is there anything wrong with corn and/or soy?

[Fairview01]

Plus sometimes other by products can be obtained cheaper than corn and beanmeal and have the same nutritional make up that corn and soybean meal do.

I would challenge you to name these 'other products '. If they existed feed producers would be using these 'other products' rather than soy and corn.

 

[Gargoyle]

And, yes, "organic" means very little in this context. I just saw an advert on TV for a weed poison that's "organic friendly". One that painted dandelions as villains, no less,

I love our dandelions. During the summer I walk around the property pulling their leaves several times a week, (along with some plantain and a few others) as a free, abundant and healthy treat for our chickens. Then again, they also love our Japanese Beetles, gobble them up like candy.

 

[Fishkeeper]

I like dandelions just because they're kinda pretty. I think it looks nice when they're scattered around a lawn. It's texture.
Lawn culture can go jump in a hole, though. It started out as a thing that super rich people would do, basically going "hey, look! I can afford to basically grow an inedible crop just because it looks nice", and now everyone does it. It sucks up water like you wouldn't believe, and all those perfect lawns look like that because they've been poisoned to kill all the weeds and the bugs and whatnot. The soil quality is usually awful because the grass clippings and leaves are all cleaned up before they decay into the soil, so on goes the huge amounts of fertilizer to keep the grass alive, and since the soil is terrible, it can't hold all that fertilizer and it gets washed out. We're in the process of replacing most of our lawn with wildflower patches and butterfly plants. If you need a lawn to walk on and whatnot, I strongly suggest looking into native grasses or other alternatives. Also- leave the leaves! The grass clippings, too. Don't put a bag on the mower, let the clippings get worked in. Let whatever weeds aren't killed by repeated mowings grow. Insects are dying off all over the world, and lawn culture is part of what's killing them in a lot of areas. All because it used to be a rich people thing to have one.
(rant over)

 

[Folly's place]

Good rant, Fishkeeper!
Mary

 

[Willowspirit]

I also enjoy your rant Fishkeeper! In my former home I had one small, perfect piece of beautiful lawn and then put down rocks, bricks and blocks everywhere else except where I planted water sparing shrubs and flowers everwhere. I loved it! Now we have grasses and weeds including more dandelions than I've ever seen in one placeplace! My chicks are. A little young for them but our guinea pig is in heaven!

 

[GreenMountainEric]

@Gargoyle is correct about the non-gmo grains having more chemicals sprayed on them. A considerable amount more, in fact.

I work closely with a lot of grain growers (mostly growing corn and soy), and many of them have switched from conventional production to either non-gmo, or organic production.

The organic producers aren’t spraying or treating with any product at all. The have to cultivate a million times and hope for the best. Results are never as good as conventional or non-gmo yields. This is the main reason for the higher costs of organic grains.

The non-gmo stuff usually has good yields. But gets more chemical fertilizer than GMO, and gets sprayed/treated with chemicals FAR MORE than the average GMO crop.

The GMO crops have much better resistance to weed issues, pest issues, and disease issues. They don’t require nearly as much treatment as a typical non-gmo crop that isn’t also being grown by organic standards.