The Future is Sheep
The Blackshirt Feeders cattle yard currently holds 50,000 head at full capacity, but when fully built out it will house four times that, which will make it the largest feedlot...
Garth Brown |
Blog
The Future is Sheep
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Fox Vs. Turkey
There are mornings when the cold is as brittle as a burnt match, with an acrid, dry sting when it blows across your face. These don’t just feel like nothing...
Garth Brown |
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How to be Good at Everything
“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall,...
Garth Brown |
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New Roof
Last month Garth wrote about our manageable “catastrophe” when the plastic sheet over our pig hoop structure ripped during a 50 mph wind gust. I quickly ordered a heavier duty...
Garth Brown |
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What Is Clean Meat?
One of the primary concerns with industrial agriculture is that it produces unhealthy food. This can be a fear of additives or pathogenic contamination, but just as often it has...
Garth Brown |
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Pigs Are Terrible Game Theorists
At first glance feeding time for the older pigs is a classic zero sum game. There’s a limited amount of grain, and when it’s gone there won’t be any more...
Garth Brown |
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Great Eggs in January
If you look at the label on a carton of Cairncrest Farm eggs you’ll read that they are ‘truly pastured.’ It’s not my favorite phrasing, but the word ‘pastured’ alone,...
Garth Brown |
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The Storm That Wasn't & The Cold That Was
It would be an overstatement to say the storm this past weekend was a non-event, but it was certainly less of one than was forecast. Instead of 18-24 inches, closer...
Garth Brown |
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Invasive Sheepcies Part II
Long-time readers of our farm blog will remember other things I’ve written about our ongoing cow-bro science experiment grazing bamboo (#1, #2, #3, #4). When I tell people that I...
Garth Brown |
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Averting Disasters
As a new year begins I’m struck by the peculiar syncopation of seasons and daylight. Sunrise and sunset shift so predictably that it is possible to know the exact time...
Garth Brown |
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Invasive Sheepcies
A lamb invasion sounds like one of the least threatening hordes imaginable. A mass of skittish, timid animals that spook at the slightest sign of danger doesn’t strike fear in...
Garth Brown |
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Razing Mango Mountain
Last July after more than week of mango extravaganza, we reached the end of the useful life of our windfall and I raised Mango Mountain with a little strategic pushing...
Garth Brown |
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The Big Organic Loophole
Stroll down the aisle of a health food store, Whole Foods, or even a regular supermarket, and you’re likely to spot dozens of labels and seals, each signifying something about...
Garth Brown |
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The Greatest Turkey Story Ever Told
With Thanksgiving approaching my mind wanders to a particular section of The Physiology of Taste (published 1825), in which its author, Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, lays out his many thoughts concerning...
Garth Brown |