In the spirit of farm dog nastyness, here's another bit of snark by Ryan Taylor regarding the ongoing pat food - melamine disaster
Pet food's been a hot topic as of late. There've been product recalls, contaminated wheat gluten, salmonella-laced pet treats, and lots of recipes for "homemade" pet food.
When we heard the news on our ranch, we didn't have to rush out and check the label on our dog food. I guess you could say our two ranch mutts have been on a bit of a homemade diet their whole life.
I wouldn't say their diet is free of contaminants, but it's never killed them.
I don't know that I could recommend the ranch dog diet to anyone who's concerned about the safety of off-the-shelf dog food. But I'll share with readers the ingredients that keep our dogs well fed and happy.
Carnivore canines
Our dogs have a varied, seasonal diet. In spring, they roam the calving pasture in search of the expelled placenta of parturition. I know it's pretty gross, but I'm sure I'm not the only rancher with dogs who prefer afterbirth to dry dog food.
In summer, they travel the calf branding circuit to gorge themselves on what we daintily refer to as Rocky Mountain Oysters. They'll eat all day long on the byproduct that results when bulls are turned into steers. They'll have a bit of a hangover the next day, but they're always recovered by the next branding.
Throughout the year, they trot up and down the byways in search of fresh roadkill. Sometimes they settle for less-than-fresh roadkill, or carrion as they call it. Rabbits, deer, raccoons - I know what they're grazing on because they usually drag a drumstick or two back to the yard.
Ranch dogs don't mind eating wild turkey once in a while. I've never seen this myself, of course, but I've heard of ranches where a turkey will mysteriously die on occasion when there're a hundred of them lined up on the feed bunks every morning.
Like all good ranchers with impeccable management, I, of course, never lose a cow or a calf to sickness, weather or chance. But I've heard of guys who lose calves and have a ranch dog or two helping with the carcass disposal.
Their dogs will disappear behind the hill for a couple hours every day, drag back a leg bone or two, and they see a noticeable decline in the draw down on the 50-pound sack of co-op elevator dog food they keep in the shop.
Not for all
Nobody needs to write and tell me how dangerous the ranch dog diet is for a loving pet and companion. I'm certain that these free-roaming eating activities are completely out of balance with the required nutrients, vitamins and minerals.
But I'm not about to chain them up. Part of the joy of country living is letting your dogs be dogs and enjoy some freedom. Of course, running free does have them eating like a coyote most days.
I think the diet does toughen them up a bit. They fend off salmonella, scoff at bacteria, and might even survive a dose of melamine in a contaminated batch of wheat gluten.
And, in light of everything that's been in the news, I'll let them take their chances out on our meaty domestic range before I head to town to buy any imported Chinese wheat gluten.
Mothers, kids health, and the natural world
0 Comments Published by rural dad on 3/22/2007 at 10:10.
Plant knowledge key to childhood health in remote Amazon
I've always been a plant person, and enjoyed learning the health benefits of our local flora. In college, there were always jokes that I was the "Level 3 herbalist" when a roommate dropped his bike into a thicket of poison oak, and I tracked down the mugwort to wipe down the bike and his hands. Now someone has quantified the effect on kids.
In our globalized world with disastrous health care policies, people who know the herbal treatments to common maladies will come out ahead financially and in terms of health. Now where's that homeopathy book???
...mothers who had knowledge of local plants well above the average were more likely to have children with better health, whereas mothers who had less than the average knowledge were more likely to have children with worse indicators of health and nutrition.
I've always been a plant person, and enjoyed learning the health benefits of our local flora. In college, there were always jokes that I was the "Level 3 herbalist" when a roommate dropped his bike into a thicket of poison oak, and I tracked down the mugwort to wipe down the bike and his hands. Now someone has quantified the effect on kids.
To a great extent, Tsimane survival and well being is dependent on their knowledge of local plants, in everything from managing their environment to getting food and preventing and curing disease, explained Reyes-García. "However, globalization threatens this knowledge to the extent that formal schooling and jobs in emerging markets devalue folk knowledge and provide access to products not made from local resources, but without providing adequate medical treatment substitutes,"
In our globalized world with disastrous health care policies, people who know the herbal treatments to common maladies will come out ahead financially and in terms of health. Now where's that homeopathy book???
We've got a saying on the farm....
"Never kiss a farm dog on the lips"
This should hold for any dog, really, knowing what we all do about their dietary preferences. Farm dogs, though, get a hold of a bounty of nastiness that city dogs can only dream of.
Anyway, I guess we may need to expand this rule to include kids, and pigs.
Pop quiz....which one is getting the nastier experience?
(via Daddytypes)
"Never kiss a farm dog on the lips"
This should hold for any dog, really, knowing what we all do about their dietary preferences. Farm dogs, though, get a hold of a bounty of nastiness that city dogs can only dream of.
Anyway, I guess we may need to expand this rule to include kids, and pigs.
Pop quiz....which one is getting the nastier experience?
(via Daddytypes)
Ryan Taylor is a rancher, writer, legislator, and dad in North Dakota, who writes about all of these hats he wears with a quick wit and a sharp eye. A recent column of his, Daddy Day Care on the Ranch(subscriber paywall...not as annoying as the NYTimes, but still...), is one of those narratives I can see myself living in the not too distant future.
Daddy daycare on the ranch
Ryan Taylor
There's a new hired hand on the Taylor Ranch. He works cheap - three square meals, at least as many diapers and the occasional juice box. He's just over 2 years old, long on ambition but short on direction.
Since the new baby brother hit our house last month, big brother Bud has become my full-time sidekick. Like Matt Dillon and Festus, the Lone Ranger and Tonto, Bert and Ernie. We look out for each other.
He has all the qualities of a good sidekick. Faithful, helpful, ready to go at the drop of a hat.
He doesn't travel light, though. It used to be I could pull down my hat, head out the door and go to work. Not so now.
These days, I need to make sure I have a sippy cup, a blankie, a little container of raisins, a spare diaper and some wet wipes. The back of my pickup has about as many toys as it does tools.
You can always spot a daddy rancher. Just look in the back of his pickup and see if there's a toy dump truck and bulldozer back there with his fence stretcher and post-hole digger.
We're still working on channeling his energy. Sometimes the bulldozer fills up my post hole while I'm digging it. Most times I can stay ahead of him.
He's pretty good at bringing me stuff, even stuff I don't need. But it pleases him to bring me every tool out of the tool box, or empty a can of nails one by one and it keeps him occupied. It doesn't take me long to put them back en masse.
He helps me appreciate my surroundings. "Windmill, windmill, windmill!" "Cows, cows, cows!" "Trees, trees, trees!" You can't slip anything by him. And he appreciates quick confirmation of everything he's identified.
I guess you could say that my first born and I are spending a lot of quantity time together. There may be some quality to the quantity, but basically our relationship is blessed with sheer volume. It's a lucky father who has that opportunity.
It reminds me of the barn cat theory of parenting related to me by a reader who's a farm-raised family doctor.
He figures children are like the batch of kitties you find in the hay mow of your barn. You have to get out there and start petting and playing with them when they're little, before their eyes are open. Lots of love early on and you'll have cats that are tame and useful their whole life through.
If you wait too long to spend any time with them and their eyes open up without any taming and petting, you'll have a barn full of hissing, spitting cats that'll be wild the rest of their days.
When it comes to children, the time their eyes open up is teen-aged adolescence and the time to be with them and tame them down is when they're infants and toddlers and little kids.
Everything I do on the ranch takes twice as long when my sidekick is helping me. But it's not wasted time.
I'm sure there will be days to come when his eyes open up and I won't be his idol and he won't be my sidekick. Right now, he's pretty sure I hung the moon. And I think life on the ranch without him would be pretty dull.
I wouldn't call him tame by any means, but we are putting in the time.
