However, the way she chooses to approach them is.

WHY IT MATTERS: Bounties and predator hunting programs don’t meaningfully reduce livestock depredations. Research and working ranchers alike point to non-lethal tools, including livestock guardian dogs, as more durable solutions.

Liebenberg’s operation, known as Grazerie Ranch, is predator friendly. However, with both cattle and sheep grazing near the bush or in it, the risk of predator attacks is high.

That is why Liebenberg uses livestock guardian dogs, or LGDs.

“We used to use livestock guardian dogs in Europe, and then when we moved over to Canada, we brought our dogs with us … and we’ve used them really successfully here on our operation for both the sheep and the cattle,” Liebenberg says.

Why rancher won’t trap or shoot predators

Liebenberg was born and raised in South Africa, but left to ranch and work as a shepherd across Europe and the U.K. Eventually, though, she decided to move to Canada, mostly because of the large land mass and sparse population.

Now, Liebenberg’s ranch is in the northern, remote area of High Prairie. She has both a purebred herd and a commercial herd of Black and Red Angus cattle. She also has a small flock of about 150 ewes.

Liebenberg owns and rents a total of 2,500 acres of pasture and hayland. Of her land, only about half is open, and the rest is bush.

Liebenberg is no stranger to dogs — she spent much of her youth and young adult years raising and training border collies, which she still does, and border collies are crucial to how her operation works.

So are livestock guardian dogs.

“I’m not saying it’s 100 per cent; we have lost to coyotes, and nothing is 100 per cent when you are dealing with livestock, but it certainly is manageable.”

Her dogs are pivotal to her predator management because she does not trap or shoot predators on her operation.

This is because Liebenberg recognizes the importance of predators in the local ecosystem.

“To me, it feels like I have to find a way to be able to run our operation with the least risk possible and to allow predators to also be part of the landscape,” she says. “And that is sort of the thought process that I have, and that’s what I needed to strive for.”

Scientific evidence shows that, in the long term, bounties put on predators are mostly ineffective. They will reduce the population for the season, but canids like wolves or coyotes are capable of reproducing and re-establishing their populations very quickly. Wolf bounties in Alberta are common from municipality to municipality, but the population remains stable.

Predators are also crucial to the food chain, and in places where wolf populations are significantly diminished, pests like deer run rampant.

“Research all over the world has shown that bounties and predator hunting programs absolutely do not impact livestock depredations, so we have to find different ways that do work,” Liebenberg says.

Building the ranch around the dogs

On her operation, Liebenberg organizes her management decisions around her livestock guardian dogs.

For example, her animals are most at risk during calving, when the smell of the afterbirth lures predators, and the cows are weakened. During times like that, livestock guardian dogs are essential.

“Our dogs are very active during calving time,” she says. “They’re out in the fields with the calving cows, patrolling.”

Some of Liebenberg’s grazing leases are much farther away from the rest of the ranch and are accessible to the public, so she doesn’t put her dogs there. So, when moving livestock around, the animals that are less susceptible to predators or can fight back on their own are put on those pieces of land.

“We have a group of cows that calve in January and the group that calve in April/May. We make sure our cows that have the oldest calves, the four- or five-month-old calves, go to a higher-risk pasture, because those calves are bigger, can run faster and are more able to look after themselves.”

Guarding is a combination of instinct for the dogs and training. Livestock guardian dog breeds have a tendency to roam or chase predators past the borders of the ranch, so Liebenberg says they must be trained to respect fences.

Another important thing is teaching them as puppies to respect the livestock they coexist with, which will help reduce the amount of stress the animals feel around the dog.

“With the dogs, it’s just managing them, that they’re not going in and bothering a cow that’s calving,” Liebenberg says. “So we do spend a bit of time making sure that the dogs respect the space of the cows and the calving. It’s a lot of supervision and less training, and correction when a dog makes a mistake.”

Liebenberg noted this isn’t always possible — especially if your cattle have had to fight off predators in the past.

“It also takes a while for new cattle or cattle that have never been raised around livestock guardian dogs to accept the presence of a guardian dog, especially if they’ve been predated on before…. Some cows that have been fighting off wolves struggle to accept a guardian dog in their vicinity. They just see it as a predator regardless,” she says.

Aside from warding off predators, another benefit of having a livestock guardian dog is that they can help defend bales or other types of feed from animals like elk or deer.

Choosing the right dog and introducing to the herd

For producers who might be interested in implementing livestock guardian dogs on their operations, Liebenberg recommends getting a dog from a reputable breeder.

“Getting one off a Kijiji ad — it might work out, but it’s not the best long-term strategy. It’s always better that you can phone the person you got your dog from and just be like, ‘Hey, my puppy is doing this and this, is that alright? Do I need some guidance here?’”

She says sometimes people get any type of big dog and expect them to scare off predators, but choosing a breed that is bred specifically to guard livestock is important.

These breeds include the maremma sheepdog, the Great Pyrenees, the Anatolian shepherd, the kangal, Liebenberg’s preferred breed, the sarplaninac, and many more.

When picking a breed, Liebenberg says it is less about what the dogs can do and often more about personal preference and situation.

For example, some people might prefer a dog with shorter hair or a more athletic build. Similarly, if there are young children or it is the owner’s first livestock guardian dog, they might gravitate towards a milder breed.

“All breeds can do the job, that’s what they were all bred for. So it’s not that one breed will be less good at protecting your livestock. It’s more just the nature of the breed,” Liebenberg says.

After purchasing an LGD, she recommends getting the herd used to the dog by starting with newly weaned replacement heifers. In the dog’s first year and a half of life, it won’t be protective, but this is a good time to get the dog and the cattle used to each other.

“Your first year is more just that bonding, getting them to understand that the job is to stay with the cattle, and the cattle to accept that the dog is just around. That’s part and parcel of their lives.”

Then, as the dog gets older, it can be integrated into the main cattle herd.

Liebenberg says at around a year and a half to two years old, the dog will start guarding and patrolling more, leaning into its natural instinct.

A common mistake Liebenberg sees is people getting two puppies at the same time, which inhibits how the dogs bond with the herd they are meant to protect.

“It can work great, but often those two pups become super friendly with each other, and they don’t really bond to the cattle because they have their own buddy, and you kind of need them to understand that the cows are their friends, the cows are their companions.”

She advises getting a second dog when the first is more mature.

A long-term investment, not quick fix

Livestock guardian dogs can be a good way to reduce predator conflict on an operation — but it is not an easy, short-term solution.

Long-term, it can be light on labour, but it takes time to get the dogs to that level.

However, Liebenberg says, in her opinion, it is worth it.

“This is more like you instituting a long-term program. Hopefully, the dog will be 10, 12 years old. It’s going to last you a long time. It’s like an integrated system. It’s not the instant solution.”

Before implementing this practice on your farm, Liebenberg recommends speaking with someone knowledgeable and staying open-minded and willing to learn.

To her, though, the history of these breeds is an endorsement in itself.

“I think it is a good solution, and it has been a good solution all over Europe for hundreds of years. I think it’s not something to dismiss but just go in with your eyes open, and if it saves you one calf, then it’s a good investment.

– This article was originally published in the April 2026 issue of Canadian Cattlemen.

Launched in Canada two years ago, the Texas company’s smart bolus system tracks welfare, productivity and traceability data and has been adopted by 55 Canadian dairies, with Ontario leading the way.

WHY IT MATTERS: The app tracks inventory, manages health and treatment protocols, monitors calf weight and growth, auto-calculates dosages, and sets withholding parameters.

“This is a huge thing for us,” said Kathy Merminod, STgenetics Canadian call centre manager, during the Ottawa Valley Farm Show from March 10-12. “With ST, when we introduce something, we don’t stop there. We are constantly working to improve.”

Merminod said the app regularly updates with new features based on customer feedback and experiences to ensure subscribers receive the highest level of welfare, productivity and traceability protocols possible.

The US$90, easily administered smart bolus can be used by animals as young as 10 days to two-weeks-old, depending on size, and comes with a three-year warranty and a five-year lifespan. Merminod said it has remained effective in early-testing cows for longer, but ST is erring on the side of caution.

Once the bolus, which carries a magnet, microchip and battery, is activated by the animal’s temperature, it doesn’t require any further hardware to collect data.

Once activated, the bolus gathers and stores up to four hours of data, transmitting it every 15 minutes when the animal is within 200 feet of a collector. Multiple collectors work in tandem and must be connected to the internet to receive information from the boluses and send it to a gateway device, which in turn updates the cloud, the subscription-free app, and the website.

READ MORE: Bolus-based sensor companies aim to make dairy cow monitoring smarter

Collectors and gateways cost approximately US$500 each.

Brooklyn Lloyd’s family’s dairy, Sprucetone Farms, milks approximately 60 cows and requires two collectors and one gateway, but the configuration depends on an operation’s herd numbers and barn configurations, or those travelling with a show string who want uninterrupted monitoring.

“One of the advantages for those people who do sell (dairy cattle), you can pull up the entire history of that animal,” added Merminod. “All of the treatments, medications, everything that has gone on through the life of that animal. It’s a nice marketing feature for those people who manage and sell really good animals.”

Lloyd, an early FarmFit adopter, used STgenetics’ UltraPlus gender-sorted semen, but without a heat-detection system, critical breeding windows were missed, especially for heifers.

“When we started putting boluses in the heifers, we noticed our breeding rates going up because we’re catching those heifers in heat faster,” she said. “It’s a whole management system. Not just tracking heat alerts, health and rumination, but you can track and put in all your calving dates, breeding dates and your entire semen inventory.”

System provides in-calf alerts

Two years later, approximately 70 per cent of the herd has a bolus, excluding calves; however, all the animals’ health and welfare protocols are tracked on the free app’s system.

“What sets this system apart from others is that you can put it in a calf, and it stays in their entire lifespan,” explained Lloyd, who is now a FarmFit technical specialist.

READ MORE: Bringing dairy data together in new ways

Having treatment protocols, calving weights and gains, withdrawal timelines or alerts, allows employees and veterinarians to access and update real-time information within a few clicks.

“That’s especially important for things like proAction,” the national dairy quality assurance program, Lloyd said. “They (veterinarians) want to see everything you’ve used that year, medicine-wise and treatments.”

Operators can provide employees and veterinarians with individual logins for real-time updates on treatment and management protocols for each animal. It also helps identify who, what care was provided to which animal.

“It gives you the opportunity to monitor the herd from afar, even when you’re relying on outside help,” Merminod explained. “For example, if you have somebody who’s dedicated to calves. You can have all the calf alerts go to them.”

She added that the alert remains active until the responder logs the action taken.

When used to track calf weight gains, the app calculates medicinal dosages to prevent overdosing or underdosing and mitigates antimicrobial resistance. Merminod said that temperature alerts allow early detection and treatment before symptoms appear — especially for respiratory illness, which can affect a cow’s lifetime performance and production.

“If we can catch those early and eliminate them, it’s a win-win,” she said.

– This article was originally published in the April 7, 2026 issue of Farmtario.

As participation in on-farm research grows across the Prairies, researchers are working to strengthen how strip-trial results are analyzed so farmers can make more confident decisions.

A panel last January at Ag Days in Brandon offered a snapshot of where on-farm research stands today.

Farmers involved in Manitoba Pulse and Soybean Growers’ On-Farm Network shared their experiences and why they continue to participate.

Simon Hodson, who runs Rosebank Farms in Lenore, Man., said the value isn’t necessarily a breakthrough yield response — it’s confidence.

“It’s not an emotional choice, it’s a data-backed decision,” he said.

A null result can still be useful

Andrew Doerksen of Beaver Creek Farms at McGregor, Man., and Jayden Buchanan, who farms near Crystal City, Man., echoed that sentiment.

Several panelists pointed to “no statistical difference” results as some of the most useful outcomes. While that finding can feel anticlimactic, it often confirms that an added input or higher rate isn’t delivering enough return to justify the cost.

Soybean planting rates were one example.

Trials showed similar final plant stands across a range of starting populations, giving growers confidence to reduce seeding rates and save on seed costs.

Inoculant trials also showed little consistent yield benefit in many cases. With tight margins and rising input prices, those null results translated directly into savings.

READ MORE: On-farm research translates crop breakthroughs into ‘farmer speak’

Chris Forsythe, on-farm network agronomist with Manitoba Pulse and Soybean Growers, said most trials do not produce dramatic yield differences.

“Maybe 10 to 20 per cent of the time there is a difference, but 80 per cent of the time there isn’t,” he noted. Used carefully, that information helps growers avoid unnecessary inputs, extra passes or equipment purchases.

In one Manitoba Pulse and Soybean Growers trial on Doerksen’s farm, residual nitrogen spikes proved less consequential than expected, suggesting soybeans may tolerate more fluctuation than previously assumed.

Other trials have revealed subtler insights. In a wheat PGR trial on Hodson’s farm, yield did not change, but plant height did.

“If we weren’t working with the agronomists, we wouldn’t have been able to gain that information, and we might not have realized the value in that product,” said Hodson.

Strengthening trial design

Across the panel, the common thread was not chasing yield gains but narrowing uncertainty. Replication across multiple farms and public reporting strengthened certainty that findings were not local anomalies.

However, realism comes with a tradeoff.

WATCH: AgGronomyTV: Evaluating on-farm research

Field-scale trials capture the variability farmers live with, yet that same variability can make results harder to interpret. Long strip trials, differences in soil zones and yield monitor lag — the delay between crop entering the header and yield being recorded — can all mask real treatment responses.

A project funded by the Western Grains Research Foundation, SaskOilseeds, Saskatchewan Pulse Growers and SaskWheat and led by University of Saskatchewan professor Steve Shirtliffe, is focused on improving how on-farm trials are designed and analyzed.

Research officer Racquelle Peters, who manages the project, said on-farm research fills a gap that small-plot trials cannot. While small-plot research provides generalized recommendations under controlled conditions, field-scale strip trials reflect commercial realities.

“It feels more real to them, and there’s a good reason for that,” said Peters.

READ MORE: A whole new approach to on-farm research

“When you have that small plot research, which is also very valuable, they’re able to provide generalized recommendations, whereas, with the on-farm trials, you get specific recommendations, and that is very meaningful to farmers.”

Most on-farm trials follow a structured strip-trial layout designed to compare treatments fairly across a field. Improving how that framework performs under real field conditions is a central goal of Shirtliffe’s research team.

“What we’re doing is that we’re looking at ways to optimize that, using data that already exists,” said Peters.

Part of that effort involves re-evaluating older trial data with updated analytical tools, testing whether different approaches can strengthen the conclusions drawn from farmer-run trials.

Working at field scale means working with the variability farmers manage every season. That realism can make subtle treatment effects harder to detect.

The project is exploring approaches intended to improve sensitivity without sacrificing the practical advantages of on-farm trials.

Improving field-scale sensitivity

One method, the modulated on-farm response surface experiment, replaces single-rate strips with smooth ramps of application rates within a single pass. That allows researchers to analyze responses as a curve rather than a simple comparison of averages, improving sensitivity when identifying optimal input rates.

“I think of like turning one strip into a dozen mini-plots without any borders,” said Peters.

For fixed-rate decisions, such as fungicide application, the project is also testing precision strip trials that alternate treated and untreated segments within a single pass.

READ MORE: Sask. producer learns from his own on-farm trials

Varying the length of those segments helps account for yield monitor lag and allows spatial analysis to separate real treatment effects from background noise.

“It’s kind of like an on-off treatment system,” Peters said.

Keeping trials farmer-friendly

Peters said improving trial design isn’t about making on-farm research more complicated for growers. Most modern equipment already supports variable-rate prescriptions and precision application, so many of the improvements focus on making better use of the data already being collected.

That matters because on-farm research only works if it fits into normal operations. At the Ag Days panel, growers repeatedly stressed that trials must be practical and easy to integrate into busy seasons.

“The goal is to get precise, trustworthy recommendations that reflect their local conditions,” said Peters.

The 103-acre parcel is part of a syndicate also owned by Dale Braun, who owns a 75 per cent stake in the land.

WHY IT MATTERS: When oil companies don’t pay landowners, taxpayers pick up the tab through Alberta’s land rights tribunal.

Dorin said there seem to be two sets of laws in Alberta. One is for everyday people that own land. The other laws are for oil companies, and they can’t seem to follow the rules, he said.

“If I’m a landowner and I don’t pay my bills, I lose my land, I lose my house. It’s that simple. But look behind me, we’ve got an active pumpjack and have more pumpjacks on our land and they haven’t paid their bills,” he said.

MAGA Energy hasn’t paid rent since 2022

Wells were initially drilled on the land in 1951. Make Alberta Great Again (MAGA) Energy, based in Calgary, took over the lease about a decade ago in 2016. The land is currently being rented out for farming.

MAGA has not paid rent on the land in three years, and there have been no consequences. In 2023, MAGA Energy’s main refinery closed, which cut off a major revenue stream.

“Today things are going to change,” said Dorin. “There are landowners in Alberta, all over the province, in the same situation.”

MAGA is not the first oil and gas company to fail to pay landowners.

There are many concerned groups involved in the landowner rights issue, such as the newly formed Coalition for Responsible Energy, the Alberta Wilderness Association, the Seniors Climate Action Network, the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment and the Council of Canadians.

Dorin said the land rights tribunal has 6,000 applications filed a year, and landowners are owed $40 million, up from $30 million last year.

Unpaid leases shift financial burden to Alberta taxpayers

When companies like MAGA refuse to pay their bills, many landowners go to the Land and Property Rights tribunal to get compensation. This money is taken out of taxpayer funds.

“Those wells, the taxpayer is paying for those jacks on that site right now, and as you can see, they’re still operating,” he said.

“This creates a situation where companies feel they don’t have to pay, because someone is going to have to pick up that bill on their behalf,” said Dorin.

Dorin said the province loses money when oil companies don’t pay their bills, and that money could be used for public services.

One of the tanks on his land lets out poisonous gas emissions. The emissions have occasionally enveloped a nearby freeway. There is also a flare on the land that has flared continuously since 2019, even though it is supposed to be for emergencies. The compressor is broken and hasn’t been fixed.

When an oil company defaults, the Alberta Energy Regulator is supposed to act.

“They’re supposed to make sure the company doesn’t get more licences,” he said.

MAGA Energy has skirted this issue and is still acquiring new wells.

Dorin said the Investigative Journalism Foundation discovered MAGA has acquired 191 well licences in 2024 and 2025, despite the fact they have unpaid bills all over the province.

Landowner terminates lease, erects physical barrier

“I believe in the rule of law. I’ve reported it to the company. I’ve reported it to the regulator. I’ve spent hundreds of hours and tens of thousands on this and gotten nowhere,” he said.

“I filed a formal report to the Alberta Energy Regulator to shut all these wells down,” he said.

The Alberta Energy Regulator has refused to reply to the complaints, Dorin explained.

In January, he sent a letter to MAGA with a demand for the company to pay their three years of rent.

He received no reply, so he terminated the lease, since the oil company has not complied.

“Terminating that lease means they don’t have the right to be here anymore. I’m going to make it official right now,” he said, and tore up the lease in front of the audience.

Dorin said he wants MAGA Energy to pay their bills, shut down the wells, clean up and get off the land. He wants the regulator to step in and do their job.

Dorin has not hired lawyers yet and hopes he doesn’t have to go that route.

Braun and Dorin set out a wooden barrier on their land, preventing the oil company employees from entering. MAGA Energy isn’t allowed on the land unless its employees are there to decommission wells. MAGA usually has staff on site at least once a day.

– This article was originally published in the March 31, 2026 issue of the Alberta Farmer Express.

Water quality, not just quantity, can quietly erode herd health, reproduction and performance, according to Dr. Cheryl Waldner, the Beef Cattle Research Council (BCRC) research chair at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine.

Poor water quality can mean fewer calves on the ground, lighter weaning weights and, in some cases, sudden death on pasture.

“We can’t simply look at a water sample and determine whether or not it’s safe for our animals to drink,” Waldner said at a webinar hosted by the BCRC on Feb. 18.

Testing and timing matter

According to the 2022-2023 Canadian Cow-Calf Survey, 38 per cent of producers had tested their water at least once in the previous three years, Waldner said. Sixty-two per cent had not tested at all.

But routine lab testing is essential, especially with surface water sources that concentrate salts as summer wears on, Waldner said.

Government monitoring in southern Saskatchewan has shown sulfate levels in dugouts climbing sharply through the grazing season as evaporation concentrates minerals.

“If we were just to have sampled these dugouts at the beginning of the grazing season, we would have potentially been misled into thinking we had perfectly safe water for the entire grazing season,” Waldner said.

High total dissolved solids (TDS), particularly sulfates, are a growing concern in much of Western Canada. Sulfates can contribute to polio in cattle under extreme conditions and interfere with copper absorption even at lower levels.

Repeated drought cycles have worsened the problem, Waldner said.

On-site screening tools

Producers don’t necessarily need to send samples to a lab every week. Electrical conductivity (EC) meters, available online for about $35, can provide quick screening.

“Basically, the higher the electrical conductivity is, the higher the TDS,” Waldner said, noting EC values above 2,000 indicate it’s time to send a sample for full lab analysis.

Sulfate levels remain the key number to watch.

Water with a lot of sulfates doesn’t always make cattle eat less, but it does cause problems inside their stomachs. It creates more harmful gas and lowers the amount of copper in their bodies, which isn’t good for their health.

Copper deficiency is already widespread across Western Canada. The issue is often compounded by sulfur in water tying up already-limited copper in forage, Waldner said.

“We do have strong evidence of an association between low serum copper and high open rates in cows, two to three years old, especially,” she added.

Free choice versus controlled supplementation

While most producers rely on free-choice mineral, intake can be uneven.

In one Alberta study, only 61 per cent of cows visited a mineral feeder even once over a six-day period.

“If the serum sample is coming back deficient, that cow is deficient,” Waldner said, adding that when fine-tuning mineral programs, liver biopsies may be needed to get an accurate picture.

Water and feed must be considered together, she added.

“If we want to look at total impacts on animal health, we can’t just look at water and isolation.”

Trial by drought

For rancher Karla Hicks and her family near Parkbeg, Sask., water management has become central to their grazing plan.

They ranch within Palliser’s Triangle, an area known for low precipitation and high evaporation. After 2017, conditions deteriorated quickly. By 2021, drought and high-sulfate water were taking a visible toll.

“We had diarrhea, flickering eyes, neurological symptoms and pneumonia, symptoms without pneumonia. We had some cattle walking in circles,” Hicks said.

Weaning weights dropped sharply over successive years. Water tests from some dugouts came back with total dissolved solids in the high teens.

The family began testing routinely and watching for natural indicators.

“Are we seeing wildlife tracks? Are we seeing any wildlife at all? Because wildlife is way smarter than our cows are, and wildlife won’t drink out of bad water,” Hicks said.

They purchased an excavator and water truck, installed solar pumping systems and eventually expanded from 10 to 32 dugouts across their grazing system.

Solar systems required constant monitoring, especially during smoky conditions that reduced panel output.

“The thing that we learned right away, especially on this set of cows, was some cows just have a taste for bad water. They’re stupid, and you can’t help them,” Hicks said.

In 2023, despite improved moisture, reproductive losses surfaced. After preg-checking a group of cows, Hicks said open rates were far higher than expected.

“We had realized, even in 2022, we had six-year-old home-raised cows that had never calved on green grass,” she said.

She believes years of stress, from drought, poor water and limited forage, pushed cows into survival mode.

The family made the decision to keep most of the open cows rather than sell. Calving the following year was strong.

“We bet the ranch on keeping those cows, and it paid off this year, thank goodness,” Hicks said.

Planning ahead

Today, Hicks tests water whenever cattle move into a field and regularly through the grazing season. A handheld EC meter rides in the glove box.

With dugouts strategically placed and monitoring part of daily chores, water management now drives grazing decisions, she said.

– This article was originally published in the March 17, 2026 issue of the Manitoba Co-operator.

With this centre, the Saskatchewan SPCA aims to fill gaps in the province regarding care for animals during times of crisis or for people who need help. The project has been underway since 2024.

“We know that many SPCA humane societies … are already overburdened, their staff is overworked and they have very limited resources. And so, our hope is that we will be able to provide additional supports,” said Josh Hourie, SaskSPCA’s communications coordinator.

Use of the centre

There are many situations that may cause a person to seek shelter for their pets, such as domestic violence, hospital stays, natural disasters and more, which may cause them to be unable to care for their animals.

For those who are experiencing domestic violence, pets can present an issue, as people may be hesitant to leave when there is a pet involved, due to concerns regarding the safety of their pet, or the abuser may use their pet as a point of manipulation.

“One area that we are really concerned about is animal safekeeping,” Hourie said.

“Unfortunately, our province has the highest rates of domestic violence in the country amongst the provinces, and a lot of work that we’ve been doing over the last decade or so is to provide additional supports to those individuals, and the Emergency Animal Care Centre will be able to provide care for animals.”

During natural disasters, such as wildfires or floods that force people to evacuate their homes, care is often needed for their animals as they may not have a safe space to stay.

The third function of the centre is referred to as “secure care,” which is to house animals seized or surrendered under the Animal Protection Act.

They won’t be providing a restriction on how long they will keep an animal at the centre. Instead, they want it to be open for as long as people need in order to escape their situation.

“Our hope is we’ll be able to care for the animals for as long as it takes to have their human find a safe setting and get back on their feet, and then we will reunite the people with their pets,” Hourie said.

The only exception to this is when the animals have been surrendered or seized.

Rural communities

The Emergency Animal Care Centre will be located in Asquith, Sask., which is near Saskatoon.

Hourie said this community was chosen because the SaskSPCA already owns property there, but there will also be benefits to the community.

Hourie said the rural municipality and nearby town councils have been very supportive of the centre.

Another benefit to being in a rural community is that it gives them the opportunity to expand, if necessary, in the future.

The goal overall, though, is to provide this service to the whole province.

Hourie said they are still working out the logistics on how they will serve the entire province, but there is currently a plan in place.

“The EACC will use a referral system, and we plan to set up a transportation network to bring animals here. We hope to work with other groups, such as law enforcement, SaskSPCA staff, veterinarians and possibly volunteers. Since our work is sensitive, we are creating procedures to keep everything confidential. This helps us make sure animals and their owners stay safe and protected while they are with us,” he said in an email.

Large breed animals

In a province like Saskatchewan, where rural communities are prevalent and agriculture is one of the biggest parts of the economy, providing safekeeping to large animals is an important part of the Emergency Care Centre.

While they will not have space for large animals at their location in Asquith, they have been working with the Saskatchewan Horse Federation on a pilot project designed for the safekeeping of horses.

“That will actually be a different situation, where the hope is that we will be able to provide grants to individuals to have their horses boarded at a safe facility,” Hourie says. “And so there are still many pieces of this puzzle to come together, and we’re kind of tackling it one piece at a time.”

Currently, there is no plan to include livestock such as cattle, unless there is specific interest expressed by the public.

“Right now, we are focusing on companion animals like cats and dogs to make sure our processes work well. Different animals have different needs, and caring for a cat or dog is very different from caring for cattle or goats. We are moving forward step by step and will adjust as needs and resources change,” Hourie said.

Future

The fundraising for this project started in 2024, with the goal of building in 2025. Some of the construction has started, such as the walls, roof and concrete floor.

Hourie says they are re-examining when the facility will be open due to factors such as inflation, fundraising and more.

“We’re hoping (to open) at some point in 2026, but due to rising construction costs and things of that nature, we are actually reviewing our budget and developing a plan going forward.”

Despite these challenges, Hourie said they are hopeful they will be able to continue raising funds for the project. There is a website, caringforpets.ca, that highlights the floor plans, descriptions of the facility and with a link to donate.

Looking to the future, Hourie hopes the Emergency Animal Care Centre will inspire other provinces to do something similar and follow in the footsteps of the SaskSPCA.

“We are going to work out the kinks and find best practices, and we are certainly more than willing to work with other organizations to develop similar facilities in other provinces. And maybe this is a cool opportunity for us to challenge other SPCAs or other animal welfare organizations to explore a facility like this in their province.”

“This is extremely significant. We’re looking at big numbers here,” Lactanet’s senior product specialist Jeremy Ten Hag said. “I think it would make total sense if we did as much as we could to have more lactation three-or-older animals in our herd.”

Lactanet recently began presenting four years of herd demographic, health, fertility and milk production records from Canadian farms enrolled in Lactanet’s DairyComp herd management software during a series of webinars. The Feb. 12 edition addressed trends in average herd age and age at first calving.

Why it matters: As the amount of data collected on dairy farms steadily rises, farmers and service providers are challenged to make use of it.

According to Ten Hag, there is general agreement in Canada’s dairy sector that cows tend to be more profitable for farms as they age. “We get into the buzzwords like ‘sustainability,’” he commented. “I think (cow) longevity blends right in with that.”

It’s not every cow that should stay in the herd, though, and farmers need to be selective about the older cows they keep.

He showed a graph with three separate curves tracking 305-day milk production — one each for first-lactation, second-lactation and third-or-more-lactation cows. There was a large area of overlap in the curves that the Lactanet specialist said represented — at least theoretically — the instances when “first-lactation animals outperformed their dams.

“It’s not just one or two cows here,” he continued. “And it’s not just one or two herds here.”

The graph, he said, proves that “we need to be discerning about which older cows we keep on our farms.”

The data mining project’s daily milk yield graph is a curve that’s higher in the middle and lower on either end. On one end are herds with fewer than 30 per cent older animals; on the other are herds with greater than 40 per cent older animals. The daily yield drops off the most among herds with 50 per cent or more older animals.

“We all have reasons why we’re keeping those (older) animals on our farm,” Ten Hag said. “She has no health problems. She gets pregnant on the first service every time. We can rattle (the reasons) off. But there is a price to pay for that in production.

“When our herds are too young, there is also a price to be paid. And I think our data is showing that.”

Assessing the top 10 per cent of herds based on 305-day milk production, the data mining project determined the percentage of cows in lactation three-or-more in those herds is similar across the regions of Canada. And on average, the lactation three-or-more cows in those herds are producing over 3,000 kilograms more per lactation than the cows in lactation one. There’s a similar pattern with 305-day fat yield.

DairyComp records from 2021-2024 indicate the percentage of the Canadian herd that’s in lactation three or four is expanding. The graph shown during the webinar starts in 2021, with just more than 15 per cent of herds with fewer than 30 per cent older animals. That falls to 10 per cent in 2024. Those with 30-35 per cent older animals in the herd fell from 17 per cent of Canadian herds in 2021 to 12 per cent in 2024.

On the other end of the scale, the percentage of Canadian herds with half or more of their cows in lactation three or higher rose from just below 14 per cent in 2021 to 23 per cent in 2024.

In the middle of the scale, meanwhile, those with 40-45 per cent older animals in the herd stayed steady at approximately 20 per cent of Canadian herds through the four-year dataset.

Regionally, the dairy sector in the west showed a more moderate trend toward a more mature herd compared to Ontario or Quebec. The 2024 numbers — the final year of the dataset — show just more than six per cent of western dairy herds with cows in lactation three-or-older, compared to almost 12 per cent among Ontario herds.

Quebec, meanwhile, continues to drive the national average toward a higher percentage of herds in the older age group, with more older herds than anywhere else in the country.

In Western Canada, the one area bucking the trend in the 2021-24 period was among the top herds for 305-day milk yield. These herds have a higher percentage of lactation three-or-more animals compared to the overall western Canadian average.

Ten Hag stressed, however, that the project’s milk yield and fat yield comparisons are based on averages. Across the country, not all older cows outperform first-lactation animals, and not all younger animals underperform compared to their older herdmates.

Age at first calving

The data mining project also looked at age-at-first-calving data, aiming to relate this to future performance in the herd. The data shows a “very subtle decrease in 305-day milk yield” among cows that were older than 22 months at first calving. There’s another slight decrease for those calving at 26 months or older.

But among the top 10 per cent herds for performance in Canada, those relationships break down somewhat. DairyComp data indicates some of those herds are successful despite having a higher percentage of their heifers calving out at 26 months or older.

Lactanet’s comparison of age-at-first-calving to later-lactation milk yield, meanwhile, suggests there’s no justification for prolonging age at first calving beyond 26 months with the aim of allowing those animals to perform better in second lactation and older.

“When heifers calve out older, that doesn’t translate into them performing better when they’re older,” Ten Hag said. “The lactation two-three yield is best, still, for those calving as heifers between 21-26 months.”

Across the four years of 2021-24, there was very little change in average age at first calving among Canadian herds, regardless of region.

– This article was originally published in the March 10, 2026 issue of Farmtario.

But what if you could add a new tool to your weed control toolbox to share the load and help reduce input costs?

One Saskatchewan farmer has taken this approach by using the Seed Terminator. The mechanical device destroys weed seeds and makes them unviable before they exit a combine’s spreader at harvest.

The Seed Terminator broke ground in Australia years ago, but it’s gaining some interest with farmers in Western Canada.

“We’ve been using it for what, six years or more,” said Josh Lade, who farms north of Saskatoon.

“We don’t have any issues with it, other than a little bit extra power required because we are running a multi-stage hammer mill and a little extra fuel.”

In an article at Grainews last year, Lade noted that the Seed Terminator has reduced spray costs on his farm. For example, he now has to spray canola only once — albeit at a higher rate — rather than twice to keep weeds at bay.

Lade also noted that he’s seen bumps in cereal crop yields due to spraying less herbicide.

“We’re not often spraying for wild oats or grasses in our cereal crops, for example … because it can be quite expensive and it can also have quite a metabolizing effect since you’re trying to kill a grass weed in a grass crop,” said Lade.

While the idea of cost savings is likely to perk up the ears of most farmers — Lade estimates savings of about $20 per acre — for him, it isn’t just about the money.

Outside of the cost factor, it’s a reliance on a single-barrel approach to weed control that helped motivate him to use the Seed Terminator.

“I really now feel I take for granted the ability for us to use certain herbicides on our Canadian farm,” said Lade.

Lade’s comment stemmed from visiting a farm in Germany while attending last fall’s Agritechnica farm equipment show.

Herbicide legislation in Europe is especially onerous due to environmental and sustainability concerns.

The situation facing European farmers when it comes to weed control made him reflect on farming in Canada.

“We’re only certain policies away from maybe not being able to use some chemicals, and that’s exactly what has happened here in Europe,” said Lade.

“So I think we need to be looking at other sources of weed control tactics while we still have a lot of easy options.”

– With files from Mark Halsall

“We would be very arrogant if we said we were the first to take a holistic approach and see our connection to our life-supporting environment,” 90-year-old Allan Savory, who splits his time between Zimbabwe and his home in Florida, said during a virtual question-and-answer session.

“As far as I know, every single Indigenous culture in every part of the world saw that. So that’s been seen for 50,000 years by humans. It was only lost in modern Western science the last two or three centuries. The common example that’s given is Native American tribes seeing the damage to the environment. They didn’t have laws, they didn’t have regulations, but they had to do some customs.”

WHY IT MATTERS: Taking a different approach from traditional agricultural practices can help move the world to better land management.

The holistic principle for grazing livestock builds on the concept of rotational grazing.

Cattle can rehabilitate degraded land by mimicking the natural grazing patterns of wild herds of herbivores as they escaped predators while packed in large herds and frequently moving between different areas.

High animal impact over shorter grazing periods gives the land time to make a full recovery before being grazed again.

The animals are used to to break soil crust, trampling older material to build cover and using manure and urine as fertilizer.

Creating conditions that favour perennial grasses and forbs, if done correctly, can produce denser, deeper-rooted grasses, better biodiversity and water infiltration to go with higher carry capacity over time.

The triple bottom line

Savory has seen it all: farming and ranching, consulting in five countries and working as an ecologist, wildlife game officer, public servant, solider and member of Parliament.

Many livestock producers at the conference swear by the principles drafted by Savory as he formed the foundation for the Savory Institute in the United States.

He noticed that areas where animals had been excluded were degrading worse than areas that had been grazed and then allowed to rest.

It led to a significant breakthrough in understanding what was causing the degradation and desertification of the world’s grasslands and planted seeds of holistic management.

A holistic approach combines the principles of life and family (time, stress, purpose, succession), economics (profitability, cash flow, debt, investment choices) and land and animals (biodiversity, soil, water cycle, animal health).

The link between finance and stewardship

Savory stresses that producers cannot just “manage the land” while ignoring other tenants. A short-term, ultra-aggressive profit motive can destroy soil health, but a “green” practice that improves the ecology but bankrupts the movement has no staying power.

“If you can’t finance your family, everything else doesn’t matter. Men commit suicide when they can’t support their families. So you manage a family, then you manage the economy. Only then do you manage nature, your farm, the ocean, whatever you’re managing there to produce every single form of food and everything that makes civilization possible,” he said.

“You can’t divide these, they have to be managed simultaneously and indivisibly. There is no chance of anywhere in the world, the same family, the same family values, the same culture, the same economy they’re operating in, or the same climate piece of land being replicated. That’s why holistic management is so unique to every single farm and family.”

Grassroots growth amidst global challenges

In a paper by Deb Stinner at Ohio State University, she talked to ranchers and farmers who trained under Savory. All but one saw an increase in biodiversity in the first year, while the average of all of those farms was a 300 per cent increase in profit. At the same time, hundreds of thousands of people in farm families went broke in the same markets.

Nevertheless, the world has been slow to implement holistic management, despite the formation of organizations such as those in Canada.

Savory applauded the efforts of the producers in the room who have adapted the holistic principles to their operations, adding it will be the producers themselves who lead the movement from the grassroots into a global consciousness rather than top-down action by government.

In the 1980s, Savory was set to help train 18,000 people in the U.S. forest service with his holistic management foundations, but the initiative was cancelled.

“What we’ve seen is since then, global biodiversity loss get far worse, desertification, as a consequence of it, get far worse. Accelerating climate change get far worse. All of those feeding on each other now in a feedback loop going out of control,” said Savory, who just published a memoir, Unsavory: African Stories of Wildlife, War, and the Birth of Holistic Management.

According to experts, farmers can thank genetic improvements for a lot of those gains.

WHY IT MATTERS: Manitoba dry bean acres saw a two-decade high in 2025 and a record area of pinto beans planted.

Juan Osorno, a dry bean breeder and geneticist at North Dakota State University, has seen the positive yield effects just south of the international border, even with today’s higher risks and tighter margins.

“In the last 80 years, we pretty much doubled it. We’re producing twice as many beans in the same acre,” he said. “Sixty per cent of those gains can be explained by better varieties.”

That lines up with trends provincial pulse specialist Dennis Lange has seen in Manitoba fields. New bean varieties are ready to harvest sooner and handle all kinds of Manitoba weather, making them easier for local farmers to grow, he said.

“Over the years, we’ve seen those maturities kind of become earlier and more widely adapted to Manitoba,” he noted.

Equally important, breeders were able to push the boundary of those maturity windows without taking big hits on performance. Once the purview of southern Manitoba, dry beans have crept into new regions of the province.

Central Manitoba remains king for dry bean acres, but some farmers are putting them in the ground in the west and northwest. Last year’s data (as reported by Yield Manitoba), showed about 3,900 acres in crop insurance risk zones 6 and 7, regions north of Brandon and along the Yellowhead Highway. In the risk areas around Dauphin, directly north of Riding Mountain National Park, and even further north — north of the Duck Mountains and along the Saskatchewan border — MASC reported a collective 5,300 acres.

There are also yearly efforts to further localize seed choice. Most dry bean growers in Western Canada do rely on U.S. genetics. Local trials from the Manitoba Pulse and Soybean Growers strive to narrow the list of varieties that work best in local fields.

Dry beans standing tall

Modern breeding tools, such as genomic selection and field-based sensors, are speeding up and improving decisions in crop development.

“Now we have technology that allows to No. 1: screen or evaluate more material in our breeding program, and No. 2: be more efficient at the selection process,” Osorno said, noting these advancements bring practical benefits to the farm, offering better-performing bean varieties with improved traits.

One of the most significant changes for farmers has been the shift from traditional, low-growing bean plants to upright varieties.

“Back in 1997, ’98, ’99 … the main way farmers would harvest would be your traditional undercutting and windrowing, and now that’s changed through genetics,” Lange said.

Today’s more upright beans can be harvested with the same combine as farmers used for corn, soybeans or other row crops, Osorno said, resulting in reduced physical labour, lower fuel usage and fewer beans left uncollected in the field.

The change has allowed farmers to better integrate dry beans into more diverse crop rotations, particularly during tight harvest windows.

“It allows them for more flexibility in the timing of the harvest operation,” Osorno said. “So your production costs go down, which means your return on investment also goes up.”

Seed quality to match market demands

Farmers are paying a lot more attention to seed quality these days, thanks to what buyers and the market are asking for, said Lange. Genetics have helped tackle problems like beans darkening in storage, especially for pintos.

“We want varieties that have slow darkening capability, meaning pinto will last longer in the stores,” he said. “All those are through genetic improvements.”

If a farmer’s beans come in looking too dark, they end up getting docked at the elevator, which hits them right in the pocketbook, Osorno said.

Value-added traits mostly untapped

Even with all of the genetic progress, many value-added traits, like better nutrition and quicker-cooking beans, haven’t really caught on as priorities in the industry yet.

“I’ve been talking about those things at every opportunity, every meeting I go to, trying to spread the word, because I think it’s a really good thing,” Osorno said. “I don’t think the industry is taking advantage of that as much as they could.”

Looking ahead, both Osorno and Lange said continued genetic improvement will be key to maintaining dry beans as a competitive crop on the Prairies, particularly as weather variability and market expectations increase.

– This article was originally published in the February 17, 2026 issue of the Manitoba Co-operator.