Colonel's Blog, Earthdate 21 Jan 2023...
Hey Y'all!
Happy Saturday morning! It is another chilly below freezing morning on the farm today. Morning rounds went well except for our frigid fingers! We didn't do anything with milk yesterday and we didn't get the sheep paddock built. We did go pick up feed, pic above. We get most of our feed directly from a local feed mill that sources locally and offers non-GMO products. We got about 2 1/2 tons of feed. Our dually and equipment trailer have both proven to be a must for this farming venture. We normally get our feed in 50 pound bags so it is easier to work with. The tallest stack of feed in the pic is 40 bags of hog feed, each weighing 50 pounds, making a ton of hog feed. We use the tractor to unload the pallets into the barn and then as we need to ferment more feed, we just grab a bag and bring it into the garage to mix with warm water. If you notice on the back of the trailer, we are trying a different way of getting the feed, in a large tote sack. That sack has just over a thousand pounds of feed. We will again use the tractor to unload it into the barn and instead of picking up individual bags we will use buckets to scoop it out. I hope we like it as it will greatly reduce the amount of trash from empty feed bags we have to deal with. In the backwoods of the Ozarks, trash is always a concern. We didn't get the feed unloaded yesterday and here's why. We also stopped to pick up a couple of 200 pound protein buckets for the beef cows. Well, while loading the buckets into the back of the truck, I dropped one on the very tippest of the tip of my left pinky finger. Wow, did that hurt! The tiniest bit of the inside of my finger squirted out to the outside of my finger and boy was that uncomfortable. So, Shelley drove home and called a 'knock-it-off' to the rest of the work projects for the day. It's ok today, sore and very bruised but it will be fine. It's amazing how much a smashed fingertip hurts. Today we will unload the feed into the barn, before it rains this evening. We will also try to get the sheep paddock put together.
Why do we pay almost double the cost of regular feed in order to get non-GMO feed? Spoiler alert: we did some research and made our own decision based on our context. I'll share what went into our decision...no claim here as to 'right or wrong.' As previously discussed, we started this farming venture with the goal of growing the best food possible for our family. For us, that means we feed non-GMO feed to our hogs, poultry (both layers and broilers), and dairy cows. Scientists have genetically modified food products for years and I acknowledge the benefits of such modified organisms for large-scale agriculture. In the grain business, they have genetically modified the grain so that it can be sprayed with glyphosate, most commonly known as RoundUp. When the fields are sprayed, all of the natural plants die and the genetically modified plants don't. The result is that you don't have to deal with weeds in your crops. The additional result is that the crop is now covered in glyphosate. There is lots of research showing the results of ingestion. Some says it's ok, some says it's not. The US Environmental Protection Agency assures that "there is no risks of concern to human health" while the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) re-classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans.” We don't chase the 'organic' label as it has turned into another government-regulated farce that allows for 5% of the inputs in the labeled 'organic' product to be non-organic. While we have not accomplished our own scientific studies to determine for ourselves whether or not glyphosate and related products are harmful to humans, we just made the choice to not take the chance. We will grow our protein in the form of poultry, eggs, pork, and milk that has not been exposed. So for us, the choice to spend more on the feed is a source of pride in knowing we are feeding ourselves a great product.
Local Farm Report for 20 Jan 2023:
Harvest:
16 Chicken eggs
8 Duck eggs
2 1/4 Gallons of milk
2 1/4 Gallons of colostrum in the freezer
Sales:
N/A
Cheers!
Rich & Shelley
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