Factory Farming by Jo Robinson

As I was surfing the net about pastured or grass fed animals, I came across this website called eatwild.  It is a good resource for information we could use to help market our products.  Here is part of an article that I found interesting about Factory Farming.

Virtually all the meat, eggs, and dairy products that you find in the supermarket come from animals raised in confinement in large facilities called CAFOs or “Confined Animal Feeding Operations.” These highly mechanized operations provide a year-round supply of food at a reasonable price. Although the food is cheap and convenient, there is growing recognition that factory farming creates a host of problems, including

• Animal stress and abuse
• Air, land, and water pollution
• The unnecessary use of hormones, antibiotics, and other drugs
• Low-paid, stressful farm work
• The loss of small family farms
• Food with less nutritional value

Unnatural Diets. Animals raised in factory farms are given diets designed to boost their productivity and lower costs. The main ingredients are genetically modified grain and soy that are kept at artificially low prices by government subsidies. To further cut costs, the feed may also contain “by-product feedstuff” such as municipal garbage, stale pastry, chicken feathers, and candy. Until 1997, U.S. cattle were also being fed meat that had been trimmed from other cattle, in effect turning herbivores into carnivores. This unnatural practice is believed to be the underlying cause of BSE or “mad cow disease.”

Animal Stress. A high-grain diet can cause physical problems for ruminants—cud-chewing animals such as cattle, dairy cows, goats, bison, and sheep. Ruminants are designed to eat fibrous grasses, plants, and shrubs—not starchy, low-fiber grain. When they are switched from pasture to grain, they can become afflicted with a number of disorders, including a common but painful condition called “subacute acidosis.” Cattle with subacute acidosis kick at their bellies, go off their feed, and eat dirt. To prevent more serious and sometimes fatal reactions, the animals are given chemical additives along with a constant, low-level dose of antibiotics. Some of these antibiotics are the same ones used in human medicine. When medications are overused in the feedlots, bacteria become resistant to them. When people become infected with these new, disease-resistant bacteria, there are fewer medications available to treat them.

Caged Pigs, Chickens, Ducks and Geese. Most of the nation’s chickens, turkeys, and pigs are also being raised in confinement. Typically, they suffer an even worse fate than the grazing animals. Tightly packed into cages, sheds, or pens, they cannot practice their normal behaviors, such as rooting, grazing, and roosting. Laying hens are crowded into cages that are so small that there is not enough room for all of the birds to sit down at one time. An added insult is that they cannot escape the stench of their own manure. Meat and eggs from these animals are lower in a number of key vitamins and omega-3 fatty acids.

Environmental Degradation. When animals are raised in feedlots or cages, they deposit large amounts of manure in a small amount of space. The manure must be collected and transported away from the area, an expensive proposition. To cut costs, it is dumped as close to the feedlot as possible. As a result, the surrounding soil is overloaded with nutrients, which can cause ground and water pollution. When animals are raised outdoors on pasture, their manure is spread over a wide area of land, making it a welcome source of organic fertilizer, not a “waste management problem.”

Summer is almost here!

Hopefully everyone put their gardens in last week when the ground was dry.  Now it seems we are having a late Spring Storm with lots of rain.  It will help the garden grow so, no complaints here. Our son Colton is growing like a weed. He is 8 months old but he is the size of a 2 year old, at least that is what it feels like carrying him around.

Well, May is almost over and summer is just around the corner. That means we have a lot of work to do around our homes. Gardens are in, and lawns are being mowed.   Here at the Pleasant Valley Farm we are busy  raising meat as well. Fortunately we have room to raise enough meat for our friends and family. This year we are offering chicken, turkey, pork and beef.

Our animals are rotated  through pastures and woods to keep the soil (incredibly) healthy and to keep the animals on fresh forage. This is an ethical way to raise livestock and minimizes our need to medicate them, which helps assure healthy animals. Healthy animals lead to healthy food for our Friends and Family, food which happens to have incredible flavor.

A Little Goat History...

It seems like lately (stemming obviously from the massive amount of goat-related posts) I've been getting the question, "Wait. Now, why did you get goats in the first place?" and I feel compelled to answer this. As if it will somehow validate or rationalize our decision to purchase the goats.

So, Todd works with a lot of Fijian Islanders (in, like, they're from Fiji.). And they, apparently, eat a substantial amount of goat. The good thing is that they like to purchase whole, live goats and prefer to take them to do their own butchering and processing. So, all that is needed is someone with property (do all Fijian Islanders live in town?), a little time, A LOT of patience and perhaps lacking the ability to, oh, I don't know.....say no? Enter Todd and Rikki! The farm-tackling duo with just the right combination of (or, lack of) brains, property, time and patience!
And that, my friends, is how we came to house five of the most wonderful goats placed on this earth. (Do we all sense the sarcasm?)
Oh, did I mention two of them have developed this weird, scaly rash on their noses? I didn't? Hmm. That's weird. Maybe that's because I've spent too much time posting about them escaping to talk about the strange fungal infections they're developing.
Oh, and I was thinking: maybe they (the Fijian Islanders) don't all live in town and lack the means of raising their own goats. Maybe they're just a little smarter than we are.....

Goat Containment Update

Just what you've all been waiting for - a goat update!

Well, it appears that the substantial fencing improvements have made an impression on the goats. We have had ---- drumroll please ----- FIVE CONSECUTIVE DAYS without a wayward goat.
I know, I know. And you were thinking we'd given up. Not this lean, mean, goat-wrangling machine.

Farm Fun!

So, Tuesday morning I send Todd off to work. I have Tuesdays off and I usually spend it catching up on housework, cleaning, dishes, laundry, organizing, playing with the baby, etc. Usually Todd does all the animal chores in the morning and I tend to the other animal - Colt. However, on Tuesdays we (Colt and I) usually sleep in (until around 6:00am...), have breakfast, coffee (you heard it here first - I'm back on the sauce...) and watch some toons. Tuesdays are also Todd's "free day" because I do all the animal chores after he's left for work.
Instead of sleeping in though, I was up by 5:30 with a lean, mean, housecleaning routine planned for the day. By 7:00 I had: swept, swiffered and mopped the house, unloaded the dishwasher and reloaded it, started two loads of laundry, folded a load, planned my grocery list, eaten breakfast, fed the baby and vacuumed our bedroom. Sweet, huh!? I also had some phone calls to make, but decided to wait until after 8:00am to do that.
So, I head to the barn to start the chores with the baby on my back. First stop: chicken brooders. I notice their heat lamp isn't on and I opened the lid to find the heat lamp blown into a million pieces scattered about the bottom of the brooder. It had literally exploded everywhere. And who knows how long it was out, because all the chickens were shivering! Shards and glass bits were everywhere - in their food, on the floor, in their water. It was terrible. I spent about 30 minutes cleaning that up and installing a new light wondering how many would die from internal bleeding do to glass ingestion. (Chickens aren't the smartest things I've ever met.)
All was well with the horse, donkey and laying hens, so that was a relief. But, when I make it to the goats (remember they're currently housed in the chicken coop) I notice that Ronald (who is not in the coop) is limping around the field. Great. Broken goat. Just what I need. Upon further inspection I notice the rope around his neck (which almost reaches the ground and has a knot at the end) is caught between his two little cloven hooves. He's pulled the rope tight against his toes because it doesn't quite reach the ground when he steps. So, every time he take a step it pulls his head down when he tries to put his foot down. Troublesome, obviously. He's limping around the field doing this head-bob-foot-limpy-thing. I decide (with the baby strapped to my back, obviously..) to wage a one-manned mission to remove the rope from Ronald's neck. (Doesn't every good farm story seem to start with the baby strapped to my back?)
What actually happened was me chasing the poor goat (who wanted absolutely nothing to do with me or my baby) twice around the field as he attempted to trot with his toes hung up on the rope, pulling his head down every time he took a step. I acknowledged the futile mission and went back to the house - leaving Ronald to his own devices, but making a mental note to remind Todd it was imperative we remove the rope.
The rest of the day went as per usual. Kinda. My brother stopped by later that afternoon and was helping me move the chicken coops and repair some fence when he says, "What's Griz got? A rat?" Griz had followed us into the field and found something to gnaw on. All things considered, the rat seemed better than his usual 3-course meal of horse poop, chicken poop and cow poop. However, upon further inspection I made a grizzly discovery. Griz had found and was chewing up the wayward cow-castration byproduct. For those of you unfamiliar with cow castration....let me enlighten you.
Step 1. Catch bull calf.

Step 2. Either a) heavily sedate said bull calf or, b) corner, tie up or otherwise incapacitate the calf.

Step 3. Place large elastic band around their manhood.

Step 4. Release "strapped" calf and allow to wander until banded manhood falls off never to be seen of again.
I'm sure those of you who have been following the blog remember last year's episode of castration and the disaster that ensued. Therefore, we had them banded before purchasing them. This did not, obviously, prevent Griz from finding that little bit of heaven laying around the field.
Absolutely-fricking-disgusting.