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Chronological Thread  
  • From: "RDH" <rdhopkins AT americanpasturage.com>
  • To: "Market Farming" <market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Organic industry vs. organic movement
  • Date: Wed, 2 Oct 2002 20:34:29 -0500


Rick W.

Are you aware of the work at the University of Utah where they are claiming
that any grain especially at weaning time will suppress the CLA production
in ruminants? Do you have any analysis done on your beef for fat profiles?

Also are you aware the methods to prevent the parisitides from killing the
dung beetles in your pasture when you worm the cattle? We don't use any
chemicals in our beef and with a completely grass based system we find it
still the most economical. Our calves gained 1.9 pounds average during this
long dry and hot summer period and will really start to gain with the cooler
weather and some moisture.

Rick H.

======
We do not do conventional beef here at Misty Ridge as we are more geared for
the higher CLA levels in the meat. Our goal is to stress what is in your
food instead of what is not in your food. But basically it is pretty much
the same as organic. And when you explain it to people or give farm tours,
people seem to prefer our approach to just the organic even though we do
feed some grain in the winter and also to the youngest stock and we do use
milk replacer on new calves and do use several pour-on treatments per year
for parasite control. But no pesticides (including herbicides) on forage
production and no hormone implants and no ionophores. That does hit us in
the pocket book a bit. When we shipped those stocker cattle and surplus
Jersey steers this week, we estimate a loss of 30 to 50 pounds per head
because we do not use those chemicals.

Our produce is more organic really than regular organic since we do not even
use the allowed pesticides that organic uses.

By the way does anyone feel as uncomfortable as we do with putting on Bt and
similar substances on crops you are personally going to eat?

Sincerely,

Rick Williams
Misty Ridge Farm
Dairy heifers and dairy beef graziers
Viroqua, WI

www.mistyridgefarm.com


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