Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>]

So if you have to have silage or hay in the cold months, is that a problem?
Why do you have to feed grain in winter when they don't need it in the warm
months? 

If you google "grass fed beef " you'll find out.  
For example try 
http://www.americangrassfedbeef.com/natural-grass-farmers.asp
http://www.texasgrassfedbeef.com/
http://www.grasslandbeef.com/

In "What About Grass-fed Beef?" this article 
http://www.foodrevolution.org/grassfedbeef.htm says

Feeding grain to cattle has got to be one of the dumbest ideas in the
history of western civilization. Cows, sheep, and other grazing animals are
endowed with the ability to convert grasses, which those of us who possess
only one stomach cannot digest, into food that we can digest. They can do
this because they are ruminants, which is to say that they possess a rumen,
a 45 or so gallon (in the case of cows) fermentation tank in which resident
bacteria convert cellulose into protein and fats.

Traditionally, all beef was grass-fed beef, but in the United States today
what is commercially available is almost all feedlot beef. The reason? It's
faster, and so more profitable. Seventy-five years ago, steers were 4 or 5
years old at slaughter. Today, they are 14 or 16 months. You can't take a
beef calf from a birth weight of 80 pounds to 1,200 pounds in a little more
than a year on grass. It takes enormous quantities of corn, protein
supplements, antibiotics and other drugs, including growth hormones. 
----------------

paul, tradingpost@riseup.net

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 7/15/2006 at 2:21 PM Barbara Fischer wrote:

>How are you going to raise those livestock animals if you do not have
>grains?  You might be able to have pasture year round in the south but not
>in the north.  You have to have silage, grain, and pasture to my way of
>thinking.
>
>Barbara
>----- Original Message ----- 
>From: "Aliza" <aliza@jeffnet.org>
>To: <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
>Sent: Saturday, July 15, 2006 12:06 PM
>Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Alternative fuels on the farm
>
>
>> Maybe this is too simplistic but wouldnt it make more sense for farms to
>go
>> back to oxen and horses?  I know that it isnt as fast a way to farm but
>at
>> least the horses grow their own feed.  If we were in a no till pasture
>based
>> model (cows, sheep, goats, pigs, chickens etc) with raised vegetable and
>> grain beds the needs around energy are vastly reduced at least on the
>farm.
>>
>> Speaking of grain - To me grain is one of the biggest drains in a farm
>> system.  Going back to a farm system that includes little grain would be
>> vastly healthier as would going to food systems that use far less grain.
>> There is a mythology that grain for food is cheaper then eating meats
but
>I
>> would think that eating meats and having dairy from notill pasture
raised
>> animals - cows, goats and sheep alike - would be a much smaller drain on
>> resources.  Anyone have any information about resources used for pasture
>> based meats and dairy as apposed to growing grains?
>>
>> Aliza
>> who is looking in to making one of those maggot buckets for feeding
>broilers
>> this late summer.
>>
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>
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