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Farmers feed cows sweets

redsturgeon
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Farmers feed cows sweets

#24663

Postby redsturgeon » January 20th, 2017, 10:56 am


bungeejumper
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Re: Farmers feed cows sweets

#25458

Postby bungeejumper » January 23rd, 2017, 6:47 pm

Ah yes, but I bet he buys the Skittles at knockdown prices.

Ob serious point: One of our local dairy farmers serenades his cows in French. He says it relaxes them and improves their milk yields. And as for the French - well, what else would you expect? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... -wine.html

BJ

AleisterCrowley
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Re: Farmers feed cows sweets

#25571

Postby AleisterCrowley » January 23rd, 2017, 9:48 pm

Why in French? They are, I assume, Friesians- not Charolais or Limousin, and would appreciate a bit of Golden Earring

bungeejumper
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Re: Farmers feed cows sweets

#25615

Postby bungeejumper » January 24th, 2017, 9:04 am

AleisterCrowley wrote:Why in French? They are, I assume, Friesians- not Charolais or Limousin, and would appreciate a bit of Golden Earring

Would make a change from the usual Plastic Earring, I suppose?

BJ

bungeejumper
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Re: Farmers feed cows sweets

#25639

Postby bungeejumper » January 24th, 2017, 10:42 am

And another thing. If the poor creature is about to have her udders caressed and manipulated, I'll bet that she'd rather have Charles Aznavour than Liam Gallagher or Chas 'n Dave.

BJ

Halicarnassus
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Re: Farmers feed cows sweets

#46000

Postby Halicarnassus » April 15th, 2017, 3:03 am

Pull the udder one. :lol:

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Re: Farmers feed cows sweets

#46156

Postby DiamondEcho » April 16th, 2017, 10:55 am

redsturgeon wrote:Only in America!


You reckon? It would be interesting to poll a x-demographic sample of people, including 'town v country', asking them what they believe constitutes a cows diet. Who knows, perhaps there are even some people who think they just eat grass :lol:

How about the raw sugar extract molasses? http://www.nwfagriculture.co.uk/products/molasses/

Or 'We grind a range of cereal together such as wheat, barley, maize, breakfast cereals with confectionery by-products, peas and beans to produce a meal consistency.'
http://www.midlandfeeds.co.uk/cereal-blend.php

'AN ALL ROUND FATTENING RATION The biscon meal consists of ground cereal, including wheat, barley, maize, breakfast cereal and confectionery.'
http://www.midlandfeeds.co.uk/biscon-meal.php

Yep, I knew I'd find a summary somewhere. From food.gov.uk :

'Products and by-products of the food and brewing industries
By-products of the food and brewing industries (sometimes described as 'co-products') which remain after the production of food for human consumption are widely used as feeds for livestock. These include the residues of vegetable processing, such as rape and soya meal, maize gluten feed (the residue of starch extraction from maize or corn), spent grains from brewing and malting, and by-products of the baking, bread-making, and confectionery industries.
Food products which were intended for human consumption but which are rejected at the factory as sub-standard, or are broken or misshaped, or have passed their 'best before' dates, or are surplus to market requirements, can also be fed to animals.
The quality of these products is high because their ingredients were selected for use in the human food chain, but their use on farms will be determined by their costs relative to those of other feeds. However, if these products were not recycled into feed - which is not in itself a new practice - they would have to be disposed of in some other way, such as landfill or composting.

https://www.food.gov.uk/business-indust ... nimals-eat

The^ is from a page titled 'What farm animals eat'. IMHO many people would benefit from reading that page, it's not looong or over-dense.

bungeejumper
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Re: Farmers feed cows sweets

#49124

Postby bungeejumper » April 27th, 2017, 11:03 am

Slightly off-topic, but one of our neighbours, who keeps 170 organic Friesians, was over for a cuppa yesterday, and I asked her how the season's calving was going?

Brilliant, she said, we've got these new electronic gizmos that tell us when a cow's about to give birth. They always lift their tails in readiness for the delivery, and this gadget picks up the tail movement and sends us a text message so that we can go out and attend to it. It saves a hell of a lot of sitting around on the off-chance.

Had it not been well past the first of April, I'd have laughed. But is that a good idea, or is that a good idea?

BJ

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Re: Farmers feed cows sweets

#49134

Postby UncleIan » April 27th, 2017, 11:20 am

bungeejumper wrote:Had it not been well past the first of April, I'd have laughed. But is that a good idea, or is that a good idea?


It's a good idea.

One of our local farms has a robot milker. The cows know when they need milking and come in to get milked by the robot, the computer knows when each one was last milked to stop them just going round and round to get the sweet treat lick they have while they're being milked. It's clever stuff.

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Re: Farmers feed cows sweets

#49137

Postby Halicarnassus » April 27th, 2017, 11:23 am

bungeejumper wrote:Slightly off-topic, but one of our neighbours, who keeps 170 organic Friesians, was over for a cuppa yesterday, and I asked her how the season's calving was going?

Brilliant, she said, we've got these new electronic gizmos that tell us when a cow's about to give birth. They always lift their tails in readiness for the delivery, and this gadget picks up the tail movement and sends us a text message so that we can go out and attend to it. It saves a hell of a lot of sitting around on the off-chance.

Had it not been well past the first of April, I'd have laughed. But is that a good idea, or is that a good idea?

BJ


Yeah but don't they also do this when they defecate?

bungeejumper
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Re: Farmers feed cows sweets

#49146

Postby bungeejumper » April 27th, 2017, 11:42 am

UncleIan wrote:One of our local farms has a robot milker. The cows know when they need milking and come in to get milked by the robot, the computer knows when each one was last milked to stop them just going round and round to get the sweet treat lick they have while they're being milked. It's clever stuff.

Ours has the same system. Cost half a million quid, but already paying dividends because the yields have gone up, the cows like it so much.

They spend all day out in the pasture and don't come in to be 'unloaded' until they want to. The RFID tag in their ear tells the machine whether they need any extra dietary supplements (eg when they're pregnant), and sometimes they get so relaxed in the milking stall that the machine has to move them on with a shunt up the rump, so that somebody else can have a turn. :D

Nice to see technology working so well with dumb animals, for a change. These autonomous cows are having something pretty close to a proper life.

Oh, and HC, your thought had occurred to me as well. I leave it up to the farmer and his gizmo to know the difference between an imminent calf and an imminent cowflop. :lol:

BJ

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Re: Farmers feed cows sweets

#49164

Postby Halicarnassus » April 27th, 2017, 12:15 pm

bungeejumper wrote:Ah yes, but I bet he buys the Skittles at knockdown prices.

Ob serious point: One of our local dairy farmers serenades his cows in French. He says it relaxes them and improves their milk yields. And as for the French - well, what else would you expect? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... -wine.html

BJ


There is a nice documentary about a guy who sails around the UK. He visits a Monastery of the Redemptorists I think, on Papa Stronsay. One of the monks who milks the cows, sings to them in Gregorian chant. :lol: God bless him.

https://youtu.be/d20nzljVYPM?t=581

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Re: Farmers feed cows sweets

#49199

Postby DiamondEcho » April 27th, 2017, 3:32 pm

bungeejumper wrote:Oh, and HC, your thought had occurred to me as well. I leave it up to the farmer and his gizmo to know the difference between an imminent calf and an imminent cowflop. :lol: BJ


I wondered the same thing too! Presumably they have an algorithm that crunches tail-angle vs duration to accurately send an alert, or something similar. Technology often amazes me these days :)

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Re: Farmers feed cows sweets

#49340

Postby Clitheroekid » April 28th, 2017, 12:09 am

bungeejumper wrote:Oh, and HC, your thought had occurred to me as well. I leave it up to the farmer and his gizmo to know the difference between an imminent calf and an imminent cowflop. :lol:

I suspect the gizmo includes a bullsh*t detector! ;)

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Re: Farmers feed cows sweets

#49364

Postby UncleIan » April 28th, 2017, 8:34 am

Clitheroekid wrote:I suspect the gizmo includes a bullsh*t detector! ;)


Very good. :lol:

Though if they are fitting it to bulls, they've got bigger problems. :)

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Re: Farmers feed cows sweets

#49389

Postby bungeejumper » April 28th, 2017, 9:45 am

UncleIan wrote:
Clitheroekid wrote:I suspect the gizmo includes a bullsh*t detector! ;)

Very good. :lol: Though if they are fitting it to bulls, they've got bigger problems. :)

Indeed! The angle of dangle would take on a whole different dimension. :lol:

BJ

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Re: Farmers feed cows sweets

#49734

Postby UncleEbenezer » April 29th, 2017, 8:27 am

UncleIan wrote:One of our local farms has a robot milker.

Interesting. I guess that must count as veggie milk, if no animals are involved.


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