Nesikep
Well-known member
OK, thanks for that clarification, and I stand corrected there... but despite my example being flawed, I hope the jist of the idea comes across
Am thoroughly confused now
- Thread starter Jogeephus
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Jim62
Well-known member
Does anybody refuse antibiotics, etc. when they are sick and the treatment regimen calls for them? Assuming that they really are all that bad for us, maybe we should think about that. I allow my wife to take meds when she's sick, and also make meds available to my animals when they're sick. So far, none of them have turned them down.
Just like manmade global warming, I tend to think it's "100% pure BULL" --well, maybe 98%........
Just like manmade global warming, I tend to think it's "100% pure BULL" --well, maybe 98%........
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Jogeephus
Well-known member
Jim62":yjcy57p4 said:
Global warming isn't real!?! I thought this record breaking cold snap we are having would be proof enough for ye naysayers. ;-) (where's Al when you need him)
hillbillycwo
Well-known member
Statistics are just numbers extracted from data points. They can be manipulated to support which ever side of an argument you want to support. That is the only thing I learned when I took Statistics in college. Like someone said earlier in this thread if you use antibiotics and vaccinations on cows they are no longer organically raised, if you don't you lose $$$'s or the peta folks get after you.
I see no problem using them but don't like the idea of using the growth hormones. We market a few beeves each year to customers privately and tell them that we use calf hood vaccinations and antibiotics as needed and we let them know that up front. We also tell them about how long before butchering you have to wait for the drugs to clear out of the calf, then show them our records of shots so they know the beef is clear of the drugs. So far no complaints. A little education of the public goes along way. Just my opinion.
I see no problem using them but don't like the idea of using the growth hormones. We market a few beeves each year to customers privately and tell them that we use calf hood vaccinations and antibiotics as needed and we let them know that up front. We also tell them about how long before butchering you have to wait for the drugs to clear out of the calf, then show them our records of shots so they know the beef is clear of the drugs. So far no complaints. A little education of the public goes along way. Just my opinion.
MichaelB
Well-known member
Jim62":228o2nw0 said:
It depends. Are antibiotics part of the regular feeding program as a supplement, or are they used in response to a specific one-time infection? The concern is that feed additives will contribute to strains of super resistant bacteria.
TexasBred
Well-known member
Why would you want to increase feed cost by including any antibiotic in the ration. Adds up to a lot of money is your feeding 50,000 head.MichaelB":168llltb said:
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Jogeephus
Well-known member
TexasBred":3efo0w7b said:
Not only that but have you ever calculated the time it would take to fill up your water tank with LA-200. Those little spouts make it dang near impossible.
TexasBred
Well-known member
Sort of like Low Carb beer huh?? Can't count the carbs so just believe the label. :nod:MichaelB":133jrpxo said:
I still don't exactly know what makes a farm a factory farm. And why is their beef is so bad?
Guy #1 - Raises 5 head per year in a 50'x 100' pen. He buys all his feed in a sack from the local feed store using advice from the kid behind the counter. He runs out to the barn after work and dumps a coffee can of feed to the herd collects a couple of eggs, gives hay to the horses and rushes back to the house glad to be done with chores for another day. He can buy bulls cheaper than steers and since he hasn't ever had a problem he leaves them intact.
Guy #2 - Raises 100 head per year in a 200' x 500' pen. He raises some corn and buys some soy-meal, ddgs, etc. from the local mill and mixes the feed on his farm. He feeds the cattle once daily and looks things over to make sure there are no sick ones; if so he runs them in the chute and gives a shot of LA200. He implants his cattle with a one-time implant that lasts 400 days and is good for both steers and heifers.
Guy #3 - Raises 20,000 head per year in 20 different pens that are 200' x 500'. He buys all his corn and other feed ingredients from around the area. He has a nutritionist on staff that continually monitors feed quality to make sure each pen is getting their nutritional requirements met. This guy has a mill on the farm and employs a 5 full time workers. The cattle are feed 2 times each day to make sure feed is always fresh, there are a couple of pen riders that ride through each pen everyday looking for hanging heads, droopy ears, etc. If anything looks 'off' a trained worker or vet will look at the animal to determine the best course of action and they procede accordingly. He also implants the cattle but uses different implants on steers and heifers and also different ones at different growth stages so they can be most effective.
Guy #3 - Raises his cattle until they have a finish on them and weight about 1400 lbs. He may have several buyers bid on each pen and will hopefully get some premiums for quality. He ends up getting $1.60 average per pound. He ends up making $15/head and he can make some improvements and fill the pens up again.
Guy #2 - Raises his cattle until he feels they also have a nice finish on them, also about 1400 lbs. He will bring a trailer load every couple of weeks to the local auction and since they buyers know his cattle he gets top dollar for the day and it works out to be $1.55 pound. He also sells a few of the tailenders to family and friends and charges an extra $0.10/lb. for the extra trouble of bringing a few to the locker and collecting money, etc. He's not exactly sure how much he made per head since he raised most of his own feed and isn't exactly sure how much he feed. But the checking account has enough money to take a nice vacation pay his salary and to keep going another year.
Guy #1 - He butchers his steers every fall so he doesn't have to feed them through winter. They are 900 lbs. each when they head to the locker. He takes 1 for his family and sells one to his brother. Since he just wants good healthy beef to eat and isn't out to make a profit so he just charges his brother 1/2 the costs incurred along with another little sum to make it worth the effort. He actually started raising just 2 head a few years ago but since his beef is way better than anything you can buy at the store there is the line of customers. The friends and family are happy to pay the $3.00 per pound since they know they are getting healthy farm raised beef and they know how it was raised. He ends up with a profit of $300 per head, but he doesn't do it to make money, he just enjoys raising animals.
Yea guys #2 and #3 use implants to increase rate of gain. We have debated implants before and the fact is their is no proof that implanted beef is anything but 100% safe. The fact is guy #1's beef would have more hormones in the meat than guys #2 & 3 combined. So why do customers think beef from #1 is so much better? The truth is they are just uneducated on modern food production. And it doesn't help when small hobby farmers are using scare tactics to get people afraid to buy meat over the counter so they can charge more for their product.
Guy #1 - Raises 5 head per year in a 50'x 100' pen. He buys all his feed in a sack from the local feed store using advice from the kid behind the counter. He runs out to the barn after work and dumps a coffee can of feed to the herd collects a couple of eggs, gives hay to the horses and rushes back to the house glad to be done with chores for another day. He can buy bulls cheaper than steers and since he hasn't ever had a problem he leaves them intact.
Guy #2 - Raises 100 head per year in a 200' x 500' pen. He raises some corn and buys some soy-meal, ddgs, etc. from the local mill and mixes the feed on his farm. He feeds the cattle once daily and looks things over to make sure there are no sick ones; if so he runs them in the chute and gives a shot of LA200. He implants his cattle with a one-time implant that lasts 400 days and is good for both steers and heifers.
Guy #3 - Raises 20,000 head per year in 20 different pens that are 200' x 500'. He buys all his corn and other feed ingredients from around the area. He has a nutritionist on staff that continually monitors feed quality to make sure each pen is getting their nutritional requirements met. This guy has a mill on the farm and employs a 5 full time workers. The cattle are feed 2 times each day to make sure feed is always fresh, there are a couple of pen riders that ride through each pen everyday looking for hanging heads, droopy ears, etc. If anything looks 'off' a trained worker or vet will look at the animal to determine the best course of action and they procede accordingly. He also implants the cattle but uses different implants on steers and heifers and also different ones at different growth stages so they can be most effective.
Guy #3 - Raises his cattle until they have a finish on them and weight about 1400 lbs. He may have several buyers bid on each pen and will hopefully get some premiums for quality. He ends up getting $1.60 average per pound. He ends up making $15/head and he can make some improvements and fill the pens up again.
Guy #2 - Raises his cattle until he feels they also have a nice finish on them, also about 1400 lbs. He will bring a trailer load every couple of weeks to the local auction and since they buyers know his cattle he gets top dollar for the day and it works out to be $1.55 pound. He also sells a few of the tailenders to family and friends and charges an extra $0.10/lb. for the extra trouble of bringing a few to the locker and collecting money, etc. He's not exactly sure how much he made per head since he raised most of his own feed and isn't exactly sure how much he feed. But the checking account has enough money to take a nice vacation pay his salary and to keep going another year.
Guy #1 - He butchers his steers every fall so he doesn't have to feed them through winter. They are 900 lbs. each when they head to the locker. He takes 1 for his family and sells one to his brother. Since he just wants good healthy beef to eat and isn't out to make a profit so he just charges his brother 1/2 the costs incurred along with another little sum to make it worth the effort. He actually started raising just 2 head a few years ago but since his beef is way better than anything you can buy at the store there is the line of customers. The friends and family are happy to pay the $3.00 per pound since they know they are getting healthy farm raised beef and they know how it was raised. He ends up with a profit of $300 per head, but he doesn't do it to make money, he just enjoys raising animals.
Yea guys #2 and #3 use implants to increase rate of gain. We have debated implants before and the fact is their is no proof that implanted beef is anything but 100% safe. The fact is guy #1's beef would have more hormones in the meat than guys #2 & 3 combined. So why do customers think beef from #1 is so much better? The truth is they are just uneducated on modern food production. And it doesn't help when small hobby farmers are using scare tactics to get people afraid to buy meat over the counter so they can charge more for their product.
Nesikep
Well-known member
well, here's my opinion of those 3 guys... they're all factory farms, some just on a small scale
My opinion is that if a farm is a self sustaining unit, in feed, fertility, etc, it will be naturally balanced, and thus should produce a higher quality product
this goes for grain farmers as well... dairies, chicken/egg places, hogs..
what is happening is that the fertility of vast areas of land is being exported to small places that have an excess of fertility now, which causes groundwater polution, etc, and marketing boards are definitely to blame as well
if prairie farmers used 30% of land for grain, and 70% of it for forages, rotating the areas, growing however many chickens, pigs and cows as his acreage can sustain, he would first and foremostly be less dependent on fertilizers, he would also have a diversified product line which may never make big money, would be pretty economically resilient to market changes... we all know what happens when the price of corn goes up... cow prices go down
Of course there are disadvantages to this, the most glaring is it's a lot of work, but condisering the unemployment rates, if people are willing to live a modest life, a farm should be able to support a couple families... not everyone can have every new toy and pay 800 bucks for a blasted Iphone
On the subject of expenses, such an operation requires a lot more machinery as well, though smaller than if it was all in 1 type of crop... I can speak from experience here, I think we have about 70 pieces of machinery on our place of just 160 acres if you include 3 point hitch and drawbar equipment.. I think about 25 engines to be maintained... here's a shortlist
5 tractors from 20-90 HP
approximately 20 different cultivators, harrows, chisel plows, etc
1 carrot digger, 2 potato diggers, 1 combine (3ft swath)
1 brillion seeder, 1 stanhay (vegetable) seeder, 1 grain seeder, 1 broadcast/cylcone seeder
standard list of haying equipment
1 track loader with backhoe, 1 bulldozer with winch
then the chainsaws, lawnmowers, etc etc etc
the newest equipment we have is 30 years old, with most pushing 50 years
all in all... we survive
My opinion is that if a farm is a self sustaining unit, in feed, fertility, etc, it will be naturally balanced, and thus should produce a higher quality product
this goes for grain farmers as well... dairies, chicken/egg places, hogs..
what is happening is that the fertility of vast areas of land is being exported to small places that have an excess of fertility now, which causes groundwater polution, etc, and marketing boards are definitely to blame as well
if prairie farmers used 30% of land for grain, and 70% of it for forages, rotating the areas, growing however many chickens, pigs and cows as his acreage can sustain, he would first and foremostly be less dependent on fertilizers, he would also have a diversified product line which may never make big money, would be pretty economically resilient to market changes... we all know what happens when the price of corn goes up... cow prices go down
Of course there are disadvantages to this, the most glaring is it's a lot of work, but condisering the unemployment rates, if people are willing to live a modest life, a farm should be able to support a couple families... not everyone can have every new toy and pay 800 bucks for a blasted Iphone
On the subject of expenses, such an operation requires a lot more machinery as well, though smaller than if it was all in 1 type of crop... I can speak from experience here, I think we have about 70 pieces of machinery on our place of just 160 acres if you include 3 point hitch and drawbar equipment.. I think about 25 engines to be maintained... here's a shortlist
5 tractors from 20-90 HP
approximately 20 different cultivators, harrows, chisel plows, etc
1 carrot digger, 2 potato diggers, 1 combine (3ft swath)
1 brillion seeder, 1 stanhay (vegetable) seeder, 1 grain seeder, 1 broadcast/cylcone seeder
standard list of haying equipment
1 track loader with backhoe, 1 bulldozer with winch
then the chainsaws, lawnmowers, etc etc etc
the newest equipment we have is 30 years old, with most pushing 50 years
all in all... we survive
bannedagain
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ChrisB
You forgot to mention that guy 3 probably has all of his cattle USDA inspected. Checked for drug residues.
You forgot to mention that guy 3 probably has all of his cattle USDA inspected. Checked for drug residues.
Jeanne - Simme Valley
Well-known member
CrisB - I agree with your prev comment.
Nesikep - your plan is idealistic and very nice - but it will not feed the people of America.
Nesikep - your plan is idealistic and very nice - but it will not feed the people of America.
Nesikep
Well-known member
hehe, I know it's idealistic, and I know we are a homestead... a 1/4 section was given to people who started homesteading for a reason... it's the right size
However, evidently not for most people here on the board, but generally speaking, the american/capitalist ideal is to make a lot of money, have 2.2 kids, and live in a nice suburb.. it's the american dream, and well, I think it's a bit of a pipe dream.. EVERYONE wants to live in the city, and part of me does as well, mostly because of my friends that do
How much food do you think our place (70ish arable acres) can produce? well, here's what we used to produce, with 1 or 2 seasonal helping hands, myself, and my parents
70,000 lbs of carrots
50,000 lbs of squash
20,000 lbs of potatoes
5,000 lbs of onions
5,000 lbs of wheat
12,000 lbs of live beef -> ~4000 lbs meat
so that's about 162,000 lbs of food
if we had a few more hands, we could easily have added 1 or 2 milk cows, a dozen pigs, chickens, fruit trees, and other crops, I didn't include the 30-40 tons of excess hay, since that isn't human food
if a person eats about 3 lbs a day (I don't think most do) that would feed 150 people for a year.. our hands were tied from producing more due to labour and markets.. I think with a bit more of the aforementioned, and more intensive management, we'd be able to double that.. our wheat yields are 3 times what prairie acreages get, using a heritage variety
now I'm quite aware my pipe dream will never be a reality, you don't have to convince me of that, but i think what I do is valid... particularly because my inputs are minimal.. a bunch of salt blocks, some seed, and other knicknacks.
However, evidently not for most people here on the board, but generally speaking, the american/capitalist ideal is to make a lot of money, have 2.2 kids, and live in a nice suburb.. it's the american dream, and well, I think it's a bit of a pipe dream.. EVERYONE wants to live in the city, and part of me does as well, mostly because of my friends that do
How much food do you think our place (70ish arable acres) can produce? well, here's what we used to produce, with 1 or 2 seasonal helping hands, myself, and my parents
70,000 lbs of carrots
50,000 lbs of squash
20,000 lbs of potatoes
5,000 lbs of onions
5,000 lbs of wheat
12,000 lbs of live beef -> ~4000 lbs meat
so that's about 162,000 lbs of food
if we had a few more hands, we could easily have added 1 or 2 milk cows, a dozen pigs, chickens, fruit trees, and other crops, I didn't include the 30-40 tons of excess hay, since that isn't human food
if a person eats about 3 lbs a day (I don't think most do) that would feed 150 people for a year.. our hands were tied from producing more due to labour and markets.. I think with a bit more of the aforementioned, and more intensive management, we'd be able to double that.. our wheat yields are 3 times what prairie acreages get, using a heritage variety
now I'm quite aware my pipe dream will never be a reality, you don't have to convince me of that, but i think what I do is valid... particularly because my inputs are minimal.. a bunch of salt blocks, some seed, and other knicknacks.
