the daydream fund challenge thread

lostinrates

rhiwfield wrote: »

south river terrace of Thaw valley doesnt get sun for 2 months due to hill to the south. I

I can't stop sniggering at this.:o

lostinrates

Lotus-eater wrote: »

I

Just as some children would be happy with a couple of rooms with food and computer games if that is all they knew, cows can be happy in the same kind of environment. And it's our job to not let that happen.

Happy or consciously content? Physiological results often reveal ''physiological discontent''. Also health reasons why movement is necessary. At the very least those cow-ladies are likely to have filled ankles!

lostinrates

COOLTRIKERCHICK wrote: »

Lotus-eater.... LIR......

basically waht was the 'git' of the programme? i dont think i could watch it, but In the new year, i am going to try and be more aware of where my food comes from, including dry staple foods etc..

I only watched a few minutes TBF. They were showing the inside of a mega dairy...which in all fairness was spotless and well manned. The kind of cow who never eats grass.

rhiwfield

lostinrates wrote: »

I can't stop sniggering at this.:o

Lir, shame on you, dissing my river

But I wish it would thaw, really fed up of the snow and ice

CTC, the programme was about how the purchase power of the supermarkets was changing food production and driving smaller farmers out of business. Large scale meat farming, often intensive. All negotiating power with supermarkets. Veg being ploughed back in because its not right shape or farmer wont drop prices. Forecast is that it will get worse, not better.

Alfie/Lir, with your animals I dont know if you would have enough waste for a small scale anaerobic digester to produce biogas for heat and cooking. My take is that this will be one of the important energy sources going forward. see LINK

lostinrates

rhiwfield wrote: »

Alfie/Lir, with your animals I dont know if you would have enough waste for a small scale anaerobic digester to produce biogas for heat and cooking. My take is that this will be one of the important energy sources going forward. see LINK

We've thought a lot about this but everything I've looked at suggests its really expensive.

choille

For some reason we had a real dawn chorus today - all the wee birds are singing their heads off - chasing each other!

Thanks for your good wishes all - just hoping it doesn't go on as long as last Winter did but looking like it really.

The programme is nothing that we didn't already know & is againast everything that crofting is about. The cows did look happy. Members of scientology look happy - it's like boiling a frog.

Where I used to live in the middle belt - Forth/Clyde valley - there were mega pig farms a few years back. I used to be veggie & wouldn't eat meat there after living very near where one was set up = High Health Pigs said the sign - well I read the list of ingrediants on the feed sack & there was no way I was going to eat that pork.
When the guy said there all inside & healthy - the implication being that outside = unhealthy. I found it sinister, but I am a cynic.
The farm I lived on the brother of the farmer had an intensive chicken farm, sold all the eggs locally & further & a few people who'd worked there told me exactly what went on inside the hangers - old airfield. I've never bought a 'farmed' egg since. I won't buy 'farmed' fish either - there is a fish farm at the head of the Loch here. Yet I do succumb to Tv dinners once in a blue moon when it all seems so easy. You can understand the attractions.

As we all know meat has gone from being a treat to being an every day food - I'm guilty of that - I eat meat most days, but mainly it's either what I've produced or it's been running about on the hill locally, but it isn't all. It's all about supply & demand & cheapness - The Supers controlling the price.
Some of the chemicals that are being put into cows to increase the yield, you shouldn't be ingesting - well I don't think people nor childern should be, but that sounds alarmist, but I truly believe that.

Dave - Barking dogs are wearing - We have the neighbour too with the poor barking dog. I have been tempted to phone the warden anon but I haven't yet. You're right it's worse when they're about. With the clear air it does seem sharper - 3.30am this morning it was going off - wonder it wasn't frozen to the ground.

lostinrates

much colder again here. wind swinging through from the north. we now have three chicken lamps about the place. The oldest hen has taken up pride of place under one left on for the chickens and she almost sighed with joy before chuckling and chatting and calling all her clan around her to share this good luck.

Went to the country store for a spare bulb and bought a couple of spare infa red bulbs and they only had clear ones. Red seems jollier and festive.

cootambear

COOLTRIKERCHICK wrote: »

Lotus-eater.... LIR......

basically waht was the 'git' of the programme? i dont think i could watch it, but In the new year, i am going to try and be more aware of where my food comes from, including dry staple foods etc..

The git of the programme was hf whittingstall - whose programme I mostly like, except when he starts preaching about how immoral we are, which most of the celeb chefs seem to think they have a mandate to do these days.

They had a totally biased taste test on supermarket food versus small farm food eg supermarket watery pressed ham versus hughs own. A fair comparison would have had a supermarkets premium range.

I dont know how you measure a cows happiness, barring extracting brain fluids and testing neurotransmitter levels. I would hazard that a stressed animal produces far less milk, which would suggest the mega farms would be designed so that cows felt as comfortable as possible.

I liked the `styscraper` too.

One of the main objections was how to deal with slurry. one system used the methane to power the farm leaving inert matter to spread on fields. An example in the US showed that overspill had polluted rivers in a locality. Rigid controls on the system used, and hefty fines for transgressors would make it unprofitable for `mega` farmers to ignore safety.

Apart from providing cheap food, - and with rising prices, tax rises, and unemployment - families need that more than ever right now - it would free farmland for other uses.

As ever, you can judge for yourselves, the prog should be available on IPlayer.

There was the ritual Tesco bashing, but if people didnt want to buy from them they wouldnt be in business.

As ever, it is your choice about what you eat and where you buy it, for buyers of non supermarket foods to portray themselves as morally superior is arrogance borne from quasi religious devotion.

lostinrates

cootambear wrote: »

I dont know how you measure a cows happiness, barring extracting brain fluids and testing neurotransmitter levels. .

Much easier . Blood, urinary or salivary blood charts for cortisol etc are a good indicator combined with fractal time observations would give an idea I suppose,and health indicators. i.e. in reference to my comment animals like cows require movement for optimum circulation...unlike us they have no musculature at all in their distal limbs,so actual movement replaces its function in circulation,some anymals develop gastric issues throughstress that could be seen in a sample group, and absence of stereotypical behaviour.

Milk production is impacted by stress, you are right, but its also got diurnal rhythm...so any suppression in low level stress could probably be countered by constant lighting (I haven't read any studies on this in the last ten years or so and have little memory of what I read before then!).

cootambear

lostinrates wrote: »

Much easier . Blood, urinary or salivary blood charts for cortisol etc are a good indicator combined with fractal time observations would give an idea I suppose,and health indicators. i.e. in reference to my comment animals like cows require movement for optimum circulation...unlike us they have no musculature at all in their distal limbs,so actual movement replaces its function in circulation,some anymals develop gastric issues throughstress that could be seen in a sample group, and absence of stereotypical behaviour.

Milk production is impacted by stress, you are right, but its also got diurnal rhythm...so any suppression in low level stress could probably be countered by constant lighting (I haven't read any studies on this in the last ten years or so and have little memory of what I read before then!).

Good post. What is your scientific training out of interest?

IIRC cortisol levels (a stress indicator?) rise in depression, so it could be a good indicator.