One for Clive

[Brisel]

Yeah, but unless you're silly enough to step on it or sit on it, they generally leave you alone. It's not like spiders or snakes have anything to gain from killing you, apart from self defence . . .

Apparently the most dangerous animal in Australia, the one responsible for most hospital admissions & death, is a . . . . horse !
Closely followed by dogs I'd say

Spiders & snakes are WAY down the list

What the hell are you guys doing to horses that makes them want to hurt you? The mind boggles...

 

[Farmer Roy]

Apparently people fall off them . . .

Or get kicked . . .

 

[Brisel]

Apparently people fall off them . . .

Or get kicked . . .

Ok. That's the story you're sticking to!

 

[rob1]

I shouldn't laugh but the horse fraternity are amazingly good at spending, aren't they?
Just had 22 horses stay here for a night and when I said we are looking at Organic certification in the future (jury is still out on that) they asked what I charge and was it ok that their horse was wormed back in December or whatever?
I said mmmmm OK, but it will be $30... ended up making close to a grand as I supplied a bale of crappy toppings "organic hay" - and have since had several enquiries if I can design them custom seed mixes and oversow their pastures

It puts food production into perspective as to earning capability, thats for certain!

The big thing I notice about UK Ag as a generalisation is a big "us and them" when it comes to the supply chain, here of course most all meat is processed by farmer owned Coops and same with dairy, I have shares in 4 meat processors and most of the supermarkets as well, but I don't see that in the UK so much, there is a big wall up that really needs to come down IMO every man for himself doesn't really make for a strong team and the producer is the one sector missing out the most , if you can't beat them, .... ....

The thing that annoys me is that we had the chance with milk marque and FMC( Ithink thats what it was called) etc but some clever buggers thought they could get a fraction more and sold the rest down the river and then everyone gets a lower price but the clever buggers dont get it that its the long term price that matters not what happens this week or next, my answer was to give up milking and sell direct to the horsey ladies. There is a couple of dairy farmers near me that have on farm vending machines where joe public rock up and buy milk direct for £1 a litre, not bad compared to sub 30p for a contract

 

[Kiwi Pete]

What the hell are you guys doing to horses that makes them want to hurt you? The mind boggles...

Probably using toxic creatures to assist the training process

 

[Kiwi Pete]

All jolly interesting and way off topic...meanwhile, if I can tempt you down from the barricades comrades, can I ask how grazing covers kills them enough to not need any other treatment before spring drilling?

Rye and ryecorn only need pushed over once they have formed a head, the cattle eat all that of course as a source of protein, but it has "done it's dash" so to speak. Same with radish, once the leaves are gone and the frosts have begun, they don't recover and are basically just left to rot and leave their imprint in the soil, great for drawing minerals up from beneath the rocks.
Dad had a pretty rugged old drill that they cobbled together from all sorts of old junk in the 60s but was basically just a tine drill, a simple rotation of oats/peas in early spring and ryecorn/clovers for winter forage, it worked so well they never really changed it.
We had much more seasonal definition back in the 50s-70s he maintained, but it didn't really hinge on the frost kill, more the animal impact after the growth had stopped and plant maturity

 

[chaffcutter]

It's an interesting fact that as you say @rob1 no farmer co-op that has been launched in the UK has been successful in the long term. I have not been involved in any of them as they have come and gone, but there must be an underlying reason why they never succeed ? Someone suggested that it was because the farmers involved were never willing to pay proper money to bring in experienced staff to get the marketing expertise that was required, does anyone know if that was so?

 

[rob1]

It's an interesting fact that as you say @rob1 no farmer co-op that has been launched in the UK has been successful in the long term. I have not been involved in any of them as they have come and gone, but there must be an underlying reason why they never succeed ? Someone suggested that it was because the farmers involved were never willing to pay proper money to bring in experienced staff to get the marketing expertise that was required, does anyone know if that was so?

I think there is an element of truth in that, I am only old enough to have been involved when Milk Marque was set up and there was certainly some resistance to employing an ex unigate chief who was very good and knew the dairy market better than anyone. I feel that sometimes, and there are good exceptions, that those farmers who have time to sit on these boards arent hard nosed enough or dont have the skills from being shall we say "gentleman" farmers with time on their hands, maybe they grew up in a different time when business was less cut throat, perhaps that is unfair as I'm sure they mean well. However farmers in general need to support these co ops and not sell out for a short term penny. Look at CW on the other side as well, long term farmer supply co op that lost its way

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Too many options IMO.

If you have two queens and 10000 workers beekeeping makes money
If you have 120 queens and 20000 workers it doesn't work, all it achieves is confusion and less function

 

[martian]

Rye and ryecorn only need pushed over once they have formed a head, the cattle eat all that of course as a source of protein, but it has "done it's dash" so to speak. Same with radish, once the leaves are gone and the frosts have begun, they don't recover and are basically just left to rot and leave their imprint in the soil, great for drawing minerals up from beneath the rocks.
Dad had a pretty rugged old drill that they cobbled together from all sorts of old junk in the 60s but was basically just a tine drill, a simple rotation of oats/peas in early spring and ryecorn/clovers for winter forage, it worked so well they never really changed it.
We had much more seasonal definition back in the 50s-70s he maintained, but it didn't really hinge on the frost kill, more the animal impact after the growth had stopped and plant maturity

Makes sense...however we tend to have an under-storey of grass weeds which won't be killed by frost or grazing. Maybe in time it'll become less of an issue, it was bad farming that got us into this mess, perhaps we can rotate our way out of it like a modern whirling dervish

 

[martian]

Too many options IMO.

If you have two queens and 10000 workers beekeeping makes money
If you have 120 queens and 20000 workers it doesn't work, all it achieves is confusion and less function

Seeing as there's no way this thread is going to stay on topic for long...there was a fascinating David Attenborough programme on the BBC over Christmas where he was looking at ant colonies in France. On one side of the mountain there were the usual one queen per colony ant-hills, every spring they came out of their particular hill and attacked neighbouring ant communities and never really got anywhere due to the permanent war footing. On the other side of the mountain, the exact same species of ants had evolved to tolerate each other and most queens were welcomed into a super colony comprising many hundreds of ant hills. Because they weren't constantly fighting they could expand at will and ended up with a much more diverse gene pool, rather than all being descended from the one queen.

Make of that what you will, but 120 queens isn't necessarily a bad thing. Attenborough also said this evolution was happening in ant colonies in many other places around the world at the moment. Universal ant love. It's the Age of Aquarius!

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Seeing as there's no way this thread is going to stay on topic for long...there was a fascinating David Attenborough programme on the BBC over Christmas where he was looking at ant colonies in France. On one side of the mountain there were the usual one queen per colony ant-hills, every spring they came out of their particular hill and attacked neighbouring ant communities and never really got anywhere due to the permanent war footing. On the other side of the mountain, the exact same species of ants had evolved to tolerate each other and most queens were welcomed into a super colony comprising many hundreds of ant hills. Because they weren't constantly fighting they could expand at will and ended up with a much more diverse gene pool, rather than all being descended from the one queen.

Make of that what you will, but 120 queens isn't necessarily a bad thing. Attenborough also said this evolution was happening in ant colonies in many other places around the world at the moment. Universal ant love. It's the Age of Aquarius!

There we have it - evolving to cooperate and tolerate is the solution.





I have remarked on the "prepare for war" psyche before, obviously a consideration of course, but even war has evolved (hopefully) beyond the style that forged European Ag policy? One would hope.

Ration diesel for a month and see what food security due to protected industry looks like - animals would likely starve in their barns without fuel