Analytical Blog

The trip to Australia was absolutely amazing!  There was a great deal of differences between the beef and sheep industries of the United States and Australia.  The visit that I chose to review for this post was from the second day of the trip, the seminar at Biosecurity Victoria.  This seminar was about the National Livestock Identification System that Australia has put in place.  The main reason that the system was put into place was for traceability of the animals for disease and hormone purposes.  This system is working extremely well there, since all parts needed, the industry and government, are working together financially and in implementation.  As of right now the program is only mandatory in cattle, but they are working to make it mandatory in sheep as well.  How the program works is that each animal has an electronic ear tag in their right ear.  Every time the animal is sold or sent to slaughter the tag is scanned.  There are several types of scanners that can be used, the most popular ones are hand wand scanners and stationary scanners attached to chutes.  The system keeps track of a great deal of information, including, date of birth, vaccinations, diseases, who purchased and sold the animal, etc.  It can pretty much keep track of any information that the owner feels is necessary.  Many of the producers we met during the rest of our trip use the NLIS as a management tool and it has worked very well since the government keeps track of the records and they can never be lost.  I really feel that the U.S. could learn from the NLIS used in Australia.  It was costly to start up, but the government and industry worked together to make it possible and successful. I really did learn a great deal from this trip (more than just what I have listed here) and I would like to thank everyone from KSU who made this trip possible with all of their hard work! THANKS!!!! G'day mates!!!

Day 10 - The Journey Home!

So we are finally on our way home! The trip was absolutely amazing!!!  I have learned so much, seen so many things, and tried so many new foods!  Now for the part that sucks....the plane rides home...today we have four!  Well good thing I brought a good book!  Well see you in America!

Day 8 - From Cold to Warmer-ish

The dinner cruise of Sydney Harbour last night was amazing!!! Words can't even describe how beautiful it was! We rode the boat around the harbour for all of dinner and a little after so we could take more pictures and enjoy the view.  After the cruise a few of us walked closer to the Sydney Opera House to get up close and personal.  They had a light show playing on the side of the opera house and on several other buildings near the harbour.  It was really cool! We tried to go ride the monorail around the city, but it was closed by the time we got to it.
This morning we woke up early so we could catch our flight from Sydney to Cairns.  We thought it would be warm once we got here, but it turned out to be rainy and chilly still! Lucky us since it only rains there 5% of the year!  Once we arrived we visited an aboriginal cultural center.  Here we saw presentarions on the dances and weapons of their culture.  We even got to learn how to throw spears and boomarangs!  It was all pretty interesting and fun until one of the guides told us that he didn't own a pair of shoes and made it seem like he lived in the rainforest and then when we were leaving we saw him in regular clothes going to the parking lot.  It just comes to show you how very few tribal people still live in developed countries.

Later that night we headed to an awesome seafood restaurant called Tha Fish.  It was probably the most fun meal I have ever had!  Lauren and I split this awesome shrimp ravioli and a seafood platter.  The platter had shrimp, scallops, oysters (which I couldn't eat), bugs (crayfish), yabbies (mini lobsters), crab, calamari, and some fried stuff that we didn't really know what it was. :) It was so much fun tasting all of the different types of seafood and they were all fresh since we were so close to the ocean. 

Day 9 - GBR

So today was absolutely amazing!!!  We woke up early and got on a boat to head out to Green Island.  This would have been really fun, but the weather continued to be a pain.  So of course it rained for the first half of the day.  Well once we got to Green Island we got to walk around and go to the beach. (Not the best beach day ever) While we were here some of us decided to go scuba diving once we got the the Great Barrier Reef and I was one of them!  I was pretty nervous about it at first, but in the end it was a great choice!  After we left Green Island we headed to a boat that was stationed at part of the reef.  Once we were here we could snorkel and scuba dive!  I chose to do a little snokeling before we went scuba diving and this was a great choice because it is very difficult to just breath out of your mouth and it took a lot of practice.  I finally got the hang of it and it made scuba diving so much easier.  I also finally got to use my underwater camera case that I was so excited about and I got some pretty cool pictures of all the underwater creatures!  Scuba diving was absolutely amazing!!!  I did have a small panic attack while we were doing our training, but I quickly calmed down and was able to relax.  Once we were underwater it was so relaxing and beautiful!  There were so many differnet types of fish and coral and we even saw a shark!  Some of us pitched together and rented an underwater camera that we could dive with and we got some great pictures! 

Overall today was my absolute favorite day!  I am even thinking about getting certified to got scuba diving!

Day 7 - The Last of the Ag

So today is the last day our the agriculture part of our tour of Australia.  We only went to one place this morning and that was to Charles Sturt University. Here we met up with Dr. Peter Chenoweth who used to be a reproduction professor and researcher for K-State.  It was really cool to see someone from our neck of the woods all the way in Australia.  He gave us a tour of the ag part of the college, this included the cattle yards and the vet hospital.  This was a great tour and their equipment and facilities are very new and up to date. 

Now we are on a 5 hour bus ride from Wagga Wagga to Sydney.  Once we are there we will have some time to shop and enjoy the city.  Tonight we are going on a dinner cruise of Sydney Harbor, which should be amazing!

Update on my feelings about the trip...so far....

So most of my posts have just been what we have done so I thought I would right a post more about what I think about the trip.  Well after the crazy long plane ride, things started off kinda rocky.  First of all it was way cold when we got here since it is summer at home and fall here.  So that was quiet a shock and I did NOT pack for that kind of weather.  Our first night was also kind of strange.  We went to a very nice resturant, but we had a very limited menu to pick from and the food wasn't that great.  We thought that would only happen that one time, but we were wrong.  We were give pretty much three choices to eat from for lunch and dinner, chicken parm, veal or chicken shnitzzle (I am pretty sure I spelled that wrong), or pork.  After a couple of days this soon got very frustrating and I felt it was limiting our study abroad experience.  So once we complained enough to our tour guide, Graeme, he finally fixed it and let us choose from the whole menu.  Now we get to try different food and enjoy the experience much more.  The only down side to that is that now we get food that we like and eat way too much!  I would have to say that that ia my only complant for the entrie trip!  It has been really amazing and beautiful here.  I have learned so much about the agriculture of Australia and how many differences and similarities it has with the U.S.  I also couldn't have asked for better travel mates than who came.  Everyone has been great and on time, for the most part.  The Sydney Opera House was so beautiful!!!  I am so so so so so so so excited for the Great Barrier Reef!!! It is going to be so much fun and I will be sure to post lots of pictures from it when I get home...since I have an underwater camera case! This has been an amazing and once in a lifetime experience that I will treasure forever!  Well stay tuned and I will keep you updated on the northern part our Aussie tour!

Day 6 - Stuff....

To start of the day we visited the Wagga Wagga Saleyard.  This was a very different experience.  The saleyards here are way different from the ones in America. Most of the cattle sold here are already fat cattle to be slaughtered. The autioneer style was completely strange and took some time to even understand what he was saying.  They pens are also very different and the cattle are weighed prior to entering the selling arena.  They also have screens at the top of the arena that show the prices, weights, buyer, seller, and type of cattle for the just sold, currently being sold, and the ones up next to be sold. 

After the saleyard, we literally went across the street to the Cargill/Teys abattior.  They even have a walkway under the street to bring ther cattle they buy from the salyard to the plant.  This abattior was very different from the JBS plant we visited earlier in the week.  The set up was much more Americanized and had more of a flow.  We didn't get to see the kill floor which made the tour way less cool, but we did see the boning room.  This room was much more organized than the JBS plant.  The Cargill plant also only did cattle and they process about 1200 per day. 

The final stop of the day was the Cargill\Teys Jindalee Feedlot.  We weren't allowed to take any picutes here which sucked, but it was still fun.  We drove around the feedlot and saw all of the cattle that they were feeding out on a grain based program.  At this feedlot they used HGP (hormone growth promotants) which is usually not used in most of the other feeding operations in Australia.  That was very interesting to hear that they weren't allowing the uneducated consumers control that part of the operation like some others.  The most used feed that is fed here is steam flaked wheat, which we got to see and I thought was interesting since I have never seen it and am specializing in nutrition.