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Nat(wasIxy)
ParticipantI think the beauty of the NHS for me is that it is not the rich or the working, paying for the poor and lazy – everybody gets the same treatment so you’re not cut out if you earn over so much, as far as I know, if the queen needs healthcare, she could get it on the NHS (I imagine she has her own doctors, but still, she COULD). This is unlike the welfare system here where working people end up paying for people who make no effort to find work.
You’ll always get some people too lazy to work, but does that mean we all have to suffer? I doubt we’re all too lazy to work, most of us have that urge to better ourselves. So what about the people that do work and really can’t afford insurance?
In fact, state healthcare may encourage people to go to work as if currently you qualify for free healthcare if you’re not working, what incentive do you have if you’d struggle to pay insurance if you went and got a low paid job?
I agree that if you don’t WANT this to be brought in, it shouldn’t be forced through regardless but if this is being fought just because people don’t like the government bringing in rules…why have it at all? Do you think there should be NO laws at all, because anything from ‘on high’ that tells you how to behave (don’t murder/molest children) etc is ‘out of order’? I don’t like government intervention, it’s killing our farming industry over here, but if they’re bringing in something to benefit me, I won’t fight them just for the sake of it!
Participant@dominiquer60 14790 wrote:
Remember, be supportive of your farm neighbors, you don’t have to agree on how to farm, but rather that it is important to farm.
Erika
This is the attitude we have – our neighbours are very diverse, we are small and grass based and starting a micro dairy – one of our neigbours has hundreds of holsteins and is still expanding. Another is a sort of medium sized beef and sheep farm with an older owner and never a blade of grass in the fields! 😀 We all look at each other with amusement and confusion, but we are always there for each other!
ParticipantHi Ed! Good to see you here! I’ve told Angus and Tex to expect you 😉
ParticipantI really love all these decorations, especially the fantastic plumes the brown swiss have! – must make some for mine!
ParticipantI personally think it is very important for cattle to have the company of other cattle. They are very social animals, meant to be in a herd – they love to groom each other, and a dog or yourself won’t head-wrestle with him the way a bovine mate would. Imagine spending your whole life with no one around you speaking the same language, or enjoying the things you do 🙁
From an oxen point of view, I also think it’s important for them to be bossed around by mature cattle as calves – it stops them being spoilt brats and socialises them IMO. I see a lot of singly kept, bottle raised steers turn out spoilt and dangerous.
ParticipantGreat story – I would certainly try riding or working him, but taking it verrrry slowly…
Non-ox people don’t appreciate these stories – For a while we had a band of cattle including my oxen roaming the yard here because there was nowhere else to put them, and for some reason Angus my simmi likes to climb up piles – dung heaps etc. We had a pile of gravel, and a ladder lying up the side of it and sure enough Angus wanted to climb it, so up he went on all this gravel. At one point, he put his hoof through a rung of the ladder and I saw the gravel shift under him so his leg became trapped. I started panicking because I could just imagine him going crazy, the gravel shifting, more legs getting caught in the ladder and some bones breaking! But no, He stopped dead, calmly thought about it for a second or two, and then very carefully backed off the pile, pulling his hoof out with him 😀
ParticipantWhat tim said!
ParticipantNot really, we’ve been super busy! Lots of moooovement on the cattle front as we’re taking delivery of some jerseys today for our fledgling ‘micro dairy’ 😀 had to get sheds, troughs, straw etc etc etc organised…so Angus has just been out with the herd. Once things have settled down on the yard I can bring him in and do something with him 😀
ParticipantI’m 23. Was always just *obsessed* with animals, and in particular, working animals that were vital to communities, like the reindeer of the saami, mongol horses and bedouin camels etc. I loved cattle, but they were inaccessible things to me, not being from a farming background – in this country horses are the only things I could realistically get contact with so I started riding when I was 9 and wanted A PONY above all else!!
Then I discovered oxen and never looked back. 😉
ParticipantI’ve been gradually getting ‘Scabby’ and his friend used to human contact but we never seemed to progress past them coming up eagerly for some silage, but never daring to eat while I was near.
So I just caught and haltered him – they ran around the pen and I just kept them running until they got bored and then Scabby easily gave in and I got the halter on. Now he’s tied up and fighting it out with the fence rail…I’ll just keep an eye on him so he doesn’t hurt himself and will let him off when he’s calmed down…
ParticipantI always go for bottle babies so they never know anything other than doing what I say.
Breed is a personal thing, some better than others but go with your heart or you’ll never be truly satisfied! I didn’t get on with brown swiss, but that’s just me, they do have a lot of good points. I don’t fancy holstein or jersey either but my boring old simmiXfriesian is just the ticket! 😀
Harness or yokes is likewise a personal thing. I prefer harness as it’s easier for me to make, store, and use and I prefer not to use the neck or head as the point of pull for much weight, even though that’s traditional in some places.
I don’t let mine run with the herd until I’m fully confident I can catch and lead them away again if I need them. They learn bad habits just as easily as good!
ParticipantI’m glad the bulls aren’t aggressive – the buck is coming out of athleticism rather than stress. They know their job, like a racehorse.
I’m not in it to see people hurt, i actually like the bucking and skill.
ParticipantSomething interesting happened the other day with this stopping if you fall down thing.
We had to bring the entire herd back to the yard for some tagging/separating the bull/pulling out some steers to go on their final journey to the great pasture in the sky…this involved getting them through 4 fields, most of which they’ve grazed down but one is reserved for grazing next month and is covered with lush green grass. We knew it’d be nigh impossible to do it sensibly, but it had to be done!
They came out of field 5 at a gallop, and we ran with them down field 4 (the grassy one) and I was out front, attempting to head them off before they turned away from the gate. It was too late – the herd had turned – but I was pelting along, tried to stop, and fell over, right in the path of the herd!
I rolled onto my back, then quickly sat up, expecting the herd to gallop over me any second….
…I looked up to see the entire herd stood perfectly still and quiet, staring at me as if to say “they don’t normally drop dead on the job like that?”
lol.
ParticipantBeen doing some more thinking and chatting/designing with my partner and we’ve come up with the idea of a travois, but with strudy little wheels on the ends of the poles! With a simple peg and strap it can be attached to my exisiting harness I’m designing/making.
I have really high hopes for this! Can’t wait to show you pictures 😀
ParticipantI LOVE PBR! 99.9999999999% of people in the UK don’t know of it, or if they do think it’s cruel. So did I until I watched it – now I’m hooked. Sadly, we don’t have a telly, let alone Sky (cable?) with obscure channels….:( it’s one of the few things I miss.
What happened to Marchi!? My ‘money’ was on Mauney….
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