Free Farm Friday

Farmer Brian K from Texas 

Farmer Dan M from New Jersey

* There is a 3 prong attempt to kill us all.

* Starve us our or let us die of thirst. 

Question: How much ground can 18,000 cows cover?

* Based on the size of an average adult cow, 18,000 cattle standing 3 to 4 feet apart could cover 26 football fields. 

* Gfeller said malfunctioning farm equipment may have caused the explosion. Texas fire officials were investigating.

* Castro County is the second-highest-producing county in Texas, with 15 dairies yielding 148 million pounds of milk a month, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. 

* You can thank environmental regulations for pushing these dairies out in Texas.

* North of Austin and SW of Fort Worth they were high producing milk area.

* Late 1990’s they tested the water and they decided to start regulating the elements in the water

* They forced these small dairies to sell to the government, close down or move.

* Smaller dairies couldn’t keep up w/ the regulations thus you get this super large dairy places where they house 18,000 cows.

* Regulations actually make a worse environmental issue b/c it makes BIGGER farms that are out of scale and they actually pollute MORE than a smaller in scale local farm.

* They can’t use mass grave per Texas Commission regulations, so where and how will they dispose of all of these cows?

* There are a lot of things that have to be done to a remains but can the remains be used for dog food. 

* You have a few other things that they feed, some grass additives and other things.

* These are just milking cows and sometimes they do go dry.

* If you are finishing beef or milking your grain rations come in.

* 180,000 lbs of grain a DAY was used to feed these animals.

* This grain was being transported by rail to this farm.