Introduction

Waterloo Wellington Beef Tour 2024 , held on June 21, 2024, was another great success again this year.

Hope you enjoy the drone tours and information outline on each of our host farms

Special Thanks to Jacob Mulligan for doing the drone footage and editing along with Christoph Wand for adding the narrative text.

The tour venues were held in the Mount Forest, Holstein and Ayton areas , with the supper held at the Mt. Forest Sports Complex…..overall a great day for everyone involved

Another large turnout began the afternoon touring three area feedlots which incorporated various barn designs, ventilation types, handling facilities, manure handling and storages, feed ingredient storages and specific management strategies within their operations.

Lots of keen interest from tour participants led to numerous discussions with the tour hosts.

Events such as these tours, are always educational and they offer lots of ideas which fellow producers can take home and apply to their own operations

We thank the producers hosting the tours, for their time and effort put forth into preparing to have a group of people visit their farm operations.

Our many sponsors had the opportunity to take part in the tours to network and discuss opportunities with producers ..a great way to engage in conversations

The steak supper was excellent once again, and received rave reviews……Quality, Ontario grown beef at its finest !!

St. Helens Meat Packers were the source of the Ontario Corn Fed Beef striploins for the evening, John Baker from Ontario Corn Fed Beef, carved the whole striploins into steaks, Jones Feed Mill Beef Team helped sear the striploins and hot dogs and kept the meat coming to the food lines, while Gerry Wideman, Triple G Livestock smoked the striploins and seared them as well…..great work everyone !!

The organizing committee of Jared and Amy Frey, Glen and Carolyn Martin and Elam and Fern Bauman, along with numerous helpers did a fantastic job of preparing and serving the meal sides to everyone …well done !!

The speaker program for the evening entailed Elam Bauman acting as Emcee for the evening .

Elam welcomed everyone, thanked our generous sponsors of the WWBT event for their continued support of the producers and Ontario’s beef industry…..very much appreciated !!

Please be sure to review the Sponsor list of all our industry partners involved in the WWBT 2024….Thanks so much for your support !

Brent Cavell , Ontario Corn Fed Beef (OCFB) gave a presentation on behalf of John Baker , Director Brand Management and Business Development highlighting the export activities of OCFB.

The export market represents approximately 40% of the carcass value of each animal. Export markets establish higher values for many cuts not utilized in Canada. Provincial packers benefit from increased values through local ethnic markets. Exciting new additions to the OCFB partner chain, Lone Star Texas Grill – a 23 outlet restaurant chain partner in Ontario, New Distributor partner in Vietnam and a New Distributor partner in Saudi Arabia….lots of great progress happening.

Christoph Wand, Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA) spoke of their collaborative involvement with OCFB , to educate and have discussions with producers around the theme of “Cattle and Crops” This includes various tillage practices, crop rotational strategies, cover crops, manure management and 4Rs of Nutrient Stewardship. This concept leads to the balance between producer, industry and government goals to improve farm economics, crop productivity and fertilizer efficiency.

Brent Cavell , OCFB, spoke on the Benchmarking Study he is determined to bring to fruition for the feedlot sector of Ontario’s beef industry. Combining the financial and performance measurable attributes of managing an Ontario feedlot is essential in these turbulent times. With record feeder cattle and fed cattle market values currently, this places producers in need of developing a risk mitigation plan for their farm and family. To do this, producers need to know their operating costs and use a benchmarking template to identify the variable factors within their operation against industry or peer standards. This will demonstrate how they can manage to improve any weaker areas on their farms.

We are price takers at both the front end and the back end of the market, so the on-farm day to day operations are what producers have the ability to control….creating the need to know fundamentals to make accurate management decisions. Remember “If you don’t measure it …..you can’t manage it” !

There is a steering committee formed and we are working towards developing a template that can be used in conjunction with the beef industry and your accountant to create data that is relevant to each operation for management purposes…looking forward to bringing that to the producers !

Steve Duff, OMAFRA Chief Economist walked us through a market update, including cattle markets and grain markets with historical and projections data reviews.

He voiced his thoughts on rebuilding the herd with heifer retention, when it will start and how quickly it will happen….all topics of great concern to the producers.

A number of people in attendance are not exposed to this type of information on a regular basis, meaning Steves’ presentation always garners the crowds attention.

Overall, the Waterloo Wellington Beef Tour 2024 was a great success and we hope to see you at the 2025 Tour next summer!

Kyle Aitken

  • Family farm since 1917
  • Kyle and his wife Katie operate the family farm named K-2 Farms Ltd.
  • Alex, a cousin of Kyle’s is also actively involved in the day-to-day activities at the feedlot
  • 700 acres of crop grown in rotation, including wheat, corn and hay/haylage
  • All crops produced are utilized through the feedlot cattle
  • Bedding used is straw and corn stalks
  • Capacity for 900 head on feed plus 100 grass cattle
  • Custom feeding beef on dairy crossbred steers currently
  • Receives cattle at approx. 550-600 lbs. upon arrival and are sourced from a backgrounding program…these cattle would be considered to be a very low health risk …. resulting in excellent health and performance
  • Labour is limited, and Kyle requires in-coming cattle that have a strict health protocol history and ready to take to the feed upon arrival
  • An aggressive approach is used to bring these types of cattle up onto full feed – using a starter with chopped hay inclusion, then a midrange ration, then a finisher ration. Kyle has been successful with this approach
  • Finisher ration is very dense and the overall Dry Matter Intake is lower overall, thus performance is typical – this feeding method utilizes his home-grown feeds effectively and efficiently
  • Manure is spread spring and fall, covering the total land base every 2 years

Nelson Martin

  • Cropping approx. 125 acres
  • All forage crops are home grown, including corn silage, haylage and winter rye …planted after corn silage harvest
  • Experimenting with different cover crop varieties…. mostly oat varieties…entirely utilized as forage for cattle feed
  • Additional purchases of energy and protein feed ingredients compliment the home-grown feeds
  • Capacity of 400 head – mix of mostly native cattle and some beef on dairy cross-bred’s
  • Approximately 200 head are heavier weight cattle at 1000 lbs., the balance are 500- 550 weights
  • Custom feeds 2/3 of his cattle
  • Owns 1/3 of the herd
  • Contracts some cattle to limit risk
  • Nelson has concerns about feeder cattle values in relation to fed cattle prices going forward in 2024 and is concerned about the level of risk that presents to his operation.
  • Built the new barn and manure storage in 2020 and has added commodity bays and pit silo walls since then.
  • Nelson has a very functional cattle handling system…well designed and utilizes a minimum amount of space
  • The cattle working system incorporates an off-load ramp including a loading chute with excellent traction and design to prevent leg and foot injuries – well thought out design area for cattle
  • Access to heat and water in middle of circular cattle flow tub using a small enclosed room

Dippel Farms Inc.

  • Family farm since 1965 beginning with Orland and Freida Dipple
  • Brothers, Stephen, Glen and Vernon and families involved in the farming enterprise.
  • Mother, Freida also enjoys living on the home farm and has a great interest in the family operation
  • Extended family members are also involved in the operation, including cousin Bevin Stevenson who is actively involved
  • Cropping 2800 acres, using a rotation of corn, wheat, soybeans
  • Cover cropping after wheat harvest and then harvested as forage for starter rations
  • Feeding capacity of 2750 head of cattle – lighter weight, longer fed cattle are desired – placed on feed to utilize home grown feeds efficiently
  • Native cattle sourced from Western Canada, including some smaller numbers from local sources…steers by choice are placed on feed.
  • Beef on dairy crosses is also in the herd mix as a small percentage …. feeding mainly steers, however experimenting with 2 pens of cross bred heifers – collecting data for comparison
  • Cattle health and ration nutrition are a strong focus at Dippel Farms
  • They pay close attention to the identified risk factors that pertain to cattle performance and health
  • Stephen has definitive thoughts in relation to the ration composition and is experimenting with those thoughts and ideas to try and validate them using their data collected
  • Barns include a newer We Cover barn built in 2022. Barn features a center feed bunk alley with overshot roof line and a migrating sloped floor design of 2.4 degrees in the bedded area…. adding bedding twice per wk. and scraping the cattle feed alley using the same time intervals.
  • Also, a 20-year-old slatted floor barn with rubber matting installed on the existing slats, is used mainly for the finishing phase of the operation, purposely managing the time cattle spend on slats for better performance
  • Bedding pack barns make up the cattle housing areas on surrounding farms
  • A number of out-buildings within their operation include a shop and machinery storage as well as commodity storage. They are equipped with solar panels, providing diversity to the operation with another source of income.

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