Comments for Curiousfarmer

Comment on Canadian Thistle: Noxious Weed, Rhizome Example by curiousfarmer

curiousfarmer — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 21:00:43 +0000

Thanks Kristin for the link. Yes, Kathy Voth and her system of training animals to eat weeds is fascinating. I would like to do this, but it’s down a ways on my list.

Comment on Canadian Thistle: Noxious Weed, Rhizome Example by Kristin

Kristin — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 18:04:37 +0000

Sorry, another old post. I can’t stop reading. You’re probably on this and it is a garden issue, perhaps not in the pastures but this lady is teaching young cows to eat Canadian thistle and other “noxious” weeds:

http://www.livestockforlandscapes.com/cowmanagers.htm

Comment on Forage Testing by Kristin

Kristin — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 17:45:09 +0000

This is an old post, I know. But I just found your blog. I’m thinking that plants, under certain conditions, certain mineral availability, etc, can more readily concentrate certain nutrients. I’m researching myself as we recently acquired 14 acres of old pasture/hay field and a lease on a neighboring 25. Gearld Fry has a website I found the other day that talks about minerals & livestock health. And I read an old book titled, let’s see if I can find it here, “The Farm that Won’t Wear Out” (free Kindle book on Amazon from near the turn of the last century) that covers a bit about soil & minerals. Perhaps it will help.

Comment on 2012 Price of Hog Feed by curiousfarmer

curiousfarmer — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 16:20:53 +0000

Thanks, WSB! Hadn’t heard from you in awhile. Thanks for adding to my vocabulary.
When I need a K word, I’m going to name one of my herdboars, “Kaizen.”
I love this concept. I guess if we don’t embrace it, we go backwards. Change is the only constant.

Comment on 2012 Price of Hog Feed by WSB

WSB — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 01:34:42 +0000

I think kaizen is the term for continual progress. Ive been meaning to reread Maurer’s One small step can change your life.

Interesting post, btw.

Comment on Swine Nesting Instinct by curiousfarmer

curiousfarmer — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 20:23:38 +0000

dl, that is a really funny story! Thanks for sharing.

Comment on 2012 Price of Hog Feed by curiousfarmer

curiousfarmer — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 20:21:22 +0000

Thanks for the link, Walter. I will try using the string technique sometime.
I like the idea of breeding pigs for forage. It is a thing which can make continual, small progress, but never be finished.

Comment on 2012 Price of Hog Feed by Walter Jeffries

Walter Jeffries — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:12:48 +0000

As you work to train the pigs to graze a trick is feed them the supplements such as commercial feed, corn and other grains later in the day. Let them graze until noon, then feed them other stuff. Then let them graze until 2 pm, then 4 pm.

Over time select for pigs that do best on the grazing. Their digestion adjusts. Pure pasture is low in lysine and calories so figure out what you want to use for supplementing that if anything. we use dairy as that is readily available. Minerals and vitamins are another concern so know your forages and soils.

It can take years to breed to grazing stock but is well worth it. Initially you’ll likely have much slower growth but also you’ll have far lower costs. As the breed improves the growth rate climbs on pasture. It’s a long term project.

As to the remote measuring device – I call it my pig stick. When I’m sorting pigs each week to take to market I eyeball them as you say. Some aren’t worth thinking about. Others are close and those I hold the stick up to, without touching, and get a fairly accurate measure of their weight. It is based on the formula in the link below but adjusted for our pigs. Different genetics will vary it a little. Males are leaner than females.

http://SugarMtnFarm.com/blog/2006/01/how-to-weigh-a-pig-with-a-string.html

Comment on 2012 Price of Hog Feed by curiousfarmer

curiousfarmer — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:30:34 +0000

PFJ, This has been around forever. I call it eyeball/experience.
All joking aside, this is actually what we use on our farm almost exclusively. We have a scales for when we need to know the exact weight, but otherwise we estimate.
The other day a friend and my Dad were telling me how much some hogs weighed in Hoop A without me even asking them. Perhaps a bigger challenge would be to find the shutoff switch.

Comment on 2012 Price of Hog Feed by pfj

pfj — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 09:01:11 +0000

This link has to do with pigs and because you raise them and would be motivated to solve this ‘challenge’ for yourself, as well as for the ‘award’ ($50,000) — take a look:

https://www.innocentive.com/ar/challenge/9932863

They say that they want “a portable device capable of no-contact (‘from a distance’) weight-measuring of live pigs in the farm setting.”