[OldKat]

@Happy When Hitched 8151 wrote:

I had a horse years ago that was diagnosed with early renal failure. At wits end, and hand grazing daily on what little grass we had, I got a catalog from Springtime Inc, and decided to give the bee pollen a shot. Within a week, coat quality improved, and a month later, he had gained weight and his urine showed normal kidney numbers. It’s expensive, but it saved his life.
I also have a horse that dropped weight dramatically winter before last, as soon as they went off grass. Did the same thing this year. I have not used the bee pollen on him, as he is very old, and it’s a choice between that and the backhoe. He’s picking up now that grass is coming on, so I guess he’s got another summer. I’ll no doubt put him down come fall. I did treat him with a panacur power pack, and that helped some. (link for info only, I don’t recommend or not recommend this particular store)

… bee pollen did you feed? Amount per feeding etc? I happen to have some that I bought as a supplement for our diet, but the taste was so bad that we quickly gave up on that idea. Maybe my daughters horse could benefit from the bee pollen, although his blood work came back in the “normal ranges”. Just a thought.

[OldKat]

@droverdale 8171 wrote:

Not mine, but a 2 year old devon. Some of his hair fell out last spring but this year it is worse. It starts between his hind legs and went to his knees and nose,now his back and butt. Not all falls out just many patches, he is unsightly,Looks bad. Have 4 other steers in the same pasture and feed the same, any guesses? Thanks

lice or mange would be my guess. Started on the inside of hind legs above the hocks? Is the skin wrinkled and irritated looking? Has he been eating hay from round bales by any chance? If so to the last two questions, I would almost bet that he has lice.

Ivermectin pour on will clear him right up. Good news is that it will take care of mange, too. Bad news is it will also take out dung beatles wherever he has droppings. If he has lice, odds are the others will have it soon. Not sure if there are any oraganic options to Ivermectin, but I would be happy to know if there are. I am leery of how much Ivermectin is being used on cattle in my area.

[OldKat]

@lancek 8139 wrote:

I have a prim example of paying attention to the safty procedures! Yesterday I was woorking in a very tight gully taking down a 30 inch white oak that was heavly brushed on all sides. I proceded to clear a excape path on the bottom of the gully going away from the cut I proceded to chip the deriction that I wanted the tree to fall and proceeded to bore the bowl because of the heavy lean, about half way through the cutt I heard the tree start to pop and then the tree exploded! at that point it was all men for them selfs I threw my saw away and started runing. If I had not made a excape trail I would have never got out of there on time, I recved quit a few bruises but no bad injuries but what a close call ! I have been loging 30 some years and that was the closeest call I ever had!

Close call man, glad you are okay.

I’m kind of like Robert; I know just enough about chainsaw usage to know that I DON’T KNOW enough to use one SAFELY. I do use one now and then, however, so I appreciate knowing about the videos.

I had a friend named Roger K. who worked for the local electric co-op as their “tree guy”; anytime a tree was in danger of getting into the power lines he was the one that was responsible for taking care of the situation. Sometimes this meant trimming the tree, other times taking it out. He did this job for probably 25 years and I am told he was VERY safety conscious, as well as very conscientious in general.

Probably 10 or 12 years ago he and I were visiting at our County Fair on a Saturday night. He mentioned that he was going the next day to help his brother-in-law take down a storm damaged tree in their front yard. I was shocked a couple of days later to learn that the tree didn’t fall as he had planned and it fell on him and killed him.

I guess you just can’t be too careful when you are doing that kind of work. Glad to know there are resources to help make sure situations like what happened to Roger don’t become too common. He left two now grown kids that were both early teenagers at the time. Not a good situation.

[OldKat]

@Fldrafthorserescue 8092 wrote:

Hi there, we run Florida Draft Horse Rescue in Zellwood Florida. We have about 38 years of draft experience and love the big guys. We are looking for other folks in our area to network with who also appreciate the draft breeds. We often have Clydesdales, Percherons, Belgians, and the occasional Shire. We currently have 1 Black Percheron, 2 Grey Percherons, 1 Brabant, 1 Belgian, 1 Clydesdale, 1 Shire and 2 Clydesdale crosses. We have an open door policy to the horses so all they need is a current neg coggins and we will take them and try to train, rehab, get them up to weight and help them find good homes. We provide all the vaccines, dental care, farrier care, and veterinary care they may need. I know there are others around here wholove the big guys too…. We look forward to hearing from you!:p

Where do most of the horses you rescue come from? Not in a geographic sense, but rather from individuals that have ceased to care for them, or from other unique situations?

[OldKat]

@BachelorFarmer 7937 wrote:

re:the so-called “traditional” breeds… It must be noted that this is completely relative to your locality. Those breeds charly lists are almost unheard of where I farm in Canada. The traditional breeds here are British. “exotic” animals began entering from france, and then much later from elsewhere.

I work as an AI technician http://www.ebi.ca and have studied the trends in beef cattle breeding and the rise and fall of certain traits/breeds over the last century. Frankly it fluctuates much like women’s fashion. Around 1900 the demand was for big framey cattle, and the British breeds were bred larger until the mid-century point when a smaller compact carcass was in demand. They then focused on this. Later the demand for huge framed cattle almost overnight brought on the widespread importation of French (Charolais, Blonde d’Aquitaine, Maine Anjou) cattle. Now, oddly enough, the Angus breed has bounced back, and they are a tight, compact short British Breed. Around here they are all the rage right now. Angus are hot, and Black is hotter than Red. Go figure.

The beef enterprise really determines which breeds will or will not survive. The ox driving enterprise is .01% of .01% of this total. I say grow your own or buy local…and make do with what is at hand 🙂 This chasing after shangri la is simply homogenising the planet through cross breeding. Most Gelbvieh bull semen is used to cross on other breeds here. I don’t even carry any of those others mentioned. The few purebred Gelbvieh breeders are few and far between.

My personal experience with beef breeds indicates that Herefords are the most docile and tractable and friendly.

I don’t disagree with anything BachelorFarmer has to say; his observations mirror mine.

In addition, if I remember correctly the British breeds early on were dual purpose … milk production / beef & sometimes triple purpose … milk / beef / motive power (to pull things). The continental breeds were developed with a higher emphasis on motive power and then either milk or beef, usually for milk. Probably NOT true for ALL breeds, but “in general” so.

I think I remember reading that the Europeans stayed with oxen as a major source of power longer than we did on this side of the pond. So IF I were to make a special effort to locate animals for that purpose beyond what was locally available to me (which is what I would actually be inclined to use) I would lean toward something like Braunvieh, Blonde d’Aquitaine, Maine Anjou etc. However, the longer those breeds have been in the US the more likely that they have probably changed in form from their original conformation. Also, many have been crossed with polled individuals which I think I remember hearing is not desirable for making oxen.

Then again, I am a horse guy (and not all that great at that) so what do I know about oxen? 😀

[OldKat]

Plowboy’s post gave me a reason to review this whole thread. Wow, it was a really good one.

It is funny, but I had never noticed the wind bothering my horses until recently. We have had a really dry spring (and winter, fall, summer, etc, etc) with a lot of gusty wind. It surely does seem to have a less than positive impact on the way the horses respond to me. Good observation Dennis.

[OldKat]

I’m confused on this one. So the stocker is retaining ownership of his cattle through to slaughter? Or are there buyers who buy live cattle and send them to a custom feedlot? I thought that those big feeders bought cattle,owned and finished them and that most of the custom stuff was small potatoes. Whether grain is cheap or expensive, when you multiply 5 extra days on feed times 50,000 head, that’s some serious money and also why some pen riders I know say the rule of thumb is 5% acidosis in the lot or you’re not pushing them hard enough. Not my cup of tea but you sure see where numbers become the issue.

Geoff,

I don’t know what happens in points up North (or “Up Narth” as you are likely to hear it said around here! :rolleyes:), but in the lots I am familiar with the most common form of ownership is a third party type of deal. The lots have their buyers buy cattle for “feeders” who may or may not have any other dealings with cattle. There are “retained ownership” deals where a stocker/ grazer buys calves at 600 #’s, maybe heavier and then will graze them to maybe 850 #’s or so, before placement, while retaining ownership. The state dept of agriculture sponsors a program called “Ranch to Rail” where ranchers own the cattle all the way through the chain, right up to the packing plant. There are some lots that own the cattle or at least have some ownership in some or all of the cattle. I guess you could say there are all sorts of ownership arrangements in play. *

The 5% rule must be universal, because that is what they say here as well. Interestingly enough the acidosis issue is sort of what has turned me off to feeding cattle. The more I look into it, the less I like the concept.

* This was as of 2000, which was the last time I really looked into feeding cattle. Things may have changed completely since then, I can’t say for sure.

[OldKat]

@goodcompanion 7978 wrote:

I couldn’t have put it better.

But, the glass-half-full part of me sees some possibility of redemption in the situation. I am already farming three of the plots originally carved off the farm rent free as a service to the homeowners. They in turn can qualify for a tax break as their land is being used on a long-term basis by a farmer as defined by VT law. There is the possibility of the farm regrowing a bit this way.

Another scenario is that if food and energy costs both continue to increase, those who can farm rural land to good advantage will be sorted out from those who can’t, and that the farmable acreage will change hands again.

Interesting that most people do not pay rent to cut hay around here, and some even charge money to cut hay off others’ land if the parcel is small (under 10 acres). An indication of how little value is in the whole idea of agriculture around here.

Same thing happens here. In fact I lease a property that was split into smaller pieces & have already picked up one 25 acre piece that was carved off of it. I am going after an additional 200 acres that was carved off it as well. The owner has zero interest in using his property, can you believe that?

Interesting how comparable situations can be half way across the country from each other!

[OldKat]

Geoff,

The sytem wouldn’t let me reply to your post, so I am doing it this way instead. Hope it make sense! 🙂

I’ve got a couple of comments to run by you on this.

We’ve been seeing the strong Angus market for almost 20 years now. Through $2.50 corn and $10 corn. There were the occasional attempts to market a specific breed as the new “thing” (like the Limousin{sp} in the 90’s) but nothing over that time ever really displaced the blacks. And we saw it on a much smaller scale when finishing cattle – the Salers, Limos, Gelbs, Simmentals – all would reach a certain level of intake and then crash but not very often would a black baldie do that. They just chugged it down.

I agree. IMO, the only “exotic” or more accurately continental breed to have made serious inroads into the US commercial business has been the Charolais, and even they had a period in the late 1970’s, early 80’s when they were out of favor. The heavily muscled, “Full French” Charolais that were brought into the US in the 60’s and early 70’s had double muscle problems, dystocia problems and did not do especially well in the feedlot. The so called “domestic” Charolais, descending from individuals imported in the 20’s & 30’s did not have these problems and that is what was used to rebuild the breed here.

Angus (Black and Red) have been and will continue to be popular as a cross because they are one of the so called carcass quality breeds. Others include Hereford, Shorthorn, Devon, the unrelated South Devon and maybe a few others that I can’t recall. In reality, it is only the Angus (especially the Angus), Herefords and Shorthorns that are generally thought of in those terms. Keep an eye on the Devon’s, I think they could be an up and comer (especially for those that want to short finish on grain or grass finish!).

NOTE: For you Ox Drovers, if you have any Milking Shorthorn or Devon cows that you are using to produce your oxen … for a deep freeze calf you might consider AI’ing your cows to some of those Rotokawa Devon’s that come out of New Zeeland. I am pretty sure semen is available on them now and the carcass quality / ability to finish on grass of those calves is said to be amazing.

What gets used in the lot is generally a regional preference and it almost always comes down to environmental adaptability. Up where you are the Black Baldie probably is the most adaptable cross available. On the South Plains (Lubbock, TX & north to lower Kansas & S E Colorado) the Super Baldie is popular, especially for placement in late spring to feed through the summer. This is a Black Baldie with a touch of “ear”, maybe 1/8 to 3/8 Brahma(n). However, the steer of choice for year round use has been what they call a “Black nosed Charolais”, which is really a Charolais x Angus. There has been increased interest in breeding both of these breeds smaller over the past several years & in increasing the percentage of Angus in the cross, because of the grain cost, days on feed & fitting the box issues we discussed earlier.

[OldKat]

@goodcompanion 7875 wrote:

It is just one statistic and tells only part of a story. Probably the “lost acreage” was a combination of:

1. Former farmland subdivided for development, which in Vermont means lots of 10 acres or more in most cases. The land in this case may or may not remain in production, but in any case ceased to be registered with the USDA.

2. Former farmland abandoned but not subdivided, left to grow to forest or brush, and so no longer registered.

This being Vermont, little pavement is involved. But a lot of former farmland has changed hands from families with long histories on their farms to owners of what are essentially huge suburban lots, who generally do not farm their plots and commute to their work. I think you could make the case that the land ownership structure we have now in the state is hugely wasteful of both agricultural land and transportation. All these roads that used to be dirt but now need to be paved so everyone can commute to Burlington at 50 mph.

My farm was subdivided by the previous owner from an original size of 300 some acres down to 110, one house lot at a time. The original core of the farm, which I now own, borders 16 ten-acre lots! None of them has more than a small vegetable garden.

Erik,

This exactly what I was hoping HADN’T happened to your state. Everybody I talk to tellls the same tale, regardless of where they live in this country. I wonder if other parts of the world are so short sighted? I’m NOT saying people don’t have the “right” to subdivide their land, and I am NOT saying that others don’t have the “right” to buy it; I AM saying that for the food security of our collective society it IS NOT a good idea to do so. What we can do about it is beyond me though.

BTW: You have perfectly described what has happened where I live as well. 30 years ago it was land within 10 to 15 miles or so of the city, 20 years ago it had moved out to 20 to 30 miles, ten years ago it was 40 to 50 miles and now it is 60 to 70 miles out or more (which is where I live) Beyond that & you start getting into people coming the other way, fleeing from other cities. Very discouraging.

[OldKat]

@near horse 7952 wrote:

Hey Bachelorfarmer,

I thought the issue with the large framed exotics or continental breeds was that packers complained that: the cuts were too big to fit in their boxes and too big to sell as retail cuts (not everyone wants a giant ribeye – although I’d like one). Also, longer time to finish on continentals. Blacks over Reds – not so sure but out here Black Baldies are the cross of choice (Angus Hereford) because they seem to perform better on the hot finishing rations (less acidosis).

Many folks go with dairy breeds since they have been partially bred (theoretically) for temperment. If you need to milk them 2x a day you don’t need aggressive genetics.

I think the time to finish is probably the real driver. When feedlots first started getting to be the most common way to finish cattle (late 1940’s or so) the time in the lot was probably 90 days. The finished steer probably weighed “maybe” a 1,000 pounds, more likely 900 to 950 #’s. Today it is probably averages in excess of 140 to 150 days and may go much higher than that for some of the larger framed steers, with finished steers weighing upwards of 1,500 #’s. If the amount the animal consumes to finish is a % of its live body weight, then bigger framed cattle will require more grain to finish than smaller framed ones will. At a couple of bucks or less a bushel for corn or equivalent (milo, etc) that may not have been a big deal. At todays grain prices it is a very big deal.

Think about what a feedlot really is; just a giant feedstore, feeding one million pounds of grain per day or more. Since most feedlots don’t own the cattle, but just feed them out for someone else they (generally) could care less about grain prices. (Some do because of the way their contracts work, but most don’t) The “feeders”, the people that actually own the cattle, care a great deal about the price because they get squeezed out on the margin (sometimes, often times a negative margin) between “live cattle” and “fats” (finished cattle). So, while there is a great deal of talk about cattle not “fitting the box” (which is really more of a retailer issue than a packer issue), the same complaint was voiced when grain prices were cheap … just nobody listened. The feedlot boys were selling a lot of grain and the auction buyers work for them … so guess what kind of frame they were out looking for? Yep; 6’s, 7’s and up.

Now grain prices are through the roof and the only way a feeder has a prayer of a chance of turning a profit is on cattle that will “trip” the lot quickly. Hence the sudden desire to get faster finishing cattle. Unfortunately, the old easy keeping frame 3, 4 and maybe 5 cattle have been out of favor so long that there are just not many of them around.

So the buyers are tending towards chasing the breeds that are “generally” smaller framed. There are millions of Black Angus cattle out there, but not that many Red Angus (the Red Angus as a distinct breed is only about 50 years old). There are reasons the Blacks are more common than the Reds, but in the long run I am betting on the Red.

I’m not in the packing business, but my father, two uncles and one cousin were or are so I tend to watch issues like this one fairly closely.

[OldKat]

Yes Geoff, that is great news. THAT is where I hope to be with my horses soon; though I don’t currently have ANY equipment for them to pull. I hope to be doing the kind of stuff that you are doing soon! Sounds like a win to me.:)

[OldKat]

@Donn Hewes 7929 wrote:

Are we talking about a halter by any chance? How long could a harness stay on? I think halters on animals in the pasture should be off. If they are on because they are hard to catch they shouldn’t be left on till the animals are showing marks. that’s poor animal husbandry. Just my two cents. Donn

I know lots of people that leave their halters on all the time, because they say it makes their horses “easier to catch”. I DON”T KNOW how this can be true. :confused: Are they having to corner the animal and grab the halter as the horse tries to run by? If so, they need to work on trying to figure out why the horse doesn’t come to them when they enter the pen. Mine do, and I bet nearly everyone on this forum can say the same. If not, contact me and I will tell you how you can work on this so they do.

I DO KNOW that if you are leaving halters on in the pasture you are GREATLY increasing the chance that your horse will snag the halter on something; struggle to get free and either pull the tendons in the neck or snap the neck, neither of which is good. Bottom line … the risk exceeds the reward in my experience.

This is one of the few things that I will ever speak up to people about when I see things that don’t agree with on how the handle their horse(s). Most people don’t want to hear it, and that is fine. Still I feel that I owe to the horse. Maybe I have saved one or two over the years and didn’t even know it.

I also know that I told this to my class years ago when I was teaching a unit on horsemanship to my Ag II students. There was one young man that just laughed and laughed about it. Within a month his calf roping horse had broken his neck when he caught his halter on a fence post and tried to pull free. The youngster came to my office with eyes red from crying and kept saying “I sure wish I had listened to you”. 🙁 Wasn’t much I could say, but I sure felt bad for him.

So please … DON”T LEAVE HALTERS ON HORSES WHILE THEY ARE ON PASTURE. I suspect this applies to mules and donkeys, too. I don’t know; maybe they are calm enough to stand still if they hang their halters, but I wouldn’t take the chance.

[OldKat]

@Rod44 7936 wrote:

I got lucky and the http://www.wagons-wheels.com/pw107.html plans where right here. I don’t know where I bought them but the details of the box body and running gear if from illustrations in “American Hoarse-Drawn Vehicles” by Jack D. Rittenhouse

Illustrations and Diagrams in the “Time-Life” book “The Cowboys”

If I had to guess I would think I would have ordered it out of an add in Rural Heritage.

Nope here is where I got them

http://www.wagons-wheels.com/pw107.html

Thanks! 🙂

[OldKat]

@Rod44 7856 wrote:

I built this a couple years ago with the help of an Amish cabinet maker and buggy maker. Made from plans from an old Sears and Robeck chuck wagon. Gear is an older gear in good condition. Asking $4,500 OBO, located in Southwest Wisconsin near Viroqua.

Great job on the chuck wagon, Rod44. 🙂

You are just a wee bit too far for me to want to try to ship it down. However, I have been looking for a set of CW plans for about 2 or 3 years. You wouldn’t be willing to sell me a copy would you?

NOTE: I tried to send you a PM about this, but for some reason it wouldn’t work.

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