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You filthy swine!

Started by mike_belben, June 25, 2021, 11:44:25 PM

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Corley5

Chickens will turn composting manure to get the bypass corn :)
Burnt Gunpowder is the Smell Of Freedom

mike_belben

Boy you guys are making me think mcdonalds pink slime maybe isnt so bad!  Atleast i dont know what it is!   :D


Alright note to self.  Grind the corn and orient the oinkers side by side, not inline. 
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Tacotodd

But Mike, where is the (experimental) fun in that  :o
Trying harder everyday.

barbender

I watched a show, I think it was called "Going Tribal" where this dude would go out and live with these tribal people, go through all of their rites to become a member of the tribe and so on. In the kne episode he was with a tribe somewhere between India and China. This tribe had a two story outhouse. You went to the upstairs and did your business, and the bottom level was a pig pen. So the pigs just squealed and cleaned it all up. The bonus was, when it was time for the guy to go home, they cooked one of those pigs and had a going away feast for him. Waste not want not?🤢
Too many irons in the fire

mike_belben

And here i thought this was gonna be about the 2 story outhouse.  Employees on ground floor, management upstairs. 
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doc henderson

"the other dark meat"!  sorry :)
Timber king 2000, 277c track loader, PJ 32 foot gooseneck, 1976 F700 state dump truck, JD 850 tractor.  2007 Chevy 3500HD dually, home built log splitter 18 horse 28 gpm with 5 inch cylinder and 32 inch split range with conveyor powered by a 12 volt tarp motor

mike_belben

Howard, 

It appears the rabbits over worms scenario may have originated from joel salatins 1993 book called 'pastured poultry profits' that southside just turned me too.   Little did i know ive been driving right by him for a decade.  Pretty sure i changed an alternator right near there.  


Chickens on compost is a similar concept.  Theres a lot of larvae protein wiggling around down there. 

Praise The Lord

Don P

Quote from: mike_belben on July 12, 2021, 09:20:04 AMIt appears the rabbits over worms scenario may have originated from joel salatins 1993 book


Salatin is a great guy but that is in the 1966 ag handbook no 309 "Commercial Rabbit Raising", was mentioned several times that I remember in Mother Earth in the '70's and it sure wasn't a new idea then.

mike_belben

Doesnt surprise me.  I suspect truly new ideas in basic agriculture are pretty rare.  

Thanks don 
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btulloh

Quote from: mike_belben on July 12, 2021, 10:08:47 PM
Doesnt surprise me.  I suspect truly new ideas in basic agriculture are pretty rare.  

Thanks don
Well yes and not yes. No-till is fairly recent and the methods for that are evolving all the time. The corn in my leased field is getting up around four feet tall and it also the right time for fertilizer. I heard the guy out there this morning and looked out and saw a spreader truck throwing granulated fertilizer. Normally it would be liquid fert because dry nitrogen on top of the ground doesn't work. But now it does apparently. New formulation i guess. Looked it up, yep, now they have stuff that will work that way. News to me, but I only find out about theses things second hand. I would have flagged the guy down to get the scoop, but I don't like to interrupt him since he's farming about 3000 acres and he doesn't have much time to waste.
So there are new developments, even if they're just different and more efficient ways to accomplish the same old things.
I need to see what tires that spreader truck was wearing too.  Hardly mashed any corn and I really can't figure out how that could be. ??
HM126

mike_belben

Measured today and my tallest stalks are up to my face.  Still not tassled.  Its my first success at corn actually.  Zuchini and squash are spilling out of the corn rows too.  I cant believe the sudden fertility. 
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btulloh

Corn is a bit complicated to do right. Looks like yours is pretty happy. Hard to maintain nutrient and chemistry over a period of years. Science helps with that.

Is your corn for you to eat or for game?  Critters are gonna get theirs no matter what. Be on guard when the ears get close to ready if you're planning on it making it to your dinner table.
HM126

Nebraska

The advances in GPS and steering  control with the new precision ag technology are pretty amazing. Depth control  of seed deposition within a half inch while traveling 8 to 10 mph, steering to + or - an inch or two  across the field.
Row shut offs that stop seeding when crossing  a previously  planted area so little wasted  expensive  seed. I remember my grandfather's two row combine from the fifties when I was a boy int he early 70's.... it's a far cry from  a John Deere 55.

btulloh

All that precision tech is pretty amazing.  Really helps the cost of inputs and the uniformity of emergence and coverage are impressive. 
HM126

mike_belben

Quote from: btulloh on July 12, 2021, 11:53:40 PM
Is your corn for you to eat or for game?  
Good question, wont know until i taste it.  If it tastes like corn its mine.  If it tastes like boiled buttholes ill toss the ears over the fence and chop the rest into the compost.  


I put out a sack of feed corn with safegard dewormer mixed in next to my mineral site for the deer herd im tending to.  It seemed like they turned it down but the camera shows they did infact eat but just not fast enough.  Too much lush vegetation for there to be a corn apetite apparently.   So most of it rotted and the top crust sprouted.



I  planted some in the sorry foodplot out there and brought home a hat full to stick in the new garden bed that was built as a consequence of a "surprise i bought a swimming pool for the kids" situation the wife sprung on me.  My old garden got excavated and i tossed together a spot for next year.  Well.. That caught the corn and grew up in all sorts of volunteer stuff too.  I think i put 2 sacks of lime and the end of a triple 10 in just to start improving it ahead of next year.


No idea what im doing with corn.  Just a test and tune crop i guess.  Still no tassles at 5ft plus. Anywhere theres a squash or mater inbetween the nutrient competition has cost a foot of height in the surrounding stalks. Amazing how hungry and sensitive it is.
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btulloh

Probably won't be good eatin'. Sweet corn is all hybrid and offspring seed produces some unknown variety. 

Yeah, corn is hungry. All that hippy stuff about planting pole beans in the corn rows is bunk. 

I wouldn't expect tassles until it's six feet or so. 
HM126

mike_belben

Im not saying its not possible but its not practical.  You cant get to anything for maintenance when its planted that tight.   And you have to grow both crops together since they are intertwined. Cant rip one without harming the other.   I used to grow in tires buried flush in the dirt to prevent root mingling so one could be pulled without harming the neighbor.  It worked but ants and moles loved the crevices. 



Im never doing viney stuff on the ground again.  I built a moveable planter box with a 7ft high arbor over it for cukes and such but like i said this was all unplanned.  I have to cut foliage off the squash every day or nothing sees the flowers to pollinate.  And i still have to pollinate by hand honestly.  Its so much easier on an arbor up high than buried under a green prickly mat on your knees. 
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mike_belben

So i had some time to kill with kids at the dentist and realized i still have the UT ag extension agents number and gave him a call.  Helpful fellow, happy to chat.. born on a farm, valuable guy as a historical record alone as he can recall all the changes of the last 40, 50 yrs.


His perspective on forage pigs rather glum. That theyll hardly eat grass or regen, which i cant personally dispute for lack of experience, but it seems to disagree with a lot of other folks story and photos.  Not that im swayed or anything.


Other than homestead pigs, he was not aware of anyone farming hogs in the entire county.  Said the 2 packers in knoxville have been gone for decades. 
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Southside

A lot will depend on the breed of pig.  Yorkshires - yup I would agree with him, Spanish Iberian - well that's exactly what they do, and do it quite well.  Done right I don't think there is anything out there that competes with their hams price wise.  

It will also depend on the type of grass.  Rank K31 Fesuce in July would not be very appetizing, but Clover, Doc weed, Panicum, Crab, Millet, Johnson, Broad leaf Plantain, even corn stover - full of nutrition and soft - they are going to chow down.  
Franklin buncher and skidder
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Woodmizer LT Super 70 and LT35 sawmill, KD250 kiln, BMS 250 sharpener and setter
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Woodmaster 725 and 4000 planner and moulder
Enough cows to ensure there is no spare time.
White Oak Meadows

mike_belben

I pulled some seed off very lush 6ft high johnson grass in the ditch on the way back from town today. The shoulder is covered in dominant flowering chicory right now too but i dont think seed has set yet.  Figures, i just killed the curly dock near my garden but it will surely return.


I am from a very portuguese town in mass and know an upscale portuguese restaurant owner, grew up with their son.  Actually i know a lot of old portuguese.. I bet i could find out if anyone back there has those pigs.  A 12month to FORTY EIGHT MONTH cure is probably why those hams are so high!  My buddy rusty still does country hams. Just salt on burlap in a shed.


We have a large mexican laborer contingent in my area.. Im told they are goat consumers. Wonder if that spanish pig is a mexican staple or not. If it eats regen and they eat it, that could work well for me.   id be the only source around from what it seems to me at this point.
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mike_belben

When you say panicum youre talkin switchgrass right?  I bet i can find some around.
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Nebraska

Actually  Mike small flocks of meat goats are fairly  lucrative right now. I had a young man in earlier who had just taken a young weather in for a custom butcher job, goat weighed 48# carcass weight, don't know the details of the deal.  Obviously  the fence requirements  are greater for goats.   But your forage experiments could work for them. 

Southside

Franklin buncher and skidder
JD Processor
Woodmizer LT Super 70 and LT35 sawmill, KD250 kiln, BMS 250 sharpener and setter
Riehl Edger
Woodmaster 725 and 4000 planner and moulder
Enough cows to ensure there is no spare time.
White Oak Meadows

Corley5

Some guys up here have started running Boer meat goats.  Some are raising breeding stock and others are finishing animals for the market in the S.E. part of the state.  Decent $$$ in them.  Good fences are a must.
Burnt Gunpowder is the Smell Of Freedom

PJS

Been a great read through the thread! 

Another book you may want to consider adding to your repertoire: 

Restoration Agriculture by Mark Shepard 

Lots of videos/speeches/interviews with him on YouTube, pretty amazing what he turned his farm in Wisconsin into in 15 years. 

The one goat farm I know of here is sold out at least 2 years in advance due to the demand from whichever ethnicity/religion it was, I can't recall.. and the person who almost bought our farm before we got it was planning on establishing an operation to send 200 goats a week to Toronto for meat.

There was also another operation somewhere in Missouri that was using goats as a non-invasive land clearing operation for hunting land owners, trained to electric fence netting and moved daily, any escapees went directly to market until they had a well trained flock/herd... whatever you call goats lol 

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