TBF 001 :: Farm Updates, Heritage Breeds, and Hard Lessons Learned

The Very First Episode of The Beginning Farmer Show!

This is something that I have wanted to do for over a year now, but never had the guts to go out and accomplish it. I thought about it ... planned for it ... gathered the equipment to do it ... and finally just as I did with farming ... I had to just get out there and do it! With all of that being said, I'm not completely pleased with this very first episode and realize that I need to work on my audio quality, iTunes integration, feeds, and so much more. I am glad to have at least one episode out there though ...

On this very first episode of The Beginning Farmer Show I share a quick update on how the farm (and myself) has handled the winter so far. It has been a winter that hasn't gone exactly as planned and I'm sure I'll be playing catch up because of that this spring. After the quick Crooked Gap Farm update I dive right into a discussion of Heritage Breed Livestock and why I believe they work for my farm, but how they may not be exactly right for your farm ... that is a decision that you will have to make.

Finally, there are many lessons that I have learned since we began the farm almost five years ago and I want to share some of those lessons with everyone in hopes that they don't make the same mistakes. This weeks "Hard Lesson Learned" actually goes hand in hand with my main topic of Heritage Breed Livestock as I talk about some of the mistakes I made in purchasing some of the initial stock for the farm.

If you are interested in learning more about Rare or Heritage Breed Livestock please check out The American Livestock Breeds Conservancy. As always you can follow along with The Beginning Farmer and Crooked Gap Farm by checking out these links ...

• Crooked Gap Farm
• Crooked Gap Farm on Facebook
• Crooked Gap Farm on Twitter

I would love to have you interact with the The Beginning Farmer Show. Feel free to comment on this post with your suggestions, questions, ideas, or even podcasting tips! You can also always reach The Beginning Farmer through e-mail.

P.S. If you know about podcasting, Feedburner feeds, and all of that good stuff I would love to hear from someone about why two posts that contain links to .pdf's are showing up in my subscription to the show. It is very frustrating to me!

The Importance of Our Heritage Cattle

Recently I came across a very interesting article written by Gearld Fry on the New Farm website. The article was originally published on his website, Bovine Engineering, and is titled, "Intelligent Husbandry of Primary Heritage Breeds Could be Our Key to More-Sustainable Farming and Food." That is one super long title, but it is a great article so I will let it pass!

I believe the opening section of the article is an amazing representation of what is happening in livestock agriculture (and probably crop too) right now and you should probably read it and re-read it several times so it sinks in. But, the basic premise is that at one time our farms were filled with "truly functional family cows" raised by this generations fathers and grandfathers. Once the sons and grandsons returned from educational institutions they bring with them new "knowledge" about creating the perfect herd from a commercial standpoint. Oh, and they learn this knowledge from Universities that are funded by large corporations with greed behind their motives.

So, the son our daughter takes over and starts to implement change using the latest breeding techniques in animal sciences. They create calves that wean bigger and finish bigger and that produce more milk, but they also find that despite all of the vaccinations their cattle keep getting sick and dying for no apparent reason. With all of the inputs, work, burnout, and animal loss their farm becomes increasingly unsustainable...

I think this quote from Mr. Fry sums up best where we are right now as an agirculutral industry (maybe it is a bad thing to be considered an industry) and culture:

As it is, cattle—animals that in their natural state could normally stay fat and healthy on green grass and good hay, and nourish families with wholesome and healthy meat and milk as God intended —have been steadily transformed into what has become a starch-dependent, mongrelized production machine that produces food that tastes like cardboard and causes heart disease and numerous other health problems.

At one time farmers and ranchers never or rarely had to give any sort of treatment to calves while still nursing ... not so today. At one time twice yearly worming wasn't even on the radar ... not so today. At one time cattlemen breed for sick-free cattle who could produce instead of super producing cattle who rarely weren't sick. In the words of Mr. Fry, "My friends, this should not be."

The rest of the article goes on to tell more about the faulty system that we are operating under in today's livestock world. I think this is a must read article for any farmer who believes that their farm should and can be sustainable.

In the article Mr. Fry mentions that there were 8-10 breeds of cattle that were adapted to various environments across our country. I think he raises Devons, so I assume that would be on the list, but I wonder what else. Maybe he mentions on his site or maybe some of you have some guesses? Let us know what you think.

In the meantime, check out the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy to learn more about our heritage breeds that are in danger and consider a breeding program that takes advantage of the genetics that our forefathers perfected over years and years ... not just the ideas of 50 years and research funded by animal medicine companies.

**As you may have noticed from the picture above I suggest Dexter cattle. They may not work for everyone, but the do fit the definition of a dual purpose home cow!**

Pigs or Sheep?

The question running through my mind lately is this ... Pigs or Sheep? What should the next addition be to Stoneyfield Farm. Even though we are not on the farm yet and have no definitive plans of when that will happen (if ever), I would like to see us, and the us in this case means myself and my dad, take steps in the direction that I would eventually like to end up. Maybe it just means I help with the research, marketing, and ideas or maybe it means I'm there working on the farm everyday. Either way, I'm beginning to think about what to add to the farm, if anything, in the spring.

On one hand, we have talked quite a few times about bringing some sheep to the place. Either ewes or wool wethers or market lambs. We don't really have a clue as to what we would do when it comes to the sheep. In fact, between the two of us our knowledge of sheep is practically nil. The one thing we have going for us is that my uncle (dad's brother) has quite a bit of experience with sheep so there would be some help close by. One of the positives of sheep is their browsing ability and the help they would give in cleaning up old fence rows that criss-cross the property. We would like to clean out a lot of these areas that are over grown in order to replace fence or put up more effective fencing. In this case, we would be using the sheep as a labor force. The other reason we are considering sheep is because they are a great animal to follow cattle on pastures because they are a dead end host for the parasites (and cattle the same for sheep). It would be nice to have this tool in our arsenal. We just need to continue to research this idea. We are planning on going to a few sales in the area to see what the market is like right now, and I would like to find some cattle people who are also raising sheep, or vice versa.

Pigs ... can't live with them, can't live without them! Pigs are kind of a sore subject in my family. In the late 80's, when the hog market was high, we had a lot of pigs on the Book family farms, and they all smelled really bad. Once the market dropped we got out, but it was never a really enjoyable thing having that hog lot on the place. Obviously we would be doing things quite a bit differently this time, but the stigma still exists. On the plus side, we have personal experience with raising hogs from farrow to finish. Of course, this knowledge is in the more conventional setting, but it still would apply. I like the idea of adding pigs because there are some areas that I would like to reclaim to pasture or savannah as I have previously mentioned, and because I really like to eat pork. I figure if I'm going to raise food I better be passionate about eating that food also! Again, there is still much research to be done, but maybe we would feel a bit more comfortable going into this animal than any other ... if we can get past the stigma!

If you are interested in reading some more about pigs, pasture, and the combination of those two things, I encourage you to check out this THREAD over on the Homesteading Today forums. I had initially asked about different heritage breeds that people were using in their pasture situations, but it also brought up a lot of good thoughts on pastured pigs and breed selection.

So, Pigs or Sheep ... Do you have an input?