Well that's corny

Change is always difficult, and the hardest change of all is to overturn the commonly held belief in, well, common sense. Contrary to the insistence that common sense is the only thing necessary to get through life (at a kindergarten level of behavioral theory), there is very simply no such thing. The belief in the value of common sense is most firmly held, it seems to me, by farmers. Other than Baptist preachers and Quakers ministering in the Light, farmers give so much credence to the phrase “it seems to me” as to have faith that their worldly observations are so widely held as true they must be common knowledge, and every farmer should be doing the same things.

Gene Logsdon writes in All Flesh is Grass, a book more valuable than Joel Salatin’s You Can Farm, that the evidence against common sense to be so strong that it recalls clerical responses to Galileo, refusing to look through telescopes, claiming it was unnecessary to facts. Logsdon’s sin against farming common sense is suggesting that modern farmers can raise the healthiest herds on grass. Logsdon writes, most farmers cannot imagine not feeding grains to their cows. Most dairy farmers use corn and soy silage as the total ingredient of their herd’s diet.

Logsdon, as indicated, is a grass-fed-only farmer.

 A few months ago, Sean and I and the farm team decided to cut corn entirely from our herd’s diet. Our holdout was s non-gmo beef grain we used for training and leading calves. We simply replaced it with a high palatable pelletized grass, and flax seed. This occurred in spite of the university extension's pasture expert telling us a little corn won’t hurt. The cows need some fat for winter, eh?

If thee will pardon the metaphor, the proof that grass does the job is that while milk supplies are not impacted negatively,  the cows healthier with plenty of winter fat to get through, and, there is no longer a pudding-like quality in the proof that changing over to grass-fed works. The herd has an improved more naturally working digestive system, The pies being a point of pride for Sean and me rather than the pudding-like waste at large dairy operations!

 The eOrganic website published be The Extension Foundation found that “Flaxseed is an oilseed rich in fat, making it an excellent energy source for livestock. Flaxseed can be fed as a supplement to pasture to boost omega-3 fatty acids in milk. This also affects the dairy cow’s health, reproductive fertility, and methane emissions.” (third mo. Twelfth day 2025) No corn necessary. Now son, that don’t make any sense. Ev’ryone knows ya feed corn ta cows…

https://eorganic.org/node/17920