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FARM & RANCH
THE NORTH PLATTE TELEGRAPH
NOVEMBER 2020
NCTA adds feeding space, student opportunities
students to complete the classes in March. Then, there will still be plenty of spring ranch work to do: Branding, castrating and vac- cinating calves, then managing the breed- ing of heifers and cows, either by bulls or artifi- cial insemination. The college is part of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln sys- tem andmust receive approval from the UNL Board of Regents before implementing the chang- es. Taylor is optimistic about that happening. With a small percent- age of the population directly involved in ag- riculture nowadays, Taylor said a lot of NCTA’s students do not come from an agricul- tural background. Even those who did grow up on a farm or ranch ben- efit from opportunities to work with cattle or crops at the college, from driving combines to ultrasounding preg- nant heifers, inserting IVs into sick cattle, giv- ing shots, etc. The college is also placing increased em- phasis on preparing students to work in feedlot management, which is an important reason for their own feedlot upgrade.
By GEORGE HAWS For The North Platte Telegraph
Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture recently upgraded their feedlot pens. The work included replacement of feed bunks and addition of feeding space, along with repairs of the 20 year old structures. It’s all part of an em- phasis on hands-on learning at the two- year college, said Alan Taylor, the experiential learning coordinator at NCTA. Students care for cattle at the facility, and they are the ones who did the majority of the renovation work. Branching out from the college at Curtis, about 40 miles south- east of North Platte, students further their education through internships on com- mercial operations. If all goes according to plan, the beef cattle internships will be ex- panded, beginning in the 2021-22 school year. In the past, students have been unable to do internships during the busy spring calving season, a critical time on area ranches, Taylor said. Plans call for changing some of the 16-week class schedules to 8 weeks, allowing
Photos courtesy of Alan Taylor / NCTA Before, left, and after pictures of the feedlot reno- vation at Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture at Curtis.
forms and poured ce- ment for pads, welded pipes and repaired fences, etc. Bunks in each of the four pens were extended from 32 to 40 feet long, increas- ing feed capacity from a total of 90, to 120 head of cattle.
“There’s a demand out there in the world, especially in Nebraska, for students who under- stand management of feedlots,” Taylor said. The new feed bunks were premade and delivered to the col- lege, but students built
SIGNS from Page F6
“Beyond the need for repeat- ed visits, there are not many additional treatment factors for large vs. small animals,” Easterwood said. “Just as can- cers may be similar across many different species, so are their treatments. Described most simply, cancer is the un- controlled growth of abnormal cells, so the goal in all cancer treatments is to halt the growth of and remove these abnormal cancer cells.” Though a cancer diagnosis
is certainly never a welcome event, owners who take prompt action can provide their animal with the best chance of full re- mission to live as happy and as healthy a life as possible follow- ing diagnosis. Pet Talk is a service of the College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, Texas A&M University. Stories can be viewed on the web at vetmed.tamu.edu/ news/pet-talk. Suggestions for future topics may be directed to editor@cvm.tamu.edu.
while small animals and hu- mans are usually treated with systemic chemotherapy agents, large animals are usually inject- ed with a localized treatment or treated with topically ad- ministered drugs. There are also additional medication reg- ulations to be considered for animals intended for human consumption.
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