Today in Pictures

[Blaithin]

I wonder if there’s a lab that you can send samples to yourself.

Easy to draw blood to test for other things and it’s way cheaper without getting the vet out.

I’ve never really paid attention with the labs I use.

[furrowtickler]

Contrast in colours
better rain today and for the next week

[furrowtickler]

For some crops here like this barley it’s too late unfortunately

[TSIPP]

I wonder if there’s a lab that you can send samples to yourself.

Easy to draw blood to test for other things and it’s way cheaper without getting the vet out.

I’ve never really paid attention with the labs I use.

I didn’t get a vet out, basically the vet charged an hour at the clinic, I’m not sure what an hour is worth, drawing blood isn’t a big deal but five tiny liver samples from each cow would definitely be something I’m not ready for, basically take in a handful of cows and if they are all deathly low on copper they all will be low. basically a closed heard and calving 6 months of year is playing me out, a little more than 30 more to calve out, the weird thing is a bunch of the cows bag up and loosen up and it all goes away and four months later she calves, hormones are still out of place and a major copper deficiency won’t be fixed quickly. I find it interesting that the cows are high in selenium, they shouldn’t be, I don’t know if it was the co-op minerals or not.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

How is it possible that livestock survived and procreated when the pioneers first arrived here, given the known mineral and vitamin deficiencies we see in modern times?

Did we deplete the soils this fast?

Are the minerals tied up due to chemicals/fertilizer?

[AlbertaFarmer5]

I found it. Mark purdey was the organic farmer who had an alternative theory for bse.

In his later papers on BSE, Purdey suggested that a combination of high manganese and low copper in the soil, together with high environmental oxidizing agents, might "initiate a self-perpetuating free radical mediated neurodegenerative disease process (e.g., a TSE) in susceptible genotypes." He also argued that transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs or prion diseases) are linked to Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

[Blaithin]

How is it possible that livestock survived and procreated when the pioneers first arrived here, given the known mineral and vitamin deficiencies we see in modern times?

Did we deplete the soils this fast?

Are the minerals tied up due to chemicals/fertilizer?

I would say the difference is what the survival and procreation numbers were.

Yes, they survived, but there were likely higher losses.

Yes, they procreated, but there would have been more opens.

Also, those animals back then were not these animals today. The sizes, production, and efficiency they’re expected to be today are not what was expected of them back then.

If it was, everyone would be running herds of Corrientes.

[shtferbrains]

Possible they also lived on more native plants and grasses as they would be more adapted to the local environment than the higher producing species we use now.
Wheat is an example of a plant that doesn't do a good job of scavenging for copper and can be used as a "tattle tale" as it is fairly easy to see deficiency.
Some of the clovers and legumes are supposed to be less likely to be copper deficient because they do a better job of picking it up .

[TSIPP]

My cows are mainly native prairie grazing and domesticated hay in winter, I think the problem started in the the wet years and the natural minerals washed away, cows didn’t hardly eat a salt block a year and it’s pretty much 40 per year now, minerals they won’t even look at it unless it’s the right flavour, the minerals I’m feeding now are slightly different and they almost stopped looking at it, same brand same ingredients but almost double the copper, not sure if I should be worried or not, sulphates in the water are a big issue in this area but I test the water and it’s good, it might be time for testing more cows, I really don’t need another wreck next year.

[Blaithin]

I checked cows on Thursday, gave them a new bag of mineral. They have three mineral stations total, all at different water spots. I filled the one at the yard.

Was back there today and they’d cleaned it all up already, so got a new bag.

Just under 80 pairs.

Lots of herds around here smashed through mineral last year and this herd seems set to do the same again this year. Hard to keep up to them.