[frankthetank]

These cows look so happy dancing and frolicking....



These cows look sad, very depressed, almost suicidal

[Pops]

These cows look so happy dancing and frolicking....



These cows look sad, very depressed, almost suicidal

Frank, as it turns out those happy cows in the top photo are Herefords and Red Angus - beef cattle, and they are about ready to dance off to the feed lot to be finished on grain - all beef is backgrounded on grass, its only the last couple hundred pounds that is put on with grain to get that nice white marbling June Cleaver demands.

Those suicidal girls at the bottom are Holstein milk cows being fed a ration containing mostly hay (grass and legumes), silage, probably distillers and some grain and all sorts of minerals. The poor things are so overbred they aren't anything but udders on stilts and I'd wager 75% or more of their offspring would die within a day or two without help. Still they are pretty well cared for because when they aren't happy they don't put out, if you'll pardon the expression.

Anyway just thought I'd mention the distinction.


I just found this blog, give the guy some support if you care to...
http://www.stopsmithfieldfoods.com/

[deMolay]

Gee such well thought out arguments. But what about the 100,000,000 Bison not to mention millions of Cariboo, millions of Antelope, etc. that were running around farting before they were wiped out. And still no Global Warming in that era. In other words the White hunters did us all a favour? The veggies are the ones who should be shut down. Millions of acres plowed under to feed them. Billions of gallons of diesel for machinery, billions of gallons of pesticides, herbicides and fossil fuel based fertilizers to produce. You guys are backwards.

[Pops]

Actually it's the burps not the farts that are the problem.

[deMolay]

Whether it is burps or farts, 100 million plus ruminants pre 1900 more than makes up for the cows running around N. America now.

[rangerone314]

Grass-fed chickens anyone? (I'm going to get 5 Buff Orpingtons in 4 months, and put them in a chicken tractor so they will get a lot of grass--not for meat though, for eggs--unless they get old & stop laying eggs...)

If you are worried about not enough Omega-3s in your diet, grow this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portulaca_oleracea

Although purslane is considered a weed in the United States, it can be eaten as a leaf vegetable, providing sources can be found which have not been poisoned deliberately. It has a slightly sour and salty taste and is eaten throughout much of Europe, Asia and Mexico.[3][1] The stems, leaves and flower buds are all good to eat. Purslane can be used fresh as a salad, stir-fried, or cooked like spinach, and because of its mucilaginous quality it is also suitable for soups and stews. Australian Aborigines used to use the seeds to make seedcakes.

Purslane contains more Omega-3 fatty acids (alpha-linolenic acid in particular[4]) than any other leafy vegetable plant. Simopoulos states that Purslane has .01 mg/g of Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA). This is an extraordinary amount of EPA for land based vegetable sources. EPA is an Omega-3 fatty acid normally found mostly in fish, some algae and flax seeds. [5] It also contains vitamins (mainly vitamin A, vitamin C, and some vitamin B and carotenoids), as well as dietary minerals, such as magnesium, calcium, potassium and iron. Also present are two types of betalain alkaloid pigments, the reddish betacyanins (visible in the coloration of the stems) and the yellow betaxanthins (noticeable in the flowers and in the slight yellowish cast of the leaves). Both of these pigment types are potent antioxidants and have been found to have antimutagenic properties in laboratory studies.[6]

100 grams of fresh purslane leaves (about 1 cup) contain 300 to 400 mg of alpha-linolenic acid [7]. One cup of cooked leaves contains 90 mg of calcium, 561 mg of potassium, and more than 2,000 IUs of vitamin A.

[davep]

Walnut oil appears to be pretty amazing. It contains Omega 3s, melatonin and other good stuff. Apparently it helps blood flow and cognitive response as well. I'll get some links at a later date.

[Maddog78]

I'm trying to get rid of all the cows I can.
One steak at a time.

[Vogelzang]

The amount of methane produced by farm animals is insignificant compared to other sources. The fact that other people posting in this thread neglect that shows the extremely low level of scientific knowledge and amatuerish nature of the enviro-crazies posting here. It just further shows the level of psychiatric problems the enviro-crazies have.

[Pops]

Whether it is burps or farts, 100 million plus ruminants pre 1900 more than makes up for the cows running around N. America now.

I don't know where your 100 mil comes from but USDA says there are 95 mil beef and 20 mil dairy cows.

[Pops]

The amount of methane produced by farm animals is insignificant compared to other sources. The fact that other people posting in this thread neglect that shows the extremely low level of scientific knowledge and amatuerish nature of the enviro-crazies posting here. It just further shows the level of psychiatric problems the enviro-crazies have.

Boy I get tired of crap like this, do you really think it adds anything to the discussion, do you even care?

[deMolay]

Pops do you have a link to that USDA number, because I always understood that Texas had the most beef cattle in the USA and they had about 15M. Now keep in mind that 100M Bison in their day would take days to pass a single point of land. Show us the beef.

[deMolay]

Seems you where right POPS, but still doesn't explain why 100M plus Bison alone not counting all other ruminants pre 1900 did not cause any GW. http://www.ext.nodak.edu/extnews/newsre ... livstk.htm

[frankthetank]

Pops-
Its the best pics i could find

I'm reading the book "Small-Scale Livestock Farming...A Grass-Based Approach for Health, Sustainability, and Profit" ...i want to become a farmer and the author talks about finishing on grain in one of the chapters. She says this is NOT common around the world, its mostly a US thing. She goes on to talk about the color of fat being "yellow" because of the vitamins found in the grasses vs the white color you see n the meat aisle fed grain. We don't want humans getting all those good vitamins

I was talking to my buddy who told me a guy he knows has a good sized chunk of land (for hunting) but keeps 2 COWS on this land. The reason? I guess here in the state of Wisconsin that allows him to take some good tax breaks! because now he has a "farm" ? He ends up butchering them every year and getting calves in the spring! You know what his former job was? Mayor!

[Lore]

Seems you where right POPS, but still doesn't explain why 100M plus Bison alone not counting all other ruminants pre 1900 did not cause any GW. http://www.ext.nodak.edu/extnews/newsre ... livstk.htm

Obvious, there were only approximately 1.6B people on the planet in 1900 as well. It’s also estimated that only around 60 million American bison once roamed the plains of NA at their population height in the seventh century.

[frankthetank]

How do they estimate these Bison numbers? To me it sounds like its just a big ? how many there really were.

Although if you took a state, figured out land area suitable for Bison, amount of food/water available, u could make a good estimate?

[jedrider]

Seems you where right POPS, but still doesn't explain why 100M plus Bison alone not counting all other ruminants pre 1900 did not cause any GW. http://www.ext.nodak.edu/extnews/newsre ... livstk.htm

That is a very ridiculous statement: South American deforestation for raising cattle and grains to feed the cattle (much from the U.S.) all figure into the GW equation. DEFORESTATION, HABITAT DESTRUCTION, FOSSIL FUEL BURNING, it goes on and on.

[Lore]

How do they estimate these Bison numbers? To me it sounds like its just a big ? how many there really were.

Although if you took a state, figured out land area suitable for Bison, amount of food/water available, u could make a good estimate?

Estimates are based on Paleozoology and studies of carrying capacity.

American Bison: A Natural History

Ernest Seton rose the challenge of tracking the bison’s decline in a discussion titled “The Dwindle,” he estimated that the population had dropped from 60 million to 40 million by 1800, then sank to 20 million by 1850. Apparently giving up at this point.

[eastbay]

Remember, the bison population in North America would never have risen as high as it was without deforestation by burning practiced by the pre-European inhabitants. Humans have shaped the environment where ever we are and are almost always very destructive.

[frankthetank]

So depending on climate (rainfall/grasses) the population of bison probably went up and down... I see during 500 to 1300CE there were no Bison in Texas/New Mexico because of drought.

Found this book... The guy seems to put the number at 30 million...but i'm sure it changed regularly and probably peaked a lot higher and dropped a lot lower. Obviously during the last ice age they would have had some problems.
http://books.google.com/books?id=ignc3AHzVIkC&pg=RA1-PA69&dq=bison+population&client=firefox-a#v=onepage&q=bison%20population&f=false

Eating meat will become more and more a luxury ($$$). With no jobs, increasing energy costs, water costs and droughts the prices will likely continue to increase, no to mention increasing human population and richer Chinese.