10/03/04, 05:35 PM
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Join Date: Aug 2003
Posts: 2,395
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Oh trust me, "real" farmers need that info too! Antibiotics are a tool sometimes used by "real" farmers, but they don't solve everything! They certainly do not feed an animal through the winter.
The USDA is federal. That type of info is very much a local thing. I can run 30 head of cattle per acre per day on rotation. That would be just plain stupid to try in say....Nevada!
My local extension office is worthless. The state level is good for some things. They have a great guy in charge of grazing and he has been very helpful to me. He only knows cattle, but I've asked his opinion on many things, including chickens!
Take each problem seperately and research it. Find out the needs of cattle, then pigs, then goats or whatever. You'll have to do your own comparisons from there. Feed conversion varies alot by what you are feeding, the state of the animal, climate, etc. In farming, there are very few hard and fast answers. Everything depends....on something else.
In the end, the things that sound the best on paper are usually not all that great in real life. I've tried many things that sounded good, but were flops. Conversly, once I'm in the middle of it, the solution is sometimes very apparent.
Jena
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USDA web resource?
