"David Hare-Scott" wrote in message
FarmI wrote:
"David Hare-Scott" wrote in message

Salatin does not claim this level of productivity because there is
450ac of woods as well as the 100ac of pasture. The woods make a
sizeable contribution to the farm, it produces much pig feed and
biomass that is used for a variety of purposes and assists in other
ways. So to be more accurate the above production is from 550ac.

I would be interested to know what can be done by conventional
means. The comparison would be very difficult to make fair I think
because the conventional system uses many external inputs and would
have trouble matching that diversity of outputs. I suspect that
just measured in calories per acre the intensive monoculture might
win. The whole point of this is that you can only do that for a
limited amount of time with many inputs and many unwanted side
effects. Not to mention that man does not live by bread (or high
fructose corn syrup) alone.

Fair comment David, but then there is a much higher cost to the
quality of life for the animals? I'm sure that you, like me, have
seen intensive operations such a feed lots and caged chooks.


That was one of the side effects I had in mind. We have chook sheds for
meat birds in the district. Ten thousand or twenty in a shed with a dirt
floor with just enough room to move between the feed and the water.
Lights on half the night to get them to eat more. The workers wear
breathing apparatus to clean out the sheds and it will make you puke at
400m on a hot night. The eagles dine well on those who get trodden under.
Nuff said.


Indeed. I've been to a feed lot and I had the same reaction although this
was probably one of the better run ones. I'd turn vegetarian if our local
buthcer sourced his meat at places like that but I can see his 'feed lot'
(for want of a better description as it's jsut his farm) from the road and
his cattle have quite a nice spot for the final finish on feed before they
take the trip to the abattoir. (sp?)

I grew up on a poultry farm and my mother refused to have any cages
on the place with the exception of a row of 10 where she used to put
birds that were off colour and needed to be taken away from the
bullying tactics of the rest of the flock. In the 50s and 60s when
other poultry farmers were moving to cages and proud of it, we were
free ranging. We once had a city person come back to us and complain
about the eggs they bought off us. According to them, the eggs were
'off' and had to be thrown out because they had 'very yellow yolks'.

In those days it meant the chooks had a varied diet not just pellet chook
food. A question that you would know, is the yellow yolk still such an
indicator or is it emulated these days by diet additives?

That is one of those 'it depends' answers as in, it depends ont he feed.

If you feed them on kitchen scraps (not recommended as that isn't nutritious
enough) then free ranging (as opposed to keeping confined) will change the
colour of the yolk. Pellets contain a yellowing agent, but apparently that
yellow isn't carried through so that in baked goods show up the yellowing.
Yolks that are yellow as a result of the feed they find outside does hang on
through the baking process so that the baked goods (like say a butter cake)
will appear more yellow. I've not done these tests myself but there was a
long article on it (with comparative pics) in one of the 'Australasian
Poultry' mags a couple of years ago. A great little magazine and as cheap
as chips.