For those interested, the FASS hosted an antibiotics webinar last week and it is now posted online. I apologize that the notification slipped through the cracks or I would've posted it ahead of time. Regardless, there are interesting discussions to the same extent as other articles and research I have previously posted. What we really need though is to take the talking to the next level of action towards a change.
On a totally different note, who on earth thought that they could steal cattle and get away with it? This isn't the wild west, fortunately for the perpetrators who are in jail instead of being dealt with the old-fashioned way. If you really want a laugh, read the ignorant comments below the story.
Showing posts with label cattle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cattle. Show all posts
Monday, December 13, 2010
Friday, November 5, 2010
My experience with horses last week (duplicate post)
Let me just tell you a story about animals and farming from my own life today.
We keep a few cattle around the place (the Bale compound). The purpose of these animals at some point was to raise show calves to sell to 4-H'ers and other kids who show at fairs. But as I moved off to college and the sheep became a bigger and now more successful part of our farm we've moved most of our efforts to raising sheep. Let's just say the cows haven't gotten a lot of interaction the past year or so.
We've got 3 cows out in the field; Joy is definitely the mother figure in the bunch which is lucky for us because she is a greedy pig when it comes to food and she is also tame around people. She wouldn't hurt you intentionally, or at least not without warning. Kiko and Bubbles are a bit more tricky, but following Joy, it didn't take long to trick all three of them into the pasture behind the barn where my cousin keeps her horse. This is where it gets complicated. We just needed to get some heat detection patches on them.
Horses and cattle inherently just don't get along. It's like Dems and Republicans. It's bred into them and they haven't a care in the world for each other, unless they can both get fat at the same party. But horses being bigger like to pick on cattle and push them around. This is a problem when we're moving cattle around, especially through a horse pen. Let's not be fooled, Joy is easily near a ton in weight, but since the horse is taller, she's still programmed to flee because she doesn't like being picked on. With the gate open for the cattle, who were scared of the horse but hungry for the feed I had my hand on the horse's head pushing her away when broke into just a few steps of trot with my hand still against her.
I can't say whether she meant to kick me before she broke into the trot or she decided to after I still didn't move, but my general policy is not to run away from animals. It has worked out positively more often than not and I settled into this attitude once I became too big to cross a fence in under 2 seconds anymore. Most of what an animal does is for show purposes to frighten you, but this time she wasn't joking.
I saw the kick coming before it happened. She hit that right front leg hard and the muscles rippled down her back so I had enough time to bring my right arm around to block what I expected to be a kick in the face. I would really hate to lose my teeth. Because I was planning to block with my forearm, I got kicked in the elbow as I realized she was going after my rib cage instead. Even with the kick deflected by my elbow, I absorbed the blunt impact in the rib cage and I can't really remember if I fell, was knocked over or just slowly collapsed to the ground. All I can remember at that point was knowing that the horse had run off and I had cows loose that needed in, and that I couldn't breathe at all.
I've done stupid things like riding a sled face first downhill on a ramp, and knocked the wind clean out of me. This wasn't the same. For half a minute there, I couldn't get breaths in, but I could see Amanda freeze in her place, and Mom moving the horse. Every heartbeat was wild pain while my chest ripped with every breath. Stretching out on the ground helped ease the pain and breathing. I think the adrenaline from something like that always acts as my first level pain reducer because I just wanted the job done at that point and didn't think again about how much I hurt until afterward.
Am I sore now, 5 days later? Sure, I'm sore, but I think that laying there on the ground a minute and taking it easy the whole next couple of days helped speed my recovery. I can't quite unbend my elbow and basketball will be a bit challenging for a while, but I'm still able to think about playing again next week, so at this point I'm obviously not in that bad of shape. I had just finally started healing up the bruised bone I had in my rib area from some foolhardiness in the past, so it's going to be sore for a while, but sparing some sparring competition with Tony, I should be just fine. Nothing broken and limited bone bruising on my elbow and lower ribs/sternum seems like a small price to pay for getting out of that one.
It all goes to show how unpredictable animals can be and why people who have little or no experience around animals should be extra careful in their mannerisms near animals. Animals can often mistake what you're trying to do, it even happens to me and I've been working with them since we moved back to Ohio. Talk about misunderstandings, I have definitely come a long way since those days, but there is no behavior problem with animals (or humans) that couldn't stand a little patience in the solution. Accidents happen; this is just one more to chalk off to God having some better plan for my future. I can honestly say that I have only been kicked by a horse once before, in the head, but the difference was that kick was unintentional or it would've done serious damage, whereas this was grumpy and malicious.
We keep a few cattle around the place (the Bale compound). The purpose of these animals at some point was to raise show calves to sell to 4-H'ers and other kids who show at fairs. But as I moved off to college and the sheep became a bigger and now more successful part of our farm we've moved most of our efforts to raising sheep. Let's just say the cows haven't gotten a lot of interaction the past year or so.
We've got 3 cows out in the field; Joy is definitely the mother figure in the bunch which is lucky for us because she is a greedy pig when it comes to food and she is also tame around people. She wouldn't hurt you intentionally, or at least not without warning. Kiko and Bubbles are a bit more tricky, but following Joy, it didn't take long to trick all three of them into the pasture behind the barn where my cousin keeps her horse. This is where it gets complicated. We just needed to get some heat detection patches on them.
Horses and cattle inherently just don't get along. It's like Dems and Republicans. It's bred into them and they haven't a care in the world for each other, unless they can both get fat at the same party. But horses being bigger like to pick on cattle and push them around. This is a problem when we're moving cattle around, especially through a horse pen. Let's not be fooled, Joy is easily near a ton in weight, but since the horse is taller, she's still programmed to flee because she doesn't like being picked on. With the gate open for the cattle, who were scared of the horse but hungry for the feed I had my hand on the horse's head pushing her away when broke into just a few steps of trot with my hand still against her.
I can't say whether she meant to kick me before she broke into the trot or she decided to after I still didn't move, but my general policy is not to run away from animals. It has worked out positively more often than not and I settled into this attitude once I became too big to cross a fence in under 2 seconds anymore. Most of what an animal does is for show purposes to frighten you, but this time she wasn't joking.
I saw the kick coming before it happened. She hit that right front leg hard and the muscles rippled down her back so I had enough time to bring my right arm around to block what I expected to be a kick in the face. I would really hate to lose my teeth. Because I was planning to block with my forearm, I got kicked in the elbow as I realized she was going after my rib cage instead. Even with the kick deflected by my elbow, I absorbed the blunt impact in the rib cage and I can't really remember if I fell, was knocked over or just slowly collapsed to the ground. All I can remember at that point was knowing that the horse had run off and I had cows loose that needed in, and that I couldn't breathe at all.
I've done stupid things like riding a sled face first downhill on a ramp, and knocked the wind clean out of me. This wasn't the same. For half a minute there, I couldn't get breaths in, but I could see Amanda freeze in her place, and Mom moving the horse. Every heartbeat was wild pain while my chest ripped with every breath. Stretching out on the ground helped ease the pain and breathing. I think the adrenaline from something like that always acts as my first level pain reducer because I just wanted the job done at that point and didn't think again about how much I hurt until afterward.
Am I sore now, 5 days later? Sure, I'm sore, but I think that laying there on the ground a minute and taking it easy the whole next couple of days helped speed my recovery. I can't quite unbend my elbow and basketball will be a bit challenging for a while, but I'm still able to think about playing again next week, so at this point I'm obviously not in that bad of shape. I had just finally started healing up the bruised bone I had in my rib area from some foolhardiness in the past, so it's going to be sore for a while, but sparing some sparring competition with Tony, I should be just fine. Nothing broken and limited bone bruising on my elbow and lower ribs/sternum seems like a small price to pay for getting out of that one.
It all goes to show how unpredictable animals can be and why people who have little or no experience around animals should be extra careful in their mannerisms near animals. Animals can often mistake what you're trying to do, it even happens to me and I've been working with them since we moved back to Ohio. Talk about misunderstandings, I have definitely come a long way since those days, but there is no behavior problem with animals (or humans) that couldn't stand a little patience in the solution. Accidents happen; this is just one more to chalk off to God having some better plan for my future. I can honestly say that I have only been kicked by a horse once before, in the head, but the difference was that kick was unintentional or it would've done serious damage, whereas this was grumpy and malicious.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
BEEF JBS article
I just want to make sure that I draw my readers' attention to the JBS article in BEEF Magazine which was also featured in the Agriculture Proud blog which is on the sidebar of my own blog. Ryan digs up some good reading and puts great thoughts into words on his blog so I again highly suggest reading it.
Anyhow, from my own conservative semi-rural background, I had trouble accepting JBS when I was first learning about it because what it seemed like was a company just had a lot of money and was buying out the American beef industry. While they have made some large purchases here in the US, it turns out that as they discuss in this article JBS started very small. Read the article, like I did, and you'll gain a new appreciation for the hard-working values that JBS was founded on which represent the values of hard-working American farmers.
Anyhow, from my own conservative semi-rural background, I had trouble accepting JBS when I was first learning about it because what it seemed like was a company just had a lot of money and was buying out the American beef industry. While they have made some large purchases here in the US, it turns out that as they discuss in this article JBS started very small. Read the article, like I did, and you'll gain a new appreciation for the hard-working values that JBS was founded on which represent the values of hard-working American farmers.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
By-products
This is an interesting drawing of the uses of a cow in order to illustrate the point that there is nearly impossible to claim to not use animal products in your life (aka. vegan). For those of you who don't know all the things that a cow can provide to us if we are efficient and less wasteful in our use of animals, this should be very educational.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Cattle Dashboard
If you're into the meat industry, livestock production or beef slaughter at all, then you'll be excited about this new slaughter reporting site with the USDA which then leads me to the national beef price right now. $97/cwt when I check, and that seems great as we approach our county fair.
And while we're at it, check this unbelievable report from Traverse City, MI. I'm glad that they were apprehended by law enforcement and believe that they deserve to be punished.
And while we're at it, check this unbelievable report from Traverse City, MI. I'm glad that they were apprehended by law enforcement and believe that they deserve to be punished.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Vegan discovers a real feedlot
I want to thank Molly for sharing this great blog on facebook. This is a story by an accomplished vegan in the field of nutrition who took the time to learn the truth about cattle feedlots, and then learned that they're far different than what he had been told.
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