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Kevin Cunningham
Participant@Donn Hewes 38526 wrote:
is there any chance that she is not breed? Just wondering.
This could be a real possibility as there was no witness. She was in with a herd that was being serviced by maybe one or two bulls. I should probably have her preg tested to be certain. I was able to drag her back to barn, so maybe a tractor is not necessary, but I am worried that she will bolt the next opportunity. I think she just wants her own way, and has learned that she can get it.
ParticipantI would be interested in hearing your opinions on both systems as I have considered both. They are slightly different tools for different applications but I am curious to know what you think about either one as a general all around farm tool. Please do a review here, enquiring mind want to know.
ParticipantAndrew, you mention on your blog that you can get this on DVD with subtitles. I will never be able to stream video that long with my satellite internet. I am going into town today so I am going to try and get it there. Where do you get that DVD if anyone is interested?
ParticipantI know that the ultimate goal is not to have any of these close call moments, but they are a training oppurtunity in themsleves. I know that I have benifited from my run away experieinces with my steers. It seems like it might just be the begining of the sight and foresight that prevents bad situations from getting dangerous, but I am starting to see the begining of runaway. I have not had another bad runaway with my steers for a while now, there have been a couple of times when I can see it starting to ramp up and have been able to stop the situation.
Seeing what is coming and being aware of all the things that your animals will react to is an important teamster skill to develop.
I had no idea that this was something that I needed to develop in myself when I was starting out. I thought it was all about my control of the animals, and it is, but what a mentor can hopefully do is show you how important something like this is. I still have the thread about my steers runaway printed out and read it again and again, because the only mentors I have are right here.
ParticipantBeautiful, I would love to visit Scotland again sometime. I remember loving the forests there, very different from the redwoods here in California.
ParticipantSounds like Will was tired of the waiting for the adolescent shenanigins. I wonder if cattle do the same press and release social dynamic that Monty Roberts talks about in the Horse Whisperer. Any body else know what I am talking about? I remember reading it a while back. The therory he uses is that the alpha horse will punish a misbehaving youngster by pushing them out of the herd until they submit and then letting them back in. He uses this “horse language” to get horses to follow him as a first step in training. I have witnessed this behaviour in the Elk around here and I would assume that cattle use something similar. Any thoughts?
ParticipantThis makes me yearn for spring time as I listen to the raining falling down outside. I can smell the earth and feel the plow dig, and I don’t even use a draft plow yet.
ParticipantAndy,
I think this is an excellent idea. After looking at your list, all of the topics seem to me very important and far reaching, but the list is long. In order for something like this to work well it should be started small and in an area that is very attractive to a lot of people. You have already done the research on what people look at when they come to this site so I think that should guide the initial short list of topics to start covering in either a video or webinar way. It might be hard to pare down but I think it would be wise to start small and not get overly ambitious with the range of topics. I am very interested in seeing more videos similar to what Tim Harrigan has posted. These little gems are invaluable to someone like myself who lacks a real time mentor for draft animals.
December 2, 2012 at 2:11 pm in reply to: Request for Common Cause from Green Mountain College #75775ParticipantAw… Portland, land of the paleo diet. I was just in Portland recently and went to the big farmers market at PSU and we got vension liver pate, and pastured small batch salami, and there was hazelnut finished pork, elk, bison, bags of chicken heads, fresh salmon, and all the grass fed beef you could eat. Oregon is turning into a “good” meat lovers paradise.
ParticipantI have the same concerns. We currently have four freezers running and are also considering some sort of walk in. All of our freezers are used and we have had some very close calls, luckily no major disasters, because of problems with older equipment. I wish I would have thought more about refrigeration when starting the farm planning process, or at least knew as much about it as I say know about fencing another crucial element. It was good to hear Joel Salatin say one time that they got up to 14 chest freezers before finaly getting a walk in. It is hard to say when the efficiency cut off is.
ParticipantI have been thinking a lot about this the last few days. Yesterday we finished processing our round of Thanksgiving turkeys. This was our first year with it so we just did a small round of regular old broad breasted white turkeys (sustainable?), twenty some odd birds. Our birds got first rate care; organic feed, plenty of green grass, fresh air, and bugs. By far better than anything else in the store. They are not heirlooms or anything but still a thanksgiving turkey you can be proud of. But in our small county with a population of 128,000 how many thousands of turkeys are being served this Thursday. It took our crew of 5 most of the day to process and bag the birds for sale. We take one and the rest are pre sold. After truly knowing what it takes to bring that bird to the table I stagger at the thought of how much work it would take, just to supply turkeys for one day of the year, in one small county in, in one state of the union. Some one once said that we would approach sustainability at a a rate of 10% of the population farming. Think about how radical that is. Right now it is 1% or less in some areas. In our county that would mean 12,800 people actively engaged in farming, that is the entire population of the nearest town! Now, if all of those farmers raise 20 turkeys then we are on to something. The greatest thing about this concept of 10% is that means 90% of the population are not farmers and can support the 10%. Now this little thought exercise doesn’t take into account land base, water, infrastructure or any other variables that sustainability needs to consider, but I still think we need more farmers.
ParticipantThe most important thing is that he is resting peacefully and not in pain. The smart ones always seem to be there to teach us something about ourselves.
November 14, 2012 at 3:14 pm in reply to: Request for Common Cause from Green Mountain College #75774ParticipantThis whole situation is very worrying. I don’t want to think that this sets a precedent that extremist groups can, with enough bullying get their way or at least change the normal course of events. I am outraged that VINE and PETA have essentially overturned a decision that was made by the students in regards to school property and a farm project. This is not constructive dialouge over a difficult topics or decisions, this is essentially terrorism. That might sound harsh but the tactics that have been employed by the VINE and PETA are extremist and designed to frighten the faculty into submission to their desires. All that said I do hope that somebody can think through and rationaly write a letter in regards to this situation because it makes me fume and rant.
ParticipantIt seems that I need to work some on the yoke; it is worth a try. He doesn’t hold his head low while just walking around in the yoke. I have tried to watch them while pulling and I can’t see where it is bothering him but it is hard to tell when they are moving. I will work on the yoke before the next time I work them. Here is a video of them. They are not as responsive to Kelly our intern, it shows him holding his head low.
ParticipantI have been trying to adjust the bows on this yoke for a while now. This problem seems to have started since I built the 6 in yoke, which I thought was way better than my 5. It is rounder and more shapely. The only thing I don’t like is that it might be a bit narrow. I used the tillers guidelines, but my steers seem to have a bit more gut now that they are on hay.
Here is a picture of the yoke:
And here is a picture of the bow on Tex when he is in the nigh position:
and a picture of the bow on Joseph in the off position:
I feel like I have adjusted both up and down on both steers with no change in Josephs head position. I have a good video of it but now I need to figure out how to post it.
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