Re:Healthy milk vs milk yield

August 17, 2008

>

> Why did his customers leave him? Because of the raid? Was he doing

> something illegally?

Selling unpasteurized milk is illegal here. I don't think at the time

he had sold cow shares but had some sort of cow lease. He was

convicted of selling unpasteurized milk in court. I did not go to the

trial but I did go to the public hearing and spoke to him about Price

and Pottenger but his lawyer never tried to use that information, as

far as I know.

Some time after I started getting the raw milk in 2000, I asked him if

he remembered my speaking to him at the trial. He said he did and that

he still had the letter on file that I sent to him after the hearing.

In his words, the customers left him because of the " hassles " at the time.

Following these events he wrote a letter to the government saying that

he intended to keep providing raw milk and invited the government to

do a study of the benefits and risks with regards to his milk. I don't

think they ever answered that letter.

August 17, 2008

>

> So he is still selling it illegally or he does shares now?

Hi :

Several years ago he switched from a cow " lease " to a cow share

program. Cow share programs are not legal or illegal in this province.

What matters in this province is the law and the law states that no

one can sell or give away unpasteurized milk, except, of course for

sending to a milk processing plant. Dairy farmers, being owners of

dairy cows often drink their own milk raw but none are ever charged

with breaking the law because they own the cows that produce the milk

and hence they are not giving the milk or selling the raw milk to

anyone. So when the farmer I get milk from switched to the cow share

program, I commented at the time that I thought that would greatly

enhance our position with respect to the law as it is currently

written as now the people drinking the milk raw are the cow owners. It

is yet to be tested in court. (But I look forward to the day.)

August 17, 2008

I am going to try and get the books also. We are always struggling to

improve here and I am wondering if this cow happened to be a Jersey that

loved to pretend to be a pig?

I have a few Jerseys that do exactly what you are describing and it is awful

to try and clean them and I do believe that is how one of them got mastitis.

Forty below here we cannot exactly take her out of the barn and hose her

off. So rags, warm water and soap and vinegar are used to scrub and scrub.

We dry her off before milking and rewash our hands but she did land up sick

one year. She is also easy milking though and I wonder about the tightness

of her teat orifices? She has never leaked milk though except at

freshening. We try and not have her fresh in the winter so if she is full

of poop at least we don't have to try and milk her.

Debbie Chikousky

Manitoba, Canada

" A successful man is one who can build a firm

foundation with the bricks that others throw at him. "

-- Brinkley--

Re:Healthy milk vs milk yield

> , I am ordering the books as I have not read them. I do not

> sell milk, but do feed my family and neighbors. I do say that I

> have to agree with Debbie and Belinda. As a veterinarian and

> working towards a biodynamic farm, I am doing everything I can to

> keep my cows healthy. We try to keep our soil healthy, it was

> pretty rough when we took over this farm, we keep them on pasture,

> and we keep the milking area clean, as well as the area we process

> our milk. However, I had a calf mangle a teat on one cow this year,

> and we had a cow that was just dirty. She came to us as a 3 teater,

> and was completely coated in manure (hubby rescued her on a farm

> call), and we cleaned her up and babied her, and she gave us lots of

> great milk, but she would find every fresh cow pie she could and lie

> on it. We had 2 cows on a 20 acre pasture that had no mud holes

> and she would come in with a caked udder nearly every night. We did

> end up culling her and she never got mastitis here, but I can see

> how easily it could have happened with her propensity for

> dirt/manure. The other thing I think is important is to always

> learn, and to always be willing to learn. I will gladly read the

> reccommended books and I enjoy the dialog that goes on here, even

> though we don't always agree.

> Peace to all of you and yours, and happy healthy real milk drinking!

>

> ------------------------------------

>

> PLEASE BE KIND AND TRIM YOUR POSTS WHEN REPLYING!

> Visit our Raw Dairy Files for a wealth of information!

> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RawDairy/files/

>

> Archive search: http://onibasu.com

>

August 17, 2008

Hmmm how's about a " touchless car wash " ? <G>

Belinda

>

> I am going to try and get the books also. We are always struggling to

> improve here and I am wondering if this cow happened to be a Jersey

that

> loved to pretend to be a pig?

> I have a few Jerseys that do exactly what you are describing and it

is awful

> to try and clean them and I do believe that is how one of them got

mastitis.

> Forty below here we cannot exactly take her out of the barn and hose

her

> off. So rags, warm water and soap and vinegar are used to scrub and

scrub.

> We dry her off before milking and rewash our hands but she did land

up sick

> one year. She is also easy milking though and I wonder about the

tightness

> of her teat orifices? She has never leaked milk though except at

> freshening. We try and not have her fresh in the winter so if she

is full

> of poop at least we don't have to try and milk her.

> Debbie Chikousky

> Manitoba, Canada

August 17, 2008

,

Thanks for telling about this farmer. It's sad that we become so

used to problems being normal, it is hard to imagine any other way. We

have been sold a bill of goods by the parasites in industry that suck

the lifeblood out of the small farms with their poisons, vaccines,

hormones, etc.

I've had farmers tell me you can't grow corn organically, all my

animals will die if I don't vaccinate them, I must have dead animals

everywhere because I don't have a vet out regularly, yield is all that

matters, I don't care for my animals if I don't use vaccines,

antibiotics, poison wormers, etc., etc.

My goals are where this guy is at. I am not there yet as we still do

have some of the problems listed. We struggle with very high iron in

water and soil tying up nutrients and I haven't quite overcome that

yet, but I believe it's possible. We have far better health than most

farmers I know so I'm convinced I'm on the right path.

It is very refreshing to see someone else understands that hybrid

corn is garbage. I also don't understand how organic can allow hybrid

seeds. I do not feed any grain on my dairy, but feel oats is by far

the best.

If P is really low I would consider adding some in test strips to

see if the animals prefer it. ( I agree, the animal is the best judge)

I remember being on a farm where rock phosphate was added to a pasture

at 400 lbs/acre on one half and 1000lbs./acre on the other. The cows

chewed the grass to the ground where the 1000lbs. was applied. It was

amazing!

I've always struggled with hauling in nutrients and haven't done

much, but my farm was so depleted we had to do something to get things

rolling and to pay the bills. My winter bedding pack is really helping

to bring poor land back to life.

Has this guy used any inputs like lime, P, K, or traces? Can you ask

him what the fertility levels were on his farm to start with? So much

land is so terribly depleted I don't know how else to get it going. A

big problem is over stocking. It takes too many animals for what the

land can support just to pay the bills/debt.

I'm very interested in your comments about the base saturation of

Mg. and the availability from higher OM. My soil tests show good base

saturations, but lack availability, especially Ca. My OM has gone from

1.7% to 3.4% and that did make a big difference. I see signs of Cu

deficiency in the cows because of the iron. It's also supposed to tie

up Zn and P which are critical for immune function and breeding.

Is he doing any tillage, green manures, etc.? Does he use straw for

bedding, if so, does he grow his own? What does the soil test show for

S, B, Zn, and Cu? I'm still low, but have had great improvement with

little or no added input, yet I'd like to see more.

Does he have any alfalfa on his farm? Does he only feed dry hay?

Cheyenne

>

> What is interesting to me is that this farmer came to Canada from

> Europe in 1983 and bought a dairy farm with a milk quota and a typical

> Holstein herd. Having had low production Brown Swiss in Europe, he was

> quite surprised by what he quickly saw with the health of this herd.

> The Holstein herd average per lactation was 6900 litres with the top

> producing cow producing 9000 litres. His Brown Swiss herd in Europe

> averaged 3200 litres per lactation. Within two weeks of purchasing the

> farm, the top producing cow dropped dead from toxic mastitis in about

> 24 hours. He learned from that that when a cow gets toxic mastitis you

> must take immediate action or lose the cow. He told me some of the

> problems the herd suffered from were mastitis, pink eye and warble

> fly. Being pragmatic, he realized if he did not treat these problems,

> he would likely lose half the herd.

> In Europe he had practiced biodynamic organic Demeter farming. After a

> time, he came to realize that it would take forever with this Holstein

> herd to get where he wanted to be. As a result, he purchased a

> Tarentaise bull so the herd genetics started to move away from the

> Holstein genetics. After a group of farmers from Quebec had a tour of

> the farm, one of the farmers took him aside and told him that with

> what he was trying to accomplish, he would be better off using the

> Canadienne breed of cow. As a result, he went to the Gaspe Peninsula

> in Quebec and purchased 12 pregnant female Canadienne cows from

> several farms. One farmer that he bought several cows from indicated

> that if one particular cow had a bull calf, that should be the future

> bull for the farm. The farmer believes your bull should be born on

> your farm. Seven females and five males were born and one male was

> from the desired female. This male later became the bull for the farm,

> as intended.

> The next year these females were bred by the Tarentaise bull. The

> genetics were now a mixture of three breeds, but after that first

> Canadienne bull became the bull for the farm, the genetics moved more

> and more towards the Canadienne. Also, at the same time, the average

> lactation for the herd was moving down and the health of the herd was

> moving up. The current lactation herd average is about 4100 litres

> with a 4600 litre top producer.

> His pasture management was taken from Voisin's book, " Grass

> Productivity " . The previous owner of the farm had reseeded the

> pastures every 6 years. He allowed whatever was growing in the

> pastures to grow, with no reseeding ever. As a biodynamic farmer, his

> fertilizer program was to spray BD500 and BD501 along with using the

> compost preps. In addition, of course, manure from the barn in winter

> was composted and returned to the fields.

> In 1994, two days after a TV documentary on his farm, health

> authorities and the police raided his farm. As a result of legal

> charges and mainly because most of his customers left him, he was

> forced to sell half the farm and most of the herd to stay afloat

> financially. From a herd of 50 producing cows, he was down to one bull

> and four cows. He was determined to continue in spite of the ordeal he

> went through. He said his greatest enemies in this ordeal were other

> Ontario dairy farmers. Other farmers and the dairy industry probably

> don't like someone exposing the truth about what they are really

> doing, I guess.

> The current herd is over 30 producing cows. Some producing cows have

> been culled and are sold as meat. All the genetics in the herd are

> from that one bull and those four cows. There are no genetics in the

> herd from outside those five animals. The farmer, of course, based

> this breeding program on his nutrition program. Heifers have their

> first calf at three years of age. Calves are born, licked by the

> mother and are up and nursing without assistance within 15 minutes

> from birth. They nurse on their mother for the first three or four

> days, then for the next three weeks they are fed their mother's milk

> by humans to get them accustomed to humans. Then for six months they

> are fed milk from the herd. Hay or grass is eaten after three weeks.

> The diet is almost entirely grass. In season the animals are on grass

> 24/7, only coming to the barn to be milked. No water is provided in

> the pastures. They have access to water when they come to the barn to

> be milked. In winter they are fed hay grown on the farm any they spend

> a few hours outside the barn every day regardless of the weather. He

> plants 7 or 8 varieties in his hay fields but he has not got back to

> me yet with the list of varieties. In winter the animals receive a

> handful of grain once a day. If I remember right, the grain is oats.

> No other type of grain is ever fed, especially not corn or corn

> silage. No hybrids are grown on this farm. This farmer knows that

> hybrids are guaranteed malnutrition and doesn't fall for the yield at

> the expense of nutrition scam that other farmers fall for. If organic

> farmers are interested in nutrition, they don't grow hybrids. If

> organic farm organizations ever get interested in nutrition, they will

> prohibit the growing of hybrids on organic farms.

> The rational pasture rotation based on Voisin's work is done in 21

> paddocks, using movable electric wire fencing. Animals are usually

> left on the pasture for two days and occasionally three at most. He

> has horses that follow the cows on the pastures and they stay for two

> days to " clean up " the pasture.

> Interestingly one area in what is now pasture had severed as a market

> garden. As it came to be used as pasture, milk thistle showed up in

> the field but after a period of time it disappeared from the field. As

> Albrecht states and backs up with repeatable scientific

> experimental evidence, the weeds the cows refuse to eat move in when

> the soil fertility moves out, so if you want the weeds to move out,

> you need to move the soil fertility back in. If you have plants in

> your pasture that cows refuse to eat because they know the nutritional

> value of the plant is not work the eating of the plant, then even the

> plants they do eat are of lowered nutritional value and you have a

> soil fertility problem, not a weed problem.

> One of the things the farmer was going to get back to me on, but

> hasn't yet, was when was the last occurrence of any of the diseases

> that he used to see on the farm. I do know that it has been about 18

> years since he had hooves trimmed. Also, the consumption of hay in

> winter is down by about one third, indicating, of course, that the

> soil fertility has also been improving in the hay fields.

> I don't have with me right now soil tests done eleven years apart on

> the farm, with the latter being done two summers ago. What I do

> remember was the high percentage base saturation of magnesium in the

> first tests, generally around 24%. When the farmer had the second

> series of tests done, I expected that since the health of the herd was

> continuing to improve during this time as soil fertility improved, I

> would see a drop in the base saturation percentage. I was surprised to

> see, however, almost no change in the magnesium base saturation

> percentage. Organic matter, however, increased by about 25% from 4 and

> change % to 5 and change %, if I remember correctly. As Albrecht

> explains with an experimental demonstration, minerals are more

> available to plants from organic matter than they are from soil

> mineral treatments. The company that did the second set of soil tests

> reported that the phosphorus was so low that a soil phosphorus

> application was needed. The farmer spoke to me about this and asked me

> what I thought. I reminded of him what Voisin said in " Soil Grass and

> Cancer " , that animals and man are the judge of nutrition, not the

> chemist. I reminded the farmer that during the eleven years between

> the soil tests his animals had been getting healthier. I suggested

> that when the health of his animals starts to decline he might start

> worrying about what mineral treatments might be appropriate for his

> fields. He though about it for a time and later reported to me that he

> wasn't going to do anything about the phosphorus level in the soil

> tests. I would suggest the chemical readings in the soil tests for

> both magnesium and phosphorus have less impact because of the high

> level of organic matter in the soil. Just, as Albrecht explains, a

> high CEC means you do not need to pay such close attention to the

> relative balance in the base saturation mineral percentages.

> Oh, I almost forgot, the farmer has done one soil treatment that is

> not biodynamic. Some time ago he added about 80 tons of paramagnetic

> rock to the fields. This was done mainly by mixing the rock with the

> manure from the barn in the winter and then later spreading the manure

> on the fields. The following spring after the first application of

> rock to the fields, the farmer noted the condition of the animals

> coming out the the winter had taken a jump that visitors to the farm

> commented on. After losing their winter coat they looked like they

> were brushed for a show but no brush had touched them. The farmer

> wondered if the rock had anything to do with this. There was no direct

> evidence in the fields from the biology that anything had changed.

> With my head planted firmly in the sand up to my waist,

>

August 18, 2008

Hi,

We have goats and cows. We dehorn our cows but leave the horns on our meat goats. You can blunt the tips. We just use a hoof trimmer (hubby is a farrier). You could also use a horn saw.

About three years ago I decided to leave the horns on my heifer calves.Now I am milking 5 heifers with their horns on.Some dairy farmers warned us that we would have some nasty injuries if we left those horns on.We have had a few scratches and one small wound from the heifers fighting with each other.These are Guernseys and the horns are rather sharp at the point.We are wondering if we should blunt the tips somehow .When the weather turns cool in the fall the older cows(still without horns) like to push each other around and fight sometimes.I'm a little concerned when I imagine what those tussles would be like if both of the cows had horns.I hope leaving the horns on will result in a noticeable improvment in health for these heifers.I'm not convinced that any improvement in health could outweigh the added risk of leaving horns on the bulls.

August 18, 2008

About three years ago I decided to leave the horns on my heifer calves.Now I am milking 5 heifers with their horns on.Some dairy farmers warned us that we would have some nasty injuries if we left those horns on.We have had a few scratches and one small wound from the heifers fighting with each other.These are Guernseys and the horns are rather sharp at the point.We are wondering if we should blunt the tips somehow .When the weather turns cool in the fall the older cows(still without horns) like to push each other around and fight sometimes.I'm a little concerned when I imagine what those tussles would be like if both of the cows had horns.I hope leaving the horns on will result in a noticeable improvment in health for these heifers.I'm not convinced that any improvement in health could outweigh the added risk of leaving horns on the

bulls. michaelSubject: Re:Healthy milk vs milk yieldTo: RawDairy Date: Sunday, August 17, 2008, 11:10 PM