownership for thousands of years, but reading a brand has its own lingo, as explained by this post from Smithsonian Magazine on “bovine pyroglythics.”……
Decoding the Range
By Jimmy Stamp
To the untrained eye, cattle brands, those unique markings seared into animals’ hides with a hot iron, might just seem like idiosyncratic logos or trademarks designed to clearly and simply indicate ownership. However, unlike the graphic logos and trademarked images of popular commercial brands, they must comply with a rigorous set of standards and are developed using a specific language ruled by its own unique syntax and morphology.Livestock branding dates back to 2700 BC, evidenced by Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics.
Ancient Romans are said to have used hot iron brands as an element of magic. But brands are most famously associated with the cowboys and cattle drives of the Old West, when brands were used to identify a cow’s owner, protect cattle from rustlers (cattle thieves), and to separate them when it came time to drive to market (or rail yards or stock yards).
At its most basic, a cattle brand is composed of a few simple letters and numbers, possibly in combination with a basic shape or symbols like a line, circle, heart, arc, or diamond. But these characters can also be embellished with serif-like flourishes to create myriad “pyroglyphics.” For example, such serifs might include extraneous “wings” or “feet” added to a letter or number. Each character can also be rotated or reversed. Every addition and variation results in a unique character that is named accordingly. The letters with “wings” for example, are described as “flying” while those with “feet” are, you guessed it, “walking.” An upside-down characters is “crazy” while a 90-degree rotation makes a character “lazy.” These colorful designations aren’t just cute nicknames used to identify the characters, but are actually a part of the name, a spoken part of the brand language, which like most western languages is read from left to right, top to bottom and, perhaps unique to brands, outside to inside.
The vast array of combinations made possible by these characters and variations ensures that unique and identifiable brands can be created –hopefully without repetition– using only limited formal language. And sometimes they could even be used to make a joke:
This brand reads “two lazy two pee.”
Serifs and rotations are just two of the primary ways brand letters can be modified. Multiple symbols may be joined together forming a type of ligature – a term used in typography to describe a single character representing two or more letters, such as æ. Some of these ligature brands are read as “connected” while others are given unique identifiers:
To the untrained eye, cattle brands, those unique markings seared into animals’ hides with a hot iron, might just seem like idiosyncratic logos or trademarks designed to clearly and simply indicate ownership. However, unlike the graphic logos and trademarked images of popular commercial brands, they must comply with a rigorous set of standards and are developed using a specific language ruled by its own unique syntax and morphology.Livestock branding dates back to 2700 BC, evidenced by Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. Ancient Romans are said to have used hot iron brands as an element of magic. But brands are most famously associated with the cowboys and cattle drives of the Old West, when brands were used to identify a cow’s owner, protect cattle from rustlers (cattle thieves), and to separate them when it came time to drive to market (or rail yards or stock yards).
At its most basic, a cattle brand is composed of a few simple letters and numbers, possibly in combination with a basic shape or symbols like a line, circle, heart, arc, or diamond. But these characters can also be embellished with serif-like flourishes to create myriad “pyroglyphics.” For example, such serifs might include extraneous “wings” or “feet” added to a letter or number. Each character can also be rotated or reversed. Every addition and variation results in a unique character that is named accordingly. The letters with “wings” for example, are described as “flying” while those with “feet” are, you guessed it, “walking.” An upside-down characters is “crazy” while a 90-degree rotation makes a character “lazy.” These colorful designations aren’t just cute nicknames used to identify the characters, but are actually a part of the name, a spoken part of the brand language, which like most western languages is read from left to right, top to bottom and, perhaps unique to brands, outside to inside.
Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/decoding-the-range-the-secret-language-of-cattle-branding-45246620/#Y5fhvbmybzKibimO.99
Give the gift of Smithsonian magazine for only $12! http://bit.ly/1cGUiGv
Follow us: @SmithsonianMag on Twitter
To the untrained eye, cattle brands, those unique markings seared into animals’ hides with a hot iron, might just seem like idiosyncratic logos or trademarks designed to clearly and simply indicate ownership. However, unlike the graphic logos and trademarked images of popular commercial brands, they must comply with a rigorous set of standards and are developed using a specific language ruled by its own unique syntax and morphology.Livestock branding dates back to 2700 BC, evidenced by Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. Ancient Romans are said to have used hot iron brands as an element of magic. But brands are most famously associated with the cowboys and cattle drives of the Old West, when brands were used to identify a cow’s owner, protect cattle from rustlers (cattle thieves), and to separate them when it came time to drive to market (or rail yards or stock yards).
At its most basic, a cattle brand is composed of a few simple letters and numbers, possibly in combination with a basic shape or symbols like a line, circle, heart, arc, or diamond. But these characters can also be embellished with serif-like flourishes to create myriad “pyroglyphics.” For example, such serifs might include extraneous “wings” or “feet” added to a letter or number. Each character can also be rotated or reversed. Every addition and variation results in a unique character that is named accordingly. The letters with “wings” for example, are described as “flying” while those with “feet” are, you guessed it, “walking.” An upside-down characters is “crazy” while a 90-degree rotation makes a character “lazy.” These colorful designations aren’t just cute nicknames used to identify the characters, but are actually a part of the name, a spoken part of the brand language, which like most western languages is read from left to right, top to bottom and, perhaps unique to brands, outside to inside.
Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/decoding-the-range-the-secret-language-of-cattle-branding-45246620/#Y5fhvbmybzKibimO.99
Give the gift of Smithsonian magazine for only $12! http://bit.ly/1cGUiGv
Follow us: @SmithsonianMag on Twitter
To the untrained eye, cattle brands, those unique markings seared into animals’ hides with a hot iron, might just seem like idiosyncratic logos or trademarks designed to clearly and simply indicate ownership. However, unlike the graphic logos and trademarked images of popular commercial brands, they must comply with a rigorous set of standards and are developed using a specific language ruled by its own unique syntax and morphology.Livestock branding dates back to 2700 BC, evidenced by Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. Ancient Romans are said to have used hot iron brands as an element of magic. But brands are most famously associated with the cowboys and cattle drives of the Old West, when brands were used to identify a cow’s owner, protect cattle from rustlers (cattle thieves), and to separate them when it came time to drive to market (or rail yards or stock yards).
At its most basic, a cattle brand is composed of a few simple letters and numbers, possibly in combination with a basic shape or symbols like a line, circle, heart, arc, or diamond. But these characters can also be embellished with serif-like flourishes to create myriad “pyroglyphics.” For example, such serifs might include extraneous “wings” or “feet” added to a letter or number. Each character can also be rotated or reversed. Every addition and variation results in a unique character that is named accordingly. The letters with “wings” for example, are described as “flying” while those with “feet” are, you guessed it, “walking.” An upside-down characters is “crazy” while a 90-degree rotation makes a character “lazy.” These colorful designations aren’t just cute nicknames used to identify the characters, but are actually a part of the name, a spoken part of the brand language, which like most western languages is read from left to right, top to bottom and, perhaps unique to brands, outside to inside.
Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/decoding-the-range-the-secret-language-of-cattle-branding-45246620/#Y5fhvbmybzKibimO.99
Give the gift of Smithsonian magazine for only $12! http://bit.ly/1cGUiGv
Follow us: @SmithsonianMag on Twitter
The Cattle Producers of Washington recently opposed a proposal by the Environmental Protection Agency to expand their authority to nearly all waterbodies connected to “navigable” waters. Apparently CPoW was not the only one who was upset with the idea.
According to an article in http://www.feedstuffs.com, 231 members of Congress also felt it was a dangerous and unnecesary idea as well. Below is the link and text from the Feedstuffs article:
http://feedstuffs.com/story-epa-urged-drop-water-rule-45-112040
EPA urged to drop water rule
An overwhelming 231 members of Congress from both sides of the aisle led by Reps. Chris Collins (R., N.Y) and Kurt Schrader (D., Ore.) sent a letter to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy and Secretary of the Army John McHugh, urging their agencies to withdraw a proposed navigable waters rule.
On March 25, 2014, the EPA and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed a rule that would assert Clean Water Act jurisdiction over nearly all areas that connected to navigable waters. As written, the rule aggressively expands federal authority under the Clean Water Act while bypassing Congress and creating unnecessary ambiguity, the members said.
The letter says that the rule is flawed in a number of ways, and the most problematic are concerns that the significant expansion of areas defined as “waters of the U.S.” effectively removes the word “navigable” from the definition.
The members added, that rather than providing clarity and making identifying covered waters “less complicated and more efficient,” the rule instead creates more confusion and will inevitably cause unnecessary litigation. “For example, the rule heavily relies on undefined or vague concepts such as ‘riparian areas,’ ‘landscape unit,’ ‘floodplain,’ ‘ordinary high water mark’ as determined by the agencies’ ‘best professional judgment’ and ’aggregation,’ the members wrote.
The letter also outlines concerns with the agency’s economic analysis which vastly underreports potential costs to landowners who “often at no fault of their own – do not seek a jurisdictional determination, but rather later learn from your agencies that their property is subject to the CWA.”
The scientific report was also neither peer-reviewed nor finalized. “The science should always come before a rulemaking, especially in this instance where the scientific and legal concepts are inextricably linked,” the letter stated.
“I am extremely concerned by the EPA and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ recent assertion that ditches, prairie potholes, and seasonally wet areas should be under the federal government’s control,” said Rep. Kristi Noem (R., S.D.), who signed onto the letter. “The proposed rule was built on an incomplete scientific study and a flawed economic analysis, which is why we have asked the EPA to withdraw the rule.”
CPoW board adds international cowboy to Board
From Medical Lake to Russia, Jim Wentland is a cattleman of many experiences
Earlier this year, the CPoW Board of Directors elected Jim Wentland to fill the Director District 4 position formerly held by Scott Nielsen . Wentland, who also serves as the President of the Spokane County Cattlemen, is a long-time cattleman currently living in the Medical Lake area. He is also an international cowboy, doing a stint in Russia in 2011 to help a private company develop their beef herd.
Wentland heard of the opportunity in Russia in one of the popular cattle industry newspapers, the Western Ag Reporter. Wentland was given a 90 day visa to work for AgroSystems near the town of Kaluga, Russia located two hours south of Moscow. A private firm was working to develop the beef cattle industry in the country, but Wentland said there were some significant challenges.
“Basically, the country had never had a beef herd, all they had was confinement dairy herds and no facilities for handing or working beef cattle,” he said.
Cattle management practices were also reminiscent of the former Soviet system, with an emphasis on job specialization and management systems that were not geared to be adaptive.
“They were vaccinating the dairy herd every week, which we were able to get them to back off to every three weeks. They also didn’t understand that cowboys need to be able to do a bunch of things, from build fence to doctor sick animals,” Wentland related. “But when I explained that, they insisted only a veterinarian could take care of the sick animals.”
Starting from an all-dairy herd, Wentland and the beef team attempted to change up the herd genetics by Artificially Inseminating 700 of the largely Semmital/Charlois herd with Angus Semmital and Brown Swiss genetics.
However, getting the herd genetics to take on more beef characteristics was only part of the challenge.
Ranch infrastructure like corrals, loading alleys and squeeze chutes all had to be added. Fencing and basic tasks like keeping water tanks unfrozen in the winter also posed new challenges.
“They didn’t have any tools to build fence and one day I went out and they were tightening barbed wire by stretching it back with a tractor and then hammering in two nails and bending them over to keep it in place. I looked at that and said, ‘You guys are going to kill someone’.”
Wentland mentioned to management that there were better tools available for the job, like fence stretchers, for easy purchase in the US. When his visa was extended for another seven months after a trip home, he brought back essentials like fence stretchers, work gloves and hammers that were unavailable for purchase in Russia.
But getting the ranch up to speed on tools and materials was only the beginning.
Educating Russian consumers about beef was a task the burgeoning industry would have to tackle if demand would increase for the product.
“Most people were used to just cutting a hunk off the cow when it died, putting it in a pot and boiling the crud out of it,” Wentland said. “When I went to the butcher and asked for a steak, they looked at me like I was nuts.”
Despite the difficulties, Wentland said he really enjoyed his time in Russia and was happy to have the opportunity.
“Not a lot of people pick up and go work in Russia when they are 65,” he quipped.”They paid excellent wages, it was a great experience and one of the best things I learned over there was patience.”
Wentland said the goal of the investor who owned the ranch was to increase his beef herd size from 2,300 to 3,500 by 2015. Wentland said he isn’t sure if the ranch is near making their goal.
“The investor who owned the ranch was really book smart, but sometimes you need to get a little manure on your boots,” he said.
Now that he is back in US, Wentland said he plans to continue his work with CPoW, Spokane County Cattlemen and his volunteer efforts as a 33-year 4-H leader.
“I would like to give a special thanks to Carl Grub for helping me stay interested in he cattle industry,” he said.
In addition to his international work, CPoW Director Jim Wentland (right) is also helping folks right here at home. Earlier this winter, Wentland helped to arrange a beef donation from CPoW to the Feed Medical Lake program. Wentland and member Dick Moore (left) are pictured here with Joanna Williams with Feed Medical Lake.
