The United States Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and the Blaine County Conservation District invite area cattle producers and any other interested individuals to a Know Your Manure NUTBAL Workshop on January 21 from 1:30-3:30 p.m. at Wallner Hall in Chinook. Great Falls Area Range Specialist for the NRCS, Rick Caquelin will present the workshop.

A leader in the field of rangeland management, Caquelin is a longtime Society for Range Management member. As an NRCS employee, he is dedicated to promoting sound range management by involving local people in efforts ranging from photo monitoring programs to Monitoring Forage Quality with Fecal Sampling to Range and Livestock Management programs. Caquelin has spent over 20 years working with ranches and the Nutrition Balance Analyzer program to improve grazing management and livestock performance.

At Tuesday's workshop, producers will learn about collecting cow patty samples, shipping them off to the lab, and then interpreting the results they get back so as to improve their animal performance and forage production.

The Nutritional Balancer Tool, or NUTBAL Tool, can provide ranchers with a means to monitor the nutrient concentration in their livestock's

diet. From the nutrition data obtained from the lab, producers can make decisions based on that data to improve the condition of their herds.

According to Kailee Calnan, the District Conservationist in the Blaine County NRCS Office, the idea for this workshop started because of people with contract requirements with the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) through the NRCS. However, those attending the workshop don't need to be enrolled in the CSP. Anyone wishing to learn how to use the NUTBAL Tool as a decision support system to manage nutrient levels in their livestock's diet is welcome to attend.

Interested individuals should call 357-2320 x 3 for more information and to RSVP for the workshop. Refreshments will be provided by the Blaine County Conservation District.