Preserving nearly extinct livestock breeds is not just a hobby. It can lessen starvation worldwide. It can feed hungry children.
No animal--- not pigs, not cattle, nor even chickens, are consumed world wide as much as are goats. Goats can convert low quality vegetation to high quality protein better than any other domestic livestock. Like all livestock, they have limitations as to the environments in which they can thrive..
Goats do not do as well in wet, swampy conditions. They are very susceptible to internal parasites and live best in dry regions of the world.
Except for ones like Sea Biscuit, a Baylis Colonial Spanish goat shown sitting on a hay bale at my horse lot. These goats thrive in swamps, surpass modern commercial goat breeds in ability to produce live kids in non-factory farms, and in their ability to convert poor forage to meat.
And they are going extinct.
Would you not be much prouder to live in a nation that flooded the third world with breeding stock instead of sophisticated weapons?
These goats are weapons of mass survival. And nearly no one has even heard of them or other obscure breeds of livestock that can be a big part of reducing global suffering. That is why the Livestock Conservancy is such an important organization. Go to their web site. See how you can be a part of the vital work that they do.
I recognize that my priorities are out of step with the rest of my culture, but I can't help but feel that this is a more important topic than a naked Kardashian.
Perhaps you all can break the internet by flooding The Livestock Conservancy at http://www.livestockconservancy.org/ .
Meh...our priorties are not out of step with society..society is out of step with the earth, society has forgotten where it came from, and eventually it will bite us all.
ReplyDeleteThere is a large groundswell of activity in the small farm and homestead communities...one of our riders raises Polynesian pigs, I keep Vietnamese heritage pork, one lady who lives down close to the courthouse keeps so many rare birds that I do not like to think of her feed bill..
It is a difficult thing, to shift gears and slow down enough to keep even a small farm. (By small, I mean 2-20 acres) Society (again..there is that word) makes demands on each of us which are unreasonable, every other person one meets seems to have a hand out..certainly every company you meet does..
There is a better way..more peaceful and less stressful..Time was, young men and women left the family farm to move to the city, into industry..invariably they wanted to come back..but many were too late, caught in a trap that chews people up. Folks, that ain't living. I would like to encourage younger folks to examine their priorities..do you want to spend all your life slaving for the front office, making money for other people you will likely never meet, or would you rather spend your life working for your own self, toward your own goals, where what you make is what you keep.
I have few regrets, but if I could start over knowing what I do now..I would certainly do some things differently.
Start looking for ways to avoid the parasites in the world..the very simplest way I know is to keep just two laying hens..they can live largely off of table scraps, and can produce enough eggs for a small family..I have made this analogy here before, but
just think of the resources which would not be expended if every person in just one small town did the same thing..bringing a truckload of eggs hundreds of miles, the energy used in growing, harvesting and processing the commercial feed for a house full of 30,000 chickens, and the energy to keep them cool, or warm..it all adds up to staggering numbers..or, one could step outside and chuck the table scraps to them, and when she shuts up in the morning, you can step out and collect the eggs...little things, keeping old livestock breeds is important not just to preserve them because they are, but to prevent the only source of such things from becoming the laboratory created animal..which is invariably a poor specimen. Once you have had a pastured piece of pork, or an egg..or a grass fed steak..you will not want to go back.
-Lloyd