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“Inch by inch it’s a cinch; yard by yard it’s hard.”
I grew up with that maxim, and was always impressed with the truth of the old saying, but the other day I was tripped and sent sprawling with the same old adage.
When it comes to digester technology, lagoon covers, treatment systems and other methods of manure handling, it seems like much of the press lately has been on the ‘big guys’. Now, I am by no means suggesting that larger production facilities are any better in management or production practices. What I am saying is that the media tends to focus on the larger players in agriculture, for good and for bad, depending on the angle they approach.
How many cows does it take to support an anaerobic digester? The answer: a lot. Large farms have implemented anaerobic digestion (AD) systems in recent years, but little interest has been paid to small- and medium-sized farms until now.
You know algae. It’s the gunk that collects on the sides of a fish tank when you forget to clean it. It’s the slime that makes you slip on rocks while crossing a stream. You probably think of algae as a nuisance, if you even bother to think of it at all.
A reader recently e-mailed me to say he enjoyed our animal welfare review series. He also read with interest the standards comparison chart in the last issue.
For nearly 150 years, members of Jay Hansen’s family have lived and farmed on Black Hawk County land near Waterloo, Iowa, where Jay and his four sons now work together.
As corn prices hovered near $3.50 per bushel, feed cost per cow per day increased over 80 cents per 100 pounds, while record milk prices occurred in July 2007. In 2007-2008, milk price will need to increase $1 per hundredweight to cover higher corn grain, hay, cottonseed and silage costs.
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