[Andy Carson]

Congrats Erika! They are very cute. I look forward to hearing more about them in the future…

[Andy Carson]

I will second Joshua’s point. I while ago, I spent alot of time thinking about and researching donkey’s, and could list lots of reasons why I thought they would be perfect for several jobs I have. When it came time to buy one, however, we just never “clicked.” I don’t mean this to be a criticism of donkies, but I think it would have been wiser if I had met some first, then invested time in figuring out how they could contribute on the farm, rather than the other way around… Have you spent much time around oxen already?

[Andy Carson]

I wondered about this and was watching them pretty closely. My thought was that they would probably prefer the unsprouted grain to graze. After several weeks and lots of rain, I don’t think the grain left on the surface is going to amount to anything… It is funny (and scary) that when researching wild turkey feeding habits (and deer as well) how many articles discuss planting “food plots” to attract them. These food plots are pretty close to what I’m doing! It sounds like the turkeys can do damage later (even if they aren’t doing much now), so I should not let them get established. Interestingly, I scared the deer of earlier this year by shooting in the ground and running around with my dogs. I haven’t seen much of them since and am hoping this sort of activity is sufficient for turkeys too. We’ll see.

[Andy Carson]

Erik,
This is a fascinating project and I’m excited to hear how it goes. Are you thinking about starting calves or getting an older pair? I see ads from time to time (on this site and others) for more mature teams with some training being sold at very reasonable prices. I have noticed that most of the oxen people on this site start their own. I don’t know much about oxen, really, but it seems like such a long time to wait until they get big… I have never had the patience to wait for a horse to mature, at least. Perhaps there is a practical reason that so many oxen people start with calves?

[Andy Carson]

Awesome, thanks Howie

[Andy Carson]

I am also in the market for a planet jr seeder, in case anyone has one to sell

[Andy Carson]

@mitchmaine 21143 wrote:

hey andy, don’t get me wrong. i ain’t hiding out here. i usually get more joy working them than i do going to a fair. thats all. sorry for the misunderstanding.
mitch

Sorry Mitch, I definately misunderstood what you meant. I think alot of people used to think that if the animal rights people are ignored the “fad” will go away. It seems that the “fad” is not going away. Honestly, though, I think some of these people have decent points (even if I don’t agree) and their questions/points deserve answers/rebutal. Free exchange of ideas is a good thing.:)

[Andy Carson]

I have to respectfully disagree with the long term wisdom of “hiding” our animal use. I think conversations with animal rights advocates are importnat conversations to have, although sometimes they are very difficult. Not responding or hiding makes it seem like we are doing something wrong or like we would lose the debate. I prefer to engage, explain, invite people to see for themselves, and not get angry or call names. Staying calm and rational in the face of someone that might be acting “crazy” goes a long way towards making users of animals look good and discredits animal right advocates.

In truth, some animal rights advocates make pretty strong arguments from a purely philosophical standpoint. It is difficult to, based purely on justifiable philosophical criteria, separate all humans from all animals. Given this, it is difficult to explain why a human cannot be eaten or enslaved, but animals can. When discussing with these types, I will sometimes go with a little utiltarianism first. In other words, point out how it is impossible to not impact animals at all and how this type of lifestyle doesn’t tend to produce the greatest good for the greatest number of people. This is probably closest to how I truly feel, but in debate I use this difficult to completely justify philosophy as more of a vetting process. If they tend to get more philosophical after the utilitarian points are brought up, I start spouting alot of David Hume inspired skepticism. “How can anyone know what is right?” “How is it that you have all the answers?” Etc. I don’t tend to use skepticism as a way to “win” philosophical debates, but more as a way to not loose while demonstrating how ridiculous pure philosophy can get. The debaters have the option of either discussing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin (which makes them look silly) or go for emotional appeals (which puts them into the later group).

The majority of people I have experienced are not as knowledgable about the philosophy behind animal rights and are just reacting emotionally. I think the majority of these people just need to spend more time around animals, and especially around farm animals. It’s really a sign of how far removed so many people are from agriculture they could think the best thing for a cow would be to “run free” in the forest, even if a cat might find this fun! A tap that would be cruel to a cat is clearly not cruel to an animal 100 times bigger! People need to see this and be around it a little. I think that when many of these people experience first hand how these animals are cared for, and how they enjoy thier work, these emotional responses are lessened. And the few that slip through the cracks seem even more crazy to the quiet majority.

[Andy Carson]

@Tim Harrigan 21097 wrote:

It would be much more cost effective and easier to make arrangements with a local livestock producer to have a few loads spread on your ground.

Good point. Before I did more reading about this, I really overestimated the fertilizer value of my horse manure. I’m not saying it’s not important, but I agree there is simply not enough of it to develop a complex management system for. There’s a cow-calf beef producer a half mile away that I was talking to the other day about what he does with his manure. His management style is that the manure pretty much builds up in his barns, holding pens, and run ins throughout the year and he cleans it all out in the spring. At that point, he says most ofit is very compacted and some of the straw has degraded. I don’t know how true that could be, but it’s still not what I would call compost. This was holding me back from investigating it further, even though I could tell he wanted to see if I wanted to buy it (and what I might pay) and he certainly has plenty of manure (he has about 50 cow-calf pairs). I would really want to spread it myself, so it will get done in time and not have to worry if he is spreading on field “C” rather than field “D.” So then, he would be dumping this manure in a big pile that I would spread with my horse and a conventional spreader… Also, by having him load and deliver it, it will be turned once. Once is better than nothing, but I’ll have to think about this more…

[Andy Carson]

Some interesting reading, in case anyone is interested in this topic.
http://www.cheboygancoop.com/animalscience/manure/1223.pdf
It seems that liquid manure can be spread with a spinkler, but it must be pretty dilute and suffers heavy N loss to the atmosphere during the process. Not a good deal and there is still all the solids to spread. Much better to spread it with a tanker and incorporate immediately, but that’s a big load to pull. I suppose this is why this method isn’t used much and dealing with the solid compost is more popular…

[Andy Carson]

Part of the reason I am curious/attracted to this is that with the way that my place is set up, it is concievable that liquid manure could be pumped through sprinklers directly onto crops and there would be no need for tradiational manure management (other than to remove solids from a pool from time to time). The other thing that might be nice about this (especially for horses) is that by selecting only water soluble nutrients, bedding materials would be left behind. That way, there is not high C materials tying up N while decomposing in the field. A lot of of sprinklers might be a pain to move around, but I only have two horses, and will be lucky to recover 1/3 of thier manure. This might be 9 tons a a year and with an N content of only 7 lb/ton it is unliley to be very effective fertilizer if spread uniformly over 5 acres. If concentrated on just one acre, though, that’s a little over 60 lbs per acre and this would probably be nice. By concentrating the liquid manure in this much smaller area, spinkler would not have to be moved very often. Really, I am not sure if sprinklers can handle liquid manure or if some other system is required due to particulates. Even if it is tank based, i could see advantages over a traditional manure spreader… The bedding, for one, wouldn’t be spread. Also, truely composting solid manure requires turning it, which is kinda of a pain for one without a front end loader. Ideas…

[Andy Carson]

Your cover crops definately look prettier than mine… Are you (or anyone else) familiar with animal powered systems for spreading liquid manure? I am curious if this system is practical on a small scale and how one might go about making a useable slurry using horse manure as a source. I don’t know anyone who does this, but maybe it has potential… It sure looks slick… Thoughts?

[Andy Carson]

Ug! These bee stories really illustrate how easy I got off!

[Andy Carson]

All gram negative bacteria do have lipopolysaccharide (LPS), which is indeed extremely toxic in the bloodstream or body cavities in general. In the gut, which is full of gram negatives in humans and other animals, LPS doesn’t cause an issue. The Shiga-like toxin is the major virulence factor of the famous o157/H7. Interestingly, this virulence factor as well as an important catalase, are encoded by mobile DNA elements. Shiga-like toxin in on a prophage and the catalase is on a plasmid. In other words, these elements can move around very easily to other related bacteria. They just happened to be in serotype O157/H7 more commonly. These elements can also reside in serotype O55:H7, for example, or other e coli strains. To some degree, the serotype is irrelevant. This is not completely true, as there is some evidense that the O157 antigen can mediate attachment to the gut in humans, which would enhance virulence. Also, the plasmid that contains the gene for the O157 antigen also contains the gene for the catalase. Plasmids recombine very frequently, though, so this link is not as strong as it might appear.

As for milk, I really doubt there is much ultity in focusing in so closely on just one organism. It’s probably more useful to see it as an indicator of what else might be there.

[Andy Carson]

I don’t know the infectious dose off the top of my head. It is a true infection with a hardy oganism, so is probably less than 100 CFU’s, maybe even less in the immunocompromised. Remember we are talking about just o157, not total coliform (which are supposed to be lass than 10) or total bacteria. I am not sure if they will be testing for other serotypes soon, but there definately are other types that cause disease to the same extent as o157… The serotype and the ability to cause disease aren’t really that closely linked at a genetic level, so testing of this and other bacteria is more of a question of “what is mostly likely to cause disease” rather than “what can cause disease”…

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