Posted by zog
on September 6, 2011, 12:04 pm, in reply to "hay is now considered a polutant"
Our barn can stay a few years ahead with real careful packing, but we also store some outside because it is convenient. The round bales shed water and stay quite intact inside, although the very outmost layer will turn a little gray.
I imagine most guys will go to plastic wraps if they can't afford a larger hay barn. Plastic lets you bale "haylage" as well, no need to wait for it to dry all the way down to an acceptable level, just bale it shortly after it is cut. Much heavier bales that way though. The cows like it fine.
A new baler than can run well and do big production and wrap bales is around fifty grand...how many smaller operations can afford that? That's the problem. Small operations just can't make enough to purchase that sort of equipment, or build brand new huge barns big enough to store all their hay.
Those giant feedlot operations..wouldn't bother me at all if they were made illegal, or just went out of business, and we returned to a lot more smaller family farms with born to slaughterhouse onsite cattle raising, and a lot more local slaughterhouses. and stop stuffing them with just corn, corn should just be a small adjunct. It does NOT make good beef, it makes fatty gristly beef. Pure grass fed is just loads superior, there is absolutely no contest there, that excessve "marbling" nonsense is consumer fraud propaganda the cartels and feedlot "cattle industry" operators foisted on people way back to accept the beef that comes from their corn fed feedlots, which are just huge mostly open air disgusting factories, they sure ain't farms. REAL quality beef has some marbling, but it isn't excessive.
The beef cartels and chicken cartels really dominate the industry now and the little guy makes bupkis and is forced to go along with their program just to sell product. The government has made it near impossible to compete or offer good product compared to those giant cartels and operations. Even the "smaller" feedlots in the article are part of the problem.
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