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13K views 112 replies 39 participants last post by  ETgoatygirl 
Ok, pardon me here, as I am very anti organic(I know, oxy moron) But we try to do things natural. Natural and organic are 2 different things believe it or not.
Organic, whether its with crops or animals, means you can't use any chemicals, anti biotics, medications etc etc. Everything has to be certifed organic that you feed your animals from feed to minerals and hay. If your animal is in a situation where they are in a life or death situation and require anti biotics you can give them antibiotics, but its a last resort, then after giving them the anti biotics they have to be sold when they recover. There are many other things and its not worth it imo.
We prefer natural because when we need to we still have the option of doing things conventionally if our goats are sick. We do things natural and market them as natural and we have no problems selling to our customers.
We are farmers, we farm quite a bit of land and we do it all conventionally. The practices with our farming and the practices with our animals do not cross. We are conventional when it comes to our farming, we spray chemicals, we plant GMO crops, we are constantly getting bashed by organic people. They just don't get it. They think we can just snap our fingers and change our ways. Yeah, right. I still don't get why they don't allow fertilizer(ie lime, potash, etc) it comes from the ground and its not processed. And GMO(genetically modified organism) because of that, we are actually spraying less chemicals on our crops than we were before.
We rent all of our land and it takes a minimum of 5 years for transitioning to even consider the land to be organic. 5 years, if we were to lose that land all of our efforts would be lost. We can't stand for crop loss either with the organic grains. The list goes on and on.
I am very opinionated on this subject and I could go on and on and on........
Anyway, for grain, oats, barley and wheat are most commonly used as covercrops for hay. That means that they are not commonly sprayed, and if they are sprayed, it is before the plant has a head and it does not affect the grain(ie residue) same with BOSS, it's not a cover crop but they don't spray it for anything. With corn, we don't like to feed GMO corn to our animals. We will our chickens if that's all we have(in fact, our chickens grew better on GMO corn, can't figure that one out) but we will never feed GMO corn to our goats. If you feed corn to your goats and care about being natural, look for corn that is non-GMO or organic.
 
Well that is understandable and you are entitled to your opinion. But you are more than likely looking at GMO from a consumers point of view. Personally, from a consumers point of view, I do not think that GMO is the greatest thing as far as food goes. But, you also have to see it from a producer's point of view(which is what I don't like about the organic people that bash us, they don't see OUR view)
Because of GMO crops, you have no idea how much we have saved as far as chemicals, fuel, cost per acre, etc go. Because of GMO crops, we are spraying less chemicals and burning less fuel than we were before. Also, before we used GMO crops, we had to spray this stuff called feridan(sp?) and after you sprayed it, all the birds in the area would die or get sick and we couldn't let our dogs go out in the field. You cannot believe how much less chemicals we are spraying because of them. Non GMO crops require spraying often.
I would also like to mention that another reason why we aren't organic is because we have been to several 'organic' farms, none of them were certified but they all fed certified grain and did all the organic practices etc. I have never seen animals in such poor health in my entire life. They were dingy, scruffy, skinny, wormy etc. I've seen cows at 2000 head dairies that were happier than those animals! How do you know they are content? They chew their cud.
Now, you can do organic correctly, but most often the only time I've seen organic done correctly is if the people doing it were farmers(like us) to begin with and understood the jist of it.
That's just my opinion. :)
 
Pine is high in vitamin C and is really good for goats. Studies have shown it is the needles of the ponderosa pine and the yellow pine that will cause abortions. All other trees are perfectly safe.

When it comes to herbal worming, this is just my personal preference, I like to buy herbal wormers from herbalists who have experience with mixing and combining herbs, their powers, side affects etc. Unlike homeopathy, herbs can sometimes be a lot more tricky and wrong amounts of something or wrong doses and be harmful to us and our animals.
 
Homeopathy is confusing, at first, but after you study it, it is very simple :) My mom and I are just starting to study herbals, just a note, nettle tea is awesome!!!! We use it for kids with UC, and I've been drinking it myself to detox my liver and kidneys, it gives me so much energy and I feel great!! And don't say that's because I"m a teenager, I feel like an old lady sometimes and nettle tea has really helped that :)
 
BeeLady said:
For cows, when they are fed grain, there is a change in their rumen microbes. But if a cow is left completely on grass and their rumen is not altered by the friendly, money-spending human, the microbes will take the grass and create all the protien needed, as in the case of bison and deer. I feel sure goats must be the same. Ruminants were not created to eat grain. Of course to really have the milked pumped out, or the weight put on, especially more than nature intended, which is what our animals are bred for these days, they need to be given lots of grain and basically "outperform" their rumen.
I don't mean to argue but I disagree with you on the grain subject. It is true to a certain point, when it comes to feeding corn and soy as the main grains in the diet of a ruminant. Corn causes acidity in the rumen and soy is just plain bad all around. This may also stem from the fact that corn and soy are not like what they were a hundred years ago. Corn used to be mostly protein, but through selective breeding and hybridization for better yields the corn has become more starchy(starch = sugar and how do we feel when we eat sugar all the time?). Soy was not used as a grain until the 60's or 70's and before that soy was used as a hay crop and was harvested before beans formed in the pod.

Barley and oats on the other hand are considered grass seed(well corn is too) do not cause acidity in the rumen. Barley and oats really have not changed that much as far as the plant goes. They are low protein high energy grains and have enough carbs to support a milking animal without putting fat on them(unlike corn and soy which put fat on an animal)

and also:

we grow our own hay and have not used synthetic fertilizer or herbicides in 4 or 5 years
I don't mean to contradict you but there is not such thing as synthetic fertilizer(with the exception of something like anhydrous) potash and lime the most commonly used fertilizers come strait out of the ground and the only processing done to them is grinding them up.

thats just my 2 cents :)
 
ToshsHeritageFarm said:
Goat happy-
So... You won't feed your animals GMO products, but you grow GMO crops...?
sorry I didn't see your post until now.

Aside from our goat operation, we raise conventional(corn and soy) row crops, using conventional farming methods which means that yes like most farmers, we do plant GM crops. We are hypocrites by nature in the way that we raise our animals vs. the way that our crops are raised, but you have to understand that because of the way we manage our farming operation(referring to rowcrops here) we cannot utilize natural practices without taking big risks which could hurt the efficiency of our operation. We run our farm like a business is pretty much what I'm trying to say :)

As for me personally, I have nothing against GM crops, there are certain GM crops that are in fact very good but most people shun them just for the fact that they are GM(ever heard of Golden Rice?) The reason we don't feed GM crops to our goats is because the grains that we feed(oats, barley, sunflowers) are crops that do not require genetic modification in the first place.
 
Re: Re:

smwon said:
but because you are a farmer you sell us consumers GMO products, when that is not what we want?
Unfortunately, when you say "we," that portion of the population who realizes the importance and healthiness of homegrown food, is a minority. The majority of the population has the Wal-Mart and McDonald's mentality that they want cheap food, regardless of if it is healthy or not. The only way to make food cheap is to mass produce it. The only way to get more yields out of mass production is with GM crops. So unfortunately until the majority realizes what their cheap processed diet is doing to their health, nothing will change. Also, I wish that people were more educated about types of GM crops, yes there's the icky-bad Round-Up Ready that everybody hates, but there are a lot of other GM crops that are very beneficial such as Golden Rice, a rice that produces more Vitamin A than normal rice, therefore curing blindness in kids in third world countries. There are also ongoing projects to increase the amounts of certain vitamins and minerals in potatoes and carrots, as well as making them more suitable to grow in poorer soils.

Also, just because you have healthy soil doesn't mean you are less vulnerable to insects and weeds. Insects like healthier plants grown in in healthier soils more than they do plants that are grown in deficient soils. Same thing with weeds, if they like the soil, they'll grow there. :shrug:
 
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