The News Feed Live Webinar Series 7

Welcome everyone to the latest edition of The News Feed Live Webinar #7 

Ontario Central West Beef Tour Focuses on Feedlot Health, Corn Crop Management and Cattle Market Insights

The Ontario Central West Beef Tour 2025 (OCWBT)…formerly known as the Waterloo-Wellington Beef Tour, held its annual summer classic on June 5th in the Linwood area. Visitors toured two producer’s feedlot operations in the Linwood and St. Clements area, congregating at the Linwood Recreation Complex for the awesome steak supper and informative evening program.

Another large crowd of visitors toured the host producers’ operations, resulting in lots of discussion with the tour hosts, including barn designs, handling facilities and management strategies they are implementing within their farms. Our hosts included Kenneth Brubacher, Linwood and Joel Martin, St. Clements – the OCWBT appreciates our host producers for their time and effort in preparing for a large group to visit and discuss their operations with the OCWBT group – THANK YOU, Ken and Joel

A very sincere Thank You to our many Sponsors who participate each year with their gracious support. The OCWBT committee appreciates the opportunity to provide a venue for the sponsors and producers to participate in the barn tours, network and engage in discussion opportunities to work together and bring management ideas back to their operations.

St. Helens Meat Packers were the source of the Ontario Corn Fed Beef striploins for the evening. The Jones Feed Mill Beef Team once again attended along with their BBQ, cooking the hot dogs and assisted in the searing of the steaks, relaying them to the food lines. Gerry Wideman of Triple G Livestock provided the preparation and smoking of the striploins and searing of the steaks on a wood fired BBQ as well. The OCWBT organizing committee of Marvin and Alisha Weber, Elam and Fern Bauman, Glen and Carolyn Martin, including numerous helpers, are to be commended for preparing and serving an awesome meal, including the steaks, the meal sides and hot dogs for the children. – Thank you and a great effort to everyone involved!

Elam Bauman acted as emcee for the evening program. He commented on the large crowd of well over 400 in attendance and thanked everyone for attending. He recognized the sponsors and that the evening would not be possible without their generous contributions to the OCWBT activities of the day and evening. (all sponsors were recognized for the attendees, including verbally, trade show opportunities, signage and video-displays)

Speaker Presentations

Ben Rosser, Corn Specialist with OMAFA.

Management Strategies for Livestock Producers Growing Ontario’s Corn Crop

Ben spoke on strip tillage management and related corn trials in Ontario. The viability of strip tillage in conjunction with manure applications and residue challenges is real and with proper management it works very well.

Tar Spot is the next challenge that Ontario growers are facing currently. Ben showed maps of areas of Tar Spot findings and control measures that should be followed to reduce/prevent yield losses. Tar Spot needs to be on your management list for corn growers. Corn Rootworm was another topic that was discussed in depth. Ben stressed full crop rotation as being the best method of control. However, with livestock intense feedlot operations, that’s not always easy to manage when high volume corn crops are needed to support the feeding enterprise. BT management and new insecticide technologies will help manage modified rotations of corn on corn.

Ben spoke of improving nitrogen efficiency of liquid and solid manure and applied to cover crops in seasonal applications. Spring applications of manure prior to seeding is beneficial for the nitrogen level gained, however only under ideal field conditions, otherwise compaction from heavy equipment will persist in yield losses. Side dressing with liquid manure once the corn crop is established, is becoming more popular showing excellent results. Summer applications of solid cattle manure are beneficial for Nitrogen availability, very similar to liquid hog manure applied in spring. Much of this extensive manure research was conducted by Christine Brown, Field Crop Sustainability Specialist with OMAFA.

Next on the agenda was Updates from Metzger Veterinary Services – Dr. Jacques van Zyl author ……presented by Dr. Marty Metzger from Metzger Veterinary Services

Dr. Metzger illustrated the various overviews of health trends for placing cattle on feed and management of those new arrivals. The trend continues to determine that December has the highest treatment rate and the 14-to-21-day time frame post arrival is the most critical time and has the highest morbidity rate. These stats point out the need for a ration that meets the nutritional needs of the animal to prepare them for that critical time period!

A liver biopsy study was conducted showing varying degrees of deficiencies on incoming calves. Western and Virginia cattle were deficient in Vitamins A and E……Likely due to forage quality deteriorating throughout summer and fall. Local and particularly Western and Virginia calves deficient in copper. Westerns seem to get worse as fall progresses. A lung sample study was conducted with a culture study completed. No resistance was found in most of the commonly used antimicrobials.
Experior, a new B-Agonist/Antagonist product on the market, was discussed at length for its attributes being added to a finishing ration.

Our final speaker for the evening program was Stephen Duff, Chief Economist with OMAFA

Ontario Cattle Situation & Outlook

Topics covered:

• United States market situation
• Canadian & Ontario market situation
• Ontario market outlook

Steve touched on the many factors causing the market conditions we are experiencing currently. He had data to support a market update for cattle and grains, along with historical reviews and nearby projections. Again, the herd does not seem to be rebuilding and probably won’t be with the demand for feeder cattle so high. Heifer placement into feedlots is at 38% signaling that feeder demand. Placements are down 7%, also indicating the empty pens and increased demand …. a real sellers’ market! It’s a pleasure to have Steve give his presentation to our crowd, as many are not privy to this amount of up-to-date market information on a regular basis. Steve also gave an update on the Ontario Corn Fed Beef Benchmarking Project directed by a steering committee. Goal is to develop a standardized template for the feedlot sector using the popular dairy benchmarking template model as guideline. There is currently a template being structured using data from RMP as a guideline to work from.

The Ontario Central West Beef Tour was a great success again this year and look forward to next year. The videos and drone footage of the farms are available on line. Thanks to Jacob Mulligan for creating the drone footage of the farms. Thank you to Christoph Wand, OMAFA, for setting up the audio and video equipment at the hall and organizing the drone footage and commentary.