08/29/06 Hi-Tech Feedlot

Hi-tech feedlot. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. The Panhandle Research and Extension Center beef technicians are excited about the anticipated start of beef research in the newly expanded feedlot complex. Dr. Chuck Hibberd - Executive Director of the University of Nebraska Center - says the cattle could be in the pens in as little as three weeks. HIBBERD: We're very excited. The pens are basically finished and now the water system is in and so we anticipate having cattle on feed; research cattle on feed in the next three to four weeks. Dr. Hibberd says there are a few things that still must be done before the cattle arrive. HIBBERD: What we need to do is to work with the first individual who's going to do research with us and get the research protocols finished and get the cattle lined up, get the cattle in and get them allocated to treatment and we'll be ready to do research. So really it's not the feedlot that's the holdup, at this point we just need to finish getting the research ready to go and get the cattle in. The feedlot facility is a state of the art feedlot. In fact - it's expected to be one of the top five research feedlots in the U.S. Dr. Hibberd explains just how big this feedlot is - and what type of research will be conducted there. HIBBERD: The new facility is 60 research pens plus a sick pen. Each of these pens are exactly the same; 24 feet wide by 180 feet long. And this is going to allow us to do extremely precise feedlot work that the industry is really looking for right now. So much of what we're interested in, the differences are very small but yet very important to profitability and so we need to have this kind of precision. The other part that we are really excited about is that our water system actually delivers water to each individual pen so as we do research up there we'll be able to monitor intake by each pen of cattle so we can see if the different treatments affect the amount of water the animals consume and we'll also be able to infuse different compounds into the water supply. That's a new strategy that a lot of the companies are looking at. That's Dr. Chuck Hibberd - executive director of the University of Nebraska Panhandle Research and Extension Center. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.