The CNN headline says, “Feed likely source of salmonella in eggs, federal officials say.” This as the egg recall expands to 550 million eggs from two mega-egg-producers in Iowa, with tainted eggs traced to 23 states and almost 1,500 cases of salmonella poisoning.
Kind of makes you wonder what those mega-farmers feed their chickens. Sustainable Table [...]
Posts under ‘Farming’
Half a Billion Eggs Recalled
Utah Launches AgriAdvocates.org
“In the war to prevent our dependence on imported food, this is the front line.”
The State of Utah launched AgriAdvocates.org this week in support of local farming. Its theme: local food promotes self-sufficiency, a healthy economy, and a better environment.
Amen!
Free Gardening Class
The University Extension Service is offering free gardening classes, starting Tuesday July 20.
The classes will be “taught by Utah State University Master Gardeners. We will cover all the basics, starting with soil preparation and ending with food preservation.”
For information, click here.
Animal First Aid Resources
Emergencies happen– and rarely during our vet’s business hours. In the photo above, a friend’s goat had broken its leg on a Saturday, so we splinted it for her. Having the resources and some basic knowledge can save money on emergency vet visits, and sometimes save an animal’s life.
A reader sent me this link to [...]
Salad Season
It’s finally salad season, with early crops mature enough to pick. We’ve got some beautiful radishes, along with lettuce, spinach, green onion, mustard, and beet greens. The rhubarb is also thriving, but it’s too early for other fruits to combine it with!
Buying Local Hay
With the unusually cold spring, there’s still not enough vegetation in our fields for the goats to browse on, so we supplement their diet with hay. Last fall, we bought four tons for the winter, but that’s now mostly gone.
Fortunately, we made it through until summer. In the past, we’ve had to drive south 70 [...]
Cow Cuddling
“Inspiring people, businesses and organizations to enjoy the unique harmony between man, animals and nature.”
So says a Dutch website (as translated by Google Translate) promoting “cow cuddling” or “cow hugging.” And they’re charging 25 euros for 2 hours, or 47.50 euros for 3 hours.
The premise is simple: dressed in protective coveralls, you gently approach [...]
Is summer finally here?
With the hackberry trees in bloom and National Weather Service predicting a week of lows in the 40s (after one more night of frost), it’s tempting to declare that winter is finally over. Maybe it is, maybe not. We’ve seen frost as late as the second week of June.
Nevertheless, it’s time to plant tomatoes. If [...]
Milk as fertilizer
Here’s an article that suggests milk makes excellent fertilizer. We use our milk to make cheese, but we do use our whey as fertilizer on our garden and forage crops.
How others do it
We’ll be milking ten goats this year– more than we’ve ever milked before, but not enough to keep our equipment busy. So we’ve been looking for a cow dairy from which to buy milk for making other varieties of cheese.
This week, we came to an agreement with a dairy out west of us. It’s a huge facility with state of the art equipment– and the owner has a reputation for doing things right.
Here’s a look at how a large but ethical dairy does things.
