----- Original Message -----
From: John D'hondt <dhondt@eircom.net>
To: <tabeles@tmn.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 02, 2000 3:54 AM
Subject: Re: sanet-mg-digest V1 #1760
> Hi Tom,
>
> My figures are all around me. A near neighbor of ours weans his lambs at 4
> days. His ewes are sponged so the lambing is concentrated in about one
week
> in mid January.
> After four days his lambs go in a shed and are further fed on creep feed
and
> later silage.
> More than half his lambs have already been send to the Mart, weighing 45
kg
> or over.
> It would make sense to look at food conversion rates here ( although I
don't
> have any figures for this at hand ) but it would not be useful in a
natural
> system like ours. Our ewes lamb over a period of about a month and a half.
> And they rear their lambs for as long as it takes outside on grass with a
> little extra ration thrown in by us. If the weather is bad they don't gain
> much weight at all.They need everything they get just to keep warm And if
> the weather is good you can see them holding races for hours, around and
> around the field, from time to time practicing the high jump and holding
> mock fights. That must cost a lot of food energy as well.
> Compare that with the behavior of my neighbors lambs : those stand up to
eat
> and lie down to chew the cud. They are packed close enough together to
keep
> the temperature in the stable high and they can't move much, no space.
> Prices at the moment are up to £28 with the kilo. Meaning that a 40 kg
lamb
> will make £68 and a 50 kg lamb £78.
> My lambs reach slaughter weight around August. When conventional prices
> typically drop to at least £5 below the £/kg. A conventional lamb of 40 kg
> then making £35. With my organic mark up I should get about £42 but then
> they have to be send to an abattoir about ten hours traveling away. They
do
> not arrive there in best condition. I quite often end up by selling my
> certified organic lamb as conventional.
> There is an other aspect to this story. From August onward the ewes come
> naturally back in season. After they have had an encounter with the ram
they
> seem not to miss the loss of their lambs that much. And we never sell the
> last one. We always keep our own replacements. From this it is obvious
that
> sheep know one another very well. They know who their grand mothers and
> aunts are. I respect their feelings as much as I can.
>
> The same goes for fowl. Only here the legal aspects are often
> insurmountable.
> I can't go explaining all of this in detail. But legally a free-range bird
> has to have a personal space in the barn of about 2 feet square. There
> should not be more than 2000 in the barn together and there needs to be a
> hole in the side of the barn through which the birds can reach the "wild
> outdoors", usually a plot of fenced in waste land. In practice the vast
> majority of free range birds never make it outside before their time is
up.
> I may be a bit out with the exact figures but I know that in organic free
> range the numbers in the house are limited to 500.
> I know one quite big organic producer near us who is actually giving birds
> away for free because he found it impossible to have them killed legally,
> There is a shortage of certified organic factories. There is one more than
a
> days traveling away and there they are not interested in small numbers of
a
> few hundred only.
>
> Our situation is much crazier. We lock our birds up at night (foxes,
> mink,etc.) but further they are really living outside. They can travel for
> at least a mile if they so wish. And they are supposed to provide the
> majority of their own food. We use no incubator. Hens and ducks hatch out
> their own eggs. We feed them twice a day with a freshly made mixture of
> grains , tubers, with milk or whatever. We have never actually weighed the
> food we give them or calculated the calories. If the weather is bad they
get
> more, if they look very hungry they get more. We keep an eye on laying,
> condition and behavior to adjust the amount of food.
> Again, the time factor is important. One of our hens hatched out 8 chicks
45
> days ago(which makes her a borderline case for the pot, we like to see 90
%
> come out) and they have now some difficulty of getting under their mother.
> They have a life expectancy of at least another 280 days or so.
> And that is not so different from other organic producers who keep theirs
> mostly outdoors.
> One problem is that our birds do not seem to fit into any legal category.
No
> problem since my family would not eat any other type bird. We sell only
very
> few and then only to people who know what they are doing and we barter a
few
> more.
> There is more demand for our eggs than we are prepared to produce. For one
> thing it is always a living creature that is involved in producing the egg
> and if we were to maximize our output there would be times in the year
that
> we would have to start thinking of the hens as commodities, laying
machines
> to be dumped after use. A hen that does well can look forward to a few
years
> in our place.
>
> This will have to do for now,
> John
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: tom abeles <tabeles@tmn.com>
> To: John D'hondt <dhondt@eircom.net>
> Sent: Monday, May 01, 2000 3:24 PM
> Subject: Re: sanet-mg-digest V1 #1760
>
>
> > hi John
> >
> > these are very nice figures that I have not seen before. Do you have a
> source?
> > What also interests me is the conversion ratio on the eggs and meat. Are
> they
> > the same in organic, non-organic- eg pounds of feed/pound of gain. I
have
> not
> > seen this type of analysis because most of my experience is with the
> production
> > of crops which don't have the time advantage you define.
> >
> > thank you
> >
> > tom abeles
> >
> > John D'hondt wrote:
> >
> > > Just a few remarks,
> > >
> > > I see just about everybody taking it for granted that organic farmers
> make
> > > more money/profit. What is happening around me however does not point
> this
> > > way.
> > > How many eggs does a battery hen produce in a day with a two hours
light
> /
> > > two hours dark cycle + chemical stimulation? 5 or more on average?
> Against
> > > less than one for mine.
> > > An industrial broiler reaches slaughter weight 41 days after atching.
In
> my
> > > system it takes at least 8 times as long to reach the same weight.
> > > Forced lambs of less than three months old and weighing 50 kg+ are
> making
> > > very good money in our local sales today. By the time that my organic
> lamb
> > > reaches slaughter weight in another four months or so, prices
typically
> drop
> > > by half.
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
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