The Idaho Center For Sustainable Agriculture had it's annual Conference on November 18th at the civic center in Nampa again this this year. Lots of good speakers and topics, not the least of which was Joel Salatin.
However, as a farmer trying to regenerate the soil, Gabe Brown's talk was the highlight for me.
I just ran across a video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPsw3VfjH8s) that explains what I have been doing for the past ten years at weaning time on my farm.
It is very amazing how "quiet" the weaning process is.
And a very nifty way to sort cows and calves can be seen here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4FUE-OrXRw.
And while we are on the topic of handling cattle, you really need to consider adding a Bud Box (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aniUeugrm8Y) to you handling facility.
An easy way to put up electric fence (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2y_YcqYd3E) I adapted a 4 wheeler similarly in 1989.
Harlan Doeschot, of Golden Link along with his sons measured a lot of cattle over the years. One of the many correlations they found was that for each inch the Heart Girth exceeded the Top Line measurement, the animal had thirty-seven more pounds of red meat and it was actually cheaper to produce because of the "correctness" of the animal!
For each inch he/she was deficient they lost thirty-seven pounds of red meat production. What this boils down to is, you can determine the meat-to-bone ratio of your calves, yearlings, cows and bulls very objectively by going through this process. At retail grass finished beef prices, what does an extra 37, 74, 117 pounds bring back to you?
Linear Measurement can be used to determine if a 8 month old heifer calf is built for calving ease. Will a 12 month old bull calf possess enough masculinity to be fertile, durable and functional on your farm and improve all of his offspring along the way?
Along with the hardware, there will be a DVD in the Linear Measurement box with a 70 page pdf on linear measurement; why and how… three additional pdfs and two pages of field sheets, along with the 9 videos Gearld and I put on the web. Google youtube, Gearld Fry, Linear measurement
$200 plus shipping
Call or email to order.
In late March, I was at a farm in New York. They still had snow on the ground and feeding hay. On prior visits I had talked about the importance of feeding the Redmond conditioner to their cows for detoxification purposes and how much they should be getting per cow per day. In this unnaturally dirty environment man has created, the cows were not consuming enough to truly detox an animal of their size. I suggested they top-dress the hay with 4 ounces/head/day for thirty days to accomplish the desired result.
I was back for different reasons in May and for the first time I saw "HAPPY LINES" on quite a few of the animals.
I texted the owner that I was seeing them and he said, "I need a visual." I sent this picture
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