 |
Animal
Sciences:
We raise sheep. In the past, we raised
cattle, chickens and ducks. Ten ewes and their offspring can graze three
acres. Makes more sense than buying a $4000 tractor.
Dan Morrical is the Iowa State Extention agent for sheep and grazing
issues. Iowa KNOWS agriculture. Agriculture appears to be evolving down
two diverging paths. One path is the boutique/hobbiest agriculture methods
are stressed. Agri-tainment falls into this catagory as does a large percentage
of "purebred" operations. The other path is the pure commercial
farmer. That farmer is primarily concerned with providing products that
are accepted by the consumer and can be produced at a profit. He does
not care if he is raising purple llamas if that is what the market demands
and pays for. Dan's thoughts are primarily about commercial sheep flocks.
Dan Morrical's thoughts on cross-bred
ewes (a private email he let me post)
Frankly, I am envious of FW's writing ability. FW was the 17th member
of the GRAZE-L list. FW was onced asked about the amount of time he spent
writing to the list. Basically, he popped open his email whenever he passed
through the house. He would read the messages and blast off a replies
to the ones that interested him. His first draft writing is better than
my third-draft efforts. The clarity of his writing is symptomatic of the
clarity of his thinking.
My favorite FW story (which is not on his webpage) is about the month
when it never stopped raining. Nothing went right. The paddocks were battered
to slop. Then, one day as he was walking the pasture, he saw a long-lost
chain halter that had been exposed by the churning. Finally, he thought,
something good happened! He stuffed it in his back pocket. He came to
the realization that leaving the end dangling was not a good idea about
5 milliseconds after he started to step over his electric fence. It was
a bad month.
FW Owen's Homepage.
The place to go when you have a question
about grass cultivars
Breeds of livestock. A breed for every
niche
Alfalfa. Table of disease resistance
|