MAIN MENU
Introduction
Feed Recipes
Feed Instructions
Protein Calculation
The Ideal Feed
Baby Chicks
Feed Producers
Online Experts
Pastured Poultry
Farms Selling Eggs
Worms for Feed
Inside an Egg
Labels
About Nutrition
Related Directories
Traditional Stuff
Abstracts
Feed Topics
Posts
Special Searches
National Ag Library
Agricola
Bad Bug Book
Newsgroups
NAL Foods Composition
FDA Food Additives List
RX Drugs List
Scientific Articles
Links
EatWild.com
American Grassfed
American Pastured Poultry Producers Assn
American Forage & Grasslands Council
Path to Freedom
The City Chicken
Photos of Breeds
McMurray Hatchery
McKinney Hatchery
Hatcheries Index
Norton Creek Press
Palm Beach Fanciers
Virginia Co-op Ext
Sustainable Ag Orgs
OMRI Organic Authority
Organic Trade Assn
Am Health, Nutrition
Poultry & Egg News
City Farmer Canada
Canada Org Grower
ATTRA
FDA
JOIN Chicken-Feed discussion at
Weather!
By NOAA
Webstuff
New WebSurfer?
Copy This Website
Submit a Link
Submit Feed Sources
Advertising
COLOR ME!
KIDS! Click here.
Trouble?
Get your Car or Truck
Out of MUD, SAND, BOAT RAMPS, GRASS, ICE, SNOW!!
With
Lions Grip
Traction Pads tm
|
|
Florida State Officials close small farm in Suwannee County west of Jacksonville, after finding him on the Internet. This causes at least one small farmer in Florida to give up her Internet website.
The Lake City Reporter, on October 9, printed an online story (now apparently removed from their website) about Florida State officials closing down a small farm for selling raw milk and free-range eggs. There are two scary aspects to this story: the closing of the farm, and the fact that the officials found the farm on the Internet. This last fact has caused some alarm to one of the farmers who listed their farm with Chicken-Feed.
Here's the only text that now comes up on that story (a lesson to all of us, to save important news stories as soon as we find them)
Agriculture department shuts down Suwannee County farmer
Dennis Stoltzfoos of rural Suwannee County says he doesn t understand why the state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services won t let him sell the milk fresh from his cows. He also doesn t understand why he isn t allowed to sell beef, chicken...
6.0K - Oct. 9, 2005; scored 1000.0
Stoltzfoos: Raw food is better
Jean Cantu said her son is healthier because of the raw milk and other products available from Dennis Stoltzfoos, a rural Suwannee County farmer. Her son is diagnosed as having autistic spectrum and has she said. For complete story see Sunday's iss...
0.4K - Oct. 9, 2005; scored 389.0
Here's Chicken-Feed's letter to the small farmer who took their listing off of our Farms That Sell Eggs page
Thank you for clarifying this. I fully understand your concerns, and am grateful
to you for notifying me of this incident, and sharing your viewpoint. Your (free)
listing has been removed, per your request.
It takes me half an hour to put up a listing such as yours on the Farms That Sell Eggs page. I do this because I care a great deal about the
ability of small farmers to be available to town and city folks, and for them to
get adequate business to support their efforts. I lived in the country and raised
chickens (13 of them) for years, and know how difficult it is to get business to
come out there. Mostly, though, I just love to dream about farms.
The Internet now allows city dwellers to find small farms in their areas. Our Farms
That Sell Eggs webpage has steadily become more and more popular; it now gets about
700 web-visits a week. That's not just people who are shopping. The 700 hits are
largely from people who are dreaming. The website offers people a view of America
that is REAL, that shows that we're still a vibrant, life-loving nation, not a nation
composed entirely of concrete and huge, impersonal machines. As they go to work
in their cities each day, city-dwellers construct an image of the world around them,
out and beyond the traffic and industrial smells. If that image includes healthy
farms and caring farmers, the city-dwellers' lives are immensely enriched. It's
sort of like knowing your lover is waiting somewhere for you.
THAT is why I do this. And that is why I would like to ask you to consider the
contribution that your farm's presence on the Internet makes to people throughout
the United States. I know you're a small farmer, with lots to lose if harassed
by inspections. I am a small housewife. My salary as a substitute teacher is peanuts
(and it buys about 15% less now than it did 22 years ago). But I'm taking the risk
of giving web presence to small farmers because people everywhere deserve to have
real farms in their lives. What do I get out of it? The ability to dream about
700 city people every week who can themselves dream about going
out to a farm. And to dream that our grandchildren may one day, if they want to or need to, be able to drive
to a farm just outside the city, and get eggs and milk from optimally-healthy,
non-crowded animals, and vegetables and fruits grown on real compost.
I believe our United States, very effective as we are in our larger agricultural
operations, could well afford to encourage small farmers as well. I am sure that
small farms would be a great resource for our country if such a policy were developed.
Along with the many health benefits from the vibrant food, and preserving Mother Nature,
think about this:
In any time of great crisis that might disrupt our major food supplies, a good buffer
of small farms could be the safety-net for a huge area of people. Having a buffer
of small farms around and within every city (as Japan and many other advanced nations
do) might prevent mass evacuations from being necessary, and allow people to remain
in their areas while re-building their homes and businesses.
Another thing about small farms, little realized, though perhaps the most important
of all, is that just knowing of the existence of small farms gives great hope to
people who live in cities. I've grown up in Los Angeles, and well know how miserable
city life can be when the world seems to be devoid of nature. In fact, it was that
very reason that sent thousands, millions, of us out looking for another type of
life in the 1960's. The initial movement in the 1960's was about getting back to
nature. It was composed of kids who grew up in cities, and didn't want to live
their lives consigned to sterile buildings devoid of living things. Just knowing
that it's possible to drive out to a farm, see the plants and animals being cared
for, and get good eggs in the process, can make the difference between a happy urban
existence and a virtually-suicidal one.
The reasons that that newspaper wrote the story like they did (which they've taken off their website), and the purposes for which
that Florida official took action against that farmer, might be two different things.
I don't know if it was the State, or the newspaper, or both, or neither, who wanted
to scare small farmers away from having an Internet presence. Most were not scared
enough to give up their websites. But at least one, and probably some more, were.
I would like to ask you to consider the fact that your presence on the Farms That
Sell Eggs page does far more than you can imagine to give hope and health to America.
You do not need to answer this post, of course. I will keep your listing safe,
if you should ever want to put it back and stand together with the many other Farms That Sell Eggs.
Very best wishes to you, your family, and your farm,
Kim Salisbury
La Mirada, California
Replies by other posters:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Oct. 11, 2005
For the past 3 or 4 years my family has eaten very little food that has been under any kind
of government "inspection." We eat our own eggs, butcher our own chickens, got our milk
from a local farmer's bulk tank (until we got our own goat), get our beef from a farmer
that uses a small butcher, raise and put up our vegies, we even use raw eggs in our
smoothies.
Interestingly, my dh's stomach problems of many years disappeared after eating like this.
Well, they were gone until we went on vacation and he ate "inspected" food at a "licensed
and inspected" buffet. I feel it's much more important to know who/where your food came
from than any piece of paper.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
October 10, 2005
Hospitals, etc. push hard for raw milk to be banned. It's no wonder!
It's a little know fact (to the public) that homogenized milk is the
number one cause of heart and cardiovascular problems, among other
health problems. A big money cow for the "health" industery. Sure,
people sometimes have had problems with raw milk, but everyone can and
does have very serious problems with homogenized milk. I could go into
much more detail, but it would take a whole set of books!
Same sort of thing happens to eggs and chickens and beef that are not
pastured. The trend is to make it more difficult for the small guy to
raise, and sell his good healthy products. In the 50s and 60s, we had
7,000 laying hens, and sold eggs to stores in Cleveland. The consumers
were fanactical about our eggs, because they were so much better. When
I left the farm to go to school, my dad sold the business. The "bad"
guys were all too happy to buy us out. We had been a thorn in their
flesh with out good eggs, and now they could be rid of us!
As for raw milk passing TB, every food under the sun can pass or cause
something harmful. Cars kill people too, maybe we should ban them.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
October 10, 2005
The raw milk ban is an interesting topic, and it's sure too bad that the farmer got in hot water. One thing you cannot do in the USA is buck the Health Department, no matter how pure your intentions are, because they have got all the authority they need through the phrase, "promote the general welfare." And as much fun as it is to be negative about the health department in whatever form, there are often good reasons behind their rules. The easiest way to get raw milk is to buy it as "pet milk" -- if you snatch it away from Fido when you get home it is your business. Then the farmer stays safe. (Choose your battles and live to fight another day.)
In the case of raw milk, there are plenty of good reasons for concern, and I say this as a lover of raw milk. My best friend dairied in Montana for many years and she taught me some of the ugly facts about raw milk -- which I still drink when I can find a reliable source. I like it and it is good for you, but when it is bad, it is very very bad, and I don't mean sour. I mean it can be dangerous.
First, a cow's udder is not too clean and the first few squirts from each quarter are nearly always teeming with e.coli bacteria cuz you can't sterilize the inside edge of the teat and she is not picky about where she lies down. Also, the sphincter on older cows' teats can be kind of loose. So the first few squirts should be discarded.
Second, raw milk is not sterile by any means. There are staph germs in most milk, just not enough of them to make you sick. There's a lot of subclinical mastitis in fresh (recently calved) cows especially. A lot of why raw milk is good for you is due to the "good" bugs in it, but there are bad ones, too. Kids mostly get sick because they haven't built up all the immunities we have.
There is no better culture medium than warm milk. Straight from the cow until it is chilled is a perfect temperature environment for germs to multiply, so it needs to get cold FAST -- no letting it sit in a bucket for a few minutes while you feed the chickens or start dinner or check a kid's homework.
[Chicken-Feed thinks otherwise. Raw milk, especially 100% grass-fed raw milk, has such potent bacteriostatic properties that dairies cannot even get harmful bacteria to grow in their milk, even when trying.
Check out the wonderful, 100% grass-fed Organic Pastures Dairy's Lab Tests. Ask them about how they tried again and again to produce spoilage and harmful bacteria in their milk. It just wouldn't happen!]
The worst part is getting germs in it from the handler. All it takes is one sneeze near the bucket or a dirty hand on the machine and that milk is a regular bug factory. This is part of the TB concern, but there is more to it than that. A lot of folks who work in dairies on the West Coast are illegals, among whom there is a high rate of untreated human TB. If the milk is pasteurized, the TB germs are killed, but if not, the potential is there for a real mess. Cow TB is the least of it, but it is kind of hush-hush -- it's not politically correct to acknowledge the problem.
So -- be careful about your raw milk, and be sure you know that the farmer is following sanitary procedures. These are nothing new. Scalding the equipment and washing hands and udders and so on have been around a long time. Part of that is that in the old days nearly everyone was very familiar with the health dangers of dirty milk. You were really careful to buy from a neighbor who you knew to be a stickler for cleanliness, and the word got around.
Now homogenization is another matter -- that is not a health thing at all, and it is a shame we can't buy the milk as we used to, where the cream would rise. I'm not THAT old -- 58 -- but I well remember that we'd pour off the top bit of the bottle (yes, bottle) for Mother's coffee cream and then shake up the rest. If you didn't get the lid back on right it was really interesting. When you got to the end of the quart it was kind of blue and it was considered poor manners and wasteful to refuse to drink it and open another quart. When I buy raw milk that is what I am really after -- the lack of homogenization. And BTW that junk they sell as "whipping cream" is nothing like real cream -- it's full of thickeners and such. That cream from the top of the bottle would not pour, it was so thick. Or it would pour all right -- all at once in a big blob/splash!!! all over the place.
I think my pets need some milk.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
October 10, 2005
From Well Being Journal Vol. 12, No. 5 ~ September/October 2003
Homogenized Dairy, the Dependable Cardiotoxin
By Rodney Julian
When the “Father of Modern Cardiology,” the eminent physician Dr. Paul Dudley White, graduated from Harvard medical school in 1911, he had never encountered coronary thrombosis. As a practicing physician in Boston, on those rare occasions when a hospital had such a case, he and other physicians from the Boston area would gather to see this rare disease. Today, however, it has become so prevalent, it threatens almost all of us, young and old. So the question is “What happened between 1911 and now to facilitate this change?”
Many studies show evidence that cholesterol is the major contributor. Autopsy studies show that in American soldiers from the Vietnam War, 75% had evidence of atherosclerosis and high cholesterol buildup. The average age was 22 years old. It was natural to assume that since cholesterol was almost always present, it must be the leading cause of atherosclerosis. This assumption has continued to today. Many diets prescribed today by physicians or by diet specialists completely eliminate cholesterol.
Cholesterol is manufactured in our bodies. It is so important to the integrity of the body that all cells contain it. It is found in high concentrations in the brain. In addition to its role in the conduction of nerve impulses, cholesterol has an important structural role, as well as a biochemical role in endocrine production. Cholesterol synthesizes male and female hormones. Without cholesterol, vitamin D, which is required for calcium absorption, would not be synthesized. Bile originates in the liver from used or spent cholesterol and is essential for proper fat digestion. With all this evidence indicating the physiological importance of cholesterol, why would the body keep producing it throughout our evolution if it were eventually going to destroy us? It would seem that the human system takes adequate care of itself. Perhaps, we are not taking care of the system.
The answer to the discrepancy between needing cholesterol for survival and finding it in heart disease victims comes from Dr. Kurt A. Oster, cardiologist. After suffering from two heart attacks, he was inspired to research how the atherosclerotic process worked. He discovered that the enzyme xanthine oxidase (Xo), which is present in cow's milk (as well as the milk of sheep and goats), can be very destructive to heart and arterial tissue when the milk is homogenized. In raw milk, both the fat and Xo are digested in the stomach and small intestines. They are either used or excreted. Xo is found in the liver of many animals, where it breaks down compounds into uric acid waste products. Humans have a natural reservoir of Xo in the liver. One of its chief functions is to destroy used plasmalogen (in the liver only). And there are barriers, which prevent Xo from entering the bloodstream.
When homogenized milk was introduced in 1932, we started to see increased atherosclerotic damage on a regular basis. Under pressure of 2500 pounds per square inch, at a speed of 600 feet per second, milk is passed through pipes and fine filters. This breaks up the fat particles and puts them in suspension like a foggy mist. The homogenized process encapsulates Xo into tiny fatty substances called liposomes. This protects Xo from stomach acids and allows it to pass through the intestinal walls and into the circulatory system.
At this point, while the liposomes are circulating in the blood, they are slowly burned up as energy fuel, only to expose the hidden core, which is in fact the enzyme xanthine oxidase. This dangerous situation is taking place outside the protection of the liver. Xo and plasmalogen cannot co-exist in one location. The liver, therefore, cannot store plasmalogen. It can only process or destroy it. So now this freshly exposed Xo circulating in the bloodstream, with nothing to stop it, starts to destroy plasmalogen, which makes up 30% of the membrane system in human heart muscle cells. In autopsies of people who died from heart and circulatory disease, plasmalogen was completely missing. Xo was in its place. Arterial inner linings were completely eaten away. The resulting lesions had become hardened by the deposition of minerals. Fatty streaks and cholesterol had surrounded the newly formed plaque by this time.
The appearance of cholesterol created widespread speculation that it was the cause of heart disease and not the result. The Xo process is slow and effectively destructive. Most 10-year-old children who have consumed homogenized milk have some form of atherosclerosis. In the case of American soldiers autopsied after combat fatalities, some had arteries as brittle as clay pipes.
There is a very high correlation between countries that drink homogenized milk and atherosclerosis. In countries where milk is boiled for safety reasons before drinking, Xo is destroyed in the process. However, boiling will rob the milk of vitamins, change its organic structure and convert it to a putrefied mess in the bowel. In children especially, it can lead to constipation, chronic sniffles and colds, and tonsillitis.
It has become trendy for health-conscious people to consume skim or low fat milk, but that only slows down the Xo process slightly. Besides that, low fat milk products will cause someone to gain weight. Farmers feed their pigs skim milk to fatten them up before the slaughter. If you look at commercially prepared homogenized milk in supermarkets, most brands state that vitamin D has been added. Unfortunately, vitamin D enhances Xo activity. Xo is not the only source of atherosclerosis, but it is a major contributor. People looking to improve their diet in a truly healthful manner would be wise to avoid all dairy products, except for those that are raw or cultured without homogenization.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
October 11, 2005
Amazing. More than ever, I want my own cow!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Get your CAR or TRUCK ...
UNSTUCK !!
with
|
|
|
|
Small Farm Links
Check out the wonderful, 100% grass-fed Organic Pastures Dairy's Lab Tests
EatWild.com
THE website for information on grass-fed meat, dairy and poultry products
Grass-Fed Fact Compendium from EatWild.com
Scientific facts, in quantity and detail, about grass-fed animal products
What is "free range"?
Chicken-Feed's extracts of discussions of the many poultry marketing terms now being used
Slanker Meats
Purely grass-fed chicken, beef ~~ full range of products, much info
APPPA
American Pastured Poultry Producers Association, with newsletter, links, info of all kinds
Radio Interview on Pastured Dairying
--- THIS IS HOT!
"Cattle Meant to Eat Grass"
Canadian CBC News Article
All about Fats: Omega-3's
Chicken-Feed's extracts describing dietary fats, including Omega-3's, -6's, LDL and HDL cholesterol, trans fats, etc.
PasturePoultry at
YahooGroups.com
Join 900 poultry farmers as they discuss this endeavor via email
Good Earth Publications
Books on pastured poultry farming by Andy Lee, Joel Salatin, and others
Pastured Poultry Committee, NY
Mobile processing unit makes grass-ranged poultry processing more feasible
Definitions
Types of Feed
Broiler: feed blend for chickens that are growing as fast as possible, in order to be harvested for meat as early as possible
Crumbles: pellets broken up into smaller pieces
Grower: approximately the same as "Starter"
Layer: feed blend for chickens that are laying eggs, having extra calcium and protein added
Mash: a blend of several feed ingredients, ground to a small size but not to a powder
Pellets: small kernels of compressed mash, causing birds to eat the whole blend, not pick and choose
Scratch: whole grains fed separately to chickens, usually scattered on the ground or litter of the coop; usually a mixture of grains, such as wheat, rye, oats, etc. (corn/maize must be cracked before using as scratch grain)
Starter: a blend of feed for chicks and growing birds, usually in the form of mash; approximately the same as "Grower"; can be replaced with "adult" food as soon as chicks go for it, somewhere between 4 and 8 weeks of age
Feed Ingredients
Amino acid: a molecule that is one building block of protein; there are many different amino acids, most of which can be manufactured in the body; the few that cannot must be supplied by foods, and are called "Essential Amino Acids"; a food that supplies all 8 essential amino acids is called "complete"
Bran: the outer coating of a kernel of grain; extremely high in silicon, which slows down its decomposing in the soil; cheap by-product of milling, often given away free by large mills
Calcium: provided by sea shells, crushed bone, and fresh or dried greens --- amounts need to be measured closely, if not free range; must be provided in higher quantities as soon as chickens begin to lay eggs
Concentrate: a blend of protein-rich foods, plus any other nutrients desired; usually fed together with a grain ration
Corn: American term meaning maize corn, or "corn on the cob" (in England "corn" means what grain means in the US, that is, all food grains)
Element: a substance made up on just one kind of atom; there are 100 or so kinds of atoms in the universe; each kind of atom has its own unique characteristics; usually, these atoms are not stable by themselves, and must combine with each other, or with other types of atoms, to form stable molecules (see "Trace elements")
Germ: the embryo plant inside a kernel of grain; very nutritious and high in protein; wheat and rice germ (also called "rice polish") are a saleable by-product of milling
Grain: American term meaning any small, hard seeds, especially grass-family seeds (called corn in England); provides energy, B vitamins, phosphorus, and the whole grains are a fair source of protein, too
Grit: angular, hard crushed rock, preferably from granite, used by the chickens in place of "teeth" --- seashells and bone CANNOT substitute for grit; for confinded birds, grit should be offered several times a month at least; it should be of the right size for the age of the bird (see Baby Chicks page); birds allowed to free range don't need to be offered grit -- they find their own ideal sizes and types to suit themselves
Kelp: sea-weed, plants that grow in the sea; contains all the minerals of the earth; all kelp is edible, and can easily be dried and fed to chickens by clipping a sheaf of it to something in their area (also, this replaces any need to add salt to their rations)
Middlings: an old milling term for the parts of the kernel that are milled off with the germ, and probably contain both the starch and bran (please email me if you have more specific information :-)
Minerals: non-life-created chemicals, in molecular form, found in nature; actually, "minerals" is a broad category of compounds usually thought of as originating in the earth --- the term "elements" or "trace elements" is more exact; minerals and vitamins can be added to dietary regimens to improve health; sea water contains all the minerals of the earth, in their natural forms and safe amounts; "trace minerals" are those needed in relatively very tiny amounts, and can be highly toxic if these amounts are exceeded; "macro-minerals" are those needed in large amounts, such as calcium, phosphorous, and magnesium
Protein: any food high in amino acids, used to build tissues; protein quality is determined by the "completeness" of the amino acid varieties in the food source; all meats, eggs of all kinds, milk, cheese, nuts, seed germs, and soy beans are high protein sources
Trace elements: the rare kinds of elements that the body may need in infinitesimally small amounts to do very specialized things that science may not have discovered yet; sea water, and kelp, contain all the elements on Earth, and thus is a good source of trace elements (see "Elements")
Vitamin: an old, general term meaning "life-giving"; a chemical found in nature or made by man to imitate natural ones; new vitamins, and new uses for known vitamins, are always being discovered
Methods of Raising Poultry
Cage-free: This just means the chickens are not in cages; they may be in barns that they never leave (even though there might be a little door at one end; chickens don't go out of their field of vision for food, or even for water); or they may be in large open fenced bare-dirt yards that the chickens have stripped long ago of all vegetation
Fenceless free-range: No barriers, physical or functional, separate the chickens' living and nesting quarters from access to real pasture AND the chickens actually go out on this pasture to feed as much as they desire
Free-range: The public thinks, or hopes, that this means chickens which are out in the grassland around a real farm; actually, it's a rather meaningless term, since it is often abused by unscrupulous poultry operations that "convert" to "free range" by putting a tiny door in huge commercial poultry barns, then claiming that the chickens have "access" to the out of doors. To legally qualify to use the term, chickens need only have a small patch of dirt to be on instead of a cage; the term legally does not require any "range" diet at all. In actual practice, since the public believes in this term, really good grass-ranged poultry is sometimes labelled "Free Range" simply because the retailer chooses this term over the cumbersome "pastured poultry" term. We propose that the term "Grass-Ranged" be adopted to indicate limitless and close access to real, living grassland resulting in actual free-choice consumption of grasses and associated plants and animals.
Grass-ranged: able to roam around to choose and eat fresh greens, primarily grass but including all the vast variety of natural pastureland plants and insects without limitation; two grass-range methods of poultry raising are "pastured poultry", and "fenceless free range"
Organic: organic food sources must not contain traces of harmful chemicals; the term does not insure that poultry has been raised in the best possible way, with unlimited supply of living grass, but only that the poultry has near zero harmful artificial chemicals
Pastured poultry: poultry kept in movable, floorless pens, moved daily over fresh range pasture; the pens, called "chicken tractors", also contain waterers and grain-feeders; unlike ruminants, chickens need a certain amount of grain along with their grass; if allowed free access to grass, chickens will consume up to 30% of their calories in grass and green plants; pasturing creates the very healthiest chicken meat and eggs (and creates very fertile pastureland, too)
Range: "An open region over which livestock may roam and feed" --- land having enough living, growing grasses, plus a complement of legumes and other plants and perhaps insects and small animals to support livestock of various kinds, including poultry
Types of Chickens
Bantam: a miniaturized chicken of any breed; most breeds have a regular-size and a bantam variety
Banty: same as Bantam
Cockerels: male baby chicks; male young domestic fowl
Hens: female chickens in their second year of lay, or after their first moult
Layers: chickens raised to be egg-layers
Layer-Broiler: chickens raised to be both egg-layer and to be eaten
Meat birds: old term for broilers
Pullets: female chickens in their first year of lay, or prior to their first moult; female baby chicks
Rooster: adult male chicken, or adult male of other domestic or non-domestic fowl
Straight Run: a random mixture of male and female baby chicks, usually less expensive than only pullets
Get your Car or Truck...UNSTUCK!
With
Lions Grip
Traction Pads tm
|