Corporate bribery?

[kpb]

Well grassfarmer if I have to start teaching my cattle how to eat I think I'll get into another line of work. And I must have just one heck of a bunch of stupid cows since about the only thing my cows seem to learn from one another is how to get out over or through a fence. Not to make light of your overall suggestion about getting the chemical companies out of our lives and lowering expenses which I think is a right and noble cause. But I gotta tell you it's going to be a frosty day before I starve my cows to the point that they feel bound to eat thistles to survive.

This cowboy ain't ever gonna do that so I guess I'm one of those guys who's spending too much money on his animals.

kpb

[kpb]

Linda,I agree with a lot of your comments on the Ag Summit process, I was invited by the Policy Secretariat of AAFRD to become involved in the Ag Summit. This happened after I requested the list of the 100 LEADERS in the Ag Industry that were invited to the original 'think tank' which was the precursor to the Ag Summit.
When I looked down the list of names there was not one from West Central AB., so I took pen in hand and sent off a letter inquiring as to how they intended to develop a vision and framework for the agricultural industry into the 21st century when one large area of the province was not represented.
I guess that the feeling was that they may as well ask me to become involved if I was going to spout off anyway.
I was on the LUCAT team and there were some wonderful folks there with a vast amount of knowledge on land use issues.
It was the Lucat Team that did some of the work for the Land Use Conference but the major amount of credit has to go to Harvey Buckley and Bob Anderson, without their efforts and contacts the conference would never have been the success it was.
I would hope that a follow up conference is going to happen, and certainly am willing to be involved in the planning if one is considered.

Land Use issues have become even more complex, and the lack of land use policies with some teeth to them is evident .
Water issues and land issues will have to take priority during the next few years.

Sorry grassfarmer, I guess this is a bit off your original topic.

[cakadu]

WoolyBear - I'll give you a tip on the nettles. Our sheep eat them every single year and if you really want to see them go crazy - let them in on pig weed. As far as the nettles go they seem to leave them to get to a certain height and then by the time they are done with them, there are merely little sticks left. We're not quite sure what the reason for leaving them is - maybe they like them better at the bud stage, I don't know.

They also really like Canada Thistle and did a fine job of taking the buds off before they could go to seed last year.

Sheep tend to like broad leaf species which is why you probably see them fancying the dandelions.

Dandelions do carry a great deal of calcium in them so they are wonderful for nursing mothers i.e. cows and ewes. I have no idea if this has any relevance and it would be kind of interesting to see what the correlation might be -- we have several bottle lambs and they are drinking less milk (and expensive milk replacer) because we are feeding them dandelions - as many of them as they want to eat and they are just gobbling them up. There is also grass in there, but they will pick the dandelions out long before they eat the grass. They get free choice barley as well as the grass/dandelions. This is the first time we have witnessed this, so I'm not sure if there is anything to it or not. On the upside, it's helping me to get out there and get rid of one pile of them.

Sheep make terrific companion grazers with cattle because they each prefer different species.

Intensively grazed animals tend to eat up everything because they are made to clean up in a pasture before being moved on. When animals are allowed access to all the pasture, they tend to selectively graze and eat the things that they like and leave what they don't like. Much like us if given a choice between carrot cake and brussel sprouts - we'll eat the one we like and leave the one we don't.

We all need to have convictions and I say "good on ya" to grassfarmer for walking the talk.

[cowman]

I find it very interesting that someone could train cows to eat spurge and knapweed? Why with a little bit of training we could double the cow herd in BC!
Hopefully we never have the problems BC has with knapweed.
The drought brought us a lot of new problems, in regards to weeds. The hay trucks brought in a lot of garbage. Even within the province?
Knowing where your hay comes from and what is in it, is important. If you get it from up north, that cheap hay might just prove to be very costly? If you brought it in from eastern Sask. or Manitoba it just might prove to be extremely costly! Fusarium gramminearum is here...yes even in central Alberta! It is well established in southern Alberta. The right conditions and BOOM...there goes the malt business! But then, if you don't raise any grain, then why worry? You don't owe the neighbor anything, right?
I will tell you all this: If you come up with knapweed, you won't be deciding how you control it...the government will! You might get some leeway with spurge but in the end you might be forced to use "the evil chemicals"!

[grassfarmer]

C'mon, kbp you get Stockman Grassfarmer - read the damn article! It is very clear that you do not teach them to eat the weeds by starving them. Once you have taught them to try new things they will eat the canada thistles which have the same feed value as alfalfa - where is the negative side to that? A few hours teaching some cattle to eat weeds which could result in a permanent weed eating solution on your farm versus spraying year after year - isn't it a no brainer which one to go for?
Actually it didn't really surprise me as I know the Luing cattle we have tend to eat a wider variety of forbs/ bush/ grass than the other cows do.
Their origin on an island where they have a wide selection of unusual seaside type plants has taught them to eat many different things. On one area of fenced riverbank I have I graze it lightly with a few purebreds because they are perfect riparian managers. They balance consumption of the shorter bluegrass and clover with slough grass, rushes, buckbrush and various others whereas my angus cows would graze out the bluegrass/clover selectively. This is a trait also found in Galloway and highland cattle. I notice quite often that neighbours cows of other breeds won't even eat sloughgrass.

[grassfarmer]

Hey Cowman what happened to the "Personally I always try to keep an open mind and I never miss an opportunity to see how the other guy does it." of yesterday? Seems it doesn't apply to any ideas I have - oh well each to his own.

[kpb]

Grassfarmer, you're right, I hadn't read the article, I'd stockpiled it until I had a bit of time. However I have now, this morning, dug it our and read it and it is interesting. However I do still have a couple of questions.

Firstly, these cattle were apparently trained to eat these weeds by someone going and picking the weeds, then mixing them and feeding them to the cows in dry lot until they got used to them. This does not seem practical to me, maybe because I'm also feeding lots of yearling calves at the same time. So maybe we're back to the old issue that you and I have discussed about getting a decent return from a small number versus a large number of animals.

Also I have found through bunk feeding animals that they will not eat anything that they do not like. That plant will be left at the bottom of the bunk. To make them eat weeds you would have to feed less of something nutritious which gets back to my statement about starving your cows to force them to eat something they would not normally eat. Starving is too harsh a word but certainly you would be depriving them. Any way you cut it, either in dry lot or on the range, if you're making a cow eat something it does not want to, you have to have less of something it does want to eat.

Grassfarmer, you have always come out on the side of nature, letting the cows calve on grass etc. Does it seem like working with nature to make an animal eat something that it would not naturally eat? Later in the article, the author points out that cows don't generally eat weeds because of their high nitrate content and points out that nitrates from thistle can accumulate and cause death. She says that molasses-based supplements can allow the animal to process these weeds without ill effect. Does this seem like a nature-based system? Also, are you really saving any money--molasses is expensive stuff.

My final point is this--I feed lots of animals every year in order to get a 7 to 10% return on the money I have invested in cows, land, machinery, etc. I'm not happy with a 2 or 3% return because I can get that at the bank with no risk. If I have to start fiddling around with 10 or 20 cows to teach them to eat something strange, then manage those cows to teach the rest of the herd, it is just not worth it. If I had 60 or 80 cows it might be but then I wouldn't be happy making just $30,000 or $40,000 a year when there's so much money tied up in the land.

I guess it looks to me like we're nickling and diming to try to make a decent living.

kpb

[farmers_son]

Grassfarmer: If you are successful in not buying into the chemical companies products and still maintain high levels of production then you will be further head.

I have seen biological weed control in action and it can be very impressive for a while but the weeds tend to win out and seed. Weeds may be succulent for part of the season but they appear to have natural protections that seem to discourage being eaten throughout the season.

When these sprays first came out they were really miracles. Now they are the products of the hated chemical companies sucking the life blood out of the struggling farmer. Which is the right view I do not know, guess it depends upon your perspective, but it would be nice to be able to do without chemicals if you are able.

One thought... if the cows will eat non traditional plants like weeds what keeps them from eating poisonous plants too?

[grassfarmer]

kbp, I think you are still slightly missing the most interesting part of the article - that is cows do not avoid eating say canada thistles because they are poor quality and hence something they don't like rather they don't normally eat them because they have never tried them. If we can modify our thinking and encourage them to try other plants we might both be better off.
I know the traditional thinking on thistles in the pasture - the pasture is bare apart from these big old thistles that the cows won't touch even in the fall when there is nothing else to eat. Challenge instead your mind to imagine cows on lush rotational pasture where lush thistles are plants that get sheared off just like any other. My cows actually do it already to an extent. The main benefit would be that the thistles would not get to dominate the pasture as they do in poorly managed pasture situations.
I think the nitrate deal was a worst case scenario - I assume that unlike in grain crop scenarios with heavy N applications the N levels in most pasture situations won't make for problems.
I know you run larger numbers than me butlike a lot of these non traditional ideas I it is a size neutral program. If you trained 20 heifers in your herd and I trained 6 in mine we would both have the same job to do every day - but you would have a 400 cow herd that ate weeds whereas I have a 130 cow herd. In fact there would be more benefit to you than to me.

[mjohn]

Interesting thread. Just read the article. I wouldn't get too excited about the nitrate angle. I'm not so sure that animals can taste them. More likely they will have a stronger aversion to other bitter tasting stuff (cyanates and alkaloids etc..) typically found in several weedy species. In most cases a small amount may have no effect, but in big doses you will make the sensitive animals sick or dead. I never thought that thistle would accumulate high nitrates in a pasture, (stinkweed, lambsquarters, and pigweed in old corrals maybe??? )As for using a molasses supplement.. I think what they are driving at is any rapidly digestible energy supplement (ie grain) may help the animal deal with the nitrate.
The whole concept seems simple to me, young animals introduced to weeds at a young age will likely eat them. I heard Provenza speak about this a couple of years ago. They're going to learn it from mom. You can do this with 10 animals or 1000. Short duration, very high stock density. Competition between animals reduces selectivity in pasture. Weeds get eaten, grass gets fertilized (a la' cow) and grass grows back. Weeds are usually fewer as a result of the competition. Control of thistle and dandelion usually works this way with little more than electric fence and some planning. Weeds are usually a symptom, not the root problem. That said, some weeds may not be controlled through grazing practices as they can severely ulcer/burn the GI tract. I could deal with someone spraying knapweed or hawkweed if it showed up next door and the goal was to exterminate it. To each his own.

[kpb]

fair enough grassfarmer, your points are well made.

kpb

[cowman]

grassfarmer: I was not putting your ideas down. I truly would like to see it done. I do find your "unconventional" ideas in regards to many things interesting and they have caused me to think about them often.

[cswilson]

Haven't you guys ever heard the phrase'Happy as a horse eating thistles'. Horses love to eat the tops off canada thistles just go for a ride and turn one loose in a patch of them.Cattle will eat an amazing variety of plants if the variety is there for them. I'm kind of like grassfarmer with no chemicals and no fertilizer and we get as many cow days/acre as the chem. users. I always think there are some guys who you should hardly know-your vet, your equipment dealer and your farm supply manager-as for dandilions in a pasture they are pretty high in protein and very palatable. I guess the way we ranch is more an art while the other ways are more a science.

[cakadu]

One of the weed guys I spoke to who works for Sustainable Resources told me that dandelions have something in the neighborhood of 14% protein. Not bad for something considered to be a nuisance.

[silverback]

I hear you saying that weeds and strange plants have decent protein and other benefits, but can anyone tell me what the difference in dry matter produced is between grass or these weeds?? Do you mean that I can put more cows on a patch of Dandelions and thistles than native pasture? Side by side, what produces more??

If I can get more edible? forage from weeds instead of our grass then I need to know now so I can order some dandelion seed. Thanks