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  • From: Bill Jones <billj AT harborside.com>
  • To: Homestead mailing list digest <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Homestead] NAIS Praised on Local TV; Homemade Milk Replacer?
  • Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2005 18:10:24 -0800

I've long said that the nanny news is driven by journalists too lazy to actually find some news, who just forward whatever hysteria of the moment is being conjured up by government employees. The POV on speed limits is provided by the Highway Patrol, the POV on school funding is provided by local teachers, etc. And this was no exception.

The background caption read "Bioterrorism Threat" at the beginning and end as the "journalist" spoke. The hard-hitting interviews consisted of an air-head nodding as the government employee explained that we will be required to "register" our property by 2009 in case the government..needs...to.... (unable to come up with a polite way of saying "confiscate" our animals). I'm sure none of this has anything to do with that fact the beef prices have gone so far through the roof, that now any Dick can practically mint money by raising cattle on COB and hay right in the garage. There was also a lovely farm girl telling us how nice it will be if your animals are ever lost.

I always knew that they would find some way to make it impossible for anyone but the super-rich to own livestock. Maybe we could have a $500 registration fee, independent of the size of the operation, similar to the licencing system for kelp harvesting. Lately a local feed store closed, and the other feed store owners tell me that there's no money in it. Once they've all closed, because most people may have just given up on keeping animals, the rest of us who depend on the feed stores will have no choice but to get rid of their livestock as well. Finally only large-scale operations that order hay and grain by the truckload will exist.

What animals will even eat the grass? We have a pair of geese, but they hardly touch the tall fescue, and acres of them would be maddening, I fear. It's not inconceivable to cut all the hay by hand on our small place, but do rabbits eat grass hay? If not, then the dreaded guinea pig is about the only option left, if the grass is to be the basis of any type of animal husbandry.

Because I found it so easy to raise cheap Jersey bulls seasonally, I think the solution for us is probably to raise as much beef as I can in the next 3 years, and turn most of it into dried beef. It can be dry-canned so that no insects get to it, and it will keep indefinitely. A person needs around one ounce of beef a day (well, not specifically beef) to survive, and cooking oil stores indefinitely. These are the only things required to survive (food-wise), to supplement a supply of potatoes, beans, and fresh veggies from the garden.

The greatest expense in raising these calves is the milk replacer powder. The label says it's mostly soy milk. The remaining ingredients aren't hard to come by. Since they're just $5 calves, one could experiment with various formulas. I'll check it out and see if there's any info online. For all I know, eggs (which are plentiful here) are tolerated by calves (but still won't begin to supply enough vitamin B-12, which has to be supplemented). It's no mystery what the nutritional components of milk are, and how to mimic them in combination, especially if you can buy bulk amino acids (or did they ban those too?).

I know some folks on the list make soy milk, and I just have to wonder whether the soy milk itself would be cheaper, if we made it from bulk soybeans, than the present cost of milk replacer (it's up to about a buck a pound for the instant powder, which mixes in about the same proportion as ordinary powdered milk, 3:1).

Bill
S. Oregon coast




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