I need peas. Lots of peas.

I don't think it would make you feel much better if I point out most fish sold here in the USA is imported from china fish farms these days........ While the flow from Japan is away from China, the China fish farms aren't known for their clean condions either.....

Fresh water fish from around you should be available, tho probably spendy.

Paul

I know where China is in relation to Japan. I know that tilapia is nothing but Vietnamese sewer fish. I know that farm raised fish is fed chicken litter (at least what's not fed to dairy cows). I know that the trout in the NC streams is farmed before it's released and lord only knows what it's fed. I know that shrimp comes from the same sewer farm as tilapia. And I know that the sealife in the Pacific is melting to the bottom of the ocean floor.

Last year I looked into wild caught salmon but it was past the season. Thank heavens the truth about Fukushima has leaked and crossed my radar. I've never been big on seafood or fresh fish so it won't take much to adjust.

Back to searching for peas ....

Real quick before you get back on your pea quest...

I posted that NOAA map showing the "radiation fallout" from Fukushima that you liked for a reason. You see, the envirobullies/anti-nuke crowds have been using that graphic to show the devastation of using nuclear energy, and also using the credibility of a well respected organization (NOAA) to lend credibility to their claims. The problem is, that map doesn't show radiation...it shows energy from the earthquake and resulting tsunami dissipating hours after the Honshu earthquake. Yet every sky is falling environmental website decrying nuclear power uses this graphic, dishonestly adding this garbage to their many other pseudoscientific claims. This type of deceitfulness detracts from their credibility when they actually get something right. Remember how many millennia it was going to take for the gulf region to heal from the BP oil spill?

Now, I'm not making the claim that the radiation leaked from Fukushima is anything to sneeze at. By all accounts, the nuclear facility wasn't designed properly to withstand a earthquake and anyone near that reactor after meltdown was/is in grave danger...and probably will be for some time. I'm not making any claims about the safety of Pacific seafood either. However, the Pacific is a big place and there was a finite amount of radioactive cesium that will leak into the ocean and atmosphere. Be aware, and take note of the origins of your food supply. Doesn't sound like seafood was a staple food of yours anyway.

Honestly, my only point is this: You seem like a very nice woman, who is genuinely concerned for the well being of her family. I get that...so am I. I think sometimes you get a bit kneejerk and get wrapped up in what people tell you, things you read, studies that are quoted, without contemplating what credibility those folks have or especially what they have to gain by convincing you. You wouldn't trust an environmental impact of the gulf study done by BP, or a soy nutrition study funded by ADM...often times the people on the other side of the issue has a vested interest, either a financial one, or a persuasive interest to do the exact same thing.

Do you think the fishing industry would have a interest in convincing you that ALL farm raised fish is fed chicken poop? Or that the salmon processors would benefit in the consumer believing that tilapia is an inferior junk fish, and that you would be much better off spending $15/lb for their wild salmon?

The first thing I do when seeing a claim by a group is to actually look at the study, see who is funding it, and then postulate: who has a financial stake in supporting this claim, or disputing it for that matter?

I've got a background in biology and bioorganic chemistry and I see this all the time with government studies and dietary recommendations that are the exact opposite of what one should practice. Another thing to consider is that anyone with a big checkbook can come up with a study that proves absolutely anything. The problem is most people think that their government isn't going to promote something that is bad for them, or that their doctors' wouldn't prescribe something that is bad for them, or that all environmental groups only want what's best for the Earth and have no political agenda...The truth is everyone has an agenda. Do your own homework, and if you don't understand the science behind a claim, find someone who does that doesn't have a financial stake in the claim, one way or the other.

Sorry to hijack your thread...your original 30,000 year boycott of the ocean got my radar activated.

I'm still not sure if you're looking for livestock feed, people feed or both? Are peas on the top of the list because they could be used for both?

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The peas are for my livestock.

Jungs and Shumway have cow/field pea seed in bulk.

Have you thought about peanuts as a protein source?

I just did a google search. It seems that at least some peas also contain phytoestrogens.

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Libertarindependent

Also, if you have an Amish bulk store by you, they have access to lots of catalogs and sources. They might be able to furnish 50# sacks and their markup, at least here, is only 10%. And they pay most of the shipping....
If it were me, that's where I'd look.

On a side note, what about the fish/shrimp from the Gulf of Mexico?

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Ok - that makes a little more of a deal.

I was kinda worried your family was going to turn green from chewing dried pea every 2nd meal.......

There are a lot of good livestock proteins out there, but they generally come from general processed grains, and that won't suit you.

Now, I grow a few acres of oats, and include a mix of turnips, alfalfa, clover, and peas when I plant on spring.

Swath and harvest the oats, bale the straw for bedding, let the blow-over oats reseed a bit and the turnips and alfalfa regrow some greens for a month.

Then let the cattle graze the whole mess along with some cornstalks that were harvested in the same area.

Man those cattle like that stuff. They are out there right now, 15 degrees today, with 5-7 inches of snow on the ground, pawing through it getting the turnips. Couldsmell them yesterday when I fed them a bit of grain and checked the waterer, they are most certainly eating the turnips.... Whew!

Peas did not regrow well this year, was too dry in fall. Some years the peas will mature with the oats, fall through, and replant themselves, come on thick in fall.

A mix of legumes where some do well, some might not, works well for me.

I find letting the critters do most of the work, grazing the field themselves, is a lot more fun. I don't need to buy or make feed when they are grazing a field.

Here is info on feeding peas. Depends on your critter types, of course.

http://www.feedipedia.org/node/7047

Paul

BP oil spill. That will take a few centuries to pass muster.

Frankly, the oceans and seas are natures version of a waste pool. Everything drains to them, weather patterns evaporate and move fresh water to the poles to again wash the wastes of nature - including man - back to the oceans and seas.

Getting food from these cess pools is always a bit of a situation, even aside from what man does. Things like the hypoxia zone at the end of the Mississippi are a natural phenomena, the spoils of wetlands andlow ground that is naturally high in organic matter. We shouldn't keep making it worse, but then again it is a natural happening.

We might not really want to get a while lot of food from the oceans, if we consider the natural cycle.....

Paul

thought you might find this of interest PP.......i have had great success feeding turnips ..both top and bottom to chickens...i know its not a high protein feed but despite that it cut my feed bill and my chickens thrived and actually had better egg production.


http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/afcm/index.html

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What animals are you feeding? Good pasture is usually the cheapest feed.

Here's what I was thinking:

I currently mix oats and BOSS along with alfalfa for when the goats are on the milkstand. It takes roughly 5 hours a day (2.5/morning - 2.5/night) to milk. I'm really looking for something loaded with protein to mix in place of the alfalfa (because of the insane expense of non-GMO alfalfa) that I can source locally. So planting a crop is an option but I don't have the extra land (or I need to learn to use the land I have in a better way) because I don't intend to have them grazing while I'm trying to milk !!!

So yeah-anything that I can find locally at a good price and in bulk or that I can grow, harvest and store is really what I'm looking for. Or even that I can have shipped in bulk but I'm not so sure that is the best way. I'm trying to get away from having $1400+ in feed brought to me by the UPS tractor trailer every 4-5 months !!!! It's *killing* me and there must be a better way !!!

As far as the Gulf, I won't pretend I don't like seafood but I really, really try to stay away from it for the main reason that yeah, the oceans are cesspools. Man's disregard for the earth knows no limits. Heck, I was raised on catfish and crawdads but I limit those to my infrequent trips home to Mississippi because I just can't gut the idea of what those creatures have eaten.

But that's just my media-influenced opinion. But oddly enough, I do not believe in Big Foot. And-get this-I don't believe that BO is surrounded by shape shifting alien CIA agents.

You would think! I do get non-GMO hog feed from a local guy (and yes-he proudly and with a big old belly laugh- uses pesticides on it!) but he says no one around here will grow peas. I forgot his excuse -no market or something like soy/cotton/corn is more lucrative, but he says I can get peas from North Dakota. Of course, this chump (literally a kid my age) was having a good old time trying to get a rise out of me because I specifically went to him for GMO-free feed. Call me crazy, but to grow a product there is clearly a demand for then pick an argument with someone standing there holding money they intend to give you doesn't make much sense. Needless to say I won't be back unless I'm in a real pinch for something to feed my pigs.

The interactions between buyer and seller is always interesting, a person gets stories from either side of that. Funny and crazy. Thanks for sharing.

If you were around me I'd have a few options and thoughts to work out, but my 'try this' would all be at least a 1/3 of a continent away, so not going to help much.

Would non gmo soybeans work for your livestock, or not for them either? Roasted, that changes their makeup some and make them easier to digest properly. Tho of course, you still end up looking for non gmo beans, and then find a roaster..... Still a treasure hunt to find...

Field peas harvested for feed as a hard pea would be a very unusual crop to grow here by me. So I can see where it would be difficult to find a local grower.as a farmer, I'd be scared my single buyer backs out of buying from me, and then I sit there with this pile of peas no one else wants.

Anyone else around you that wants some too? More buyers, bigger amount of peas needed, it becomes easier and cheaper for a feed mill or a local farmer to get in or raise some if they have a real, diversified market to sell them to.

Do you need organic alfalfa? Around me, very little gmo alfalfa is used. Out west a lot is.

Also locally, very little weed spray is used. Nothing grows in winter, since we cut alfalfa every 30 days, it typically doesn't need weed spray, the weeds don't mature between cuttings. Here is where finding a few weeds or grass stems in your alfalfa means it is non gmo and not being sprayed.....

Certainly fertilizer fields are well fertilized with potash and phosphorous so its not going to be gmo. But does that fertilizer bother much?

Insect spray - that could be difficult. The last 10 years, more pests are around that eat on alfalfa locally. Don't know how it is where you are. Was rare to spray alfalfa for bugs 15 years ago, has become more 50-50 if it gets bug spray these days.

Anyhow my blabbering on is to say, just regular alfalfa might not be so terrible, depending on who is growing it around you. Most certainly up to you, just supposing out loud.

Paul

I once put out some Austrian winter peas as a deer food plot, maybe an acre total. I was impressed with how they grew and the amount of forage on them. I always wondered how it would have turned out if I had tried to cut and bale it as feed. Someone had already mentioned these peas and I'm just relaying my experience with them was good as well.

Actually, sounds like he knows what he's talking about. Where he falls down on is actually selling to the customer, and trying one-upmanship and scoring points off the customer rather than making sales to the customer.

When I saw the title here, I immediately thought "Heck, just go hand-milking cows. You'll find more and bigger peas than you could ever want, about halfway through the process, with every cow!"

However, botanically, peas are Pisum spp., and they grow in cooler climates (like North Dakota, English gardens, Austria, etc.).
There is another family of legumes, a particular branch of beans, Vicia Faba (related to broad beans, fava beans, tic beans, which are beans so of course they are sometimes called peas by USAmericans.
There is yet another family of beans, Vigna unguiculata, naturally also called peas since they are beans and not peas. They are black-eyed peas, crowder peas, cow peas, etc.

Black-eyed beans, aka black-eyed peas, used to be known as field peas, which is probably what you were looking for, whereas the true field peas are pisum sativum, aka Austrian winter pea, English green pea.
"Field peas" (so called, but actually cow beans), field corn, and collard greens were regarded by USA Army officers as fit only for animal feed, and hence were not destroyed by US forces when they tried to destroy the home areas of the Confederacy during the American Civil War. This is why Sherman's attempt to starve to death the civilians of the Confederacy was not successful.

To get what you are looking for, try asking for "black-eyed peas".

You might also experiment with a few "Austrian winter peas", but in a warmer more humid climate than they are used to, they might suffer from fungal diseases.

I dont know how much land you have or what equipment you have, but in NC I would hope rainfall is a bit more regular than here. And rainfall is what keeps me from being efficient .

If can plant seasonal crops and let you critters graze, you would only have to feed enough to keep them occupied while milking. ( what we do, but in all honesty, Karla only milks 2-3 goats).

Timing is crucial, but again, if rainfall is regular, a lot can be grown on a little. And with what you are spending , cutting that down gives you the $$ to put into crops , equipment and such.

For what thats worth I guess.

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They make very good silage, if you are able to gather them and store in a packed, oxygen free environment. Round baled and wrapped in plastic would be easiest.

The trouble with baling them dry is the leaves are powder dry and shatter, while the stems are still damp and want to mold.... Hard to get thrm dry and put up right as a dry bale.

Often they are planted with oats at the same time, and made into silage just as the oats is thinking about heading. Makes a good wet feed. Can also be baled dry, tho you run into the drying issue. Since this is harvested in July perhaps around here, it allows the field open to plant a short fall crop, or spread manure, or use for grazing with some more oats growing, etc.

Paul

What you really need to do is find a way that your "hobby" farm makes a return on your investment if you can't farm full-time.

Cow peas should grow well for you.