Square Bales in a Round Ring - Not Quite a Fit! For People or For Hay..........

Southeast Texas just had a few days of temperatures reaching the freezing point, seems unusual for this time of year, but fortunately no pipes burst and the ice in the troughs was minimal, but then lately I've got water leaks on what seems a daily basis, that's surely as effective at preventing pipes from bursting as setting a faucet on drip!

I've been feeding alfalfa as a supplement for my British Whites some years now, but it was only this past winter that had me wishing for square hay feeders. Prior to last winter I fed the alfalfa in flakes on top of their round bales of coastal and that worked fairly well. But last winter saw a shortage of hay and the coastal I had lined up didn't work out. With greed running rampant in the hay business, the price of good coastal hay per bale plus delivery to my place was equal to and sometimes more than the cost of shipping in cow grade alfalfa from Nebraska. Thus I chose to ship in nothing but alfalfa last winter, and my cattle thrived like no other winter.

Shipping costs ran higher this year, but the total out of pocket cost per ton for Dairy Quality alfalfa was still equal to or less than buying a decent quality 20% protein grain by the ton in 50 lb bags. So this year I'm feeding coastal baled from my pastures as well as crabgrass hay out of Louisiana, and providing alfalfa as their supplemental protein, but feeding it by the bale rather than topping round bales of regular hay forage with the alfalfa.

As you can see from the photo , the big alfalfa squares barely fit into my rings and I have to bust up that middle once they've eaten down enough of it to make it doable -- to make the hay accessible all around the feeding area of the ring (also, these girls are getting alfalfa from last summer that went through a 20 plus inch flood, thus the dark bottom side that you see!). I'm hoping a welding shop in Pennington will be able to make some square feeders for me. I've looked around online and most of what I find is very very heavy square hay feeders from up North that look more functional as stationary objects in a feedlot, which will not work here. I try to move the haying area all around my pastures to avoid excessive manure build up, and follow up with busting up the manure with a drag harrow. In the second photo you can see the adjoining pasture where my big herd is being fed and that it's time to move their hay rings to fresh ground. I try not to feed more than twice without moving the rings to clean ground, and so really heavy feeders aren't practical.

Lost Civilizations - Apocalypto - Lost Cattle Breeds

The past days have been busy and filled with much of the typical demands of a cattle ranch, with some llama (the one in front in the pic) and cat crisis added in. I lost a cat to a snake bite yesterday, and it was the second snake bite suffered by a cat in the past couple of weeks, the first one, Leopold, did survive -- it's got me wondering if some odd, insidious, northern snake that kind of likes moving around in the fall weather may have made the trip from up North with a load of alfalfa. One of my llamas is just acting puny, I can't see any obvious wound, but then she's covered in several inches of hair over the majority of her body. She waits for me to bring her food and water a few times each day, and seems to be getting a bit better. I haven't ruled out snake bite for the cause of her decline, it's a good possibility under the circumstances.

Tonight, I got around to watching Primetime from a few days back, the main story was on Mel Gibson's newest movie, Apocalypto. It looks to be a very good movie, and the premise I find fascinating, the rise and fall of a powerful culture perhaps via their own inadvertent self-destruction due to greed and wish to control, to have, to be, more and more. Ultimately, this led to a quite lost and destitute Mayan culture in the modern day. Of course, the point was made that perhaps the Bush Administration and the war in Iraq is reflective of the waste of human life and other natural resources that led to the apocalyptic end of the Mayan culture.

While to some extent I can understand Gibson's wish to correlate current USA events and attitudes with the historical rise and fall of powerful cultures and nations, there's ample bloody fingerprints from prior administrations throughout US history that have had less basis and more loss of life than current events -- what struck me as most important from this Primetime coverage of the movie Apocalypto was the footage of Mayan descendants in Mexico and Guatemala today who live in poverty. An ancient and mighty people who when covered by Primetime reporters find their best stories in a young Mayan boy who sniffs glue and lives in a garbage dump; and a 'single' Mom who prepares meals over a fire and weeps and tells them her life is striving to somehow make a better future for her children.

How will those children ever have a shot at a better future? Education is the key to better futures in the USA, and certainly a lot of hard work is vital as well. But the modern Mayan culture presented as the norm during the filming of this movie was distinctly lacking in any indication of options such as education or industry that would provide a way out, a way up, for one person, much less the modern day Mayan culture as a whole.

We also learn via this Primetime coverage that Mel Gibson's last movie has made over a BILLION dollars -- that's pretty awesome. The Apocalypto may well make more, they certainly made use of lots of native 'actors' and so there isn't a big budget for greedy USA actors. So, given the horrid conditions Mel Gibson described very well himself, and Primetime covered so colorfully -- why wouldn't Mr. Gibson himself already have a University being built in either Guatemala or Mexico for the modern day Mayan descendants? A BILLION dollars from his last movie and more to come ----- I think that would build a University (I doubt they'd object to cinder block walls or lack of 'really cool' stuff necessary in the USA) and pay some profs for a couple of years, and truly change some lives in this lost, but once mighty, culture. A failing of Hollywood Democrats is their own lack of example. They make more money than any average American can ever conceive, even some governmental bodies, use their popularity as a political tool, but be assured they don't put themselves at risk financially, they most assuredly have the best of CPA's or Financial Planners to assist them in using every conceivable avenue of tax savings.

So what's the point of this on a Cattle Blog? :) Well, the British White cattle breed is somewhat of a lost culture if you will. It is up to the breeders of this special bovine to continue to fight to bring it back to the revered status it held in ancient days. We will never know what events occurred that brought this special breed from immortalization in ancient oral tales to the small population to be found in the 19th century, any more than we can really know what caused the destruction of the Mayan culture. But we can work hard to educate those around us about the British White breed. And we can make better efforts to record their growth traits, their ultrasound carcass data, their DNA, and their many other desirable traits that aren't perhaps as easily quantifiable.

A Happy Thanksgiving and a Photo Memory To Share

This is an old photo from my first year raising British White Cattle -- it's my Desktop background. My niece spent such a wonderful visit with me and she'd never been on a picnic before! We spread our blanket close to the fence, and of course that first set of curious British White heifers of mine gathered to watch and interact with us........always a good memory, and one to be very Thankful For this Day........and that fairly large, quite old cow you see in the background, she was from my first 5 British White cows purchased, and remains my oldest cow here at the ranch, and she's been dubbed long since as 'Mama'

Happy Thanksgiving! from J. West Cattle Company

There's not much left in this pasture to browse for, but they're doing a good job of acting content. A short while later they were mobbing the fresh hay they were served for their Thanksgiving Dinner....Hope everyone has a really nice day with family and friends

GrassFed Beef - It's What Your Wise Ancestors Enjoyed, How About Your Children's Diet Now?". . . the brain is 60 percent fatty acids. " Dr. Shalin

Omega 3 Fatty Acids and Conjugated Linoleic Acids (CLA's) - We've all heard some discussion, whether on television, in the newspapers, or at the gym about the importance of these Essential nutrients in our diets. We can either take our Omega 3's and CLA's in a pill from the health food store or in the foods we eat.

The word "Essential" prefacing the fatty acids we as humans need to live in optimum health is not an advertising gimmick, but rather a formal designation of their importance and the fact that our bodies cannot manufacture these essential nutrients - we must get them from our diet.

Why do we need Omega 3 Fatty Acids and CLA's? The cells of our bodies are geared to want them and to use them in the maintenance of our heart muscle and our blood vessels and our immune systems and more. . .

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"With all those benefits coming, we even developed particular genes to fend off the higher levels of fat and cholesterol in red meat. "There is a set of genes that allows us to eat a lot more meat without toxic effect and at the same time have longer life spans, which are unprecedented among other primates," says Caleb Finch, Ph.D., a gerontologist at the University of Southern California, who coauthored a report on how human beings became omnivorous, published in the prestigious Quarterly Review of Biology earlier this year.

But the most important evolutionary leap beef brought was the development of bigger brains. Your ability to outwit that guy in the next cubicle can be traced directly back to the switch from bananas to brisket in ancient man's diet. "Fats are essential for brain growth," Dr. Shlain explains. "Excluding water, the brain is 60 percent fatty acids." The primary source of these fatty acids in early man's diet? You guessed it: red meat. Humans are unable to easily manufacture the fatty acids our brains need; diet provides the sole source. "The more meat they ate, the smarter they became. The smarter they became, the more meat they ate," Dr. Shlain says. Which accounts for that magnetic pull you feel when you see red at the grocery store..."

Source: MensHealth.com Right On, Red - You already knew beef builds muscle. But did you know that it makes you smarter? By: Phillip Rhodes & Alex Salkever

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{"The medical profession now recognizes that some mono-unsaturated fatty acids, (i.e. fatty acids with one double bond in the chain of carbon atoms), are protective against heart disease; that longer chain polyunsaturated fatty acids, in particular those with the first double bond at the omega-3 position, such as those found in oily fish, are anti-thrombogenic (helps prevents clotting); and that conjugated linoleic acid, an isomer of linoleic acid, is protective against cancer, obesity and heart disease. These compounds are found in beef fat in varying amounts." R&H Hall Technical Bulletin Issue No. 4 ~1999 (Ireland) THE QUALITY OF MEAT FROM BEEF CATTLE. Is it influenced by diet?}

Purdue - 1997 Research - Omega 3's and Your Bones

Where do we get Omega 3 Fatty Acids? In this modern day, we have limited choices from our diet. We can turn to fish - salmon and tuna are good choices. But, we are constantly warned of the potential presence of mercury in our fish. The risk is so great that pregnant women are urged to refrain from the consumption of fish. We can turn to beef - IF it is beef raised and finished on grass. We can no longer turn to beef produced through modern feedlots.

Feedlot beef is grain fed and most of us have become accustomed to it's taste and texture. There is nothing better than a high end cut of beef prepare impeccably on your grill or in an exceptional steak house - that taste and texture is what beef connoisseur's over the decades have become accustomed to expect of the ultimate beef eating experience. Most of the flavor in that steak comes from the fat - but also much of the important nutrients that nature intended that steak to provide is contained in the fat, or would be if it were not a grain finished cut of meat.

Because it is a grain finished product, enjoying that beautiful steak is compromising your health by giving you high levels of Omega 6 Fatty acids, which are provided to the slaughter animal via the grain in their diet. Grains are high in Omega 6, while grass provides the animal and you with Omega 3. The gross imbalance of Omega 6 to Omega 3 Fatty acids compromises the optimal functioning of your heart and arteries. The optimal ratio of Omega 6 to Omega 3 fatty acids is firmly established. The consumption of grain fed beef raises the level of Omega 6 fatty acids well above that optimal ratio and compromises your health.

Wild game such as venison is heart healthy and lean. Deer forage on natural 'green stuff' that is high in Omega 3's and Vitamin E among other highly valuable nutrients to the human body. A steer that is raised on grass likewise provides the human consumer a lean meat product high in Omega 3's and Vitamin E. It seems pretty simple, but the traditional feedlot beef producer doesn't want you to realize that.