I saw on CNN about how the Chicken Whisperer and his supporters have taken it to the city of Rossville, challenging backyard poultry ordinances that did not allow for it. Part of the broadcast was an interview with him, he seems like a cat I could hit it off with. He brings very valid points to the table in his argument. I recognized Rossville as being yur home and chuckled as I watched the report. How big of a ruckus was it actually? I take it Rossville is close to or a suburb of Atlanta cuz when googling the web there were all kinds of blogs and forums addressing it. I caught the report as it was underway but think that the chicken ordinance has been changed, is this correct? I have to agree with the whole thing cuz who's to say you cant put up a coop and raise a few chickens in yur backyard? I assume and would think
that population numbers would be set so ya dont have a neighbor gone wild raising 4 million next you and the stench of chicken poo is overpowering, that
limitations and guidelines have been taken into consideration. I see where the guy was giving away free chicks to folks. The ones who probably are apt to fight the allowance of this are without a doubt not country folks and to boot so unaware of the ways of how we feed our people nowdays that they have no clue that raising a chick to a 4 lb fryer in 21 days goes against the laws of nature. Most people dont know that the meat you buy that in those tightly-stretched kry-vac containers in heavy plastic is all meat that has gas added to it at packaging to retain color (but not freshness) and retard spoilage. Fer crissake, I smoke 18 pks of PallMalls daily, mop up bacon grease with a slice of bread-I aint no health food guru or a likely spokesman for how healthy the stuff is we put in our body, but I am 52 and make my own informed calculated decisions. This does not allow for what children are fed until they are old enuf to think, and decide if they're gonna be a crackhead or a nuclear physicist or what. It kinda offends my farm kid self who left school to join the army at 17. Even I know you cant grow spinach downhill of a cattle feedlot and that said as a layman with no special gifts or formal specialized education. No wonder the cows are getting madder by the minute. Fatalities from e Coli, salmonella, botulism occuring now more than ever. This kinda puts my shorts in a wad. I am putting up a coop and putting some yard pimps in it to provide me eggz and here I am handcuffed by even that in the way of anystore-bought chicken feed comes made from geneticly-altered grain. Sorry I am stretching this out being lengthy but dangit, this aint right. Too many big $ lobbyists from Dow & Monsanto guiding our money-induced dysfuntional FDA & USDA to my way of thinking. I come from a small dairy farm in MN. Dad had a perforated ulcer when I was 8 yrs old and although I had helped in capacities with the milking up till then, I suddenly was Da Man. My point is I know Holstien dairy cows, all way too familiar. When I first moved here me and the ol lady took a drive just sightseeing. We passed a dairy and a 1/4 mile down the road was a little store sold milk, cream, butter, from that place. Talked with the lady there and she said if you wanna go watch the milking you are welcome to, guy who milks em oughta be there in 20 minutes. Go there, theres a whole barn fulla calves, look around, make yurself at home till he arrives. We did. My ol lady a city slicker, thought she'd enjoy it. Also wanted to share with her my background in doing so. Mike showed up to milk, we intro'd and he had a parlor that held 8 cows at a time, direct pipeline to the bulk tank. We talked and talked, he was friendly, we hit it off. I immediately thought man these are some dang, dang big cows. He finished milking them and they walked past me going outtta the barn as Mike chased 8 more in. Now I'm sure as they pass, them are some huge cows. I ask Mike as he puts the milkers on the next 8, "how much milk one of these produce on the average at both milkings daily?"
Oh about 65 lbs per milking. 8 lbs to the gallon, we were hard pressed to have a cow produce 3.5 gallons (32/34 lbs) He is getting 8 gallons twice a day. He notes my amazement and sees I am fulla question.
"Growth hormones" he sez. Produce a gargantuan cow like these their udders are proportianately larger, they have larger capacity by sheer size to produce and store more milk.Plus the feed is not only juiced up with steroids but also has tweaky crap like lactation accelerators, all kinds of unnatural stuff. I grew up in the age where pastuerization was of milk was universally in practice but we ran our milk thru a gauze filter into the tank, or cream cans in my earlier years, and dipped a pitcher out and never drank nuthin but whole milk. None of us nor anyone else ever got sick. We also skimmed cream, churned butter, and made our own cottage cheese. Rennet was collected upon slaughter of a cow for cheese making. This was in the day that 100 bushel an acre corn was a bumper crop and the seed corn had not been DNA modified. We raised oats also and both grains went to the local co-op grain elevater and you ordered feed for the cows from the "feed bank" you had accumulated. For a fee they ground it, added minerals and delivered it to yur farm. Nobodys cows were going crazy back then and dairy products were safe to eat.
I think we somehow need to revert back. For one thing, population control needs to be addressed. This is why we are tweaking everything to meet the needs of a bulging world, trying to produce more with less. Simple math says this cannot go on. Lookit the swine flu thing. You cant feedlot-raise animals in such tight confinement. Jam 40 sophmore boys in a small high school locker room shower and see if they all aint got athletes foot from it.
Ok, done ranting.