Dairy and Beef Lesson

Transcription

1 Grundy County Farm Bureau Agriculture in the Classroom Dairy and Beef Lesson For more information contact: Grundy County Farm Bureau Ann Collet, Ag Literacy Coordinator 4000 N. Division, Morris, IL grundycfb.com 1

2 Cattle Words to Know Beef Cattle: Cattle raised to produce meat. Common breeds include: Black Angus, Hereford, Shorthorn, Charolais, Limosin, Main Anjou, and Red Angus. Breeds: Animals with similar characteristics make up a particular breed. There are six common breeds of dairy cows in the United States. They are Ayrshire, Brown Swiss, Guernsey, Holstein, Jersey and Milking Shorthorn. By-products: Something produced in addition to the main product. For example, meat is the main product from the beef animal and a football is a by-product from the beef animal s hide. Colostrum: The first milk produced by the mother animal. Colostrum is very high in protein and protects the young animals from some illnesses. Consumer: A user of goods and services. You are a consumer. Dairy: Milk and milk products. In the United States, cows on dairy farms produce most of the milk. Homogenize: Breaking up the milk fat into tiny particles so they are evenly blended throughout the milk. Homogenized milk will not separate in the container. Livestock: Animals that are kept and raised on farms to produce food and other things people use. Meat: The main product made from an animal. The meat from a beef animal provides the following nutrients: protein, riboflavin, niacin, vitamin B12, iron and zinc. Milk: The fluid food product produced by dairy cows, which has been pasteurized and homogenized. Milk can be sold as: Whole Milk, with about 4% milk fat, Reduced Fat Milk, which contains about 2% milk fat, Lite Milk, which is around 1% milk fat, and Fat Free Milk (Skim Milk) which has had all the milk fat removed. Packing Plant: A business that converts live animals into food products. Pasteurization: The rapid heating and cooling of raw milk to kill germs and help preserve its freshness. Named after Dr. Louis Pasteur, who, in 1856, discovered that high temperatures will kill germs and help preserve food. Population Centers: Areas of the country where many people live; large cities. Ration: An animal s diet. Cattle can eat a mixture of roughage (pasture, hay, grass and silage), grain (corn, barley, sorghum, and oats), and supplements (salt, vitamins and minerals). Well fed cattle can eat up to90 pounds of feed and drink up to 25 to 50 gallons of water each day. Retailer: A person who sells goods or services to a consumer. Ruminant: A cud chewing animal whose stomach has four compartments. They can use grasses and grains, things people can t eat, to make milk. Silage: Chopped cornstalks, grass, hay and/or other feed products. Silage is cut and store while the plants are still green. Veterinarian: An animal doctor. Wean: To separate an animals that is still nursing from its mother because it is old enough to eat feed. 2

3 Livestock and Their Young Bulls Female cattle which have not yet calved. Cows Heifers Cattle that are between 12 and 18 months old and weigh between 800 and 1000 pounds. Male cattle used for breeding purposes. Steers A young offspring of cattle. Calf The length of gestation for cattle. Herd Feeder Cattle Cattle that are between 6 and 12 months old or be tween 500 and 800 pounds. Female cattle used for breeding purposes. Finishing Cattle A group of cattle, collectively. 9 months Male cattle that have been castrated and are raised for meat purposes. Connect each term on the left to its definition on the right by drawing a line between the two terms. 3

4 Cattle are Ruminants Cattle perform a very important job in our food production industry. Cows change grass and grains, which people can t eat, into milk a nearly perfect food and beef. What a cow eats affects how much milk it makes. A dairy cow that eats about 90 pounds of grass, corn, hay and mixed feed and drinks gallons of water every day can give 100 glasses of milk per day. If a cow only eats grass feed, its milk production will only average 50 glasses a day. Similarly, a beef cow in a pasture with a calf eats about 28.5 pounds of roughage a day, while a steer in a feed lot gets a mixed ration of roughage, grain and supplements that can vary from 8 to 24 pounds per day. Beef cattle typically drink between 10 and 15 gallons of water a day. This produces a rate of gain or 1 to 4 pounds a day for a beef animal being raised for market. Cattle are ruminants. A ruminant is a cud-chewing animal with a four-compartment stomach. The first section is the rumen and it holds 50 gallons. Here, the food is mixed with fluids from the stomach. As the stomach contracts and expands, the food is regurgitated back into the mouth. There, it becomes the cud, which is chewed and then swallowed again. Once the cud is swallowed, it goes to the second division called the reticulum. Here, it is digested further, When food leaves the reticulum, it goes to the omasum where it is digested even more. From the omasum, food is passed into the abomasum, and then into the intestines. Cattle do not have upper front teeth, but instead wrap their tongues around their food to pull it into their mouths. They do have molars to grind their food on the top and bottom, however. Trace the path a ruminant s food takes: Green: mouth to rumen Blue: rumen to mouth; cud Yellow: mouth to reticulum Red: reticulum to omasum Orange: omasum to abomasum Purple: abomasum to small intestine 4

5 History of Cattle in America The history of cattle in America isn t clear. While we don t always know the specifics, as cattle were known by physical characteristics instead of breeds, we do have some general idea of that history. Longhorn cattle were brought to the American Southwest and Mexico by _Christopher Columbus in the early 1500 s. Throughout the next century, longhorns and horses continued to be imported by Spanish explorers and settlers. The early settlers on the East coast also brought cattle to America, but brought dairy cattle, like the black Kerry Cattle from Ireland. Throughout the next century, beef cattle_and dairy cattle both were imported into the US as the new country grew. The vast rangeland of the West encouraged large herds of beef cattle. The new transportation method, railroads encouraged the market for beef in the East and cattle drives were the main way to get cattle to the railroads. This in turn encouraged the building of more railroads in the Midwest. While cattle drives and large beef herds dominated the West, the dual breeds and dairy cows were more popular with settlers across the Midwest. Before refrigeration, dairy products were a very local product, with many families owning their own milk cows. Iceboxes and then refrigeration were invented and became more common in cities. This allowed railroads to transport beef instead of live animals. Fewer people owned their own milk cows when they could store milk from a local dairy farm in an icebox in their kitchen. Dairy products are still very local, but frozen beef can be shipped long distances. The buy local movement has encouraged more production and sales of beef and other farm commodities at a local level. Word List Beef Beef Cattle Cattle Drives Christopher Columbus Dairy Dairy Cattle Dairy Cows Horses Iceboxes Ireland Milk Railroad Refrigeration West 5

6 Breeds of Cattle found in America and Their Origin Cattle aren t native to North America. They have all come from somewhere in Western Europe. Locate the country each breed was developed in and write the year they first were recorded in American on that country. 7 Beef and 7 Dairy breeds are listed below the map , 1850s s Angus Scotland 1878 Hereford W. England 1817 Charolais France 1934 Limousin France 1969 Maine-Anjou France 1969 Longhorn Spain/Mexico/Carribean 1500s Shorthorn NE England 1780s 6 Holstein Netherlands 1852 Gurnsey Isle of Gurnsey, Channel Islands 1840 Jersey Isle of Jersey, Channel Islands 1850s Brown Swiss Switzerland, 1869 Ayrshire Scotland, 1822 Milking Shorthorn NE England 1783 Kerry Cattle Ireland 1624

7 Beef and Dairy in Illinois Using the Illinois Commodity Map in your classroom, find and list the Illinois counties that have beef or dairy as one of their top three commodities. Jo Daviess Winnebago Carroll Ogle DeKalb Whiteside Kendall LaSalle Grundy Henry Stark Peoria Iroquois Fulton Adams Cass Champaign Vermillion Morgan Douglas Jersey Macoupin Cumberland Effingham Williamson Johnson Pope Hardin Jo Davis Stephenson Winnebago Carroll (Moultrie) McHenry McLean Cumberland Effingham Clinton Washington 7

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9 Top Dairy Cow Facts Courtesy of the: 1. Did you know only females should be called cows? Males are called bulls. A cow begins giving milk once she delivers her first calf at about two years of age. 2. In the U.S., there are seven different dairy cow breeds, including Holstein, Jersey, Brown Swiss, Gurnsey, Ayrshire, Milking Shorthorn and Red and White Holstein. 3. A cow s weight can vary between 1,000 to 1,800 pounds depending on the breed. The average dairy cow weighs between 1,300 and 1,500 pounds. 4. A dairy cow will eat about 100 pounds of nutritious feed and drink about between 30 and 50 gallons of water each day. 5. A cow s diet consists of feed that is a special recipe and usually includes a combination of hay, grain, silage and proteins (such as soybean meal), plus vitamins and minerals that is specifically formulated just for them. 6. Dairy cows get regular visits from veterinarians and nutritionists. 7. Cows are milked 2 to 3 times a day. 8. A single dairy cow will produce 6 to 8 gallons of milk per day. That is about 90 glasses of milk a day! An average dairy cow will give 13,000 pounds of milk per year. The first milk a cow produces after a calf is born is called colostrum. It usually takes about 20 minutes to milk a cow. A Holstein s spots are like a fingerprint or snowflake; no two cows have exactly the same pattern of spots. Dairies began using glass bottles in 1884, and in 1906 the first paper milk carton was used. Plastic jugs were first used in Milk is sold in bags in some places. There are over 200 domestic cheeses produced in the United States. Cattle produce over 90% of the milk produced in the world. The rest is produced by goats, sheep, camels, water buffalo and reindeer to help supply the dairy needs of people throughout the world. In 1944, there were 25.6 million cows in the United States, while today there are only 9.3 million cows in the U.S. that produce 59% more milk than in Cows have increased in production so significantly it has allowed there to be a reduction of animals to support the milk needs of the U.S. Cows have also gotten better at converting feed to milk. They need less feed to produce milk. This has allowed the dairy industry to reduce its environmental footprint. According to Dairy Cares, the dairy industry has reduced its carbon footprint by 63% in 65 years. 9

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11 Fun Facts about Beef It takes around 21/2 years to grow a hamburger from birth to market. Beef cattle are raised on more than 1/2 million farms and ranches around the United States. Beef cattle can be found on about 23 percent of Illinois farms. Hilly areas in northwestern and southern Illinois that are not suitable for growing crops provide excellent pasture for animals. Beef is the leading protein in the United States. The average per capita consumption is around 66 pounds. There are more than one billion cattle in the world. The United States has less than 10 percent of the world's cattle inventory, but produces nearly one-fourth of the world's beef supply. Cattle weighing 1,000 pounds will produce about 1,600 hamburgers. More than 40 percent of beef sold in the United States is ground beef. The most tender cut of beef is beef tenderloin (think Filet Mignon). Legend has it that the first hamburger was served at a small café in Athens, Texas, during the 1880's. Nearly nine out of 10 U.S. households will eat beef at home in the next two weeks - that's 251 million people. In Illinois, it is common for the same farmer to raise a beef animal from birth to market. Other methods of raising beef include cow-calf, feeder cattle, and finishing cattle farms. Beef breeds aren t the only sources of beef. Dairy steers, or castrated males, are often raised for beef. 11

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13 From a typical 1200 pound steer, 500 pounds is beef. About 50 percent of the beef produced in the U.S. is purchased to eat at home. Steaks, roasts and hamburgers are favorites in American homes. Beef is fed and bred to produce lean or low-fat meat. cattlemen have improved breeding and feeding practices to result in leaner animals than ever before. Nutrition experts now agree that the notion of beef being high in fat and calories is no longer true because of modern animal husbandry and feedlot management. Even retailers have responded to consumer demands by trimming the external fat on beef cuts by 27 percent! Beef has ZIP --- Zinc, iron and protein! These are good reasons to include beef in a low-fat diet. Beef is a nutrient-dense food with a calorie content similar to chicken. The helps build muscle, skin, toenails and fingernails. 13

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15 The Math of Meat Mmmm! Wouldn t a juicy steak taste good? But you can t just drive over to the nearest farm and pick one up! A steer goes through a lot of stages between the time it leaves the farm and the time steaks appear in your meat market. The price of each pound of meat in your local store is very different from the price that the farmer received for each pound of the steer. This price difference is called the farm-retail price spread. 1.Your steak starts out as part of a beef steer. When the farmer or rancher sells the steer, the average price is $.70 per pound. How much money does the producer receive for an average 1,000 pound steer? $.70 x 1,000 = $ Next, the steer goes to the packing plant. Once the hooves, hide and other nonmeat parts are removed, the remaining carcass weighs about 600 pounds, How many pounds of the steer were removed to form the carcass? 1, = The packer s services increase the price of the carcass. If the value of the carcass is now $1.25 per pound, how much is the whole carcass worth? $1.25 x 600 = $ By the time the carcass is cut up, some bones removed, and packaged to sell in the store, there are only about 400 pounds of meat left. If the wholesale price of the meat is $1.75 per pound, what is the total value at this stage? _$1.75 x 400 = $ Costs are added for processing, transportation, packaging materials, etc. If the value of that meat averages $2.25 per pound, what is the total retail value of the meat when it reaches your grocery store? $2.25 x 400 = $