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| The kids' new Call Ducks. Note that eagles can't get to them |
I subscribe to farm publications and birding publications galore, via the wonders of the web. Sometimes the blindness I see on both sides, but mostly on the birdy side, is downright painful.
If you happen to be a farmer, take a read of this article. What the heck.....even if you are not a farmer, give 'er a go. Better than a cup of coffee for getting your blood boiling on a cold
It's long, but it's chock full of valuable organic fertilizer, AKA BS about conventional farming and sustainability.
I mean, seriously, how is letting 75 Bald Eagles dine on your goats, chickens, and turkeys, to the tune of thousands of bucks of loss daily, sustainable?
Um, you know what? It isn't.
Losses to wildlife like these are among the reasons why farmers invented hen houses. If you leave tasty poultry outside wild things eat them. Some of the wild things are glamorous like eagles.
Some of them are a little less exciting like coyotes and foxes. However, if it tastes good on our dinner table, the wild ones like it too, from cabbage to cow.
Talk about inaccurate.
I absolutely cringed at the line about cattle being injected with antibiotics regularly...
No, no, and no again. No farmer in their right mind would inject medicines with long withdrawal times just for the fun of it.
And how telling is it that the business run as a conventional beef farm was profitable...and thus sustainable from the point of view of staying in agriculture as opposed to being made into a shopping mall....until some wheel-reinventing took place and the eagles came to call?
After the wheel was reinvented the article author admitted that the place has yet to be profitable enough to justify the huge investment of going "sustainable."
The mortality rate on the farm, and not just from eagles either, is 11% higher than that projected for confinement housing. My dead computer has a link to a study showing the comparative health of hens in various housing situations. It ain't what you think.....
How I love the proposed solutions to the eagle problem. Ask the government to help and/or everybody farm in this same magical way so the eagles will go eat everybody's animals instead of just concentrating on one
Too bad only 1% of people try to make a living farming and actually understand what works and why...as well as what simply doesn't.
I love birds, but sometimes it is hard to identify with others who also do.....
We don't have eagles but the gators are a real threat to farmers here and are protected most of the time. There is a hunt but only a low number of tags sold for them each year. Also we have wild hogs that can go through acres of pasture over night. If a cow drops a calf near a lake sometimes a gator will run out grab the calf and take it into the lake. You cannot shot one unless it harms or kills someone.
ReplyDeleteWow you are amazingly knowledgeable and love that....Thank you for this information and written in your wonderful style. How is the little one and the family. Hope you show them to us soon...Blessings on your night....thanks for the wonderful blog. feels like home....merri
ReplyDeleteDid not make it through the long article. Glad we only have a few chickens so I can put chicken wire on all sides of them. When they were out in the yard a few years ago we were feeding local foxes. The chicken wire pen has solved the problem . . . . so far.
ReplyDeleteEllie, so little respect for food production because most people are so far removed from it. Truly sad. I would be scared to death of gators and I admire people who live calmly among them.
ReplyDeleteMerri, Thanks, Peggy is doing fine. What a pistol she is. Never a dull moment and funny as can be. I just love her!
OW, Good job keeping them out. The kids do their best, but still have losses now and then. Lost a mess of top string chickens and turkeys this spring when foxes got in a turkey tractor. I agree that the article was much longer than it needed to be. I read the majority of it but found myself skimming by the end.