-
Sharpening their saw….
We slipped across the Potomac river yesterday to join a group of grass farmers who belong to the Maryland Grazing Network in a day-long seminar. About 40 farmers spent the day discussing grazing techniques, cattle and financial planning. Here they’re studying a summary report of 10 years of operation at host Myron Martin’s dairy farm near Knoxville. About halfway through that decade, Myron made the switch from conventional to grass fed dairying. The bottom line: the decision doubled the profit per cow on an already profitable operation. His per cow profit is triple that of the average Maryland dairy farm. The featured speaker was Dr. Sue Beal, a Pennsylvania holistic vet, staff…
-
Two pin-up girls….
Our email brought some lovely pictures from Regina Tesnow of Waynesboro, Tennessee. She’s produced two great young heifers, thanks in part to Thistle Hill’s bull Magic. Ruby Red Slippers is just six months old and showing all the lines and volume of her dad. Her half-sister, Scarlett O’Hara, is several months younger, but looks ready to challenge for “princess of the herd”. We recently sold a Magic son but think we’ll keep the other. Magic has short legs carrying a powerful lot of meat! And a gentler bull there never was. We think Regina and Tom are doing a terrific job for Devon in Tennessee and suggest you check out their…
-
Problem solved….
Our friend Tom Neal has considered the problem we’re grappling with—the demand for Thistle Hill Devon beef out-pacing the supply— and he has come up with the answer. He calls it: Tom’s Jim Dandy Devon Cow Stretcher and the prototype seems to work pretty well. We particularly like that the length added is in the higher-priced loin area. We’re hoping that, in future upgrades, Tom will be able to custom enlarge the cow to meat customers’ particular desires. But now we hasten to add that, of course, this is a Photo-shopped picture. Our fellow Devon breeders take all this pretty seriously, so we want to make it clear this cow…
-
Nobody tell Wooz….
…our cows are pampered enough. But in Canada they’re taking it to a high art, believing it helps with production. Dairy cows even have massages and even water beds. The story is here: http://www.cbc.ca/news/offbeat/story/2012/05/29/sci-cows-chiropractors.html Of course, the idea isn’t new. Wooz believes talking to our cows has definitely been a factor in their ultra-docility. And we’ve seen studies saying cows perform better when you call them by name. Going back a little farther, I remember an uncle playing classical music on a battered old radio for his cows….70 years ago. And of course the lonely cowboy on the trail singing to a nervous herd is the stuff of legend, though it…
-
Help a needy farmer?
We’re not sure we are ready for the label “needy farmer” but it is kind of fun to be a poster boy for Holistic Management International. Thistle Hill was one of several farms selected by HMI to demonstrate its program and, in this circular and on its website, raise funds. You can learn more about the pilot project we took part in by reading the post immediately following and you can see the poster by clicking here. img20120601_17180653 You can also see the video by going to www.holisticmanagement.org but, warning, it is not for the faint of heart.
-
The whole farm, the whole farm family….
Almost 100 people gathered at Sperryville’s Old School House last night to hear about Holistic Management International’s plans for a new program in the Upper Piedmont. The meeting also served as kind of a graduation ceremony and report for those of us who had taken part in an HMI pilot project for the past year. Most of all it turned into a wonderful evening of making new friends and sharing experiences. It wasn’t for more than an hour after the scheduled adjournment, that the last attendees headed for their cars. Those of us in the pilot project had vastly different operations, both in the type of farming we do and in…
-
Getting to know you….
There’s a great chance coming up for Devon breeders and would-be Devon breeders to get to know each other. It’s a meeting in South Carolina not affiliated with either of the breed associations…just people getting together to talk about and look at Devon. The get-together will be June 16th at the Wagner Ranch in Rock Hall, South Carolina. There will be a program, though, featuring Jeremy Engh of Lakota Ranch and Gearld Fry of Artisan Beef and they’ll be talking about improving the quality and marketability of your herd. Dr. Randall Hinshaw, an embryologist, will detail the ins and outs of embryo work. The day wraps up with a tour of…
-
Jolly good show!
It certainly was for our English friends and partners, Joy and Angus Cottey. Their young cow, Garradon Fuschia, won top honors at the British Society’s recent national show. Not only was Fuschia the champion cow, but grand champion as well, besting all the bulls in the competition. That doesn’t happen very often. Angus and Joy are a wonderful couple and great fun to be around. She’s a midwife and he is a “copper”. An earlier bull of theirs, Cutcombe Jaunty, a champion in his own right, plays a key role in our breeding plans and his calves are already here at Thistle Hill. Fuschia, by the way, was sired by…
-
Heart-breaking news….
…from our dear friends in New Zealand, Ken and Prue McDowall. Ken is the famous Rotokawa breeder. But just a few minutes ago he called with the news that he and Prue had lost their daughter, a young woman, talented artist and sculptor with a brilliant future. What do you say to the McDowalls…what can you think? What a terrible agony they are going through. Wooz and I owe so much to this absolutely lovely couple….the most decent people you could ever know in this world. They have been key in the development of Thistle Hill…the impact of Rotokawa is everywhere. But that pales in comparison to the impact of…
-
Better living through chemistry (cont’d)….
It’s a problem that apparently is growing: the wholesale use of antibiotics is causing drug resistant immunities to build-up in humans as well as animals. We just can’t depend on drugs to battle disease as we once did. E.coli is one of them. Industrial agriculture is based on antibiotics. All commercial animals…cattle, chicken and pigs…are fed them routinely as a preventative. They have to, because in the way they are raised, they’d die otherwise. So you get them too, whether you’re buying meat at the supermarket, a restaurant or McDonald’s. More than that, those cows you see gracing lovely landscapes (unless you’re looking at Thistle Hill and similar farms), are…