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Cabinron
Joined: 28 Mar 2003
Posts: 10
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| Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2005 9:03 am Post subject: Fly Control on cattle |
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It is that time of year....... What are y'all doing for fly control on your cattle? I know that DE can be used as one component of an overall program....what else?
Ron in central Tx |
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Dchall_San_Antonio
Joined: 18 Mar 2003
Posts: 2019
Location: San Antonio,TEXAS
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| Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2005 12:57 pm Post subject: |
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Betsy Ross at
htty://www.rossfarm.com
sprays compost tea on her pasture and on her cattle and it seems to keep the flies away.
Do you have plenty of dung beetles hauling the manure away? That helps.
Joel Salatin, the famous Virginia farmer and farm writer, started culling his animals that had flies. He noticed that some of his animals had more flies than others and some had none at all while the rest were being bothered. It sounds harsh, but if they're all going to slaughter anyway...at least he no longer has flies. First he culled for ability to give unassisted live birth, then for fertility, then for health (including health of offspring), then for disease/parasites, then for flies, then for weight performance. Basically he has his own breed of cattle going. How would you like to have an entire herd with no worms, no flies, good weight gain, and the cows give birth every spring, by themselves, like clockwork? |
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Bluestem
Joined: 08 Mar 2003
Posts: 169
Location: N. Texas
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| Posted: Sun Jun 12, 2005 8:25 pm Post subject: |
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| What is the theory of spraying tea on cattle for fly control? Does it kill them or repel them. I tried it last night and will reapply tomorrow night. |
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Robert D Bard
Joined: 12 Apr 2003
Posts: 420
Location: Whitesboro,TX
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| Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2005 4:00 am Post subject: fly control |
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Our mini Herefords have almost no flies, while our
mini Lowline Angus have a lot more.
Dave is correct about Joel, but Joel has a Heinz 57
mixture of genetics. The more pure bred the herd
the better the quality of meat no matter what the
breed. The smaller the animal the better the chance
of having DNA genes for tenderness and marbling
(on grass). The other side of that is the larger the
cows - I call mutants - that have tougher meat (you
can help that by slaughtering at younger age, 18 to
20 months). Why do you think we have so much
hamburger in this country? I also don't want any
bremmer in the genetic mix. they don't taste that
good but they have a terrible time with weak calf
syndrome when born.
On the flies, I just don't worry about them any more.
Their presence doesn't seem to matter in the long
haul. We feed quality organic hay with trace minerals,
use DE almost ever day (in the ground up alfalfa)
and have not had any problems.
Robert D bard |
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