Researcher at Animal Wellbeing Symposium to Discuss Cattle Handling in Feedlots

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Ruth Woiwode

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – The results of studies on handling cattle in feedlots will be presented Aug. 6 by Ruth Woiwode at the fifth annual Symposium on Current Issues and Advances in Food Animal Wellbeing. Woiwode is a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture and a former student of Temple Grandin, a nationally prominent researcher at Colorado State University on the best methods for handling cattle in processing facilities.

Woiwode and several other speakers will discuss current issues at the symposium sponsored by the Center for Food Animal Wellbeing, a unit of the Division of Agriculture. The event will be held in the John W. Tyson Building's Leland Tollett Auditorium on the University of Arkansas campus. Registration is $25. Those planning to attend should register by July 31. Registration information and the program are online at http://foodanimalwellbeing.uark.edu/AnnualSymposium.html. 

Sharing the podium with Woiwode will be Carla Wardin, a blogger and one of the "Faces of Farming" selected by the U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance to answer questions from the general public at a variety of events. Wardin and her family own Evergreen Dairy in Michigan. They milk 400 cows and grow crops to feed their cattle on 850 acres of corn, alfalfa and pasture.

"Dr. Woiwode will be bringing us a new, scientific perspective and Mrs. Wardin a practical one. That is an exciting combination," said Yvonne Vizzier Thaxton, director for the Center for Food Animal Wellbeing.

Other speakers presenting at the symposium include Paul Siegel, Virginia Tech University distinguished professor emeritus of animal and poultry science; Paul McKellips, author, director and producer; Lucy Anthernill, U.S. Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service humane handling enforcement coordinator; Colin Scanes, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, professor of animal physiology and nutrition; Kate Barger, Cobb-Vantress, Inc., director of animal welfare; Karen Christensen, Division of Agriculture associate professor and extension specialist, and Rusty Rumley, senior staff attorney at the Division of Agriculture's National Agricultural Law Center.

The goal for the Center for Food Animal Wellbeing is to improve animal health, animal handling, food safety and productivity by developing and defining objective measurements of wellbeing including measures of behavior, stress physiology, neurophysiology, immunology, microbiology and production efficiency.