RE: farm visit/ soy in chicken feed

[Guest guest]

> I am sure many of you have read this book?

I haven't read it, but I'm familiar with the methods. Some people are

critical of *some* of the ways that people make mobile pens for pastured

chickens. The problem being that the mobile pen is nearly as small as a

conventional cage...in other words rather inhumane. However, most of the

implementations I've seen (and the one you describe that your farmer is

using) seem very humane to me, and are certainly much more humane than the

birds getting ripped to shreds by predators or the family dog...

> *pastured Guernsey cows (just two right now) for milk

> (I found my source for raw milk!... 3.00 a gallon)

Great price! ...and you can't get better milk than guernsey - high fat, high

milk solids, good grazer...and they're cute too!

> ...and I am gathering that this is normal, they feed grain to the chickens

> and pigs. They make a custom mix, but a) the grains aren't organically

> grown and they use soy in the mix.

It's definitely normal. Both chickens and pigs are omnivores.

> Do you all agree that feeding with organic grains is an important thing?

I think it's quite important from an environmental standpoint. It's also

extremely important from the standpoint of the wholesomeness of the meat,

IMO, but I believe that if they truly are pasturing these animals the amount

of grain supplemental food that they are being given is likely low enough

that they should still be far healthier than conventionally farmed animals.

I also think that they would probably be healthier than non-pastured organic

animals.

> Would you all happily eat livers (or, as I heard, is it the kidneys that

> store the evil chemicals?) from these chickens?

I would as long as they received a significant amount of pasture and weren't

treated with antibiotics or hormones.

Also, I'm not really sure that soy is a huge issue with pork or chicken. Is

it ideal? Maybe not, but it's also probably not the travesty that it is for

ruminants like cattle.

> Oh, another question (maybe this has come up before):

> do most of you eat pork, or not? Is it as healthy as beef etc?

I eat both pork and chicken, but I don't eat as much of them as I do of

ruminants and fish. They tend not to be as good of a source of most

minerals, and from what I've seen they aren't quite as vitamin-rich either.

That said, my primary reason for de-emphasizing chicken and pork is that I

don't like to heavily cook meats, and with respect for Bianca, Mark, and

others, I'm still just not quite comfortable with eating much of anything

raw other than beef, dairy, ocean fish, very fresh oysters and maybe eggs.