Category: News, etc.

So about this soil erosion.

In addition to the watusi and the bison, they have camels, and a few pigs on the farm. So let’s do some cattleman’s math.

Let’s assume they have less bison now than they did when the blog post was written, say 400. They have 250 watusi cattle. And call it 25 camels. Plus say 25 pigs.

I don’t have good data on grazing requirements for watusi, but I know they do well on less so let’s assume 1.5 acres per cow vs. the standard 3 acres per angus cow.

For bison our guide said that for the acres 2 cows could be on, 3 bison could live on. Since the standard is 3 acres per normal cow, that would mean 2 acres per bison. Then 25 camels have to have at least an acre each. Plus the pigs would need their own area, call that 3 acres to be generous. So that means:

250 watusi x 1.5 acres each = 375 acres
400 bison x 2 acres each = 800 acres
25 camels x 1 acre each = 25 acres
25 pigs x 3 acres = 3 acres
Farm buildings, roads, paths, fencing = 30 acres

The total land needed to sustainably run this operation would be 1,233 acres and they have 600 acres total. Does that mean they cannot operate this way? Nope. Are they being mean to their animals? Nope. Are they being misleading? Nope.

Are they protecting their most valuable asset, the soil that makes up their farm? Nope. It’s washing away, down stream.

It is exceedingly easy to get caught up and do things this way as a livestock farmer. Everything is based on profit per acre. Profit per animal. The more animals you can drive though your system, the more of a chance you have to make it as a farm. These folks have made it since 1985. They’ve paid their dues.

But based on the field conditions, I’d say they have played out the farms nutrients and they are importing a lot of the nutrition they are giving their animals. Either in the form of hay or feed. Some of the fields were more weeds than grass.

Unfortunately these things happen over decades and you don’t see the decline as it happens gradually. Each year the hay bill gets a little higher, the cows looks a touch thinner, the ditch that was always there now can’t be crossed anymore. It’s too deep. It’s so easy to not see the signs, and I know. Because I never saw it on our farm in the past. Thankfully we are fully aware of them now and I watch them like a hawk.

We finished the tour back at the house that serves as a store front, an office, and an apartment for one of the farm hands. But more about that part in our next post.

I’m somewhat familiar with the watusi breed. Some of the cattle folks I follow have interbred them with more traditional breeds in Florida trying to breed in some of the Watusi’s heat tolerance. The watusi comes from Africa and had made a living out of thriving on less than ideal conditions. Sparse vegetation, extreme heat, extreme predator pressures. The massive horns are actually hollow and their blood circulates through the horn acting as a type of radiator to help dissipate heat. Seeing cows with horns as wide as some of our cows are long was pretty neat. Also, the pasture the watusi were currently in had a much better stand of grass. 5-6″ of height and probably 80% ground coverage.

As cute as the watusi were, I have to get back to the soil erosion.

They were feeding hay to their animals in August. There are a few reasons to feed hay this time of year. One, the grass is too rich and is giving the animals scours (diarrhea). And indeed, I did see evidence of scours.

Yes this is a picture only a cattleman would take. Every poop I saw from a buffalo looked liquid like they had scours. Maybe that’s the way buffalo are, or maybe they had too rich of a diet. Feeding hay is one way to solidify the poop so maybe it was medicinal. However, coupled with the lack of grass, lack of ground cover, signs of years of significant erosion, and no real mitigation efforts I saw underway, I was guessing overstocking was the problem and feeding hay during the growing season was a band-aid.

So I asked how many watusi cattle they had. 250 head was the response. I looked online, and from an older blog post I found that they had 600 bison on the farm as well, at least at that time.

But more about overstocking, and more cute pics, in the next post.

In the last post, we’d just made it over to the bison in the pasture. The bison, like our cows, were used to this gig and came right over to get a handout from the tourists allowing us to see the bison up close.

However Spork and I weren’t just tourists on this trip. As professional tour guides, we were paying close attention to how the tour was handled and we made every effort to pick up tips when we could. The consensus between us? We do a better job. Our tour guide was knowledgeable but didn’t offer much information unless directly asked. Spork and I keep up a running dialogue and try to insert humor whenever possible. In other words, we try to entertain as well as educate. Plus there was a lot of down time just sitting on this tour. We keep ours moving. I’m not knocking their tour by any means. However we just couldn’t help but compare our efforts to these well established professionals. We were pleased.

I mentioned that I noticed some erosion on the ride in. Once in the pasture I saw many more signs of significant erosion. When asked, the tour guide said that the red patches were bison rubs, where the bison would roll around and scratch. Indeed, one of the bison plopped down and rubbed on one while we were there. However, that wasn’t the reason for what we saw.

Nearly everywhere I looked there were signs of over grazing. The grass was about 1-2″ tall and had maybe a 35-40% ground cover. The top soil was thin to non-existent. I recognize these signs, because this is what we had before I changed our management practices.

Also, there was a running stream through the bottom of this property. Running water is ubiquitous in the mountains but this stream bed was about 4-5 feet deep but running about 1-2″ deep in actual water. I could see the exposed tree roots of where this stream had eroded over the years to its current depth. 5 feet deep, 5 feet wide, crossing 160 acres. That’s a big erosion, I should know, we had to fix something similar in our farm. Our ditch was 1/10 the size of this one and it took multiple years and 55 dump truck loads of dirt to fix it. This one would take 300 dump truck loads, easily. Probably more.

The more I looked around the more I saw that this farm was overstocked.

We continued our tour and went to the “cattle” pasture. I put cattle in quotes because on this farm, they run Watusi cattle.

Watusi are simply stunning to see in person. Their horns are unbelievable, larger even than Texas longhorns. But we’ll hear more about the Watusi in the next post.

 

This past week the family and I disappeared to the mountains of NC to do a little R&R and to take a field trip to another farm. SWMBO had procured for me for father’s day this tour to Carolina Bison outside of Asheville, NC. It coincided with our family trip to the mountains and was on the way so as usual, great thinking SWMBO.

Planning a work related trip for hubby was very smart because I don’t vacation well. I need to do something to justify my time, whether its educational or productive. I’m not good at sitting around. Normally on a trip like this, I get up extra early and break out my laptop to do some blog posts, read some trade publications, do some bookkeeping, etc. That lets me get my work done. Then when everyone else wakes up, we go into vacation mode.

However when we arrived at our cabin I found we had no 4G signal. No 3G, in fact we had no Gs at all. I had a big “No service” on my cell phone. But as pretty as this cabin was, surely it had wi-fi.

Nope

I spent Monday – Thursday with no internet and no cell signal. In theory it sounds wonderful. In reality, I was not able to do anything and emails, texts, tour bookings, questions, and work all backed up on me. So thank Goodness SWMBO had booked this trip where I could do something productive and see some critters.

We arrived at the farm about 20 minutes late because in the mountains GPS was sketchy and we simply guessed wrong on how long it would take to get there. But they were very accommodating and worked us right in. The farm is located on 600 disjointed (separate tracks), and gorgeous acres way up in the mountains. They list their tours as being part of Asheville but in reality they are a good ways from Asheville, maybe 40 minutes or so. The first thing I noticed was their farm didn’t smell like pigs. Something we are slowly working on here on our farm. We have slowed the input side of our pig business dramatically. Now we need to just work down the existing stock over this fall and the winter.

I also noticed they had a great yard area for kids to play, including an awesome tree house and picnic tables on a deck. This is some of what I’d like to do at our store but we have some bigger fish to fry first. Did I mention we are reducing our number of pigs?

We quickly signed away our lives with a liability waiver, something we don’t require here as we are protected by agritourism laws. But it got me wondering if we should anyway. Maybe they have this as a holdover from the past. They have been doing this since 1985 and the protection laws were put into place in the last decade or so.  Dr. King wasn’t there to ask so I guess I’ll never know but maybe I’ll check with CFSA and see if they have some ideas or best practices.

Sitting in the parking lot was a tractor pulling a mobile hay wagon. 

They had removed some of the side bars and installed a bench seat directly down the middle of the wagon. It looked like about 30 people or so could ride in the trailer. I’d never thought of using a hay wagon before as a tour trailer but with its very low deck height, it really made for a good trailer. Plus with the bars it kept people in and critters out. I filed this one away for a future idea. Where am I going to find a worn out hay wagon? Hmm.

After loading up, we headed out past different animals on our way to see the buffalo. I noted that they had what appeared to be a lot of erosion on the farm however I wasn’t sure if it was actually from tractors or from animals. I did keep a keen eye out as we progressed. But first, fizzy critters.

First, it’s neat to see bison. After all the cowboy movies, and stories about the old West, it’s just neat to stand in the presence of the herbivore that used to rule this country and drive the ecosystem for animals and man alike. But more about them, in the next post.

Wow! Just wow.

I was stunned reading this article out of Tampa. (Warning, it’s a long one.)

We don’t really deal with restaurants much. We have one small restaurant where we sell a bit of hamburger and occasionally some other cuts but that is about it. 99% of what we sell is sold directly from our on farm store. 

The article out of Tampa took a LOT of work to put together, and many months of research and work. And I bet if someone would put in the time here in Raleigh, we’d find something similar. Maybe not as bad, but at least similar. I think Florida being the tourist destination it is, restaurants have a tendency to play faster and looser than what we have in Raleigh. But I know about enough behind the scenes trickery that I can promise you some digging would dig up some skeletons.

It’s REALLY hard to source from actual farmers and still run a profitable restaurant. I get call routinely from restaurants wanting to source from us. My answer is pretty much always the same.

“I can’t supply you. We are not big enough.”

The chef/owner is really trying though.

“What if we start small. Say 3 whole hogs per week.”

That’s almost my months production. I could meet that demand right now, for about four months. Then I’d be out of hogs and there wouldn’t be any pork in the store for my regular customers. And the whole hogs turns into just shoulders or hams, or pork chops rather quickly leaving me with the rest of the hog.

It sure is nice to drop off your months sales in one stop, but it isn’t who we are. We are a small family run operation and those girls in the picture above need a job.

I’m sure some day we’ll find a relationship with a restaurant that works well for us and for them, but for now, we’ll keep doing what we do and actually knowing where our (and your) food comes from. I’m just glad my farm isn’t on some menus somewhere being used where my product isn’t like the farmers in this article.

This morning I took the big truck and big trailer and went to the market to pick up cantaloupes and our pallet of watermelons fresh from the field. I’m so used to slinging produce around here, I had to be gentle with these babies. I’m not used to buying pallets of watermelons!

The whole pallet made it in place safely and they are sitting, waiting for you to stop by tomorrow and get one free with your $50 purchase. The girls will be working the store so there will also be cookies!

Come see us between 8-5 (except lunch), no appointment needed to shop in the store!

Since we are keeping such a close eye on the watermelons getting ready for tomorrow, we noticed this thing riding around at the market.

This thing took up 1/2 of the truck bed!

Alas, this particular watermelon was destined for fame and glory. The ones we are looking for are destined for dripping chins and happy folks.

This morning I’ll be heading to the market to get our pallet of watermelons for this weekend. Stop by and get your free watermelon Saturday. The girls will all be working, including SWMBO. Spork and I will be off at an event so the women will be running the farm!

I don’t actually get this question very often. Most of our customers are here for the cute animals, or they are here because they believe local is better. But not everyone who follows our blog stops by in person regularly and there is a lot of misinformation put out in the national press about raising cows.

Examples of this type of information are items like this article on why milk is cruel, and this article on why sustainable isn’t sustainable in the NY Times. To answer the NY Times article (and the headline of my post), I’m going to let the Godfather of sustainable agriculture, Joel Salatin, answer it. See Joel’s response here. It’s definitely worth the read. No really, click the link. It is way better than what I’m writing.

Are you back? Did you read the part about nutrient cycling? How cool is that? Of course animals are part of the natural system. To believe otherwise is foolish.

For anything you read about animal husbandry, animal farming, etc, understand that the author has an agenda. As a farmer, my agenda is I’m going to demonstrate to you that we are in fact treating our animals well. Probably better than you think. Do we treat them as pets? No. Do we treat them better than factory farms? Yes. is our product better than what you can buy at the store? Yes. Should you stop reading and make an appointment to get some quality meat? Yes.

So for the author of the milk is cruel article, what is her agenda?

Obviously this is a PETA type article so the author is looking for extreme examples to justify why we should never use animals for anything other than pets. Has the author worked on a dairy farm? Actually spent time with cattle besides a petting zoo? How about a humane farm? How about a homestead? From the author’s own byline.

Rachel is a recent graduate of the University of Maine. She is the blogger behind The Vegan Mishmash, has interned with Mercy for Animals, and is excited to continue working as an animal activist.

So she’s an animal rights activist and vegan. It doesn’t make her facts wrong, but it does make me question the motives behind her presentation, as it should you. If I want to mislead you, the best thing I can do is present you with a lot of information that is true, while leaving out a few key facts that change the slant of the story.

So are milk cows killed when they no longer milk? Yes. There is no milk cow preserve in Montana where milk cows go to retire. That’s the case for any food animal. There is no chicken preserve, or hog garden. And spoiler alert, Sparky didn’t go to live on grandpa’s farm when you were little either. He was put down because he was old. Death is a part of life. Pretending it isn’t is just that, pretending. That’s why we spend so much time educating our customers on what happens on a farm. You should know where your food comes from. Not because it will make you a vegan, but because it will make you a much better consumer.

On the flip side of Rachel’s article, our milker Erin recently toured a milking farm and the tour guide said that it was traumatic to the milk cow to leave the baby with mom after birth and that’s why they separate them so early. Huh?

Neither this lady’s article, nor that statement by this milk farmer make sense to me. We leave the baby with the mom allowing a natural relationship till the calf is 6-8 months old, which is PLENTY old enough to wean. We’re talking a “calf” that weighs 400-600 pounds at this point.

That’s the equivalent of nursing your child till he’s about 4-5 years old.

We only milk once per day and let Jr. have the rest so a natural relationship is maintained but we still get some of the milk.

On the Birth section. Moving to a feedlot at six months of age is absolutely true, if you are talking about a factory farmed cow. If you are talking about a grass-fed cow, grass finished cow, then not so much. Sunshine and green grass is all that cow will ever know. Note how the article is written as if there is no other option than factory farming. How naturally and sustainably raising cattle on grass doesn’t even exist.

I could go on and on debunking this article. Instead, come out to our farm and see how our animals are raised. See for yourself what local, sustainable farming looks like.

Lucy and I are taking a ride to Siler City this morning to pick up our latest cow from the processor. When we get back, we’ll be stuffing the freezers full of fresh beef for sale. That means steaks, ribeyes, hamburger, ribs for the grill, the whole lot.

We are open, no appointment needed, from 2-5pm today and again tomorrow from 8-5pm. Although we always appreciate you making an appointment so we can be on the lookout for you.

We are still offering our BOGO deal on bones, liver, kidneys, pork neck bones, etc. so you can stock up as well on goodies for making stock, dog treats, etc.

Supposedly we have the replacement part coming for our broken freezer in the next couple of weeks so hopefully we’ll be back to normal shortly.