The Schroeder Farm

          

All the kids eating

           This is the last week I will be writing a blog post for class. A lot has changed on the Schroeder Farm since I started the blog, so in this blog I would like to explain a little more about my animals at home.

It’s hard to believe the semester is almost done, but the animal numbers are growing at the Schroeder farm since this blog was started! February and March was busy goat kidding. Between my brother and I we have 30 kids out of the 14 does. On my weekends that I have been able to go fun I have been able to work with them and get some of the necessities done. Dehorning is one thing I explained in one of my posts. I was actually able to line it up that I got to help dehorn all mine on the weekend I was home. As mentioned earlier, the males that are going to be castrated, wethers, or does that will be shown for a market animal are the only ones that are dehorned because of safety concers.

The first kids of the year. Flipsie had twins

Flopsie & Alfredo

Another thing I did when I went home one weekend was tattoo and tag the new kids. It is important to have identification and keep records on animals. In the animal world it is much easier to have animals on a number system for paperwork reasons rather than name everything. It is a lot like social security numbers for people. In the left ear the animal has its own unique number. For Boer goats, through the American Boer Goat Association, each year has a different letter and then a person puts a number. 2014 is the letter D, so the first kid of the year was D01 and then we just keep going down the line. In the right ear we have an individual number that represents our farm. Also in the right ear is a Scrappie tag. These are required for tracking animals and also represent where the animal came from. Each farm orders tags and it is a second number that can be used.

Sharpe's new trick with mommy Josie

Also with new kids comes getting shots. Just like kids get vaccinations when they are little, so do goats. There are two different shots that the does have got and one shot that the kids have gotten. The does received a wormer about a day after they kid and also a follow up two weeks after. Does are under more stress with kids, so the chance of worms is higher. The kids got a CD&T shot at 1 & 2 months of age. It helps to prevent overeating and tetanus.

Some of the chicks

Besides the goats the farm has also gained some chicks and pigs. Over spring break I was able to buy 12 chicks of assorted breeds. My brother also got 15 white leghorns which are known for their high egg laying capabilities. They are growing fast and I look forward to fresh eggs come July. This past weekend I went to a pig auction and purchased 3 market barrows that I plan to show in FFA. They are the Duroc breed.      

The pigs drinking water





 

For more information on poultry a great website is: http://www.backyardpoultrymag.com/ They also have a good magazine.

For more information on Pigs check out: http://www.mnpork.com/default.aspx#.U2JkfMLePmQ

The Pride of Minnesota Boer Goats website has many links to individual goat farms in Minnesota and some good facts about goat meat: http://www.prideofmnboers.com/home

 

Howard G. Buffet Foundation- Striving for a better Tomorrow

              This week’s blog post is supposed to be focused on an educational campaign related to agriculture. For my topic I have chosen the Howard G. Buffet Foundation. Having been selected as one of the 40 Chances Fellows for the Ag Futures of America Conference sponsored in part through the Buffet Foundation I  have heard some more about the Howard G. Buffet Foundations goals. As part of the 40 Chances program I was privileged to receive a 40 Chances book that was written by Howard G. Buffet and also hear him speak about his 3^rd world experiences. The Foundations goals for the next 40 years benefit a wide range of people in different ways with the main three goals focusing on food insecurity, water insecurity, and conflict management.  

Howard enjoys educating people

The first time I heard Howard Buffet talk was at the Ag Futures of America Conference in the fall of 2012. Now many people have heard of Warren Buffet, but his son Howard is doing great things with his resources. Warren set a challenge for Howard to do something great. The theory behind Howard’s foundation is that everybody really has 40 years in their lifetime to  make a difference and this is how he has come up with the 40 Chances campaign. Howard plans to spend 3 billion dollars on helping educate others on more sustainable agricultural practices.

Now Howard G. Buffet has two main farms in the United States and also does lots of work on improving agricultural practices in foreign countries. His own crop production farm is in Illinois and he focuses a lot on sustainable farming practices like no-tillage and cover crops. Now reading this you may think his foundation has nothing to do with animal agriculture, which is the main focus of my blog; however, animals need to eat and if crop production is not at prime levels the livestock will not have feed. No-tillage is a practice that helps increase the organic matter in soil and also requires less fuel use. Cover crops are beneficial in many ways such as increasing the amount on nutrients left in the soil and reducing wind and water erosion. Buffet’s other farm in Arizona is a research facility that helps with changing foreign agriculture.  

Buffet’s initiatives fall into his three areas of educating people. He not only educates those in Africa, Central America, and other foreign countries, but he also does work in the United States to improve people’s harvest potential. His campaign is very well run. He has lots of different area that he is covering and also a wide geographical area. Connecting with people is key and the Howard G. Buffet foundation definitely is about connecting others and sharing ideas to create the best solutions for problems. In class this week we learned educational campaigns should have goals and strategies and this foundation definitely has goals and several reasonable strategies for implementing those goals.



Howard G Buffet and his son 

who helped write a few chapters in the book.

His book 40 CHANCES: Finding Hope in a Hungry World is a great read and helps show many of the challenges Howard and his son have went through. I would definitely recommend reading it. It is educational and very eye opening about the struggles many face in the world.

Visit the 40 Chances website to learn more about the 40 Chances program, watch a video, or purchase your own copy of the book: www.40chances.com

More information on the Howard G. Buffet Foundation and all of its initiatives can be found at:  
http://www.thehowardgbuffettfoundation.org/about-hgbf/ 

Laying Hen Cages

                                                  Typical egg laying caging system

A big part of any farm or business is management. Part of management is being prepared for risks in the industry or crisis’s that occur. Risk situations have to deal with problems that others in the industry cause that in return make people weary of that person’s company. Crisis situations on the other hand are problems that arise in a person’s own company. In the laying hen sector of the poultry industry one risk situation they have to deal with is cage size regulations. Recently in the news this is a hot topic.

In 2008 California voters passed a proposition to mandate California producers to have larger cages for laying hens. This proposition also would not allow eggs to be imported from other states that also did not comply with this new regulation. In the last month many major egg producing states have been trying to make the law that would come into effect in 2015 unconstitutional.  Besides the proposed cage size law, California also has many other animal regulatory laws that other states do not have.

  Predators and other environmental factors 

can be a major problem for free range birds.

 

Currently there are regulations to protect animal welfare. There are current sizes that cages are to be and egg producers are following those. The people of California do not feel that it is enough space and want laying hens to either be free range or have more space in cages. This is a risk for other states that produce eggs and this is why they are trying to make the law invalid. The current standards are ample room and producers now have the risk of consumers believing otherwise. Many states that import eggs to California will not be able to with the new law unless they change their cage system which would cost millions of dollars.

Producers in other states are being proactive about the law to prevent a big risk situation. With the demand of reasonably priced food, uneducated people should not be voting to instill laws that will not help their purchasing power. Our text book talks about objective and subjective risk. Cage regulations are definitely subjective risk because it is all based on the public’s perceptions. Producers for the large majority truly do care about their animals’ well-being. Large egg producing states are concerned that if the law becomes effective in California they will try to make it pass in other states as well. Consumers and voters need to know that the people who make national regulations do so for a reason and that birds have adequate space.

To learn more about the top egg producing states and learn more about the new law go to this link: http://www.econlife.com/california-regulatory-policy-impacts-chicken-cage-size/

This article gives a lot of the risks producers have in other states if the law goes into effect: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/california-chickens/

This website tells one states views on the impact the law would have for their producers: http://southeastfarmpress.com/livestock/alabama-joins-fight-against-california-s-chicken-cage-sizes

 

 

 

 

ABGA Facebook Page

For this week’s blog we are supposed to analyze a social media site or a website that would be related to our blog. Because many people are on Facebook and many organizations have switched a lot of their information to these kinds of social media sites I will be analyzing the American Boer Goat Association (ABGA) Facebook page.  For class this week we are learning some ways that make pages more user friendly and more attractive. I will also be looking at the content of the page and the messages it is trying to communicate.

The first thing to look at on a page is to see what the purpose of the site is and if it is easily understood. The purpose of the American Boer Goat Association page is very evident. They want to better connect with the members. Looking at the about information section should tell a person a little more about an organization. The ABGA site has a lot of good information about its organization. It tells the mission of the organization which is to promote and protect Boer goats and have records of them. It also has a very good description of the organization. It states where the headquarters are, an estimate of how many animals are registered, when the organization was founded, and some of the services the ABGA provide.  It also addresses the values of the organization, which are strong ethics, service, team work, inclusive decision making, and fiscal responsibility. This may be important information for viewers of the site if they have had organizations that lack one of these values in the past and it is significant to them.

                                                      ABGA show in Kentucky

                The targeted audience for the ABGA page is Boer goat producers and more specifically those who are interested in showing and having registered animals. The page does an excellent job of communicating information that producers needs to know. The page has updates on shows, member dues, and meeting minutes. They share links that are helpful to growers like tattooing tutorials and let them know that the correct identification letter for 2014 is letter D. Each year has a different tattoo letter that needs to be used. So the first kid born in 2014 would be D001 and then each goat after would have the same sequence D002, D003 and so forth. This is an easy way for the organization to age animals in case ear tags follow out.

                A final thing to look at is the page design and accessibility. First off the page has a good html tag. It is easy to find because their organization is the last section. The whole address is https://www.facebook.com/AmericanBoerGoatAssociation. The page looks really professional and is easy to navigate through. The cover photos are clean and often contain a main message that they want its members to know. The big event they want people to know about right now is that the national show is coming up in Nebraska in June.  Photos are organized by event or show so it does not take long for people to find what they are searching for.  Also if people have questions about something the organization is normally pretty quick with a response.
               
                The only thing that the site lacks is connections with other social media sites like twitter. It does have its official website listed which is a great resource if people have further questions about the organization.  This website is www.abga.org . It also has the phone and address for the main office. If you are looking for information on the American Boer Goat Association I would definitely recommend checking out their page.

Life without Argiculture: What would you Imagine?

Video:  Imagine life without agriculture

                                                       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-zKzz-GP-o

The video “Imagine Life without Agriculture” is a simple way that shows how important agriculture is. It has lots of good pictures and videos that show many aspects of agriculture.  It shows fields being harvested by combines, different animals close up, and different fruits and vegetables when they are being grown. Most people when they go to the grocery store don’t think about kiwi’s being grown on trees.  It also shows some of the different processes that can occur with crop production. It shows plowing, checking the soil, irrigation, and harvesting.

Another part of the video that is really good is that it shows lots of different things that are produced from animals and crops. Many products are used by people on an everyday basis, but people have no idea where they come from. Tires on vehicles, toothpaste, and cosmetics contain animal fat. There is tallow in soap and an individual’s shampoo and conditioner contain animal gelatin. At the beginning of the video it has both the shocking and scary fact that most Americans are removed from agriculture by 3 generations. This I believe is definitely a true fact.

In high school through our FFA program I gained a lot of information about others knowledge base about agriculture. My senior year I was privileged along with 3 other students, our ag teacher, and an FFA alumni member to go to a Minneapolis school to teach 6^th graders about agriculture. These students had never been to a farm and knew little about agriculture. The first day we were able to teach them in the classroom for an hour and the next morning they were able to take a field trip out to some local farms in my area. We had games related to agriculture that we played on the two hour bus ride and then they toured a turkey, pig, and cattle farm. Also they heard from local farmers and FFA alumni members. Being able to educate others about agriculture is both important and a fun opportunity. If agriculturalist want their story told right, it is important that they tell it. People are willing to listen and if they do not know the real story it is easy enough for them to believe a wrong story if they hear that version first.  This is why I think it is great that there are videos out there like the "Imagine Life without Agriculture" so the world can see more of what is really happening out on the farm.

The "Harvest"

Part of animal agriculture is providing food for consumers. While this may be a controversial topic for some, it is part of life. As I’ve discussed in some of my previous posts, many people are becoming much more disconnected with agriculture. In the past few years the new term “harvest” has been pushed to be used by producers instead of slaughter or going to market. Now part of agriculture is producing animals for human consumption. People need to know the market process because it is just part of the life cycle and it should not have to be mellowed out to make it seem nicer.

             Now when animals go to market there are several rules that are followed to make it less stressful for the animal. When loading turkeys on trucks they go in the early morning when it is dark yet and use blue lights. Turkeys can’t see in the dark so they have less damage to the birds because they are calmer.  Before animals go to market they should be off feed for 12-24 hours. This is a done because then the meat will be safer to eat. If they have had feed before processing there is still feed in the digestive tract and this often can lead to contamination and food born illnesses.

 

Meat packing plants are designed to make it the most humane for animals. Dr. Temple Grandin has been a huge influence on plant designs and I have had the privilege of hearing her talk at two different events. I would highly recommend a person to watch the video “Dr. Temple Grandin explains beef slaughter process in video tour” to understand processing a little better. This video can be found at: http://www.cattlenetwork.com/cattle-news/Dr-Temple-Grandin-explains-beef-slaughter-process-in-video-tour-167549335.html  She has a very good point at the end of the video where she says she does not convince people they are wrong if they don’t eat meat, but that it is important to understand where a person’s meat comes from. The video also is an excellent tour of the plant and its design.

When meat is being sold the USDA has laws that require certain labeling. COOL requirements or country of origin labeling is one area that the department regulates.  Sellers must have meat labeled by country of origin and this allows meat to be traced back to anywhere it was produced in case of an outbreak of some sort. More information about COOL labeling can be found at: http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/cool

Having been on two different national poultry judging teams I have had experience at judging chicken and turkey carcasses. The USDA has different qualities that whole birds and parts are judged on to determine the grade. Bird with more than 1/3 of the flesh being exposed because of missing skin, 2 broken non-protruding bones, 1 broken non-protruding and 1 disjointed, or any broken protruding bones are automatically a C grade. A grade can have 1 disjoint and flesh no more than ¼ of a square inch showing. B grade carcasses are somewhere in the middle and some qualifications vary depending on the weight of the carcass. Missing meat and bruising are also factors that are considered. In the end marketers try to sell the most desirable product to consumers while getting the meat in the most humane way.

          C Grade due to more than 1/3 skin exposed on drumstick 

C Grade because of missing meat

 

 

 

Disbudding Goat Kids

                In this time of year (January-March) most producers are dehorning their baby goat kids. Dehorning or disbudding goat kids is often a topic that receives a lot of questions. While it is such a hot topic, if done correctly it is way less pain on the kids. Unlike cattle which can have the genetic background to be polled (having no horns), goats do not have this quality yet or some dairy breeds that do have other problems.

To start off we have found on our farm it is a lot easier on both the person dehorning and the kid to dehorn them at a young age. Most people will tell you 3-14 days is the best time to disbud. While this time frame is definitely much more desirable than 2-3 months of age, I have found that if you can get this job done from 3-7 days it is the best. I typically like to do them at 3-5 days of age. The reason it is best to dehorn at a young age is because the more the animal grows the more its horns will grow and it will be more painful for them later on. Also the horn will become harder the older they get. Bucks horns grow faster than does. As long as I can feel where the horn is going to be I will dehorn them at 3 days. The kids have much more vigor afterwards this way and it is less stressful for them.

Dehorning is done for a safety reason. Goats are curious animals so horns are just an easy thing to get stuck in fences. For showing market animals a rule for almost any show is that the goats have to be dehorned. Now this is just the market wethers or market does, as well as dairy breeds. Market type goats that are used for breeding can still have horns. It is easier to work with animals without horns and because they are going to be used for market they do not need horns. Does and bucks are allowed to keep their horns as a means of self-defense.

This is a goat I disbudded last weekend when I was home.

When dehorning, it is easiest to have a box to stick the kids in. Before a person begins dehorning it is best to take a clipper and clip some of the hair off their head, so it is easier to see and so it won’t smell like burnt hair. When the iron is hot enough which normally takes a good 15 minutes a person should place it over the bud with a little pressure and rotate it. Normally it takes about 5 seconds of slow counting. After this step there should be a copper color looking ring. The next part is the most important. The center part needs to be scooped out otherwise the horn will grow back as regrowth or scurs (growth that wiggles). We normally rotate between horns. After the initial cooper rings are done we let the iron heat up a bit and this also gives the kids some time to rest. It is typical that the kids will yell a little bit, but it depends on how noisy they are. Some of my goats are just in general a lot more vocal than others. It also helps to do it at an earlier age like I already mentioned because it is less painful.

 

This picture from the Fathers Bounty Homestead website is a good
example of the cooper color that a person wants.

This website has a very nice article explaining the different reasons on why dehorning is good. The first picture of the young doe (Firefly) is also a good visual of what a dehorned goat looks like after some time has passed.

   http://www.oakhillhomestead.com/2014/02/goat-horns.html

 

This first 5 minutes and 45 seconds of this video explains the set-up of dehorning quite well.

     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPh3fkYngZo&oref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DJPh3fkYngZo&has_verified=1

 

 

 

 

From Field to Plate

For this week’s blog I am going to be rewriting an article on the Food Dialogues by Holly Spangler. My goal is to make it more understandable for those not connected to agriculture. The title of the article I selected is Food Dialogues: Who’s Shaping America’s Eating Habits? and it comes from The Farmer. My blog is about why we do what we do in animal agriculture and part of that is producing food, which is misunderstood by many.

The US Farmers and Ranchers Alliance is an organization that is trying to get across a positive, accurate message about agriculture. Many people are concerned with where their food comes from so they are hosting these discussions called the Food Dialogues. On the panel they had dieticians and food analysts, a crop farmer, veterinarian and a livestock farmer. With this broad array of knowledge and the moderator Carolyn O'Neill, who is a registered dietician and works in promoting healthy eating, there was a vast array of knowledge available for the discussion.

Sustainability is becoming a new big concept in agriculture. There are three main parts to sustainable agriculture which are producing a product economically with good stewardship toward the land or animals and helping the community. The fast paced lifestyle is changing how people eat. Consumers are eating a lot more processed food, which is what Rahs (a nutritionist) observed when she toured a tomato farm and most of the tomatoes would be canned, but people also want food to be “Fresh”. Because processed foods are becoming the way of life fresh produce and meat is being sent for processing instead of fresh on shelves. Rahs continues to say that a can of tomatoes at a store may be fresher than a fresh tomato on the shelf. The idea of freshness does not really have any set guidelines and is all up to the consumer; however, the next topic does have most consumers confused.

Organic is becoming the new fad, yet many don’t understand what they are getting when they pay the higher price. Natural pesticides can be used on organics which was one point brought up by Clemens. Now many consumers believe when they are buying organic products they are pesticide free, but do they really know what pesticides are? People take medicine all the time when they have a little cold, or if they go to the doctor they want them to prescribe them something. Most people do not have a problem with this, so why do they have a problem with pesticides. Farmers do not spray their crops and pump chemicals into their animals just because it is fun. Livestock producers sometimes give animals shots to make them healthy if they are sick just like people get shots. With crops it costs more money to spray for unwanted bugs and if it is not a problem the producer does not need to spray. Many people do not understand there is always a reason behind the treatment and there is also no major nutritional difference in organic food.       

In the end farmers have a passion for what they do. Animals are taken care of because that is farmers’ way of life. It does not matter if an operation is big of small because there cannot be a line drawn between the two. We are all producers and want consumers to have confidence in what we produce because it is what we enjoy and our values are to make things right.

*The original article can be found at

http://farmprogress.com/story-food-dialogues-whos-shaping-americas-eating-habits-8-109144-spx_1

*A full video of the most recent dialogue can be found at

http://new.livestream.com/USFRA/events/2187525   It starts after about the first 7 minutes

*More information about the US Farmers and Ranchers Alliance can be found at

https://www.facebook.com/USFarmersandRanchers

 

 

 

Debeaking Poultry

With the expanding amount of information on the internet comes the decision for readers to choose what to believe. This blog entry is going to be about debeaking poultry, which is most commonly done with chickens or turkeys. When a person types in debeaking chickens in a google search about half of them come up that debeaking is negative; however these are also all opinion biases. Not even half the sites explain what debeaking is and the ones that want to give it a bad rap do not understand the process. Well, what is debeaking you may, ask and why is it done?

 

 Which do you prefer?

 

 

Debeaking is removing the end third of the beak of poultry. Yes only 1/3 is removed and it is done at a day of age for the infrared process and 7 days for the hot blade method. It is done at this young age because the bird’s beak is not very hard yet so it is not painful to them. It is often compared to clipping a person’s fingernail. Now while this information is actually correct many people who just go on blogs may find information that is totally a person’s belief. Having raised chickens for 15 years and competing in different national contests I hate when the public is misinformed about my industry.

The goal of farmers and ranchers is to take care of their animals and it is really frustrating for me to find people that post comments that have no background. One blog compared debeaking to, “chopping off the hand of a bully who you know is being abused at home.” A little later in the blog the author goes on to blame debeaking as the reason her pullets (female chicken under one year of age) were not laying eggs because they were so traumatized. This is most definitely not the case. The authors birds are most likely not mature enough to lay eggs or have the wrong environmental factors whether that is temperature or a really common problem amount of light.  

Debeaking is a common practice for larger operations as well as small family flocks that don’t want to deal with pecking. Birds are carnivorous and I have definitely witnessed this first hand. If they are not given enough space, proper ventilation, or the right amount of nutrients in their feed it can get to be a problem really fast. Chickens are attracted to the color red and once they have tasted the blood they just want more and it is a really hard problem to fix. For large producers it is better to just have the birds beaks trimmed so they do not have to worry about this problem. It could turn into a disaster really fast with lots of causalities if it was not noticed right away, so beak trimming is a great preventative measure.

With my own birds we have ordered them with and without their beaks trimmed and there have been no differences. Having grown at least 20 different breeds of chickens I have had different experiences with beaks. In the past I have had problems with some birds beaks growing too fast and they would start to cross funny. This could have been prevented had they been debeaked as a chick. Another breed I have worked with for at least a decade is the Brown Leghorn. Leghorns in general are a very flighty high energy breed so they are one of the most common breeds for cannibalism. This is also why major egg producers have their birds’ debeaked. Space is also a limitation for large producers.      

If you want more information this link explains the process of beak trimming in an easily understandable way.  http://www.ars.usda.gov/SP2UserFiles/Place/36022000/Beak%20Trimming%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf

A little About Me

Hello, my name is Rachel Schroeder. I am a sophomore at NDSU, but am from a corn and soybean crop farm in southwest Minnesota.  Growing up I helped with many tasks like picking rocks, driving grain cart, soil sampling, leave tissue sampling, and just checking the crops and maintenance around the farm. I have one younger brother who would also help with the many responsibilities given to a farm kid.

I was extremely active in 4-H and FFA growing up and these organizations helped me gain a passion for animal agriculture. I mainly showed poultry and market goats in 4-H but also did some with beef and swine. Having different livestock species was always fun because it was always provided a new learning opportunity, but convincing my mom was always the problem.

One of my favorite memories is from when I was 5 years old. The neighbor had two calves that needed bottle feeding, so we took them and raised them until they could go to market. My mother was not thrilled about this idea, but she did discover it was way to get me out of bed early in the morning. She was not happy at all though with my eagerness to go bottle feed my calves in the morning. 5:30 would roll around and I would be standing by my parents bed ready to go out to do chores.

Now even though I loved having the cattle I could not convince my mom that I could have more to show for 4-H. As a little kid she decided chickens would be nice and small for me to handle. The Schroeder Farm has had poultry ever since I was 5, and I have exhibited them at different shows since I was a third grader. I enjoyed showing chickens, but eventually got my parents convinced to try market goats after one of my best friends had showed one at the county fair.

The first couple years my brother and I just purchased show wethers, which are castrated males. We bought them when they were about 2-3 months old and raised them to about 100 pounds or about 7 months. After that they are taken to market. Goat meat is growing in demand and tastes really good if cooked right. Goat meat (chevron) is also extremely healthy compared to other red meats.

Since I have experience in raising different poultry species and goats this blog is going to focus on some issues most people don’t understand or should be more informed on. I have had many questions asked of me when showing. I have gone to several different workshops to gain more knowledge and have helped with many programs in school to teach younger kids about agriculture.