- Location
- South Molton
Pasture for life
- Thread starter tinsheet
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Woolless
Member
- Location
- Berwickshire, Scottish Borders
Just started read 'Dirt to soil' by Gabe Brown and came across this quote: "I have never but butchered a beef animal and found a gizzard inside. So I asked myself, why am I feeding these animals grain?"
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
Hot to trot Sid.
Send a bit of rain over if you want some heat!
Nice day for chasing deer about in my Mercedes 
Venison is on it's arrse at the moment as it relies on the restaurant trade, dropped over $6/kg from last year! So no fancy aeroplanes over the deer farms this year. Bit of 0-9-0 and minerals with heaps of copper for the deer
Send a bit of rain over if you want some heat!
Venison is on it's arrse at the moment as it relies on the restaurant trade, dropped over $6/kg from last year! So no fancy aeroplanes over the deer farms this year. Bit of 0-9-0 and minerals with heaps of copper for the deer
Woolless
Member
- Location
- Berwickshire, Scottish Borders
Cheap venison burgersHot to trot Sid.
Send a bit of rain over if you want some heat!
View attachment 944852Nice day for chasing deer about in my Mercedes
Venison is on it's arrse at the moment as it relies on the restaurant trade, dropped over $6/kg from last year! So no fancy aeroplanes over the deer farms this year. Bit of 0-9-0 and minerals with heaps of copper for the deer
. Every cloud, eh?
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
Because his overheads were too high .
Because his cattle were unadapted cattle (or adapted to being fed cattle) "with the conventional emphasis on large frame and weaning weights", he said (not in the book)
Hilly
Member
- Location
- Scottish Borders.
Cough: subsidy cough
Isn't corn just grass ?
would the animals never eat grass that has seeded ?
Woolless
Member
- Location
- Berwickshire, Scottish Borders
True enough. But that's very different to ad-lib barley.
- Location
- Glen Clova, Angus, DD8 4RD
Originally, yes. There are increasing differences now though and, in any case, grass seeds would be extremely unlikely to naturally form more than a few % of intake.
Also be careful of farmers from other continents talking about feeding corn as some of them will mean maize, a completely different plant group.
Yep I know it would only be a small % and its been bred away from the original [as grass has] but to say that cattle/sheep and the like don't eat seeds apart from when offered as a concentrate is wrong cos they do, allsorts of seeds from grass to acorns
- Location
- Moreton-in-Marsh, Glos
And you think things are bad there?Hot to trot Sid.
Send a bit of rain over if you want some heat!
View attachment 944852Nice day for chasing deer about in my Mercedes
Venison is on it's arrse at the moment as it relies on the restaurant trade, dropped over $6/kg from last year! So no fancy aeroplanes over the deer farms this year. Bit of 0-9-0 and minerals with heaps of copper for the deer
We, Ahem “I“, can only afford to round up my Deer with a quad bike!
Mercedes indeed!
Edit: And as for “Fancy“ aeroplanes!........Well, I have used a (quad) drone, which they soon ignored!
On a serious note, how important to you is the Copper supplement. Do you see much sway-back in your Deer?
I don’t give them any Copper supplement and only ever very rarely see it in very old hinds.
All our Deer live out on grass (and mud!) their entire lives on this farm.
But I think I’ll give the PFLA a miss with them.
Interesting though that Waitrose are advertising that their milk and dairy products are not permanently housed all year round here and graze in fields in the summer. My Deer do so their entire lives and are sold via Waitrose (and M&S).
No idea if you can taste the difference though.
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- Location
- Moreton-in-Marsh, Glos
I am assuming that the PFLA are promoting grass only fed meat, not just for any so-called environmental benefits, but because of its taste too.
Taste is an interesting point to me. There is absolutely no doubt whatsoever that what any animal eats will affect the taste of its meat.... and milk!
One of the arguments the Soil Assn. made was that organic food tastes better!
Well, it might taste different, but it is misleading that “different” can often at first, seem better.
If we are used to eating the same thing over and over again, when we try something different, we can be fooled into thinking it tastes better!
This was highlighted to me a few years ago when I went to a restaurant and chose an Australian grain-fed Steak. By which it meant grain-only, no grass.
I tasted absolutely great to me!
But this is because it was different to the beef I would normally eat.
Two farmers close to me (one is actually our tenant) grow beef in entirely different ways.
One (the tenant) grow Dexters fed entirely on grass and clover Haylage.
The other buys in stores, mostly Angus or Hereford X’s with Lims, Belgian Blues etc and feeds them almost entirely on byproducts, such as bread, broken and out of date biscuits and sweets (including chocolate ones!) carrots/parsnips and sometimes a bit of barley.
Both taste excellent, but quite different.
TBH, I can only eat the Dexter beef occasionally, as it is too rich! For special occasions, is a treat.
Grass and Silage/Haylage fed Non-Dexter would to me be more appropriate.
I’d prefer an Angus or Hereford X’d with something else. (Angus X Welsh Black - wow!!!!)
However, we should not confuse tasting better with tasting different, until we have got used to eating it over and over again.
Taste is an interesting point to me. There is absolutely no doubt whatsoever that what any animal eats will affect the taste of its meat.... and milk!
One of the arguments the Soil Assn. made was that organic food tastes better!
Well, it might taste different, but it is misleading that “different” can often at first, seem better.
If we are used to eating the same thing over and over again, when we try something different, we can be fooled into thinking it tastes better!
This was highlighted to me a few years ago when I went to a restaurant and chose an Australian grain-fed Steak. By which it meant grain-only, no grass.
I tasted absolutely great to me!
But this is because it was different to the beef I would normally eat.
Two farmers close to me (one is actually our tenant) grow beef in entirely different ways.
One (the tenant) grow Dexters fed entirely on grass and clover Haylage.
The other buys in stores, mostly Angus or Hereford X’s with Lims, Belgian Blues etc and feeds them almost entirely on byproducts, such as bread, broken and out of date biscuits and sweets (including chocolate ones!) carrots/parsnips and sometimes a bit of barley.
Both taste excellent, but quite different.
TBH, I can only eat the Dexter beef occasionally, as it is too rich! For special occasions, is a treat.
Grass and Silage/Haylage fed Non-Dexter would to me be more appropriate.
I’d prefer an Angus or Hereford X’d with something else. (Angus X Welsh Black - wow!!!!)
However, we should not confuse tasting better with tasting different, until we have got used to eating it over and over again.
- Location
- Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
I'm not sure organic does necessarily taste any different
The Aussie's have a meat taste grid I believe and that is a sensible move forward
- Location
- Glen Clova, Angus, DD8 4RD
- Location
- Moreton-in-Marsh, Glos
You raise a very interesting point and one on which I have argued about with the Soil Assn., being:
What is the true taste of food?
For example a Potato.
A Potato, like most other crops suffer from diseases, which conventional farmers will use spays to cure or protect against, such as Potato Blight.
Organic farmers will find any suitable organic remedies difficult if not impossible to find and use.
Left untreated, the crop will suffer or might even die completely.
But like ourselves might get over an illness over a longer period. The Potato (and our bodies) will produce its own medicine/antibodies to get over the disease.
But in producing its own medicine, this will effect the taste of it.
So, what is the true taste of a Potato?
The one that got the disease, made its own medicine and survived, but altered its taste?
Or the one that was protected against the disease, therefore never suffered it, so didn't need to create its own medicine and therefore didn't alter its taste?
There is no correct answer, is there?
But, in the case of Potatoes, I'll be eating the protected one!
The Aussie meat grid is an interesting point and way forward.
Just as long as its focus is on sustainability/environmental parameters and NOT taste!
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
No, it’s something a FEW consumers will pay extra for.
I’m not sure how you can blame the EU for it though.
- Location
- Glen Clova, Angus, DD8 4RD
Ok, Uk grid. Do any European countries use a taste based price system either?No, it’s something a FEW consumers will pay extra for.
I’m not sure how you can blame the EU for it though.
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
Not that I’m aware of.
Taste is subjective, so I can’t see how it can be ‘measured’ for any payment grid.
Intramuscular fat is measurable, and will effect eating quality through taste & texture. Ultimately the Angus, Hereford & Shorthorn schemes are a blunt instrument to increase imf, rather than trying to measure it on a carcass line.
Hilly
Member
- Location
- Scottish Borders.
Hilly
Member
- Location
- Scottish Borders.
Seems to me that in times of plenty we are paid and we produce to suit a system that pays on quantity , but I don’t know quality could be measured ?