"Nativised" Verses Heritage Breeds

Joel Salatin makes the case for, what he has termed, "nativised" animals, verses heritage breeds.  I recently read an article he wrote on this, and, must admit, that I am intrigued.  Mr. Salatin always stirs the emotions and intellect and I am glad to trust his wisdom.

The gist of his argument is that heritage breeds (rare breeds) are fine.  It is a good thing to do your part to preserve the breed and propigate it.  The problem begins at, well, the beginning.  When purchasing the heritage breeds, the price tags often associated with them is very large.  This make the profit margin smaller.  In order to recoup what you have invested, you have to charge the same or more, to sell the animal.  In simplified terms, the meat is more expensive, but doesn't taste any different.  At least not enough difference to warrant the price tag.  The truth is that a heritage breedre can price themselves right out of business.  You have to be wealthy to maintain your herd.  Again, this is fine, if that is what you want to do.

But, if your goal is to provide good food without the injections, additives, hormones, antibiotics, poked, prodded, sardine style raised, mud bath, fecal dust, then the high priced rare breeds are silly.  He makes the case for what he calls nativised breeds.  These are your standard, plentiful breeds of animals.

But they are the same animals that the industrial, mechanical facilities use!  I hear you, but hear me out before you bring out the torches and the pitchforks.  Again, in simplified terms, it is not the breed that makes the meat healthy, eatable and injection free.  It is the way it was raised.  In other words, taking the animal, regardless of breed, and placing it in its natural invironment.  You know, nativising it.  Bringing the animal back to its native land.  It is letting a bovine be a bovine.  Brining out the pigness of the pig, the chickeness of the chicken, etc.

Once again, I must thank Mr. Salatin for causing a paradigm shift in my brain.  Now I face a difficult decision, one I have not reached, completely.  I will say that I may, now, be leaning toward the nativised.  My problem is that I really, really like the Dexter breed.  The smaller cuts of meat make for great storage in the freezer for a small family.  They eat less than larger breeds, that is a big plus.  They are gentle by nature and thrive on grass.  On the other, other hand, I can't afford to buy into a herd much less two to get started.  This brings me back to nativised, I can afford that. Hmmm......

Do Cattle Eat Leaves?

I was talking with a gentleman today about trees and their value as a forage. It is true and a little know fact that the green leaves of trees supply many trace minerals and nutrients that ruminants need. Trees have the ability to take minute traces of minerals and nutrients and combine them into very nutritious leaves and wood. They are capable of this action even in very poor, nutrient deficient soil.

I have noticed that my cows will reach up as far as they can to get those juicy oak leaves. I was told, once, that that is bad for them, that the leaves are toxic. I believe that animals know what they need and when they need it, and they aren't dead or sick yet.

This gentleman told me of a friend of his that, one year, fought the sprouting persimmon trees that had inundated a 10 acre pasture. He even went to the point of pulling out the disk plow and plowing them all under, only to watch them pop back up in a matter of weeks. I will vouch for the fact that persimmon are near impossible to get rid of, I have plenty of them. In fact, they are quite the nuisance.

After all his efforts failed, he then purchased $600.00 worth of chemical herbicides. He then sprayed the field. The results are unknown to me as we never got that far in our conversation. However, our talk helped me make a decision about what to do with the persimmon problem on our place.

Last year, I had our Dexter bull in the paddock that supplies us with the nasty trees. I had noticed that he had eaten all the leaves off the persimmon trees and when those were all gone, he ate the stem itself-end of problem.

This year I have our mini Hereford bull over there and he isn't touching them. Maybe he's not hungry enough, yet, I don't know. Thus, the problem. Honestly, the only thing you can do with these trees is control them, you can't get rid of them.

So here is what I will do to control the persimmon trees, put the Dexter bull back over there and let him eat them. Sure, I could go in there and work my tail off to try to remove them, like the aforementioned fellow. Or, as I have said in the past on this blog, I can let the animals do the work for me. I vote for the latter. I have plenty to occupy my time without adding persimmon eradication into the mix.

In fact, that would be my solution for the farmer who spent $600 on killing the trees. Mob graze the 10 acres, fenced off in tight paddocks, and let the cattle eat the leaves. If nothing else, without the leaves, they will die. But that's me. I don't believe in the modern way of farming in which we spend our way into astronomical debt and sweat when cattle prices fall.

The ideal is to have, or work toward, a least cost operation. The less you spend, the more you make. So, let the cattle eat those leaves, they'll thank you for it.

The World's First Mini Black Baldie? I Doubt It, But We're Excited Anyway.

I thought I'd share some pics of our new little calf. He was born Saturday morning around 7:00 a.m. He is the product of our minature Hereford bull and our Dexter cow. We usually breed the cow to the Dexter bull (which, by the way, we may be interested in selling. Contact us if you're interested at sppowers@iglide.net . You can view him here. ) but I got the idea to see if we could get a black baldie out of the mini Hereford and it worked. I doubt that this is the first calf of this kind but it is quite unique and a pleasure to us.

Here are some pics of the little critter.

Bully For You

Our Dexter bull enjoying some hay. Look at that curly hair, it is a sign of excellent fertility. We're kind of prod of him.

Come back tomorrow night for the long anticipated article answering the question on kelp meal.

A New Life On The Homestead!

Good grief! Just a few hours old and here she comes with the camera!

I guess, if I must, I will stand for you. But don't expect this too often! Posing for pictures! What is this world coming to?
Look lady, you've had your fun, can you stop taking pictures now? Mom, can't you do anything about this?

That's good mom, stand up and tell her to bug off, I'm tired!

This is the calf with no name. The kids have not dubbed her yet. Yup, it's a heifer! She's a beauty and got her daddy's looks. She was born very early Tuesday morning (March 10) and I got quite a welcome surprise when I went out to feed the animals. She is a cross between Dexter (daddy) and Red Devon/something (momma) Ahhh, fresh milk is coming soon!

I opted, today, for the quickest article. This is due a great desire to finish the spare room (we have been finishing this house for 10 years) so my wife can have a place to sew and scrapbook and teach our daughters the fine arts of said activities.

So, I was out looking at our Dexter bull and noticing some of his masculine qualities like his really curly hair on his forehead. The nice, strait line from his shoulders to his tail etc.

Then I thought about how pleased we have been with his performance. He is litterally batting 1000. I remembered an article I read a while back on what to look for ina heard bull, before you take the semen test. Quite accidentally, we found many of these good qualities in a fertile bull, in our own bull. We bought him sight unseen, which is why we are so very pleased.

The above, linked article, was written by Gerald Fry, a man whom I have come to respect. I never met him, but I like to read his stuff. Click the link and read his article. Then, go take a look at your bull. If nothing else, you will have soom good knowledge to take with you when you go to purchase a bull. Enjoy.

Slow Time Of The Year

One lesson I have learned, recently, is that green grass is udderly (yes, I spelled it that way on pupose), vital to milk production. I have read a lot on this subject and they all say this. However, I did not really understand the magnitude of it until our milk cow has gone from 1.5 gallons on two quarters, down to a quart on four quarters. Methinks it is time to dry her up. The cost to benefit ratio has got to be out of whack.

Our bull, Brownie, (I didn't name him) is back from his vacation with another lady. We loaned him out to some friends, whose company we enjoy very much, to service their cow. We are glad to have him back and can't wait to see his offspring!

One last thing, here is your last chance to get this funny, conversation starting "Bible Baby", before Thanksgiving.

If you are interested, the cost is $10 plus postage. You can contact us via email at sppowers@iglide.net This would make a beautiful addition to your office!

Bye, Bye Brownie

This afternoon, we sent our bull, Brownie (Dexter) off to be a man.

A good friend (I can call you that, can't I Danyel?) came and took him away to his new love. His old love (our Dexter momma) was very forelorn. You should have seen her look at me, then look at the truck, as it was pulling away.

Then she would moo and look at the truck, then look at me. She repeated this several times. She is pathetic. I'm sure that Brownie (I didn't name him) will enjoy himself, dancing with the lady of the house. I must say that loading him went very well, much better than the last time we sent him off. Thanks Danyel and sis for bringing the trailer.

On another note, the sky darkened around 6:00 p.m. and we got a little rain. Enough to wet the ground. Of course, this had to come when I was in the middle of repairing our rabbit hutches. They had developed a huge hole. Thankfully, there were no escapees and all I got was very wet. (Too bad I didn't have my shampoo with me.) At least the rabbits are safe and secure, for now.

Grassledge?

I know. You're thinking, "What in the world is grassledge?" Well, it is a new thing that I came up with all by myself. Probably not, but I like to think I did anyway.

The concept is simple, really. A couple of weeks ago, our old push mower died and I had to buy a new one. I got one with a (you guessed it) grass catcher on the back. But, that's not all, it is also a mulching mower which produces little, tiny bits of grass all collected neatly in the bag.

The logical question then was, what do I do with all those clippings? Sure you can compost them, in fact I do. It makes great compost for the garden or pasture. But I cut about half an acre or more with this thing. There is a lot of grass clippings, neatly mulched, of course.

The next logical step, then, was to feed the abundance to the cows. They love grass, who cares if they don't bite it off themselves. Of course, I wouldn't do it if this was the only reason, I have to cut the grass anyway, this is just a little bonus.

So, I feed it to them and they love it! It is like taking the kids to the candy store and letting them have whatever they want. Our momma Dexter gets the most of it and she acts like it is the best treat she has ever gotten.

If you've ever wondered what to do with all those grass clippings, compost them for the garden first, then feed the cows. I think I'll give a bit to the rabbits, also.

I have heard of a way to make hayledge using grass clippings and garbage bags. If any of you readers have heard of that and have the know how, let me know. I'd like to try it. Who knows, with the price of fuel these days, maybe I can use the clippings to make ethanol for the vehicles?

Thanks for reading our farm blog. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May His light shine upon you... God bless, until next time.........

Soon, very soon

Hey folks! Well, our Dexter momma is starting to bag up now. Well, actually, we noticed it a couple of days ago. Her two back quarters are getting full with the two front quarters starting to fill. I figure a few days yet, but we'll keep watching. This will be her third calf with us and her sixth, total. So far she has thrown all heifers. Of course, we would like another heifer, but we'll take a bull, as well. We'll keep you posted, right here.