Was going through to move the cows this evening when I noticed this nice pile of poo. Yep, I said nice pile of poo.
The perfect poo looks like pumpkin pie filling with a little dimple in the center of it. That means the cows diet is just right in protein. If it is too runny, and you are not suspecting worms or parasites, then your protein levels are too high.
Anyways, kicked it around a bit and low and behold. Dung beetles. Lots of them. Hoooray. If you look at this pile of poo, you can see him in his tunnel (the hole in the center) taking the miracle food straight into the ground and to my grasses roots. Awesome.
You won't see these guys if you use chemical wormer's; this tantalizing pile of food this fellow desires to play in, would then be a pile of toxic death. Makes you think.
9 comments:
Congrats! That's awesome. Can't wait to have some YWF meat. :)
It only takes a few experiences of seeing what poo does to plants to fall in love with the stuff!
As always, I learn from your posts. Thanks!
Your mobile egg trailer is looking awesome. I can't wait to see what you paint on there. :)
Ron
I've read that you can accurately determine just how many and what types of dung beetles you have in your pasture by carefully picking up a manure pat along with some of the soil beneath it and placing it into a bucket. After filling the bucket with water, any beetles present will float to the top where they can be easily counted.
Thanks Rich, I do believe I will give that a try.
I have really enjoyed reading your comments on others blogs. You really seem to know your stuff.
Dung beetles...good work!!
Sorry to be a bit off topic here but run a blog (completely and entirely non-commercial) called www.farmblogs.blogspot.com
At Farm Blogs I am trying to gather in one place the very best of global blogging about farms, farming and rural life.
You can find the blog roll, sorted by country (and a General Interest section).
My posts are made up of the blog recommendations from farm bloggers and I also post regular stories about world farming.
All blogs have been recommended to me by other bloggers or identified by me during my occassional browsing.
You were recommended by Tim Young at Nature's Harmony Farm ( http://farmblogs.blogspot.com/2008/08/natures-harmony-farm-recommends.html )
(If you'd just like to see recommendations please use the label 'Recommendations'.)
I have a pretty broad definition of farming - if you're producing food, you're a farmer, to my mind at least.
So blogs range from ranches to part-time smallholders, and resources for them.
Once recommended, I add them to the blogroll and then contact the bloggers (just as I am contacting you), asking them to send me a few words about their farm/small-holding and their blog and, critically, to recommend their favourite farm/farming blogs (just as Nature's Harmony Farm recommended you).
And so it goes and grows.
So, I've added you to my blog roll and I would very much appreciate it if you could please consider:
a) writing to me with a brief description of your blog along with permission for a once off only use of a couple of photos from your blog, so that I can make a posting about you;
b) writing to me with your favourite farming/rural blogs recommendations;
c) add a link on your blog, if that's possible, to www.farmblogs.blogspot.com; a brief posting about www.farmblogs.blogspot.com would also be great if you can find a spare minute (ha!);
d) please feel free to send me the odd photo, both now and on an on-going basis. The blog tries to pick up different seasonal activities in different parts of the world at different times, so any photos would be much appreciated - they also help drive traffic to your site.
Very much hoping to hear from you,
With kind regards,
Ian
www.farmblogs.blogspot.com
www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com
www.ianwalthew.com
This is awesome! Only country folk can get excited about poo! My chicken poo is the most wonderfulest fertilizer. And without worms, we wouldn't have soil the way we know it...all thanks to their poo! Great stuff!
Hi, we are raising 3 bulls for our home freezer. What wormer would you suggest we use on them. They are about 10 weeks old and their poo is a bit runny. Also, how many acres do you have and how many acres per paddock do you allow per cow? Thanks for any input.
Danielle,
Glad to see your raising your own meat. First off, if you can, keep their testicles on them until they are about 1 yr of age. This prevents you from having to give growth hormones and also you will get much better gains on them.
As far as wormers, I use a combination of things. Each month, I give them Basic H by Shaklee's. I inject this into their water via chemilizer with 8 ozs. of Basic H to 100 gallons of water. Then every two weeks, I mix in powdered herbs from Homestead Health Farm, into the Redmond Mineral we use. If you only have a few cows, you can put Apple Cider Vinegar into their water at 1 oz per 1 gallon. Make sure that the ACV is Organic, Raw Unfiltered, with the "Mother." We can't do this until we find the Organic ACV in 55 gallon drums because of the amount of cows we run.
On our farm, we have 113 acres, with about 105 being usable acres for livestock. I have my pigs on approx 10 acres of pasture/woods, and my cattle rotate on about 95 acres. My paddocks are approx 2 acres +-, and right now, I am running about 50,000# of beef on 2 acres each day. My cows move at least once a day in the summer, but in the fall, winter, and spring, they will move 2-3 times daily. This will also help with parasite control.
Feel free to ask any other questions. I hope this answered your questions.
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