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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Perception and Reality in Agricultural Marketing
A theme in the most recent issue of Graze (tagline: ‘by graziers, for graziers’) is what I view as the fundamental tension in the agricultural market. While the bulk of...
Garth Brown |
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Tick Hunt! 2017
I call this little beauty the Rope Actuated Tick Collection System, or RATCS. (The C is silent, or it's making the S sound extra long, so it's more like RATSSSSSS,...
Garth Brown |
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Our Ram Sparky is a Neurotic Mess
Our ram Sparky is deeply strange. He has a shaggy beard, and this time of year his thick winter coat is shedding out in uneven clumps that drift across the...
Garth Brown |
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On the Road Again. And Again. (And Again.)
When I was young there was a misery particular to a ride in our two tone, 1985 Ford Econoline. It was in part the conditions - as the youngest of...
Garth Brown |
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Country Folks Famous
"Hey look, it's a celebrity." This was how my vet addressed me as I stepped into his office to collect vaccination supplies for my pigs. I gave him a blank...
Garth Brown |
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Forage for Pigs
I'm on year three with my pigs. I started out copying Sugar Mtn Farm's pig feeding program pretty closely - pasture/hay + whey as the source for the vast majority...
Garth Brown |
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How Do You Eat Raw Meat?
The short answer is “don’t,” the longer answer is “very carefully.” Cooking meat has become a cultural norm for a variety of reasons. Cooked meat tastes good, and it is...
Garth Brown |
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Another Spring
One of the chief frustrations of farming is how often trying to do better must be deferred for a year. If you want to improve the farrowing structure or the...
Garth Brown |
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Late Winter Surprise
I fail constantly as a farmer. We got sheep a bit over a year ago. Last June when the lambs came Garth read about a supposedly common practice among shepherds....
Garth Brown |
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Cold Exposure
About six weeks ago Alanna and I watched a short documentary about Wim Hof. While it’s clear that Wim is considerably more open to scientific scrutiny than most people who...
Garth Brown |
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Beyond "Beyond Organic"
Driving south on route 8 I passed a sign which I could have sworn was advertising Dry Creek Reserve wood pellets. I laughed aloud at the absurdity of exclusive stove...
Garth Brown |
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A Magical Food System
Here’s a fun thought experiment: imagine you had a machine in your home that could synthesize a few cheap, easily available ingredients into any food item you might want. You...
Garth Brown |
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In My Own Mind
One of the great difficulties of life is trying to see beyond a bubble of self-regard and self-interest, though that may be an overly broad statement born of the (self-centered)...
Garth Brown |