Farm Fodder

The FDA has approved meat and milk from cloned animals. Although this change will not take place for up to 2 years, I find it frightening that they would go ahead without adequate testing. Another Vioxx disaster in the making, there is a further downside to this one. While Vioxx, when recalled could be pulled from the shelves because of required labeling, there will be no such chance with cloned meats and milk products - there will be no labeling indicating that the products come from cloned animals.

With the onset of NAIS occurring in the same time frame, it appears that the small farmers will not be there to come to our aid, when a virus wipes out the entire cloned herd - NAIS will force burdensome expenditures for implementation and maintenance that will break the financial backs of the small farmers.

Bottom line: We will not have a choice between cloned or natural meat/milk, because the labeling will not reflect th origin of the product. And we will not have the choice to raise our own meat/milk products anymore because of the prohibitive nature of NAIS.
Heaven help us… Read more

Marilyn called me at work to tell me we lost 3 chickens this AM.

It seems mr. skunk arrived and beheaded 3 chickens.

2 were known layers and one was a retiree.

We do not use prophylactic antibiotics, accept if needed to save the life of an extremely sick, or distressed animal.

We use natural herbs for de-worming, table salt or apple cider vinegar as the antibiotic of choice.

We have no issues, really, with our stock - the hens are healthy and happy, running all over the farm in search of their daily intake of grass, bugs and other items they find. The goats are content foraging on the pastures we have and eating the hay we give them.

A recent article, written by investigative reporter Michael Pollan (author of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”, and soon to be released “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto”) tells us of the super-strains of disease that not only survive antibiotics, but attack humans and animals and cause high death rates and how new strains are appearing in the feedlots for pigs.

MRSA, the very scary antibiotic-resistant strain of Staphylococcus bacteria that is now killing more Americans each year than AIDS — 100,000 infections leading to 19,000 deaths in 2005, according to estimates in The Journal of the American Medical Association. Now, a new and even more virulent strain — called “community-acquired MRSA” — is now killing young and otherwise healthy people who have not set foot in a hospital. it is, however in the pigs at the overpopulated feedlots - where they use the same antibiotics to control outbreaks of disease due to the filthy conditions in the confined area.

The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that at least 70 percent of the antibiotics used in America are fed to animals living on factory farms.

Read more here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/16/magazine/16wwln-lede-t.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&oref=slogin

Well, we have a New Year starting next week.

What does that mean to a farm?

The new year starts in the dead of winter, but there is still a lot to do!

If the temperature is above 50, I will refill feeders and put them on the bee hives so that they can replenish their “winter stores”.

I will continue to “dress” the growing beds from last year, and new beds for this year, with manure. As long as the ground is not frozen, the manure can leech into the ground, providing the nourishment that the soil desperately needs.

The chickens are still active, so I will continue to move their poultry netting, so that they have clean, fresh ground to forage on. It amazes me that, even in winter, when I give additional natural feed, they still manage to find bugs, grass, leaves and other “critters” to eat - and leave some of the feed untouched!

I still need to split wood for the wood stove, work on the inside of the house, repair and build new bee equipment, and work on other projects.

We are planning the beds for the coming spring, ordering seeds, fruit trees, berry bushes, flowers, herbs, spices for the garden beds and starting seeds for planting in the ground. We are also taking extra care of our pregnant animals (goats and dog) to make sure that the little ones coming will be healthy and strong.

There is an organization — “The Center for Food Safety” - that has done some great work on the behalf of all those that want natural, wholesome foods to eat.
In the past year alone, they have:

• Won a major federal court victory that stopped the planting of a new genetically engineered crop - Roundup Ready alfalfa - for the first time in history;
• Halted risky field tests growing experimental drug crops (pharmacrops) in open fields through other federal court victories;
• Defended the organic standards from numerous threats by agribusiness to weaken them;
• Generated over 145,000 comments to FDA from people opposing milk and meat from cloned animals in our food supply;
• Won the passage of the Mikulski-Specter amendment in the Senate version of the Farm Bill demanding further testing of food from cloned animals before FDA allows such products on the market;
• Fought for and won a ban on animal cloning in organic production;
• Successfully pressured Congress to remove language in the Farm Bill that would have eliminated the rights of states and local governments to regulate genetically engineered crops;
• Pressured FDA to maintain strong and accurate labels on irradiated foods.

You can keep abreast of all food safety issues, or support this great organization by going to their website:

http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/index.cfm

The Farm bill passed in the Senate -

The good news:
An amendment was attached that required the FDA to postpone the OK for using cloned animals for meat/dairy.

The bad news:

Funding for NAIS is included, approval for the NAIS is included.

All we can hope for now is a veto by President Bush, and the ability of the people to convince the USDA that we DO NOT WANT a National Animal IDentification system because it would be the death-knell for the small farmers.

Only 90 people total ( reps. and senators combined) were present for the vote on the farm bill - where were the other 3/4 of the congress???

One of the negatives of having to work outside the home while attempting to build up a farm, is, well… I’m not there to get some things done…

Today, Dec. 11th, it was partly sunny and in the 60’s…. And Marilyn called to say that the bees were flying. - A perfect opportunity to feed them once more before winter in the hopes that they will stash most of it for the winter ahead…

Of course, I’m stuck in the office. So, I called and asked Nathan to feed the bees for me. Sure, he can suit up and be safe from bee stings - and he can carry a 1 gallon container full of sugar and water. And he knows how to open the hive up and put the containers in - and he’s pretty responsible. So, why am I anxious about him doing it?

Because he’s my boy and I worry about him dealing with the bees. And because they are my bees and I worry about them being dealt with by a 10 year old boy!

Sure, everything will be fine - but I should be there taking care of my bees!

I’m very grateful to have such a responsible son, (and relatively calm bees) and I have come to rely on him heavily since we have increased the number of animals and things that require some oversight. He is truly an asset to the family ( and the farm). But …

I just found out he’s swatting at the bees! That’s the part I was referring to above (being dealt with by a 10 year old boy). Yes, I have told him to “stay calm and they won’t bother you”. And “open the hive slowly and they won’t be frightened”. But he’s a 10 year old boy - and yet I trust him with my bees and I trust God to protect him from the bees…

It seems that a recent study ( fueled by the recent nix on cough medicines for children by the FDA) has restored honey to it’s previous glory as a medicinal treatment for ( at present) the cough.

An article by abcnews medical team says that honey is good for coughs -

Read the article here:

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Health/ColdFlu/Story?id=3947988&page=1

Last night, we had some pretty strong winds - So, I went out to check the animals.

Sure enough, the 2 chicken tractors holding the 25 black Austral-orp hens had blown over, and the chickens were not in them.

Well, it was pretty hard to see solid black hens in the solid black night! I went back in the house and got Nathan. We went out with flashlights, and when we spotted a cluster of them huddling, we would lay down our flashlights and catch as many as we could and relocate them to a larger house for the night. This went on for about 30 minutes, but we think we got all but one - that one elusive chicken was no where to be found, so we called it a night ( since it was after 10:30PM).

I’m awaiting a report from Nathan this morning on the actual head count of chickens…

I received a somewhat frightening email from Marilyn yesterday while I was at work.

I quote: “No cow help. The cow left first and then the bull - about 1/2 hour ago.
I’m not counting on blueberries next year . . . ”

So, I immediately thought that the neighbor’s cattle had trampled and eaten all of our blueberries!

Fortunately, it wasn’t quite so devastating. Yes, the neighbor’s bull and one cow were stomping around in the garden beds and blueberry areas. Yes, we may have lost a blueberry or two.

All part of living in the rural areas of Northern Kentucky. We were planning to expand the blueberry patch into a small blueberry orchard, anyway. We intend to purchase another 30 plants, and take cuttings off of each one, including the 30 we already have (well, I guess that’s 28 or 27 we now have). So, we could have 120 blueberry plants by the end of summer next year, when we will again take a cutting from each plant. You get the idea …

We had a low in the mid-20’s this AM. That should kill any eggs/larvae for wax moths in the frames I left outside in empty hive boxes. I intend to leave them outside for at least a week or two to freeze the little bugs off. Then I can store them inside the garage until spring.

I intend to add some more bee hives, both Langstroth hives (conventionally used in the US for bottled honey production, bee pollen, and transporting for pollination) and 2 - 3 top bar hives . Top bar hives are good for wax and comb honey, and they are a more “natural” environment for the bees. It allows the bees to build more comb, in the way they want to build it, instead of in rigid frames, precut and designed for use by the humans that want the honey. — We’ll see how that turns out.

The Victorian and New South Wales governments have become the first in Australia to allow farmers to grow genetically-modified (GM) food crops.

It seems that Australia wants to push genetically altered foods faster and further than the USDA! Incredible that they would promote GMO without testing for issues with human consumption of the genetically altered foods - once they are altered, what are they, really???

Read more here: