Cow-Calf Management Tour

August 22, 2025 at 12:00 PM - August 23, 2025 at 3:00 PM
Lennox & Addington/Frontenac

Beef Farmers of Ontario invite you to join us for farm tours in Lennox & Addington and surrounding area. This event will provide an opportunity to learn from other cow-calf producers through farm tours and guest speakers. We look forward to discussing pasture research and management, genetic selection, strategies to prepare calves for the feedlot, marketing, and more.

Draft Agenda

Friday, August 22

12:15 pm Registration at the Hampton Inn, Napanee
1:00 pm Bus departs hotel

1:15 pm Bayview Farms
Bayview Farms is a family run farm located on the shores of Hay Bay. It is a mixed farming operation consisting of hay, beef, soy beans, and wheat. The Windover family have a Charolais cow herd where they focus on producing quality calves that will go on to perform well in the feedlot. Their farm meets the standards of the Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Beef (CRSB) through certification with the Verified Beef Production Plus (VBP+) program. The Windover’s emphasize the value of improving the environment through rotational grazing, water management, and working with organizations like Ducks Unlimited.

3:15 pm Kennedy Farms
Kennedy Farms is a purebred Red Angus cow-calf operation which focuses on genetic selection and producing seedstock. Discussions will focus on marketing cattle, succession planning, forage production, and a guest speaker on predation challenges.

4:30 pm Burns Farms
Terry Burns and family run an 800 head backgrounding operation. We will take a wagon ride tour of the pasture-based operation discussing grazing management, processing protocol, and their business model on sourcing calves and having consistent buyers.
Dinner on-farm catered by The Blue Door Café
Living Lab Producer Panel
Living Lab – Ontario is a five-year innovation project that brings together farmers, organizations, researchers, and other experts to co-develop, test, and evaluate beneficial management practices (BMPs) that address climate change challenges in livestock and cropping systems. We will hear from producers involved in the beef-related living lab projects.

Evening Hospitality
9:00 pm Bus returns to hotel

Saturday, August 23

Breakfast begins at the hotel at 7:00 am
8:30 am Bus Departs Hotel

9:00 am River Valley Herefords
River Valley Polled Herefords, operated by Pauline and Donald Embury, is a seedstock herd of 140 cows, feedlot and 1,000 acres of cropland. With a focus on purebred genetics and producing seedstock, River Valley Herefords area also active in the show ring and host a sale on-farm in the fall. They also own River Valley Poultry Farms Ltd. with 8 layer barns and 4 pullet barns, which brings them to a total of employing 30 full-time staff.

10:45 am Hewson Farms
Bert Hewson owns a commercial Charolais cow-calf operation. We will discuss cattle handling, nutrition and calf health, and marketing of cattle. Bert will also give us a tour of his impressive memorabilia collection.
Presentation on beef cattle nutrition and ensuring calf health.

Lunch catered on-farm
2:00 pm Return to The Hampton Inn, Napanee
Safe Travels Home

Please note: For the safety and security of our tour hosts, we have omitted location details from the agenda above. The complete agenda, including addresses for tour stops will be provided after registration.

Please contact Jaclyn at BFO if you have questions.

We look forward to having you join us on August 22nd-23rd!

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