Farmer Roy's Random Thoughts - I never said it was easy.
- Thread starter Farmer Roy
- Start date
- Location
- East Yorkshire
Rice, perhaps?
Don’t think we’re quite at rice level yet
that could just as much read old ideasI just saw this & thought how many threads on TFF it could have been posted in the past
I'll just leave it here
View attachment 817406
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
I'm sure this type of retaliation has been discussed at length on TFF
Much better to put the optimum dose of nitrogen fertiliser on their lawn.
- Location
- East meath/dublin
A lot of rain Blaithin ? Are parts of Canada still suffering from drought ? And how are the later areas in the peace country getting on . Wonder will fusarium be an issue on wheat and durum .
A fair bit of rain here recently. Area around work probably has about 6" in the last two weeks, at home it's more around 4-4.5". Go south or east and it's still really dry though. Lots of parts of Saskatchewan are dry as a toot. Even the parts that are getting some of this rain it's not mattering because nothing germinated when they seeded, fields are just sprouting now. Won't get much of a crop from July sprouting fields. Greenfeed or silage maybe.
Haven't heard much about north. They weren't dry like us so shouldn't have those issues. Still had quite a bit to spring thrash I think so their seeding could have been behind but then again, even though guys around here started seeding end of April, most stuff didn't get in the ground or sprout until Mid May because of the cold.
Fus is really only an issue in Durum and down south or in SK and MB. Don't see it much in wheat here and don't deal with durum here at all. Fusarium hasn't got quite this far north and west in large amounts yet.
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
- Location
- southern riverina Australia
Pretty much how the northern Australian cattle industry works I'd say. Minimal intervention.
- Location
- Glen Clova, Angus, DD8 4RD
But it'd never work here
I love the idea. Proper ranching.
I can see the eruptions in "Livestock and forage" now at the thought of not using EBV's to "improve" the herd and of culling all escapes.
It might be a minor challenge to comply with UK tagging rules though, tagged within 21 days of birth.
I'm currently up North on holiday,Darwin, Kakadu, Lichfield national park staying here https://darwin.ljhooker.com.au/lifestyle-in-rakula-nt-0822-au-1quuf2x?search=/search/property-for-sale/pa currently for sale, ideal for Roy. Away from the rest of the world here, alot of ancient history and some stunning scenery. One for the bucket list.
- Location
- Cornwall
Looks like perfection!
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
You should buy it, with your millions, and rent it out
Global ovine
Member
- Location
- Central Otago NZ
This is how it has always worked..... those genes best suited to the environment in which are selected gain in frequency in that population, even if they need turning on. This is why much of the UK Genetics industry is so out of kilter with the commercial farmers they service.
Ranching is at the far end of the spectrum.
Back now to holidays.
I think it’s a new farmers idea of what ideal farming could be like with little consideration for practicalities.
Hopefully I’ll have time to sit at a computer later and expand on that.
So first thought that hits me with this "rewilding" concept is it would be all or nothing. You either believe animals should not act like their domestic breeds but more like their wild equivalents which is going to lend itself to all sorts of problems regarding transport and handling stress. It would most likely even require different handling facilities than most operations in many places currently use. Feral animals are not easy to handle in most situations which is what rewilding would ultimately be doing.
If, however, your goal is to simply have a tougher animal that is closer to it's natural roots then you aren't rewilding, you are selectively breeding for traits and behaviours like every other livestock producer does. This is a far cry from letting a domestic animal go feral.
You do not need to "rewild" (that's a stupid word btw) anything in order to have influence on epigenetics. Much like his salty sheep example would be fescue issues. Cattle and other livestock bred and raised in areas where they are exposed to more fescue develop a greater ability to deal with the fungus in larger quantities than animals with little to no exposure. If you live in a high fescue area and bring in animals with no exposure you are more likely to have issues with those animals. This has nothing with making them more "natural" and everything to do with them adapting to their local environment. A cow will make colostrum different every year, it will have antibodies to what she has been exposed to in the last few months. If you move her and her calf to a completely different area with different pathogens, her colostrum will not provide antibodies to the calf for things there that she has never been exposed to. Again, nothing to do with raising them more naturally or not.
"The herd effect went deeper than simple range management, however. The unbroken and solidified bonds of a unified herd, one that is uninterrupted by man’s input, forces the brood cows to cycle in unison; to calf when the seasons are welcoming for new life; to wean when the calves are ready and fit; and to be naturally guarded by the lead bull(s). The ruggedness of the natural world formed these epigenetics eons ago and produced hardy, stable, fertile, healthy, well-formed, and happy animals alongside resilient, strong, rich, and nutrient-dense ecosystems. There was one unit and everyone from the ground up profited—even the ground itself."
My bull lives with my cattle year round - mainly because I don't have the facilities to keep him contained away from them alone. He is a herd animal and wants to be with a herd, I'm not going to put him in a place like poor Paddy where he's forced away from other bovines. He'd wreck my fences. He's been with these same cows for oh... 4 years now. Anyone want to guess how many of them have synced themselves to cycle in unison and calve only when the seasons are nice?
Bet you all said None. You'd be right.
They're domestic animals that have genetically evolved due to different pressures so that they now reproduce whenever. Even producers who leave bulls with their cattle year round for decades will not tell you that their cattle all randomly started only calving in the spring. Yes the main block will stay fairly consistent to whatever time they were calving previously but anything that has any sort of set back will begin calving later and later. Any poor performance by a bull will not cause your cattle to skip a fully year until they cycle again, it will push back their breeding dates. They aren't deer, they don't only cycle once a year.
The author of this piece also seems to have a poor understanding of wild herd behaviour. Or even cattle herd behaviour. There's a sweet spot in time in the fall when it's easy to get your herd all rounded up and home for the winter, if you miss that time then the bulls have all buggered off and formed bachelor herds apart from the cows. Bison do similar, as do deer, elk, caribou.... While the bull herd may not be geographically far from the cows, they have their own herd to support themselves. Also in the wild at this point in time the females would all be bred and not cycling which wouldn't be calling in the males. In the article either Paddy is lonely because he's been isolated away from any herd or their "brood" herd isn't all bred and a cycling animal is tempting him. Many producers have few issues keeping a herd of bulls close to a herd of bred cattle in the off season.
"Why do we disbud our animals when natural horns have been proven to help the cattle release excess body heat in the summer and provide them with additional protection from predators? Why do we castrate our bull calves when such a violent action inhibits their natural body growth and negatively effects their hormone balances? Why do we wean our animals when their mother’s milk supplies all the essential nutrients needed for their healthy growth and the lack thereof inflicts severe physical and mental stress (for both the mother and calf)? Why do we separate our bull(s) for a good portion of the year when we believe that his fertility is one of the main fundamentals of a successful farming operation and this separation causes documented reduction in his fertility? Why do we run multiple herds when one herd is more complete, less time-intensive, and arguably healthier for itself and its ecosystem?
I believe it is because we are afraid to let our animals become natural; we are afraid of rewilding and losing our civilisation’s dominance over convenience; we are afraid for our production of natural products to become truly “natural”; we are afraid of what our local and undomesticated biome will do to the genetic expressions of our domesticated products; we are afraid of truly becoming humble and allowing nature to be our partner and not our subject; we are afraid of becoming native to this place; we are afraid of losing our civilised genome."
This entire part just tells me he has little understanding of commercial livestock production. Right or wrongly, there are many reasons producers choose to either practice or not practice any of the methods he mentioned. There are absolute valid reasons for them all depending on the producers set up. He probably also wouldn't agree with producers aborting all heifer calves at weaning either if he were to find out about that, but then would he link that towards more bulls in the herd? Sheep are managed tightly so that the ram lambs don't get breeding rights I believe? (Not a sheep person
)At the end of the day cattle have been domesticated. No amount of leaving them alone will magically make them what their predecessors were. You cannot leave a herd of Angus untouched for generations and think they're going to breed themselves into horned versions of modern day Aurochs. They will become different from what they are now yes, they will become tougher, rougher cattle capable of handling harsh extremities without the luxuries we provide them. But you do not get survival of the fittest without a trade. We want consistently sized and formed animals that produce food for us, a wild herd will not have these benefits. They might have stronger survival behaviours, they might have increased health and fertility (I really don't think most breeds suffer lack of health or fertility as issues) but they won't have the level of traits that we need for food. As farmers we know that market demands dictate how much profit we could potentially make. Well the market does not want wild meat. It doesn't want smaller amounts of leaner meat. If it did deer, elk and bison would be more popular. As producers it's nice to think we can work as in synch with nature as we want but at the end of the day our livelihoods depend on our ability to provide a product that the market wants. Rewilding wouldn't provide this.
Also, his bulls**t line about a "false environment stupefying his animals natural instincts."
That bulls natural instincts were just fine, he wanted to be with a herd a not alone where prey animals are more vulnerable. It's the idiot person that was stupefied.I would also be interested in a few years time to hear how he thinks this part worked for him:
"5) Decreased management time – by running fewer herds and spending time observing and bettering their lives, rather than castrating and weaning them, we have the peace to make better decisions. The overall stress on the farm is reduced, which makes both the farmer and the animals extremely happy and healthful."
There are definitely ways you can lower your involvement with livestock but if you want to be a good animal steward, generally letting them do whatever they want whenever isn't the way to do it. Especially if you live somewhere with blizzards, because one of the biggest time consumers and stress creators is when you end up with cattle calving in those blizzards. That's definitely something you need to watch for when you just let everything stay intact and with the herd all the time.
In short, I think the author needs to go spend some time on a larger operation and see the why's of the current practices before he decides they should be tossed to the side in lieu of utopia. There are conventional commercial practices I don't feel I need to partake in as a smaller scale producer, but there are others that definitely have their place and I will continue to use.
Deerefarmer
Member
- Location
- USA
Remember the corn pics I posted few weeks ago? Here's another update
