Is it worth the extra $$

[Ascholten]

Kind of surprising seeing recalls in animal products for bacteria. They handle bugs much better than humans do and in fact are active carriers of a number of them.

But yes, you start playing with raw meat of any kind and you are just opening yourself up to any kind of horrors.

on the recalls in general, I get a kick out of the fact that most of them are the 'organic' stuff that's being recalled. Oh so that's Sooo much better for me huh?

No matter what you buy if YOU did not grow it and know for a FACT what's in it' where's its been Do yourself a big favor and wash it well, cook it well.

Aaron

 

[TropicalBabies]

I hate asking questions that probably been asked 100 times already, this is probably one of them, but I didn't find anything in my quick albeit noob search so here goes.

Layer Feed. Yes you can get the organic stuff for 40 dollars a bag, The regular Purina for about 16 a bag or the more Generic, like Dumor, for around 8 to 9 a bag. They all claim to be healthy, nutritious etc etc. They all claim to have the 16 percent protein, or whatever the number is etc etc etc.

I know, generally, as a rule of life, you get what you pay for, but WHY is one so horribly expensive, and the other appearing so dirt cheap, when up front they both appear they will be keeping the flock happy, healthy, and alive?

Yes, you are paying for a name here... Paying for 'organic' there, that part I get, but the rest of it.. what makes brand A so much better than Brand B? especially 10 dollars better?

Is there inherently something wrong with the cheap stuff that it will eventually do bad to the birds? Am I supposed to feel guilty even thinking of feeding my children the generic stuff? WHAT am I missing, that is making the 8 dollar stuff, the 8 dollar stuff? What do I need to watch out for when reading ingredients?

Thank you
Aaron

Well, I guess it boils down to we are what we eat and so are our chickens.
I wish I had more choice between organic or not. We are limited here and our choice is pretty much no choice... sometimes I have to search for feed through multi feed stores let alone organic.
It boils down to farming practices and supporting a more sustainable, long term, not short thinking future. Or that is what the science is pointing to.
If anyone has the chance or interest
The Biggest Little Farm -docu/movie whatever is really cute to see and has farming practices that I think we all appreciate, use and would like to grow into. Full circle kind of stuff and very enjoyable health and growth.
Anywho, best of luck to us all ♡

 

[BDutch]

“The main problem with soy in aminal feed is that, in general, its gmo soy and contains residues of poisons (round up).
If you eat the eggs and meat from non organic fed chickens you will eat small amounts of residues too.”

Partially, possibly true. How many rodent feces, insect body parts, mold & fungal spores are allowed in even “organic” and or non-gmo crops? Nothing you eat, drink, touch is without residue that can harm you. Literally nothing.

“There is prove that eating too much gmo feed can cause miscarriages with cattle and pigs. I don’t know what the effects are when you eat many eggs or meat from animals fed with gmo/poisoned soy. But I ‘d rather be safe than sorry. The feed industry’s number 1 concern is making money. And it’s not caring for peoples / animal health .”

I was completely unable to find any legitimate study that came to this conclusion.

The anecdote I did find, which seems to have started this whole “my pigs went sterile/miscarried” was from a farmer in Iowa in the early 2000’s. He planted new seed from a “different” company in 2000. He then claimed all his hogs failed to reproduce. He claimed farmers around him, feeding that same 2000 crop had same problem.

The university was called in. It was true this farmer experienced severe hog reproductive problems. It was linked to the 2000 forage crops.

But

It had nothing to do with gmo. That years crop was heavily contaminated by mycotoxins. The grain had been stored in unclean/contaminated grain silos. The mycotoxins caused the reproductive harm. They’re actually lucky the animals didn’t just up & die. Mycotoxins are extremely toxic and usually it’s lethal to anything that eats enough. Oh, and FTR, mycotoxins are extremely hard to keep out of grain crops (corn is always a concern, gmo or not).

Someday I’ll tell you about fescue & pregnant mares. Or sorghum and cattle.

If you’ve got studies showing gmo crops cause reproductive loss in livestock, please share?

The corporate food industry is giving the consumer exactly what the consumer demands. Extremely cheap, abundant food.

No matter how you slice it, a producer is not going to spend one penny more than they have to in order to deliver what the consumer will pay for. Killing the consumer is really bad for business.

By all means, read labels, push for labels on all products. Eat food that is as clean as possible. Pay local producers that raise their product the way you want the price they need to get in order to stay in business. But while that may (or may not!) make a health difference to you, there is nothing wrong with abundant and inexpensive foods, and personally as long as I’m not bathing myself or my animals in round-up, I’m more concerned about bacterial or fungal contamination … (I barely survived sepsis from salmonella, there is much out there that’ll kill you faster…)

About the study. Its a German/Dutch investigation . I wil look it up. But it might be in as nother language.

 

[BDutch]

About the study. Its a German/Dutch investigation . I wil look it up. But it might be in as nother language.

Couldn’t find it . But I did find this article with similar information:
https://www.americangrassfed.org/re...-causing-animal-miscarriages-and-infertility/

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Lots of good information here, posted by folks who have a lot more nutritional knowledge than I do about organics, GMOs etc.

But I do have some knowledge about supply chains, so if you're trying to decide between a common, large-scale name brand like Purina and a less-expensive store brand like Dumar, in all likelihood they are the same. Definitely compare the labels, but many store brands come out of the exact same vat as the name brands. The feed mills mix their feeds according to Purina's recipe, then once they've fulfilled the volume Purina requested for that shipment, the rest of the same mix is relabeled for Dumor (Tractor Supply) Kirkland (Costco) etc.

Funny you should mention Purina and do more. I was in Tractor Supply last week grabbing some on an emergency basis because I didn't have time to swing by my usual supplier, the local Mill by way of the family feed store. Anyhow I didn't have much choice in goat feed and as I'm looking at the bag of Doom or goat feed, it's labeled prominently on the front of the bag that it was designed by, you guessed it, Purina...

 

[Alohacayo]

Couldn’t find it . But I did find this article with similar information:
https://www.americangrassfed.org/re...-causing-animal-miscarriages-and-infertility/

Oh my, well Mr Hubbard sure has a statement…

Let’s parse some of it…but first, please note who is providing this link? American grass fed.

Onward;

Well he’s off to a great start! A completely new pathogen, but literally no one knows what it is. (And for the record, nobody since has been able to identify it, nor have they even found it, and Mr Hubbard refuses to share any of his “research”.)

I’m adding this screenshot to illustrate that he’s been talking about RR corn, RR soy and the approval of RR alfalfa. This is important later.

OKAY! we’re getting somewhere…it’s the size of a middling virus. While very very tiny, if this “pathogen” exists, SOMEONE would have found the interloper by now. (Note; Hubbard supposedly discovered this in 2005ish and started making these claims in around 2011.) not to beat a dead chicken, but he claims to have found this “new”pathogen in pigs, cows, corn, soy…but no one else, the entire world over, has replicated this discovery.

Okay! Here we go with some numbers! Woot!

1) 20% all stage miscarriage in almost all animal species is basically entirely and completely normal. Just the prevalence of twinning, heat/cold stress, transport, genetic anomaly…the list of causal abortion is long and deep.

2) 45% abortion is concerning. But let’s look at who he says aborted…
“450 of 1000 heifers fed WHEATLAGE”

3) WHEATLAGE is not corn. WHEATLAGE is not soy. WHEATLAGE is not alfalfa. WHEATLAGE is wheat in a silo. WHEAT. And do you know what silage is? It’s chopped (mostly) green crops put in a silo. It’s basically sauerkraut. Feeding fermented anything can introduce all sorts of good & bad pathogens, so if someone had a 45% abortion rate after feeding any foodstuff, Ayup, that food just might have been contaminated (see previous post about the pigs and mycotoxins in corn.)

4) Zero abortions in his “other” group of another 1000 cows? Statistically impossible. There’s lies, damned lies and statistics. And there is literally no producer on earth with 2000 pregnant cows that has 450 abortions in one group and zero in the other. Well, there is, and this puzzle doesn’t take much figuring… he kept all the still pregnant cows in one pen, moved any that aborted into the other pen. (Using his numbers 450/2000 is basically the normal spontaneous abortion in livestock.)

But again it’s literally (literally!) impossible to have 1000 of any mammal on one farm and have 100% pregnancies to term.

5) the 100% pregnancy group were fed “hay”. What hay? Oat? Alfalfa? Timothy? There are dozens of varieties of hay.

6) he makes a leap to the “wheatlage” contained “probable” residual glyphosate … well dude, this was supposedly one farm. 2000 cows, split into two groups. One fed wheatlage, one fed hay… does the farmer not know if he used glyphosate?

It’s been 16 years. Nothing stays hidden in the cattle/pig/feed industry for 16 years.

This isn’t how science or research works. It’s not how any of this works. For the above and about six dozen other reasons, I call complete cow pucky.

Thank you for sharing, and I do look forward to the other link(s) if you can be so kind. I was unable to locate them myself.

FWIW.

 

[BDutch]

Oh my, well Mr Hubbard sure has a statement…

Let’s parse some of it…but first, please note who is providing this link? American grass fed.

Onward;
View attachment 2954848
Well he’s off to a great start! A completely new pathogen, but literally no one knows what it is. (And for the record, nobody since has been able to identify it, nor have they even found it, and Mr Hubbard refuses to share any of his “research”.)
View attachment 2954853
I’m adding this screenshot to illustrate that he’s been talking about RR corn, RR soy and the approval of RR alfalfa. This is important later.

View attachment 2954860
OKAY! we’re getting somewhere…it’s the size of a middling virus. While very very tiny, if this “pathogen” exists, SOMEONE would have found the interloper by now. (Note; Hubbard supposedly discovered this in 2005ish and started making these claims in around 2011.) not to beat a dead chicken, but he claims to have found this “new”pathogen in pigs, cows, corn, soy…but no one else, the entire world over, has replicated this discovery.

View attachment 2954866
Okay! Here we go with some numbers! Woot!

1) 20% all stage miscarriage in almost all animal species is basically entirely and completely normal. Just the prevalence of twinning, heat/cold stress, transport, genetic anomaly…the list of causal abortion is long and deep.

2) 45% abortion is concerning. But let’s look at who he says aborted…
“450 of 1000 heifers fed WHEATLAGE”

3) WHEATLAGE is not corn. WHEATLAGE is not soy. WHEATLAGE is not alfalfa. WHEATLAGE is wheat in a silo. WHEAT. And do you know what silage is? It’s chopped (mostly) green crops put in a silo. It’s basically sauerkraut. Feeding fermented anything can introduce all sorts of good & bad pathogens, so if someone had a 45% abortion rate after feeding any foodstuff, Ayup, that food just might have been contaminated (see previous post about the pigs and mycotoxins in corn.)

4) Zero abortions in his “other” group of another 1000 cows? Statistically impossible. There’s lies, damned lies and statistics. And there is literally no producer on earth with 2000 pregnant cows that has 450 abortions in one group and zero in the other. Well, there is, and this puzzle doesn’t take much figuring… he kept all the still pregnant cows in one pen, moved any that aborted into the other pen. (Using his numbers 450/2000 is basically the normal spontaneous abortion in livestock.)

But again it’s literally (literally!) impossible to have 1000 of any mammal on one farm and have 100% pregnancies to term.

5) the 100% pregnancy group were fed “hay”. What hay? Oat? Alfalfa? Timothy? There are dozens of varieties of hay.

6) he makes a leap to the “wheatlage” contained “probable” residual glyphosate … well dude, this was supposedly one farm. 2000 cows, split into two groups. One fed wheatlage, one fed hay… does the farmer not know if he used glyphosate? View attachment 2954848View attachment 2954848View attachment 2954848

It’s been 16 years. Nothing stays hidden in the cattle/pig/feed industry for 16 years.

This isn’t how science or research works. It’s not how any of this works. For the above and about six dozen other reasons, I call complete cow pucky.

Thank you for sharing, and I do look forward to the other link(s) if you can be so kind. I was unable to locate them myself.

FWIW.

I was hasty (because of an appointment) and didn’t read the whole article. Thought I hit the nail. (not).

I do remember now seeing a documentary about the problem with roundup in feed. The reporter interviewed several farmers. The research team of this TV programme did some serious research on this problem. This documentary was made in The Netherlands by Zembla, BNN-VARA which is not a commercial broadcaster. They often show how commercial businesses are undermining for the the health or wellbeing of people. The program was broadcasted about 5 years ago.

https://www.bnnvara.nl/zembla/artikelen/glyfosaat-omstreden-gif
I found some background information on this site of the Zembla programme, but the link to an investigation in Denmark didn’t work anymore :
Achtergrondinformatie
Met onder andere onderzoek in Denemarken naar Glyfosaat in misvormde biggen, En onderzoek van Stichting natuur en milieu waarin wordt gesteld dat 55% van de bestrijdingsmiddelen giftig is. Lees meer.

If you like to read the article you can use google translate.

 

[Alohacayo]

I was hasty (because of an appointment) and didn’t read the whole article. Thought I hit the nail. (not).

I do remember now seeing a documentary about the problem with roundup in feed. The reporter interviewed several farmers. The research team of this TV programme did some serious research on this problem. This documentary was made in The Netherlands by Zembla, BNN-VARA which is not a commercial broadcaster. They often show how commercial businesses are undermining for the the health or wellbeing of people. The program was broadcasted about 5 years ago.

https://www.bnnvara.nl/zembla/artikelen/glyfosaat-omstreden-gif
I found some background information on this site of the Zembla programme, but the link to an investigation in Denmark didn’t work anymore :
Achtergrondinformatie
Met onder andere onderzoek in Denemarken naar Glyfosaat in misvormde biggen, En onderzoek van Stichting natuur en milieu waarin wordt gesteld dat 55% van de bestrijdingsmiddelen giftig is. Lees meer.

If you like to read the article you can use google translate.

Thank you! I’ll take a poke at it.

 

[littledog]

Funny you should mention Purina and do more. I was in Tractor Supply last week grabbing some on an emergency basis because I didn't have time to swing by my usual supplier, the local Mill by way of the family feed store. Anyhow I didn't have much choice in goat feed and as I'm looking at the bag of Doom or goat feed, it's labeled prominently on the front of the bag that it was designed by, you guessed it, Purina...

Yep!
Same with human food, store brands vs, name brands.

My own opinion on the best way to buy grains for any animal, is if you have a local feed mill nearby that will do custom milling. If you have enough animals (or can partner with others nearby and form a co-op) to buy enough bulk to make it worth it to the feed mill, you can get them to mill a mix that you like. For example, you could ask them to leave out GMO corn and soy, and replace it with some other high-protein like alfalfa meal. It wouldn't be strictly organic, but it wouldn't contain traces of roundup, plus it's a lot fresher than anything from a store, so less chance of growing molds or other pathogens. Probably most of the non-meat-related problems from organic feeds are from molds and other pathogens, when the feed isn't fresh and of course doesn't contain chemical preservatives.

Years ago, I was a member of a chicken co-op that worked with our local mill like this, we would buy several tons per month. Unfortunately, the co-op went kaput, now I'm stuck with feed-store brands.