The Wilderness Trail Area ANR agents met in the spring of 2023 to begin planning a series of chute side beef programs.  These programs were designed with the intentions to allow producers to stand alongside agents at the working chute.  Live demonstrations of beef quality care and assurance practices, reproduction procedures, weighing cattle, freeze branding and general management practices would be conducted chute side.  The agent team discussed the fact that many times these practices are talked about in classroom setting but are never demonstrated for producers.  Many producers have expressed the need of a hands-on learning environment so they would be more comfortable with the procedures listed above.   

The first of these programs was held on September 19, 2023.  This class was set up into 4 stations including, freeze branding, cattle weights for proper medical dosing, tools used for BQCA and a live demonstration of calves that were castrated, given vaccinations and dewormed.  Over 100 participants attended the first program from the Wilderness trail area of Jackson, Laurel, Rockcastle, Clay, Knox and Whitley Counties.  

Forty-nine of the producers in attendance updated or were chute side BQCA certified.  From evaluations turned in, 90% of participants said they learned a new technique for already adopted practices and 100% said they would adopt at least one of the following: branding, castration, cattle identification, vaccinations or weighing cattle for dosing. According to the evaluation 35% guessed the cattle weights withing 50 pounds leaving 56% guessing too low and 9% guessing too high.  With this knowledge 52% of participants were planning on implementing weighing cattle for de wormer dosing.  Since the program there has been interest from several producers in the publication AEN-140 constructing a platform alley scale for livestock.  Many texts and complements were received by agents after the program about how much was learned and how well they liked and appreciated the program.  

With the overwhelming response to the program, another chute side program is scheduled for October 19, 2023, to demonstrate pregnancy diagnosis and body condition scoring. Agents have also discussed more programs for the spring of 2024.  Many of the producers expressed future program ideas on their evaluation that will be considered.