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Animal Production

Animal production systems in Washington range from small-scale, diverse poultry and small animal to large-scale extensive grazing systems to large-scale intensive animal feeding operations and include organic, conventional and “sustainable” production systems.

Featured Publications

Farmer-to-Farmer & Rancher-to-Rancher Case Studies Series

Authors include: Yorgey, G., Borrelli, K., Painter, K., Davis, H., Hall, S., Hudson, T., Neibergs, S., Reeves, M., Kruger, C., McGuire A., Finkelnburg, D., Roe, D., Brooks, E., and Kantor, S. 2016-2019. PNW Extension Publications and videos. These series explore strategies that innovative regional farmers and ranchers are using that enhance resilience to climate change and other future challenges. Case studies highlight producers in dryland and irrigated annual cropping, rangeland, and dairy production systems. Practices relate to soil health, diversification, responsive management, and many others.

Estimating climate change effects on grazing management and beef cattle production in the Pacific Northwest

JS Neibergs, TD Hudson, CE Kruger, K Hamel-Rieken. 2018. Climatic Change, 5-17.  

Case Study: Evaluating farm processed canola and camelina meals as protein supplements for beef cattle

Llewellyn, D.A., G. Rohwer, O.S. Norberg, E. Kimura, J.S. Neibergs, and S.C. Fransen. 2015.  J. of NACAA, 8(2).

Beefing Up the Palouse

Since 1985 the U.S. government has implemented the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) which pays farmers NOT to grow crops on millions of acres of highly erodable land. In addition to being a controversial program, much of this land is now coming out of CRP which puts pressure on farmers to grow crops in these areas once again. In the Palouse in Washington State, local farmers and ranchers are looking at holistically grazing livestock as an economically and environmentally sustainable alternative to traditional wheat farming in these sensitive areas and to the CRP in general. Video presented by Managing Change Northwest.

2008 Estimated Costs and Returns for a 150-head Cow-calf to Grass-finished Beef Production System in the Channelled Scablands Range Area of East-central Washington

In response to the popularity of grass-finished beef, this publication provides a production budget analysis using both ranch-owned and leased forage sources in eastern Washington to determine profitability. Funded by the William D. Ruckelshaus Center, the Beefing Up the Palouse pilot project applied a total systems approach to develop a replicable production model to help producers take full advantage of the eastern Washington dryland wheat production area resource base.

Additional Publications

Reducing approximation error in the fourier flexible functional form

Skolrud, T. 2015. WSU School of Economic Sciences working paper on technology issues associated with conventional dairies converting to organic.

Local Meats for Local Meals: An Assessment of Demand for a Mobile Slaughtering Unit in Pierce, King Kitsap and Thurston Counties, for the Puget Sound Meat Producers Cooperative – December 2008

Article in Sustaining the Pacific Northwest Newsletter

Diversifying the Family Farm – Spring 2008

Article in Sustaining the Pacific Northwest Newsletter

Pastured Poultry

Raising pastured poultry is a simple way to integrate livestock into small farms. A summary of experiences at WSU Puyallup with small-scale pastured poultry production on organically certified land from 2005-2007 is presented. The goal was to integrate pastured broilers into a vegetable-pasture rotation in an organic farming systems experiment.

Mobile Livestock Processing Unit Rolls into Northeast Washington – December 2006

Article in Sustaining the Pacific Northwest Newsletter

Organic Livestock: Principles, Practices, and Prospects

Videostream of October 29, 2004 WSU Satellite broadcast.

Mobile Meat Processing Popular with Communities – December 2003

Article in Sustaining the Pacific Northwest Newsletter

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