If Thistle Hill has a secret weapon, it may be our mineral program.\u00a0 It’s certainly not a “top secret”; many natural livestock people do what we do.\u00a0 But it is not generally used in the commercial industry because of the cost involved.<\/p>\n
A cow grazing in the wild doesn’t need mineral supplementation.\u00a0 She can select from the grasses, herbs and even the soil to keep her system in balance and her immune system strong.\u00a0 But in a fenced pasture, she is at the mercy of what is before her.\u00a0 That’s particularly a problem in the East, where the land was “farmed out” long ago.\u00a0 I’ve seen estimates that it would take more than 100 years of constant, natural\u00a0fertilization to restore the\u00a0fertility of eastern pastures.<\/p>\n
So cattlemen feed a mineral mix, which is the co-op’s best\u00a0analysis of what is missing in the area it serves.\u00a0 The problem is that it is the result of averages; not every pasture and not every cow need everything that’s in the mix.\u00a0 And some may need more of something that’s in the mix, and to get it they are forced to eat too much of everything else.\u00a0 Still it’s what most farmers do and it costs them $7-10 a year per cow for the supplement.<\/p>\n
What we (and other natural and organic cattlemen) do is supply our herds with all the important minerals….separately, not mixed.\u00a0 They’re fed each mineral cafeteria-style in separate compartments and the cows select what they need.\u00a0 It’s an amazing trait but we think probably humans once had the same ability until it was civilized out of us.<\/p>\n
So our cows\u00a0check out the mineral feeder and select from 12 minerals…things like copper, selenium and iodine.\u00a0 We even feed a buffer because there is so much iron in the local water.\u00a0 Cows convert grass better with the right acid balance in their rumen.\u00a0 Sometimes they need more of one mineral than another.\u00a0 Often months\u00a0go by with some of the minerals left undisturbed.<\/p>\n
This is an expensive program, though, costing four or five times more than traditional minerals from the co-op, but the results are apparent in the results we get here at Thistle Hill.\u00a0 It is well worth the extra cost.<\/p>\n
Now, however, our supplier has told us that one of the minerals—iodine—is about to go up about $10 a bag and when his supply is gone there’ll be no more\u00a0organic iodine available.\u00a0 The right iodine balance is important for cattle fertility and for the growth of young animals.<\/p>\n
According to our supplier, the Chinese have been buying up all the iodine available on the world market.\u00a0 And the Japanese, apparently defensively, are putting their hands on all they can get, too.\u00a0 Iodine, of course, has a number of commercial and industrial applications.<\/p>\n
Because we could switch to kelp, which is dried seaweed, as a source of iodine, we were only momentarily disturbed.\u00a0 But then, the very next day, we read in the Investors Business Daily that China for several years has clamped down on the export of rare earths.\u00a0 These are minerals that are used in electronics, batteries and, yes, weapons.<\/p>\n
China has about 97% of the world’s rare earth production.\u00a0 Again, Japan and Korea are both buying up whatever they can.\u00a0 The United States has no strategic stockpile of rare earths.\u00a0 Or iodine.<\/p>\n
So what is China up to?\u00a0 In our earlier post we mentioned Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations<\/em>“.\u00a0\u00a0 Smith maintained that countries had to control materials that were in their strategic interest.\u00a0 Of course, he was worried about sail cloth back in 1776.\u00a0 Is iodine this year’s sail cloth?<\/p>\n I don’t know.\u00a0 But I do know a little about top soil and iodine, and I sometimes think\u00a0our politicians are arguing about\u00a0the wrong things.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If Thistle Hill has a secret weapon, it may be our mineral program.\u00a0 It’s certainly not a “top secret”; many natural livestock people do what we do.\u00a0 But it is not generally used in the commercial industry because of the cost involved. A cow grazing in the wild doesn’t need mineral supplementation.\u00a0 She can select from the grasses, herbs and even the soil to keep her system in balance and her immune system strong.\u00a0 But in a fenced pasture, she is at the mercy of what is before her.\u00a0 That’s particularly a problem in the East, where the land was “farmed out” long ago.\u00a0 I’ve seen estimates that it would take more than 100 years of constant, natural\u00a0fertilization to restore the\u00a0fertility of eastern pastures. So cattlemen feed a mineral mix, which is the co-op’s best\u00a0analysis of what is missing in the area it serves.\u00a0 The problem is that it is the result of averages; not every pasture and not every cow need everything that’s in the mix.\u00a0 And some may need more of something that’s in the mix, and to get it they are forced to eat too much of everything else.\u00a0 Still it’s what most farmers do and it costs them $7-10 a year per cow for the supplement. What we (and other natural and organic cattlemen) do is supply our herds with all the important minerals….separately, not mixed.\u00a0 They’re fed each mineral cafeteria-style in separate compartments and the cows select what they need.\u00a0 It’s an amazing trait but we think probably humans once had the same ability until it was civilized out of us. So our cows\u00a0check out the mineral feeder and select from 12 minerals…things like copper, selenium and iodine.\u00a0 We even feed a buffer because there is so much iron in the local water.\u00a0 Cows convert grass better with the right acid balance in their rumen.\u00a0 Sometimes they need more of one mineral than another.\u00a0 Often months\u00a0go by with some of the minerals left undisturbed. This is an expensive program, though, costing four or five times more than traditional minerals from the co-op, but the results are apparent in the results we get here at Thistle Hill.\u00a0 It is well worth the extra cost. Now, however, our supplier has told us that one of the minerals—iodine—is about to go up about $10 a bag and when his supply is gone there’ll be no more\u00a0organic iodine available.\u00a0 The right iodine balance is important for cattle fertility and for the growth of young animals. According to our supplier, the Chinese have been buying up all the iodine available on the world market.\u00a0 And the Japanese, apparently defensively, are putting their hands on all they can get, too.\u00a0 Iodine, of course, has a number of commercial and industrial applications. Because we could switch to kelp, which is dried seaweed, as a source of iodine, we were only momentarily disturbed.\u00a0 But then, the very next day, we read in the Investors Business Daily that China for several years has clamped down on the export of rare earths.\u00a0 These are minerals that are used in electronics, batteries and, yes, weapons. China has about 97% of the world’s rare earth production.\u00a0 Again, Japan and Korea are both buying up whatever they can.\u00a0 The United States has no strategic stockpile of rare earths.\u00a0 Or iodine. So what is China up to?\u00a0 In our earlier post we mentioned Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations“.\u00a0\u00a0 Smith maintained that countries had to control materials that were in their strategic interest.\u00a0 Of course, he was worried about sail cloth back in 1776.\u00a0 Is iodine this year’s sail cloth? I don’t know.\u00a0 But I do know a little about top soil and iodine, and I sometimes think\u00a0our politicians are arguing about\u00a0the wrong things.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-david","category-minerals"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":240,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228\/revisions\/240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}