New Heifers, Is Your Diet Killing You?
A beautiful week to end February which has allowed for more productivity than the month of January. But not productive enough with much of February’s to-do list now being pushed forward into March’s already full calendar. Farm work changes with the seasons. We have a lot of work ahead.
Speaking of seasons, since the first of November I’ve been coaching some youth wrestling a couple nights a week. We wrapped up our season this past week. With the darker days of winter, wrestling gives me something to get excited about not farm related. With the season ending and days getting longer, it’s back to full focus on farming.
Amy made the last herd share delivery of the month to Chilhowie and Abingdon on Monday. We filled March’s herd shares on Thursday.
On Tuesday we bought 52 heifers from my dad costing right at 100k, trying to restock for the year. Even with this purchase and calves bought in weeks past, we still need more cattle. I love farming. But I don’t love the financial decisions that come with it. We need calves and expect to pay what they’re worth. The challenge now is when it comes to pricing on the retail end. We want to provide good local meat and make it as affordable as possible. We also want to continue providing local meat for years to come. Our ability to continue farming in the future hinges on the financial decisions we make in the present. We can’t afford to sell meat at a lower price than it costs us to produce it. If we are to keep farming, the numbers need to add up.
We’ve been trying to grow our momma cow herd to raise more of our own calves and not buy as many local calves. Our plan is to breed most of these heifers we just purchased to add to our cow herd. I’m still not sure if this is the wisest move. One, breeding them would mean we still need to buy more calves to finish. Two, breeding them would tie up our limited funds for three plus years before seeing any return on that investment. If we breed them this summer, they’ll calve spring of 2026. Growing them out on pasture, those calves won’t be harvested until 2028. Factoring in the retail side, it could be four years from now before generating any cashflow from this investment. Plus the thousands of additional costs of hay, processing, labor, etc to get them to that point. I don’t know. There are times I wish I just worked for a farm and let someone else make those decisions. We don’t aim to get rich farming. I just want to work hard and raise good food and raise my family. And hopefully do it for years to come.
On Wednesday we cut more firewood and burned some brush. I wish we were getting ahead on next year’s wood supply, but typically keeping the stove going until May, the wood we cut will likely be used this spring.
Aside from that, we added more bedding for the pigs in the barn and kept the cows, pigs, and chickens fed.
Last week Amy talked about grinding her own flour. Typically not a big bread eater myself, her bakings have been delicious and turned me into a sourdough bread fan. Conversely, though she’s been listening to lots of good stuff on baking breads and making healthier carbs, I listened to an interesting podcast this week about cutting out carbs. Needless to say, making for some interesting mealtime conversations.
I listened to episode 520 on the Jordan B. Peterson Podcast. “Is Your Diet Killing You?” with Dr. Benjamin Bikman. The takeaway was to limit and choose healthier carbs. What should we replace those carbs with? Local pasture raised meats from ORVF. Their words, not mine. Ha.
A couple quotes from Dr. Peterson:
“All those vegetables and fruits have been genetically altered to a degree that’s just beyond comprehension.”
“The fundamental problem with America’s health is an abundance of carbohydrates… There’s almost no serious medical condition that’s widespread that can’t be traced to excess of carbohydrate intake.”
“There’s likely nothing you can do that will improve your life more, both in the short run but even more importantly in the long run, than to modify your diet away from high carbohydrate intake.”
A couple quoted from Dr. Bikman:
“A purely plant based diet is so deficient in nutrients, it is utterly incompatible with human survival.”
“Conventional medicine is giving medications which is trimming at the branches, only to have them grow back. Well, let’s just chop the damn tree down. And to do so, we have to go right to the soil which is lifestyle… There is a root problem, and no medication is going to address it.”
“Life is death. Everything that is alive benefits because something died before it.”
“So much of what I rage against when it comes to the government getting involved is that it’s subsidizing the most problematic things like high fructose corn syrup.”
“We literally don’t need to eat it. There’s no such thing as an essential carbohydrate, and yet 70% of all calories globally come from carbohydrates.”
“The food we eat is the culprit or the cure.”
Have a good week.
Will