Past Events

2017 Wet Season Workshop – Rangers Valley

On 22-23 March we held our 2nd Feedlot Workshop at Glen Innes, NSW on Wet Season management. Despite the location being a bit further away than last years, we had a great turn out. Thank you to all those that made the journey down and we hope you all gained some valuable insight to feedlot management. Thank you also to our sponsors Bell Vet & Zimpro. We were lucky enough to have international guests from the PAC group being Dr Kip Lukasiewicz, Nebraska USA and Ted Howard.

Day 1 was a Horsemanship clinic with the morning session consisting of an insightful stockmanship demonstration from Ted Howard demonstrating how to best approach training with a variety of different horses. In the afternoon, Ted took a small group on horseback into pens to work hands on with the cattle. In conjunction with this, Dr Lachy Strohfeldt ran a hands-on horse dentistry workshop demonstrating different problems that can arise in a horses mouth and how to best manage them. Dr Kip Lukasiewicz also ran a cattle handling demonstration in the inductions sheds where participants were able to work one on one with Kip in the bud box moving cattle into the race.

In the evening attendees gathered for pre-dinner drinks and canapes followed by a steak dinner with locally sourced grain-fed beef and wine provided by Ballendene wines.

On Day 2, participants rotated through four workshops. Session 1 was a hands-on hoof management presentation with Dean Fry from Zinpro showcasing hoof ailments on cadaver feet and live animals using the trimming table. Session 2 was a pen maintenance presentation with Rod Davis from Ostwald Bros who demonstrated different types of materials for pen floors and how to best manage pens in wet weather including pre-season management and fixing broken pen surfaces. Session 3 was held by Michelle Dever from Coopers Animal Health and provided participants with insight into parasites and best control measures. The final session saw Dr Kip once again work with attendees in the induction shed demonstrating best cattle handling techniques whilst Dr Kev Sullivan worked with a group in the holding yards demonstrating the best methods for calmly moving cattle out of pens and through laneways.

2016 Feedlot Cattle Lameness Workshop – Brisbane Valley

The Feedlot Cattle Lameness Workshop was held on the 6th and 7th of April. The workshop, held over two days, was hugely successful with participants having the opportunity to listen to industry leaders on a variety of lameness issues and how to best manage them. Day one saw participants engage in classroom presentations from Dr Connie Larson, Zinpro, Dr Shane Terrell, Dr Kev Sullivan and Dr Tom Noffsinger, PAC, on topics including locomotion, anatomy, cattle handling and nutrition and their relationship with lameness. Day two was held at Brisbane Valley Feedlot and enabled participants to use knowledge gained from the classroom session into practice with interactive workshops. We would like to thank everyone who attended and we hope these sessions helped attendees gain further knowledge into how to best manage and diagnose lameness in their yard. A big thank you to Brisbane Valley Feedlot for being so accommodating in allowing us to use the yard for the event and to Bell Vet Services and Zinpro for helping make this event possible.

2016 Beefex – Gold Coast

The 2016 BeefEx Conference was held on October 11-13 at the Royal Pines Resort, Gold Coast. Tuesday saw a group of delegates take to the high seas on a deep sea fishing adventure. Despite the rough weather and a couple of seasick passengers everyone had a good day with whales putting on a great show. Thank you to Marty Rowlands from Phibro Animal Health for organising such a great adventure. Official proceedings commenced in the evening with Welcome Drinks held at the resort. This was followed by the NSA Client dinner held at Omeros Seafood Restaurant.
For those not so weary heads, BootCamp kicked off Day 1 of the conference with delegates then hearing from speakers on a range of topics including the Politics of Food– consumer perceptions and the discussion of meat production in the wider community. This was followed by grain fed beef industries in North and South America, South East Asia, and South Africa. The afternoon session discussed the direction in which the beef industry is going and the importance of positively portraying the industry in the media and the global beef game. Wednesday night saw delegates attend the Elanco Gala dinner.
Thursday kicked off with BootCamp followed by Breakfast with the Stars. Session one included a presentation on cutting edge BRD diagnosis and detection, an international speaker panel discussion and a talk on global research into the banning of some production tools in Australia. Session two included the industries latest findings and a review on Beta Agonists and Session three gave us a look at both the unique Toothfish fishing industry and dairy farming. During the final session of the conference, delegates heard from Sydney to Hobart Yachtsmen Peter Davidson and his amazing rescue story. The conference closed with the GrainCorp Fairwell Dinner.
We hope everyone who attended BeefEx had a great time and found it a worthwhile event.