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Virginia Cow-Calf Management Course to Start in October
Livestock Update, August 1998
John B. Hall, Animal and Poultry Sciences, Virginia Tech
Virginia Cooperative Extension and the Virginia Cattlemen's Association will be holding the new Virginia Cow-Calf Management Schools this fall. The schools are aimed at improving the skills and profitability of beginning to mid-level beef producers. Producers expressed an interest in more in-depth information than can be provided by the typical evening cattle meetings, so the course was developed.
Producers will receive home-based learning and 5 hands-on workshops. Participants will receive sections of the new Virginia Cow-Calf Management Guide each month to read at home. Then they will come together on one Saturday in each of the following months: October, November, January, February, and March for hands-on workshops lasting 4 to 6 hours.
Subjects taught include nutrition, reproduction, genetics and breed, herd health, and others. Participants will get to learn a wide variety of skills from baby calf processing and caving assistance to breeding stock selection to body condition scoring and more. The cost of the course will be $60 to cover meal and supply expenses. Most of the cost of the course is covered by a grant from the EPA-USDA Ruminant Livestock Efficiency Program.
This year's schools will be taught in Lynchburg, Marshall, Culpeper, and Blackstone. For more information / registration contact Dr. John B. Hall, Extension Beef Cattle Specialist, at (540) 544-7258 (jbhall@vt.edu) or visit the Virginia Cow-Calf Management Course website at http://www.apsc.vt.edu/faculty/hall/cow_calf/cow_calf.html.