On Sat, 22 Mar 2003 04:41:37 -0500, Gordon Couger wrote:


"Gilgamesh" wrote in message
...
"Archimedes Plutonium" wrote in message
...
Sun, 16 Mar 2003 19:27:57 GMT Charles wrote:



http://plenty.150m.com/My_Links_Page..._manure01.html _


Thanks for the excellent site of comparison of rabbit manure to other
manure. Rabbit manure is unusually high in nitrogen.

Can someone tell me in chemistry if the animal body does something
with nitrogen that the plant body cannot do to nitrogen?

SNIP
Yes.
It degrades the protein, which contains nitrogen. The protein is
originally created by plants. You have this entirely the wrong way
round, I'm afraid.

Bacteria do quite well at creating protien. I can feed a cow urea for a
major part of her protien requirement and if there are enough
carbohydrates available the bacteria in the rumen will convert it to
protien the cow can use quite well.

With corn so cheap it less expensive to burn it for heating to heat a
house than anything but natural gas it makes good sense to winter cows
on pasture on corn, urea, low grade hay instead of good hay and oil
seed meal that is costs a small fortune. The cows do just as well. You
have to make sure and have enough trough space that they all get to eat
and you have to feed them every day or may have problems but after the
bacteria get through with it the cow likes it fine.

What with natural gas prices going up, corn will be more expensive to
produce. This is especially true for crops that need anhydrous ammonia,
since I suppose it's hard to import. Do you have in guesstimates on how
much U.S. farmer's production costs will increase this year?

The sorry hay could be replaced with paper or saw dust if you had to
but the freight is cheaper on the hay. All it really does is keep the
cow from eating too much at one time and can be left out if you feed the
cattle as they come in from grazing. It is hard to believe what a cow
can covert to food if all the necessary elements are present. A goat can
do even better but not near as much research has been done on goats.

Rabbits ferment grass to nutrients at the other end of the gut in the
appendix but it doesn't extract protien which is why their manure is
high in protien. When we try that we end up in the hospital having our
appendix removed.

Gordon

Gordon Couger wrote:

You confuses the cost of production wiht the market value of the product.


Gordon,

It's a small pleasure in the morning to run across somebody with an
elementary understanding of economics.

Are you in fact a farmer? I guess that'll do it to you... :-)

Cheers,

-dlj.

Michael Moroney writes
With corn so cheap it less expensive to burn it for heating to heat a
house than anything but natural gas it makes good sense to winter cows
on pasture on corn, urea, low grade hay instead of good hay and oil
seed meal that is costs a small fortune. The cows do just as well. You

What is the heat output (BTU/bushel or whatever) from burning corn? I've
seen corn stoves for sale providing justification to the statement that
corn is cheap enough to burn. (Can you really feed a cow paper and urea
and get more cow?)

You forget that the corn plant has been busy converting sunlight into
chemical energy (biomass) for quite a few months. In fact there is
probably as much energy in the stover as in the maize grain.

--
Oz
This post is worth absolutely nothing and is probably fallacious.
Note: soon (maybe already) only posts via despammed.com will be accepted.

On Mon, 31 Mar 2003 07:02:49 -0500, Gordon Couger wrote:


"Tim Miller" wrote in message
newsan.2003.03.31.03.56.31.255202.1615@noamspay. indspringmay.com...
On Sat, 22 Mar 2003 04:41:37 -0500, Gordon Couger wrote:


"Gilgamesh" wrote in message
...
"Archimedes Plutonium" wrote in message
...
Sun, 16 Mar 2003 19:27:57 GMT Charles wrote:



http://plenty.150m.com/My_Links_Page..._manure01.html _


Thanks for the excellent site of comparison of rabbit manure to
other manure. Rabbit manure is unusually high in nitrogen.

Can someone tell me in chemistry if the animal body does something
with nitrogen that the plant body cannot do to nitrogen?

SNIP
Yes.
It degrades the protein, which contains nitrogen. The protein is
originally created by plants. You have this entirely the wrong way
round, I'm afraid.

Bacteria do quite well at creating protien. I can feed a cow urea for
a major part of her protien requirement and if there are enough
carbohydrates available the bacteria in the rumen will convert it to
protien the cow can use quite well.

With corn so cheap it less expensive to burn it for heating to heat a
house than anything but natural gas it makes good sense to winter
cows on pasture on corn, urea, low grade hay instead of good hay and
oil seed meal that is costs a small fortune. The cows do just as
well. You have to make sure and have enough trough space that they
all get to eat and you have to feed them every day or may have
problems but after the bacteria get through with it the cow likes it
fine.

What with natural gas prices going up, corn will be more expensive to
produce. This is especially true for crops that need anhydrous ammonia,
since I suppose it's hard to import. Do you have in guesstimates on how
much U.S. farmer's production costs will increase this year?

It's not too hard to import I think it is 200 miles form one plant and
140 from another plant. You forget we sit on a rather large natural gas
feild.

By import I mean from foreign countries that still have low natural gas
prices. Dry chemicals like urea are lot easier to ship.

If I am buying corn I don't give a damn the price of NH3 only the price
of corn counts. The price of NH3 matters to the guy that grew the corn
but that is not today's problem. It will effect the price of Urea making
it cost about
380 USD per short ton but for no more than cattle need it doesn't mater.

You confuses the cost of production wiht the market value of the
product. If I could be guaranteed getting back all the money it cost to
rasie a crop I would be a rich man. I would never loose money and make
some on good years.

Unless you are like me and grow corn as a hobby prices in the long run
can't stay below the cost of production minus subsidies. I think you will
agree that farmers have bills to pay.

You again show that you lack the basic underrating of farm economics.

BTW, in another thread Uncle Al suggest that it might be better to burn
the ammonia and sell the resulting nitric acid thant to use it to grow
corn to burn in a stove.

Gordon

"Tim Miller" wrote in message
newsan.2003.04.01.01.59.16.377742.2017@noamspay. indspringmay.com...
On Mon, 31 Mar 2003 07:02:49 -0500, Gordon Couger wrote:

Unless you are like me and grow corn as a hobby prices in the long run
can't stay below the cost of production minus subsidies. I think you will
agree that farmers have bills to pay.


yet in agriculture the cost of production and the price have never had much
to do with each other.
That is one reason for subsidy

--

-
Jim Webster

I believe that this thought has been enunciated before. A surly critic might
even use the word "banality".

"Tim Miller" wrote in message
newsan.2003.04.01.01.59.16.377742.2017@noamspay. indspringmay.com...
On Mon, 31 Mar 2003 07:02:49 -0500, Gordon Couger wrote:


"Tim Miller" wrote in message
newsan.2003.03.31.03.56.31.255202.1615@noamspay. indspringmay.com...
On Sat, 22 Mar 2003 04:41:37 -0500, Gordon Couger wrote:


"Gilgamesh" wrote in message
...
"Archimedes Plutonium" wrote in message
...
Sun, 16 Mar 2003 19:27:57 GMT Charles wrote:



http://plenty.150m.com/My_Links_Page..._manure01.html _


Thanks for the excellent site of comparison of rabbit manure to
other manure. Rabbit manure is unusually high in nitrogen.

Can someone tell me in chemistry if the animal body does something
with nitrogen that the plant body cannot do to nitrogen?

SNIP
Yes.
It degrades the protein, which contains nitrogen. The protein is
originally created by plants. You have this entirely the wrong way
round, I'm afraid.

Bacteria do quite well at creating protien. I can feed a cow urea for
a major part of her protien requirement and if there are enough
carbohydrates available the bacteria in the rumen will convert it to
protien the cow can use quite well.

With corn so cheap it less expensive to burn it for heating to heat a
house than anything but natural gas it makes good sense to winter
cows on pasture on corn, urea, low grade hay instead of good hay and
oil seed meal that is costs a small fortune. The cows do just as
well. You have to make sure and have enough trough space that they
all get to eat and you have to feed them every day or may have
problems but after the bacteria get through with it the cow likes it
fine.

What with natural gas prices going up, corn will be more expensive to
produce. This is especially true for crops that need anhydrous ammonia,
since I suppose it's hard to import. Do you have in guesstimates on how
much U.S. farmer's production costs will increase this year?

It's not too hard to import I think it is 200 miles form one plant and
140 from another plant. You forget we sit on a rather large natural gas
feild.

By import I mean from foreign countries that still have low natural gas
prices. Dry chemicals like urea are lot easier to ship.

If I am buying corn I don't give a damn the price of NH3 only the price
of corn counts. The price of NH3 matters to the guy that grew the corn
but that is not today's problem. It will effect the price of Urea making
it cost about
380 USD per short ton but for no more than cattle need it doesn't mater.

You confuses the cost of production wiht the market value of the
product. If I could be guaranteed getting back all the money it cost to
rasie a crop I would be a rich man. I would never loose money and make
some on good years.

Unless you are like me and grow corn as a hobby prices in the long run
can't stay below the cost of production minus subsidies. I think you will
agree that farmers have bills to pay.

You again show that you lack the basic underrating of farm economics.

BTW, in another thread Uncle Al suggest that it might be better to burn
the ammonia and sell the resulting nitric acid thant to use it to grow
corn to burn in a stove.

It was me that suggested burring the NH3. Themodynicly it is possible but
the practical problems are probably insurmountable. Making an engineering
that can withstand nitric acid as a exhaust product is probably not
possible.

If I grow corn I am concerned about the cost of production. If I buy corn I
only care about the price. I may feel a little sorry for the guy loosing
money at those prices but I am not going to pay him more than the going
price for it.

The same is true if I am growing it. If burning it saves me the equivalent
of 40 or 50 cents a gallon over heating with propane instead of selling it
burning it makes sense. Ag markets don't consider the cost of production
that's the farmers problem. My wife and her siblings just spent a
considerable amount of money putting in drip irrigation that will hopefully
lower the cost of production for the farmer and increase the total income
for them. I am considering doing something on a smaller scale in Oklahoma.

Gordon

"David Lloyd-Jones" wrote in message
...
Gordon Couger wrote:

You confuses the cost of production wiht the market value of the product.


Gordon,

It's a small pleasure in the morning to run across somebody with an
elementary understanding of economics.

Are you in fact a farmer? I guess that'll do it to you... :-)

I bought my first bunch of cattel in 1957 and started farming on my own in
'68. My mother's family owns one of the oldest ranches that is still under
single family control in the world. My grandfather changed his name from
Cowger to Couger when he enlisted in the in the army for the Spanish
American War. Cowger means keeper of cows. The family seemed to use Couger
and Cowger rather interchangeably when they left the farm in Indiana. My
wife owns the south headquarters of the XIT ranch that her grandfather
bought as they sold off the last of it in the 40's. It's an irrigated cotton
farm now. We both own land in Oklahoma as well.

In 1980 point I was farming 1,500 acres and I had just doubled my size.
Interest rates went to 21% that year and it didn't rain all summer and the
crops the next year weren't very good either. And I had my first attack of
multiple sclerosis the summer of 1981. Farming went down hill from there.

Every one on either sided of my family has made their living from farming or
cattle as far as I can trace them back. The same is true for my wife dad's
family.

Gordon Couger
Stillwater, OK
www.couger.com/gcouger

From: Archimedes Plutonium

I believe there exists some inverse or reverse relationship between plants
and
animals so that both can live on Earth and without the other, both would
quickly
die.


Without plants, animals (including insects) would quickly die. Without animals,
many plants will do just fine. Some plants rely on animals to fertilize their
flowers or distribute their seeds, these plants would not do as well.

Sean



--
Visit my photolog page; http://members.aol.com/grommit383/myhomepage
Last updated 08-04-02 with 15 pictures of the Aztec Ruins.
Address mungled. To email, please spite my face.

From: "Jim Webster"

yet in agriculture the cost of production and the price have never had much
to do with each other.
That is one reason for subsidy


Are you sure it isn't _because_ of subsidy?

Sean



--
Visit my photolog page; http://members.aol.com/grommit383/myhomepage
Last updated 08-04-02 with 15 pictures of the Aztec Ruins.
Address mungled. To email, please spite my face.