[dlskidmore]

I am what I eat, so I’d like my meat raised in as healthy a condition as possible, and good health doesn’t just come from vaccines and vitamin shots, it comes from living the natural life that your species was meant to live. Paw at the grass, smell the wind, have room to socialize with your kind or have space away from the aggressive members of the group. Encounter only the types of stress you were designed to take.

They’ve scientifically found that cows that die afraid are more tough, and pigs allowed to root in an oak forest have less saturated fat. I will not be surprised when we find more proof that raising animals the way God made them to live produces better food.

[dlskidmore]

@Countymouse 21101 wrote:

At that point, he says most ofit is very compacted and some of the straw has degraded. I don’t know how true that could be, but it’s still not what I would call compost.

You can always ask for a core sample a few weeks before he cleans the barn and needs a place to put it.

[dlskidmore]

@bivol 21094 wrote:

dlskidmore, do you mean conversion to horses?
i have fairly big holes in knowledge concerning this, but taking the terrain, climate and soil types of scotland in consideration, i’d say that conversion to horses on any significant scale would have been unlikelly, at least in highlands.

Yes. Mitchmaine’s data indicated that after 1858 Oxen declined in prominence and horses rose. By 1880 horses outnumbered oxen, but there were still 45,000 steers and oxen in the state of Maine. In the previous conversation we had the same speculation, that rough terrain and bad roads led to the choice of oxen over horses, and that horses rose in prominence as the roads became better.

[dlskidmore]

@jac 21024 wrote:

numbers and usage of oxen in around 1750-1800… primarily in Scotland… could it be possible that oxen were the power source at that time.

We actually had this discussion recently. Mitchmaine provided the data, he may be able to refer you to sources. Of note: “oxen hit their high mark in maine as choice for draft power In 1858”. Dates likely differed between the US and Scotland, but without the westward expansion and associated fast travel needs, I doubt Scotland was much quicker in this conversion.

[dlskidmore]

@Countymouse 21085 wrote:

Really, I am not sure if sprinklers can handle liquid manure or if some other system is required due to particulates.

I doubt the average sprinkler system could, but it might be able to manage a pre-filtered manure tea. You’d be left with a lot of solids in the bottom of the tank that had to be composted and spread the old way.

[dlskidmore]

@Countymouse 21021 wrote:

Grade A milk has less than 20,000 total bacteria with less than 10 coliforms per ml.

As a clarification, most food standards apply at expiration, not at manufacture time.

Most food standards have a range of acceptable values. For example, Vitamin C breaks down over time in the package, so prepackaged foods are packaged with 120% of the Vitamin C on the label, and have 80% of the amount on the label at the expiration date. Product outside that range would be legally incorrectly labeled, and not salable.

[dlskidmore]

@near horse 20998 wrote:

I do believe that some people are “intolerant” of lactose or milk proteins, for whatever reason. There are arguments that adult animals didn’t evolve drinking milk, as it was primarily a food for infants that needed the high quality for growth, and so may lose the ability to digest milk. I never thought about whether the intolerance was due to homogenization or pasteurization. Hmmm.

Many people who are lactose intolerant can have cultured milk products like sour cream, yogurt and Kiefer. The bacteria in the milk break down and predigest the lactose so it does not cause digestive upset. Raw milk is likely to contain similar bacteria, and after a little time in the distribution system or on a fridge shelf may break down in a similar manner.

[dlskidmore]

I could be convinced to convert to raw milk if I owned the cow/sheep in question, but as soon as you start pooling milk from multiple cows, it seems to me that the risk of less favorable microbes inhabiting the milk would go way up. One bad pail of milk contaminates the batch. I think this is a good deal of why big milk companies have to pasteurize and always will, they not only have to be confident of the biological security of their own herd and quarantine practices, they have to trust every single contributing farmer’s biological security and QT practices.

[dlskidmore]

@Donn Hewes 20948 wrote:

Skidmore, Not that it has any thing to do with selling a tractor, but I was wondering what you thought the 3 non graze able months are.

I’m no expert, so don’t rely on my data. I’m more familiar with the land itself than the requirements/impact of the livestock. I was hoping to use some stockpiled forage in winter, but some years the snow here can be too deep December-Feburary. It seems wise to stockpile feed for that period in case it’s a bad year. At the least supplemental feed needs to be available to make up for the increased effort of having to paw through the deep snow. March-April is very wet and care would have to be taken to not damage the fields with too much grazing, which could extend the non-grazable season, but that can only be judged when I have actual land with actual drainage & growth patterns to study. Usually here the grass is growing under the snow before the snow is gone, so there is at least light grazing available in early spring.

[dlskidmore]

No doubt the additive have something to do with it. My father was a food engineer for many years, and he had many concerns. Each of the food additives is tested individually safe, but not in combinations. They once had some returned product when the vitamin additive reacted to the acid in the food and caused crystals to form. The customer thought there was broken glass in the food. And that’s just one additive in one natural food, nevermind all the different things they add.

I feel the same about many of our medicines. I try to be on as few as possible, despite my doctor’s recommendations for my chronic issues. There’s nothing wrong with fighting through it sometimes.

Oh, and it wasn’t the cancer that made Mom germophobic, it was the chemo.

[dlskidmore]

I was looking at the numbers in one of my books, and a moderate loft above a shelter would easily store 3 months of loose hay for the sheep in the shelter, which is about the non-grazeable period here.

[dlskidmore]

They told my mother the opposite, to stay away from any sort of raw food, or even processed foods that tend to sit around before consumption such as lunch meats.

The milk though I assume would be easy on the stomach and simple to digest as long as you are not lactose intolerant.

[dlskidmore]

@gwpoky 20918 wrote:

We still need to organize on our haying method for next year, baling is the only thing we used the tractor for.

I’m under the impression that old fashioned hay mows are so huge because the hay was put up loose? I’m thinking of going that route if I end up doing any haying. I won’t do enough to make it worth getting a baler.

[dlskidmore]

@jac 20919 wrote:

I see where your at but it does seem odd that a product that is a known killer is legal but the governments on both sides of the puddle oulaw raw milk ??? you should really give the raw milk a try btw, the flavour is totally better . providing the herd is tb and bruselocis tested there is no health risk.

$$$$$ That’s why. There is no Big Raw Milk lobby. That and at the time that pasteurization was mandated we didn’t have general good sanitation or refrigeration, so the science at the time was able to make a very strong case.

And we do prohibit tobacco use among those of the age group that are the biggest milk drinkers (babies and young children.) Maybe it would be a step in the right direction to have to be 18 to buy raw milk? 🙂

[dlskidmore]

@jac 20912 wrote:

So when did our system change ?? I can remember when I was younger when we would go to a neighbor and help with hay if we were done and they wernt and i well remember the tomfoolery at clipping time when the neighbors decended on our farm..

I think the transition to big equipment may have something to do with it. Manual labor is basically free when you have spare time, and it can be a social gathering as well as helping someone else. However if your neighbor is thinking about running his combine on your fields for you, he does that pretty much alone, and spends a good deal of fuel he paid for doing it, why would he do that when he can take the afternoon off with his family instead?

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