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Wow – I just went to the Kosch website and ordered a metal board. Incredible that they’re still making stuff like that.

Thanks to everyone for your help and support. Now it just needs to get above 45F and rainy to even think about haying!

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I just got a catalog from Coblentz Collar and noticed their farm and pulling collar pads were all vinyl inside w/ various outer options.

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Our old dog Chumley is a Golden Ret/Pyranees cross demonstrated the instincts pretty early on and still is head of homeland security here, even though he’s hobbling with 3 good legs – he’s got osteosarcoma so his days are numbered. Still, any apparent “intruder” (UPS, FedEx, other vehicles) that come near the end of the driveway will get the alarm sound and have him up and gimping toward them. He refuses to be inside at night. We have coyotes very near all the time and have never lost a goat, lamb, cat or whatever. He gets on great with all our animals and all the other critters love him, including me : ). Oh, I forgot that the horses chase him away although he’s never threatened them.

Best of luck, Jen. If you can rehab some of those horses you get, teaching this pup will be easy.

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George,

I never sat through one, but I assume in your degree program you had ag-econ courses but that might have had more to do with macroeconomics, I don’t know.

That said my former boss at the UI was willing to arrange for me to buy Holstein bull calves from the dairy (~ 25 miles from my home) for market price PLUS what I was paying in fuel to travel to central WA (360 mi round trip) to get my current calves. We parted ways over that idea because he couldn’t see how charging me for 360 miles of transportation on animals that never left the barn was BS. That’s from a guy w/ a minor in ag-econ. Nice.

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Probably not a “practical solution” but Donn’s point about asking for and rewarding desired behavior got me thinking (again more theoretical and less practical). We have systems that reward/punish various behaviors (I’m thinking of jockey sticks, rope pulley hitches, even that famous evener of Carl’s). Do the right thing = easy. Do it wrong = harder. So is there a way to increase pull/draft/drag as ground speed increases? That, combined with line pressure/release could help reinforce the message – walking slow can be good.

I’m likely missing all of the obvious shortcomings of this idea but it hit me while reading this post. A new project for Andy?!

Forgot – as an old football coach we used to tell players at practice ” Do it right, do light. Do it wrong, do it long.” :confused:

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@Tim Harrigan 35063 wrote:

I have never heard or sensed an implication along that line in Michigan. JL, many policy makers are polititians who think they cut a much wider swath than they do. Just because someone has heard a comment like that does not mean it is having an impact in the classroom. Large agribusiness contributes very, very little direct funding for the agronomic and other research that I am aware of. I have a project in progress where a seed company has donated seed, but no $, and they are not asking or expecting any confidentiality of results or proprietary claim on the results. That is one big problem some agribusiness has with land grant research, we make the results available to everyone without restriction. They often tend to think if they pay for it, they own it. That is not the way land grant research works. I do not know any researchers who would tilt the experimental design in a way that would favor the outcome in one way or another.

Tim, I have to respectfully disagree with your assessment of how land grant institutions work now. My opinion is based on my experience working in animal science at the University of Idaho, the state’s land grant school. While initially established to support agriculture in a given state, land grant schools have fallen prey to the same economic pressures from their state legislatures. The administrations at the college and university levels ARE politicians who respond to the whims of the state political powers. In Idaho the state is demanding universities become more self-sustaining and that means getting more and bigger grants while the feds are cutting back funding as well. So where do investigators turn? Primarily industry. It’s hard to lay all the blame on the researchers as they’re responding to pressure from the college admins to get funding who are in turn responding to the univ admins and the state legislature.

I signed more than one confidentiality agreement limiting our ability to publish without permission from the funding agency (an enzyme company in one case) during my 10+ years in beef cattle nutrition. Anyone who had access to the data was required to sign or the money would not be available. And this grant was piddily – maybe $8,000. The university wants the big hitters who can draw the 6+ digit grants and that usually means molecular biologists and gene jockeys, not production ag guys. We also got regular funding from a pretty big player, Pioneer Hybred, for doing work with their corn although they required no confidentiality.

But, while the funding structure is a mess, I don’t think that there is a movement afoot to convince young people to leave production agriculture. Perhaps they should leave it if they want to try and compete at the level of the “big boys” but many ag schools have embraced the “sustainable ag” movement and have certificate or degree programs addressing that need. So while those university admins may be beholden to the legislatures, they also know how foolish they will be to overlook the interests of potential students who will go elsewhere (with their tuition) if their program interests aren’t addressed.

Unfortunately, I have to agree with Gene Logsdon’s assessment of the land grant system today (he gets The Ohio State University for his). If it’s not completely dead, it’s certainly on life support.

JL – To tell the truth, I think some of the points George makes about meeting client needs speaks positively of a place for the small producer. Fifteen years ago, I would have been more pessimistic.

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Hey Robert,

Do you have any concerns about predators on your goats? How close are you to their location? WHen we visited you mentioned a neighbor who was running large numbers of goats clearing brush etc. Does he have any predation problems? You both are running the electric netting right?

They eat. They play. They poop.
I make money.
I like being a farmer!

Ha! Well said. Except in my experience there was also “they get out” “I put them back, again.” Too funny.

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Could one use a jockey stick in this situation? I’ve been dealing with this behavior too but it happens while at rest not during work. I keep on them each time they start to “fiddle” by saying quit.

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I’ll add that while skunk scent you smell driving past a HBC skunk on the road doesn’t seem THAT repulsive, when in the up close and personal, it’s a whole ‘nother story. Can even trigger involuntary gag reflexes. Just trust me on this one.

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That’s why, as Jay says, it needs to “run like a sewing machine”. 😮

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Long drive? Isn’t Maryland a suburb of New York?

Seriously Leah – a trip to Donn’s would be worth the drive. I highly recommend a road trip.

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Ayrshires aren’t all that common out here in the first place, so that could be the first challenge but check out that Family Cow forum. Those folks peruse every ad in the country for cows/calves etc. They also might be a good place to sell any Ayrshire/MD heifer calves you get and need to move. As Erika says, those well-cared for dairy cross heifers could be worth more than you think.

Do you already have semen? Not sure how they do it or if you can contract it but the breeding services now offer sexed semen for the major dairy breeds – think it gets you a 75-80% likelihood of your selected sex.

What’s funny is dairys see the heifers as the valuable calves and the bulls as byproducts.

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I’m unclear on what and how much ground you’re thinking of mowing. A lot of folks clip pastures after grazing etc and just use the standard MD or JD ground drive horse mowers or even the newer I&J’s – all sickle type mowers but all have ability to disengage the drive mechanism to clear plugs from the knife/bar. This style machine still has pointy stuff (guards) and sharp stuff (knife sections) so ALWAYS disengage the drive when you’re going to put fingers near the bar (I would say if you’re getting off the seat, disengage) and approach the bar from the back side. They do a nice job when tuned up but can often be found with a lot of slop in the pitman bearing which will cause great headaches (and break pitman sticks).

I think Carl Russel has a DR mower similar to what your Swisher sounds like that he pulls with a forecart. He can probably comment on its pros and cons.

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Sue and I are very touched by your outpouring of sympathy and compassion as well as your offers to us out. At this moment it appears that insurance will cover replacing harness and collars but not sure how quickly they’ll act so I might need to borrow some for haying season as that gets closer. Mower and disk were in the fire but other than the pitman stick and the paint, they don’t seem too bad (look like hell though).

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Andy – brother, you have got to be the hit of the neighborhood! Nice.

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