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  • From: "Lynn Wigglesworth" <lynnw1366 AT hotmail.com>
  • To: <bobford79 AT yahoo.com>, <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] SE PA going to identifiable non-cashsmartcardsfortransporta...
  • Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2008 12:47:55 -0500


I just read Jame's response and now yours. I am honestly surprised. I thought that vets were important when you have large animal husbandry/livestock. A big cow or horse or even a great big hog, can be worth a lot of money? .............bobford

There's a difference between it being worth a lot of money and being expensive. My beef bulls cost me $10 each from a local dairy. They are (usually) raised by one of the mother cows here. They get maybe $100 worth of hay in the winter, if they don't go to the butcher the first year. So I don't have a lot of money invested in them. Once they are butchered, I can net over $1000/bull in beef sales. That's the difference between regular economics and old-style 'pastoral economics'...money I didn't spend is not a loss to me.

In my experience, farm animals don't show illnesses until they are VERY sick. It probably has something to do with them being prey animals and not showing weakness to predators. Every time I've lost an animal, it was fast...they died within hours of my noticing they were sick (and I keep a close eye on them)..I think my latest losses were from old age (I've been here 12 years, and my original animals are starting to drop off). I doubt that a vet could have saved them anyway. And animals tend to be healthier in a non-confinement, homestead type situtation.

Lynn Wigglesworth




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