Workshop on avian influenza and biosecurity in pastured poultry to be held 12/12/15

Nov 27, 2015

University of Minnesota Extension, the Minnesota Board of Animal Health, and USDA APHIS will hold a workshop on highly pathogenic avian influenza and biosecurity in pasture and outdoor production systems.

The workshop will be on Saturday, December 12, 2015, from 9:00 to 11:30 a.m. with registration starting at 8:30. The workshop will be at the Community Resource Bank (CRB) community room, located at 1605 Heritage Drive, Northfield, MN 55057. It is free to the public. Please register for this event by December 10 by contacting Wayne Martin, at marti067@umn.edu, or 612-625-6224.

Speakers will address the following topics:

The development and progression of the recent outbreak in Minnesota.
The Board of Animal Health and APHIS roles and responsibilities during an outbreak.
What producers need to know during an outbreak regarding testing and movement of poultry.
Biosecurity in pasture or outdoor settings.

"It is essential for all farmers, whether using a pasture or confinement system, to make their farm as bio-secure as possible,” said Carol Cardona, University of Minnesota veterinarian and Extension specialist. “This workshop will help farmers understand more about what occurred last spring and help them prepare for an outbreak in the future.”

Source: University of Minnesota

Video: Making budget friendly pig feed on a small livestock farm

I am going to show you how we save our farm money by making our own pig feed. It's the same process as making our cattle feed just with a slight adjustment to our grinder/ mixer that makes all the difference. We buy all the feed stuff required to make the total mix feed. Run each through the mixer and at the end of the process we have a product that can be consumed by our pigs.

I am the 2nd generation to live on this property after my parents purchased it in 1978. As a child my father hobby farmed pigs for a couple years and ran a vegetable garden. But we were not a farm by any stretch of the imagination. There were however many family dairy farms surrounding us. So naturally I was hooked with farming since I saw my first tractor. As time went on, I worked for a couple of these farms and that only fueled my love of agriculture. In 2019 I was able to move back home as my parents were ready to downsize and I was ready to try my hand at farming. Stacy and logan share the same love of farming as I do. Stacy growing up on her family's dairy farm and logans exposure of farming/tractors at a very young age. We all share this same passion to grow a quality/healthy product to share with our community. Join us on this journey and see where the farm life takes us.