Y’all will have to excuse me, as I was finishing up last week’s column, I left out a few methods of livestock identification that are used predominantly with stock show animals. The nose printing of cattle, sheep and goats is a method used in the validation of animals, usually in the market category to match the animal up with the entry paperwork. Nose prints of these animals are as individual as fingerprints in humans. Blood and hair samples are also used in acquiring DNA information to identify and prove ownership of these livestock show bound animals. Now that I’ve completed the final portion of livestock id, onto the main topic of this week’s Agriculture 101 column. The wide variety of Texas Agriculture.
