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Back to the basics….
Edward Taylor of Vermont, who has become a frequent visitor to this blog, came across an article on rotational grazing that he (and we) think will be helpful to beginners in grass feeding their herd. The article is aimed at dairy farmers, who have even higher nutritional requirements for their animals than most of us, but the principles are the same. With due credit to Farming Magazine: http://www.farmingmagazine.com/article-9188.aspx Here at Thistle Hill we are somewhere between rotational and mob grazing. Most times we move our heifers daily…the cows every other day or every third day. We do still set stock our bulls.
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Kit blows the whistle…
….bull breeder Kit Pharo has a blurb in his weekly newsletter partially….if only partially….exposing the nonsense at many cattle auctions. I recall the confusion I felt at my first auction 25 years ago and wondering how anyone could really understand what was going on. Eventually, as I watched the bidding and the auctioneer more closely, and particularly researched the follow-up information, I began to realize that I wasn’t seeing and hearing what was really happening. As Kit puts it: Funny Money – Every week, I read and hear about bulls selling for $50,000, $80,000, $100,000, $130,000 – and even $400,000. JUST ONCE, I would like to know WHO the second-high…
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How many Paleo diet blogs are there….
….well, I’m old enough to remember when there were none. Of course, I’m old enough to remember just about everything. But there are a sufficient number, I see, that some organization even lists the Top 50 of the year. Here’s a new one and, just in time for the holiday, even features O’Cave Girl’s Irish stew. http://cavegirlcuisine.net/
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Prefer the old-fashioned way….
….thank you. Seems to be the day for health tips. We’ve long advocated red wine, in moderation, along with Thistle Hill grass fed beef. But we may have to drop the “moderation” part. Turns out that not only is a glass of red wine a day good for you, and two maybe even better, but 100 glasses of red wine every day could really cure everything that ails you. Of course, holding your glass steady enough for that 100th glass could pose a problem. Now science has the answer: a red wine pill! http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/03/08/could-red-wine-pill-cure-major-diseases/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fhealth+%28Internal+-+Health+-+Text%29
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You’ll have to decide…
…whom to believe. The government and scientific establishment, of course, says “eat less red meat”. There are many dissenters though, and we’re in that camp, who think we should eat all the red meat we can. And all the fat, too! What’s strange is that just about all the research demonstrates that it’s sugar, which is linked to most of our health problems. And nothing pumps sugar into our cells more efficiently than carbohydrates. We worry constantly about air quality but reducing pollution has had no appreciable effect on cancer rates and heart disease. Sugar consumption, meanwhile, has soared in recent decades while the FDA and its pals in Big Food keep pointing our…
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A victory for the pure food movement….
….and unexpectedly. Whole Foods has just announced it will begin labeling all its products that are genetically modified. With four-fifths of the worlds corn and soybeans now GMO, we trust the company has budgeted enough for new labels. Just about any box on the shelf will need the alert, as well as most of the produce. We wonder if they’ll go so far as to put notices on their meat, too. The biggest consumers of genetically modified corn are cows. There’s a lot of Big Ag propaganda in the article (Monsanto never sleeps) but still the basic story is a major setback for the “don’t ask what it is, just…
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It’s about time….
The boards of directors of the major Devon organizations in the United States have now voted, in principal, to a merger of the two associations. While the proverbial “devil is in the details”, this is the first time after two years of flirting, that a date for the marriage has been set. The expectation is that the final agreement will come at a joint membership meeting of ADCA and NADA in North Carolina September 26th-28th. NADA split off from ADCA six years ago in a bitter dispute over then-president Gearld Fry’s plans to enlarge the board and change some of its officers. He left ADCA and established the North American Devon Association,…
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Magic becomes a centerfold….
….our thanks to Tomina Farms and Regina Tesnow for featuring Thistle Hill Magic S484 in their center-spread ad in the American Devon Cattle Association newsletter. Magic’s fame is certainly spreading and Tomina Farms is now marketing his semen. Here’s the centerfold: tominafarms2pgspread You can contact us if you’d like semen and we’ll pass on the order to the Tesnows.
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Roundtable: Can I make money selling grass fed beef (continued)….
We could call this Exhibit A in our discussion. Someone who is making money with a small grass fed beef farm. If you want to begin at the beginning, scroll down to the roundtable that featured four men with wide experience in all phases of grass fed beef marketing….local to national…operating solely or in combination with others. But, to see what a “practioner of the trade” would say about all this, we sought out Guille Yearwood of Ellett Valley Beef Company in southwest Virginia. Guille is both a pure bred Devon breeder and commercial cattleman and is a member of the board of the American Devon Cattle Association. Whether you’re…
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Saving the planet….
….not exactly a humble goal, but that’s what is at stake. The earth’s surface has been turning into a vast desert, releasing more carbon into the atmosphere every year than all the fossil fuel engines combined. This “browning” of the planet is the cause of all the hunger, suffering and war than we can possibly deal with. Strangely, while largely blamed for all our environmental woes, it is the lowly cow that holds the key to the problem. (I wanted to write: “our survival”) As pollyanish as it may sound, we do believe that grass fed beef is the answer. Good for your personal health, a grazing cow is good for the…