IOWA — Good news for pheasant lovers or hunters this year: Iowa’s estimated pheasant harvest continues its climb and for the fifth year in a row has been higher than the previous year.

In 2015, more than 56,000 hunters harvested nearly 270,000 rooster pheasants in Iowa, which is an increased harvest of 24 percent over 2014 and the highest pheasant harvest since 2009.

Pheasant hunters were not the only ones who had better hunting, quail hunters enjoyed their best hunting since 2007.

Hunters harvested an estimated 28,400 quail in 2015, which was a 165 percent increase over 2014. The large increase in quail harvest was predicted by the August roadside survey which counted the highest number of quail in 21 years.

“We expected to see more pheasants and quail harvested based on the August roadside survey and our current trend of mild winters,” said Todd Bogenschutz, upland wildlife research biologist for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.

Bogenschutz uses a population model that considers total winter snowfall, and spring rainfall and temperature data to estimate winter survival and nesting success, plus the annual August roadside survey that counts actual pheasants, quail, cottontail, jackrabbit and partridge staff see along the 218, 30 mile routes.

“We know, given certain snowfall and rainfall amounts, with a degree of certainty, how the upland populations are likely to react, based on 50 years of data. Given the mild winter and below normal rainfall, potential for upland birds looks good for the fall right now for the east central, southeast and south central regions. We had pheasant broods reported in early May in these regions which suggests a good nesting season.

“The western third had more rain and more snow so the potential looks less. Overall, our weather model is predicting a stable to increasing pheasant population statewide for the fall 2016 hunting season,” he said.

“Anecdotally, staff and landowners have been reporting more roosters crowing and male bobwhite calling across the southern third of Iowa this spring, which is a sign of good over-winter survival. The best predictor of the pheasant population will be this August when we conduct our roadside survey. But I like the direction the model is pointing.”

Iowa has enrolled all available acres in Gaining Ground and Pheasant Recovery Continuous CRP programs, with the potential for more acres being available this summer. The Iowa DNR has also expanded its popular Iowa Habitat and Access Program —IHAP for short — that provides cost share funding to help landowner with pheasant and quail habitat in exchange for allowing hunter access.

Story provided by The Oskaloosa Herald

The 2016 World Pork Expo is being held in Des Moines at the Iowa State Fairgrounds from June 8^th through the 10^th.

People travel from all over the world to visit the World Pork Expo to learn about new technologies and advancements in the world of producing pork. New equipment such as feed grinders and manure spreaders, climate control improvements for hog confinements, and even new designs in floor slats for hog confinements were on display across the fairgrounds.

Among all of the new equipment, vendors from across America lined the main concourse, offering up apparel, random odds and ends, and of course, anything and everything that has to do with pork. Some of the food is even free.

Among the vendors was a mission group based out of Eagle Grove, Iowa, called GoServ Global. Ken DeYoung, co-founder of GoServ Global, started out by delivering supplies to Haiti after the earthquake in 2010. DeYoung then became involved in rescuing orphans off the street in Haiti, which is where GoServ started.

GoServ Global uses the Safe T Home in countries such as Haiti and Peru. A Safe T Home is a small home made from a grain bin.

“There was an employee at Sukup who was toying around with the idea of making it into a home, and so he had done a lot of the engineering on paper. When the earthquake hit in Haiti, he talked to one of the Sukup owners, and they then put it in development, and about six months later, we started to get involved with them. So really, it’s a Sukup product, engineered by Sukup, and then we were able to come alongside them. We raise the money and purchase them for the project that we have,” said Domestic Director, Dennis Anderson.

The structures aren’t as large as a normal grain bin, but they are bigger than one would expect.

“All the ones that we have right now are 18 feet in diameter, and they are 256 square feet. We do put a loft in them, which is half of that, so that adds another 125 square feet,” said Anderson.

The Safe T Houses are also classrooms and clinics.

“We have a full time agronomist there that’s working with the Haitians, so he’s learning from them, and he’s also teaching them. We’re helping them be more efficient in their agricultural operations,” Anderson said.

Other activities of interest to World Pork Expo-goers were the World Pork Expo Junior National Swine Shows, the World Pork Expo Open Swine Show, and the seminars held in the Varied Industries Building.

One of the longer seminars in the Varied Industries Building was about changes in antibiotic usage on livestock. Richard Sellers of the American Feed Industry Association, and Doctor Sam Holst of the Swine Vet Center in St. Peter, Minnesota were the speakers.

Sellers began his portion of the presentation by explaining what the American Feed Industry does.

“Our principle function since 1909 has been to produce safe feed, promote safe feed, and keep the state laws uniform and interfaced with federal government.”

Sellers went on to explain what a Veterinary Feed Directive, or VFD is. A VFD is both the form, and the drug. VFDs were introduced with the Animal Drug Availability Act of 1996. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) wanted to do prescription medicated feed, which would have been difficult to do, due to the requirement of having a veterinarian or pharmacist dispense the prescription medicated feed.

The FDA is looking for less use of drugs in feed, so it amended the VFD rule in June of 2015, and the changes will fully take effect on January 1^st, 2017.

The new rules have also changed what the expiration date means on VFDs.

“The expiration date used to mean that was the last day we could manufacture it. Not anymore. The FDA says it’s the last day the producer can use it, so you need to be working with your feed supplier to get those dates lined up, so that your treatment doesn’t stop in the middle of the VFD expiration,” said Sellers.

Holst then spoke, and he said the changes really boil down to two main points.

“One, as Richard mentioned, our growth promotion claims, so our increased average daily gain and our approved feed efficiency claims, for those antibiotics that the FDA has considered medically important to human health, those claims will be going away for those products. The second point is that for the products that remain for therapeutic usage, so our prevention, control, and treatment type uses, there will be increased veterinary oversight for those types of products. That will be carried out twofold, so one, those medically important products that are delivered through the feed will require a Veterinary Feed Directive. Additionally, those medically important antibiotics that are administered via drinking water will require a veterinary prescription,” said Holst.

Finally, Holst said that everything comes down to producers having thorough communication between all parties involved, the producer, the veterinarian, the feed distributors, and the feed mills.

For more information, you can check out the FDA’s website, http://www.fda.gov/AnimalVeterinary/DevelopmentApprovalProcess/ucm071807.htm.

Finally, a huge thank you and shout out to Ozinga Feed Service in Oskaloosa, Vroegh Brothers Showpigs, and Parks Livestock of Iowa in Ottumwa for making this possible.

Story by George Henry

MAHASKA COUNTY – On Monday, Supervisors and the public heard relatively vague plans for what would be a law enforcement center upgrade project. The motion to approve the upgrade project passed at the time, but now more solid plans have been unveiled.

“It’s actually three different projects,” said Jamey Robinson, Director of the Mahaska County Emergency Management Agency (EMA), who presented the idea for consideration before the Board of Supervisors on Monday in the absence of Mahaska County Sheriff Paul DeGeest.

Project #1

According to Robinson, the first project focuses on the actual Sheriff’s Office itself, with the intent to add more counter space for working with the public.

“Currently the Sheriff’s Office has a small window that they do gun permits or update offender registries and other information,” he said. “It’s not real private and when there are several gun permits needed at once, there is no room.”

During the meeting on Monday, Robinson stated that Mahaska County has issued around 1,000 gun permits so far just in 2016. He also said there are also over 70 sex offenders to keep tabs on coming in and out of the office at any given time.

“They have to come in and register and change their address or add a vehicle and some of that stuff is kind of private information, so if there are three other people in line they really don’t have anywhere to go for that,” he said during the meeting.

According to Robinson, the small counter workspace area is just not efficient enough to keep up with the needs of the County.

Project #2

Robinson said that the second project will involve converting a closet into an office for the benefit of both the Oskaloosa Police Department as well as the Mahaska County Sheriff’s Department.

“With the expansion of the Mahaska County EMA, we currently need a place for the Deputy EMA Coordinator and with space being tight, neither the Sheriff or the police department have any space they can go without and this was the best solution,” he explained.

Project #3

Lastly, the final project of this three-piece set will allow an update to the current network switches, allowing all departments to access the call-taking system as well as the State of Iowa network. This is vital to running an efficient agency and keeping the facilities up to par with ever-changing technology systems.

“I talked to Paul about all of the changes he wanted to do and I don’t have any issues with it,” said Supervisor Mark Doland during the meeting.

While Doland said he knew that the Sheriff’s Department didn’t have anything in the budget this fiscal year for such a project, he said he believed there was a fund the money could come from.

The vote passed as the Supervisors voted in agreement, but Supervisor Willie Van Weelden had reservations about approving a project as the Sheriff did not send any hard figures for cost at that time to present to the Board.

According to Robinson, the overall total cost for all three of these projects will be just over $9,000.

“All of the funds will come from the remaining balance of the last Local Option Sales Tax (LOST) funds that was set up initially to fund this facility,” he said.

Mahaska County Sheriff DeGeest was unavailable for comment at the time of this publication.

Story provided by Hailey Brown of The Oskaloosa Herald