Beef Cattle Animal Health and Nutrition Podcast

Background

Podcast listening continues to show incremental growth in North America with nearly 11 million Canadian adults (37% of the adult population) having listened to podcasts in the past year and 45% have listened at some point (Canadian Podcast Listener 2020 Report). Podcast listeners tend to be younger with a higher proportion of listeners in the 18-24 age category, however there is a wide spectrum of ages within current podcast listeners.

There are several beef cattle management podcasts available in the United States, including “BCI Cattle Chat” produced by the Beef Cattle Institute at Kansas State University, however at the time of this podcast launch, there were no podcasts currently produced that focus exclusively on beef cattle health management in Canada. Many of the topics discussed around beef cattle management and economics would have different points of emphasis in the Canadian context.

Objectives

The objective of this project is to evaluate the potential of audio podcasts as a form of knowledge extension and translation to cow/calf producers across Canada. A trial series of audio podcasts focused on beef cattle animal health and nutrition will be developed. The podcasts will largely be based on interviews with veterinarians, nutritionists, and researchers from across Canada on topics related to animal health and management with a target audience of primarily cow-calf producers.

What they Did

A series of 49 podcasts was developed and produced and released on several podcast platforms. Dr. John Campbell served as the podcast host and each episode focused on a particular topic related to beef cattle health, nutrition, and management.

Podcast episodes focused on conversations with veterinarians, nutritionists, or researchers on a wide variety of topics and was approximately 20-30 minutes in length.

A podcast website includes show notes and links to further information on related topics including BCRC webinars and other resource materials.  There were over 11,000 active users of the podcast website in the past 12 months.

Podcasts were publicized through social media, print advertising and industry websites including Beefresearch.ca and were available through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts.

What they Learned

The Beef Cattle Health and Production podcast was launched and 49 episodes were produced to date.  Episodes have been downloaded over 44,500 times and the podcast had approximately 270 regular subscribers.  On average, each episode was downloaded over 900 times.  The majority of listeners were Canadian, but podcasts were also downloaded in the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom along with other countries.  The majority of Canadian listeners were from the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan.

A successful podcast requires some marketing and an online marketing campaign successfully increased downloads and subscribers.  The podcast was ranked in the top 10 Life Science Podcasts by Apple Podcasts in the spring of 2024.

Some of the Most popular episodes of the podcasts as of September 30th, 2024 include:

• Episode #44 Health protocols for calves across industry sectors with Dr. Mariana Guerra-Maupome
• Episode #38 Coccidiosis with Dr. Andy Acton
• Episode #43 Remote drug deliver with Dr. Roy Lewis

What It Means

Podcasts are a cost-effective way of disseminating information to cow-calf producers.  Online marketing is an essential component of attracting listeners to the podcast.  The reach of the podcast is far greater than conventional means of reaching producers through in person meetings and has the advantage that producers can listen while driving or doing other activities.   Informal feedback from producers and veterinarians was excellent, but it is always difficult to determine if providing this information in this format made significant changes to how cattle are managed in Canada.