TX Cattle Raisers School Offers Basic and Advanced Classes

Classes for the 1999 Texas & Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association School for Successful Ranching offer something for producers with all levels of experience, according to C. Coney Burgess, president of TSCRA. The school will be held March 27-28 in Fort Worth, Texas, just prior to TSCRA's annual convention.

Saturday's schedule will focus on demonstrations using live animals, equipment and plant materials. Topics include range and pasture management, beef cattle health and horse safety and theft prevention. Continuing education units will be offered for recertification of pesticide applicator licenses. On Sunday, advanced classes will be offered in nutrition and risk management.

Drs. Allan McGinty and Darrell Ueckert from the San Angelo Research and Extension Center, will give a live Brush Busters demonstration using ATVs and sprayer equipment. "To ignore brush on rangeland or improved pasture until it is dense and mature is a common error among landowners," says McGinty. "Our Brush Busters program provides user-friendly, do-it-yourself technology that is highly selective and effective, environmentally friendly and usually much less expensive than conventional methods. Brush Buster methods are easily understood, even by those with little or no previous experience in brush control."

Dr. Barron Rector of Texas A&M University says there are about 150 species of plants that are important to a livestock manager's decision making ability. Rector plans to bring plants representing 10 different ecological areas of Texas to help producers identify which plants are poisonous and which show improvement or deterioration of the health of your land.

Other demonstrations will include how to deliver a live calf when problems occur, such as backwards delivery or feet and legs turned back, how to visually assess the body condition of cows and how that relates to performance and reproduction, and how to avoid causing tenderness and injection site problems through proper animal health practices.

A special horse session with trainer Craig Cameron will help producers prevent safety problems and start a young horse on cattle. This will be a joint session with participants from the Tarrant County Horse-O-Rama. Butch Davis, TSCRA Field Inspector, will address horse identification and theft prevention. Horse owners can have their horses branded on-site if they have registered a brand with their country clerk.

The school is funded through Pfizer Animal Health's Cattlemen's College Program and an educational grant from Dow AgriSciences. Registration is $50 per person. For more information, contact Sharla Ishmael or Kathy Wood at (800) 242-7820 or (817) 332-7155.