ASC-227: Foodborne Illness: Risks and Prevention

Melissa Newman, Gregg Rentfrow, Paul Vijayakumar | Sep. 27, 2016 (New)

In recent memory, there has been a considerable increase in food recalls and foodborne illness outbreaks. To ensure food safety, everyone involved in the food production chain needs to understand the different factors that could contaminate food and lead to foodborne illness.

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ASC-225: Managing Precision Dairy Farming Technologies

Jeffrey Bewley, Lauren Mayo, Amanda Stone, Nicky Tsai, Barbara Wadsworth | Sep. 22, 2015 (New)

Precision dairy farming is the use of technologies to measure physiological, behavioral, and production indicators of individual animals to improve management strategies and farm performance.

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ASC-221: Keeping and Using Flock Performance Records

Debra Aaron | Dec. 17, 2014 (New)

Performance records serve as the cornerstone of any good livestock management program. Unfortunately, the task of collecting, maintaining and using performance records is the one area of livestock production in general that gets the least attention. This fact sheet provides ten reasons why all sheep producers need to keep performance records on their flocks. Then, some ways of maintaining and using those records are discussed.

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ASC-219: An Introduction to Sheep

Debra Aaron, Don Ely | Dec. 16, 2014 (New)

The information in this fact sheet was developed to provide a quick reference to the most frequently asked questions about sheep and sheep production.

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ASC-222: Sheep Breeding: Heritability, EBVs, EPDs, and the NSIP

Debra Aaron | Dec. 16, 2014 (New)

Genetic improvement in a flock depends on the producer's ability to select breeding sheep that are genetically superior for traits of economic importance. This is complicated by the fact that an animal's own performance is not always a true indicator of its genetic potential as a parent.

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ASC-220: Basic Sheep Genetics

Debra Aaron | Dec. 16, 2014 (New)

Genetics is the science of heredity. It seeks to explain differences and similarities exhibited by related individuals. The application of genetics to livestock improvement is known as animal breeding. The objective of this fact sheet is to provide a refresher course on basic genetics and to show how knowledge of genetics can be used to improve sheep production.

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ASC-223: Inbreeding in Sheep

Debra Aaron | Dec. 16, 2014 (New)

Inbreeding is broadly defined as the mating of individuals that are related. Strictly speaking, however, all animals within a breed are related. So, in a sense, every purebred sheep producer practices some degree of inbreeding. In most cases this relationship is very slight. Therefore, inbreeding is more practically defined as the mating of individuals more closely related than the average of the breed. This practice includes mating brother to sister, sire to daughter and son to dam.

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ASC-224: Crossbreeding Considerations in Sheep

Debra Aaron | Dec. 16, 2014 (New)

Crossbreeding is the mating of individuals from different breeds. To a certain extent, it is a simple concept, but embarking upon a crossbreeding program, in sheep or any other livestock species, involves long-term decisions. The primary benefits of a crossbreeding program are heterosis and breed complementarity.

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ASC-217: So You Want to Produce Your Own Eggs?

Jacquie Jacob, Tony Pescatore | Dec. 4, 2014 (New)

Backyard chicken flocks are becoming popular throughout the country in urban, suburban and rural communities. Preparation is essential for a successful backyard flock. This publication will give you the information you need decide if producing your own eggs is right for you.

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ASC-216: Reading a Feed Tag

Jacquie Jacob, Tony Pescatore | Dec. 4, 2014 (New)

Feed stores carry a variety of feed types. How do you chose which to buy? You need to read the feed tag. A lot of information is on a feed tag that can help you make your selection and this publication breaks it down for you.