Curiousfarmer

The Proof is in the Pudding

June 19, 2009

Large hogs enjoying their last days on an alfalfa/grass pasture.

Are you purchasing pastured meats for your health? Or are you more concerned that the animals are free-range?

Free-range is great fun for livestock. But without careful management, a pasture can quickly become a dirt lot, and the health benefits that come from eating quality pasture will disappear.

If you are purchasing pastured meats for your health, and want to verify that the animals are getting the majority of their nutrients from pasture, then there is one sure way to know. Observe the animals’ manure.

This is the picture of hog manure from one of the hogs pictured above. It is almost as green as cattle manure and contains less grain than the hog manure pictured below, which is from a hog receiving no pasture or forage.

Now that you have this knowledge, I’m sure most of you won’t use it. And I don’t blame you. The joke in the movie, “Tommy Boy,” is, “You can stick your head up a steer’s ass to find out how good the steaks are; but wouldn’t you rather take the butcher’s word for it?” I’m guessing most of you would rather take the farmer’s word for it, too.

I also have two nice pictures of contrasting cattle manure. If anyone is interested, comment or email.

3 Comments | Curious direct-market, Curious hogs, Curious meat | Tagged: beef, direct-market, education, manure, pastured meat, pork | Permalink
Posted by Curiousfarmer

First Cutting of Hay

June 7, 2009

June 5, 2009. Hay fields raked and ready to be baled. These are the same fields that were pictured May 17 in the post, Contour Strip Cropping.

I cut the hay fields Tuesday and Wednesday to hopefully be ready to bale on Friday. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday were good drying days, (sunny, low humidity), so we baled dry hay Friday. It is raining now, (Saturday).

Yields are lower than hoped for. I kept my fields in hay for one year too many and the fields experienced some winter-kill. Alfalfa is known to winter-kill as it ages depending on winter conditions. Orchardgrass is also known to winter-kill, but we haven’t had any problems until this winter. These fields were my first experience with an improved orchardgrass. The variety is “Extend” from Lacrosse Forage. It is less clumpy and matures later than the common orchardgrass. I picked out and planted the seed and it did well for me. I guess I fell in love with it and didn’t feel like rotating into corn. Curiousfarmer is sentimental.

27 acres yielded 65 big round bales of hay. Each round bale weighs about 1500 lbs. So the total yield was 97,500 lbs. of hay. That is 3,600 lbs. per acre. We hope to yield 4,000 to 4,500 lbs. per acre for first cutting, which is by far the highest yielding cutting. I’m interested to see how our other hay fields yield.

We are about 20% done with first cutting. We will cut again next week when the weather cooperates.

Leave a Comment » | Curious crops | Tagged: crops, hay | Permalink
Posted by Curiousfarmer

The Law of Supply and Demand in Action

June 4, 2009

The price of soybean meal has gone through the roof. The last load we purchased was over $.20 per lb. which is 30% greater than the price we paid in March. We buy a 3 ton load every ten days to two weeks. Our cost per load has increased $300.

Farmers gossip more than a murder of crows. The latest “news” is that we’re going to run out of soybean meal this summer. I panicked a little. Our direct-market hogs are on an alfalfa pasture and would be ok if only fed corn. The logistics of getting all of the rest of our hogs onto pasture scared and excited me. I love a challenge. Then I realized that I was reacting to gossip and didn’t need to get crazy just yet.

I did, however, call my feed salesman and determined that it would be cost effective to substitute lysine and threonine, the two most limiting amino acids in a corn/soy diet for hogs, for soybean meal. So I did.

For hogs weighing 200 lbs. to market, I am substituting 3 lbs. of lysine and 1 lb. of threonine for 50 lbs. of soybean meal in every ton of feed. 3 lbs. of lysine costs $2.85. 1 lb. of threonine costs $1.38. So the total extra cost is $3.93. 50 lbs. of soybean meal costs roughly $10. So the savings is roughly $6 per ton of feed. We use about 6 ton of this feed per week, so the savings is $36 per week. If soybean meal stays high all summer until harvest, and the relative prices stay similar, we will save $432 over 12 weeks.

I realize this isn’t a huge savings. But it felt good to take some action. And the collective action by many soybean meal users will keep us from running out of soybean meal until harvest. This is the Law of Supply and Demand in action.

2 Comments | Curious livestock costs | Tagged: hog feed, law of supply and demand, lysine, soybean meal, threonine | Permalink
Posted by Curiousfarmer

Three Little Pigs

May 28, 2009

Isaac, Lael, and my 250 lbs. pastured hogs which will be butchered in June. Note the single-strand electric fence in the foreground.

Isaac and his stepmom Lael visited my farm again and took home three little pigs. Isaac and Lael are meat-eaters who desire to raise it themselves. They own an acreage outside of Madison and are exploring the options for their land. I’m glad pigs are a part of the plan. Best of luck!

Leave a Comment » | Curious hogs | Tagged: direct-market, farm visit, hog feed, pastured pigs, pork | Permalink
Posted by Curiousfarmer

Companion Planting

May 27, 2009

In the children’s book, “Bear and Bunny Grow Tomatoes,” by Bruce Koscielniak, Bear and Bunny take two different approaches to gardening. Bear is anal and raises monocultures devoid of other plants, (weeds). Bunny is a more relaxed individual and gardens with the weeds. Bear has bumper crops. Bunny has crop failures. Bear shares his harvest with Bunny so Bunny doesn’t starve in the winter.

My ex-girlfriend tells me I am exactly like Bunny. I, however, usually don’t experience crop failure. And I have a method to my madness. It’s called “Companion Planting.” Some plants grow better together.

In the excellent book on this subject, “Carrots Love Tomatoes,” Louis Riotte explains this principle in detail. This is his introduction.

“The magic and mystery of companion planting have intrigued and fascinated humans for centuries, yet it is a part of the gardening world that has never been fully explored. Even today we are just on the threshold. In years to come I hope that scientists, gardeners, and farmers everywhere will work together in making more discoveries that will prove of great value in augmenting the world’s food supply.

Plants that assist each other to grow well, plants that repel insects, even plants that repel other plants – all are of great practical use. They always have been, but we are just beginning to find out why.”

In my last post, I wrote that I am striving to be “Umami.” I’ll bet my choice of companions will have a huge effect on this.

Leave a Comment » | Curious garden | Tagged: companion planting, garden | Permalink
Posted by Curiousfarmer

Morel Mushrooms: Full of Umami

May 22, 2009

I finished planting corn Monday. I celebrated by going Morel mushroom hunting with my Dad. We found some beauties.

We searched around dead or dying Elm trees. Our forest has been ravaged by Dutch Elm disease.

Some Morels were boldly out in the open, like the one pictured above. Most were hidden like the ones pictured below, and would be invisible to an untrained eye. All were a pleasure to find and eat.

Why are Morels so delicious? Mushrooms, and other protein-rich foods, are full of the fifth taste, Umami. Umami is a Japanese word meaning, tasty. Savory, brothy, meaty, are other ways to describe Umami. Basically, it’s the taste of protein; or the taste as amino acids are broken down. We all crave Umami and I enjoyed it in spades on the meat diet.

The four other main tastes are: sweet, sour, salty, and bitter. I was thinking metaphorically about the five tastes. If I was to be described by one of the tastes, I would want to be Umami. Tasty, hearty, interesting, challenging. And I like to surround myself with Umami people.

Sweet is nice, but kind of uncomfortable for me. Salty is the way I think of my Grandpa; cussing, telling stories about the old days. Great quality for a grandpa. Sour and bitter can describe many people. I’m sure you will agree these people are simply endured and difficult to enjoy.

I’ll never be sweet or salty. I could become sour and/or bitter. I’m striving to be Umami. Which taste are you?

1 Comment | Curious food, Curious living | Tagged: food, foraging | Permalink
Posted by Curiousfarmer

Contour Strip Cropping

May 17, 2009

Contour strip cropping is a farming practice designed to minimize soil erosion. Farming is practiced with the contour of the hillside or across the slope to slow water runoff during a rain. Fields are arranged in alternating strips of an erodible cropping practice such as corn or soybeans with a soil conserving practice such as hay.

The picture above was taken today. The tilled fields were planted to corn May 12th. The green fields are alfalfa/orchardgrass hay fields which will be cut for hay three times in the summer and grazed by cattle once in the fall.

The narrow green strip in the middle of the corn field is a waterway. It is important to not till in a natural swale or waterway to prevent erosion. The large green strip across the bottom of the picture is the largest waterway on my farm. The farmer who owned my farm before me said that when he bought the farm around 1940 there was a ditch big enough to drive a tractor in. The early farmers didn’t understand some of the conservation practices we use today. They cleared the land and plowed and planted wheat.

2 Comments | Curious crops | Tagged: contour, crops, erosion, strip, waterway | Permalink
Posted by Curiousfarmer

Baby Chicks

May 14, 2009

Kenosha elementary incubated 30 fertile eggs from my chickens. They had 24 hatch; which is an 80% success rate. Well done, roosters and hens. Check out my protocol in the post, “Spring is here.”

The teachers said the students were ecstatic to see the chicks hatch after waiting three long weeks. Other schools could do this project. Incubators aren’t expensive. Hook up with a local farmer.

1 Comment | Curious chickens | Tagged: chickens, education | Permalink
Posted by Curiousfarmer

No-till Planting Corn into Sod

May 9, 2009

I no-till planted 25 acres of corn on Monday, May 4th. This is our equipment, engaged in planting.

There are three wheels in this picture. The first wheel is the coulter. The coulter cuts a two-inch deep slot into the soil. The next wheel is the depth wheel. Not visible is the corn being deposited into the slot between the depth wheels. The next wheel is the press wheel. The press wheels close the seed furrow and press soil around the corn kernel. All of these wheels are adjustable and we often adjust based on soil conditions.

Leave a Comment » | Curious crops | Tagged: commodities, crops, no-till | Permalink
Posted by Curiousfarmer

Pork Carcass Breakdown: What to Expect

May 3, 2009

You want to buy pork, in bulk, direct from a farmer. What should you expect? Here is a link to pork carcass cutout charts.

Pork carcasses are usually sold as whole or half carcasses. Traditionally, there are more cured and smoked products in a pork carcass resulting in a greater butchering cost when compared to beef. I will detail a hog we butchered recently with butchering costs.

Description	Weight	Price	Amount
Processing	172 lbs.	$.45	$77.40
Cooling & Offal Pickup	172 lbs.	$.22	$37.84
Hams	44 lbs.	$.40	$17.60
Slicing Bacon	16 lbs.	$.60	$9.60
Rolled shoulder	25 lbs.	$.25	$6.25
Sausage Links	14 lbs.	$.85	$11.90
Spare Ribs	10 lbs.
Pork Chops	30 lbs.

The total weight of the pork we took home was 139 lbs. Some of the pork was lost as bones and other waste. Pork carcasses will vary of course. The amount of take-home pork will also vary based on the amount of processing, (i.e. deboning, etc.), you choose.

Based on $172 to the farmer and $160.59 to the butcher, the total cost is $332.59. Divided by a take-home weight of 139 lbs., cost per lb. is $2.39.

Comment or email if you have questions.

2 Comments | Curious direct-market, Curious meat | Tagged: direct-market, meat, pork | Permalink
Posted by Curiousfarmer