The Pig Swing

Alas, today's factory farming of pork precludes such luxury treatment.

Posted By: Paul - Thu Mar 27, 2014 - Comments (19)
Category: Animals, Farming, Technology, 1960s

Gay’s Lion Farm

For almost 20 years, the only commercial lion breeding facility (and tourist attraction) "in the world."

The Wikipedia entry.

Article from 1926.

Posted By: Paul - Wed Mar 26, 2014 - Comments (5)
Category: Animals, Farming, Sightseeing, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s

The Cow Song

Elizabeth McGovern takes a break from her role in Downton Abbey to sing about cows.

Posted By: Alex - Thu Jan 23, 2014 - Comments (5)
Category: Music, Farming, Cows

Cattle Princesses

I never did understand why cows and beauty contests are often linked. It's probably a throwback to ancient pagan fertility rites. Below are the six young women who hoped to become the 1975 Kern County Cattle Princess. I don't know who won.

And below that are the young women who currently serve as California Dairy Princesses.

Posted By: Alex - Thu Aug 08, 2013 - Comments (7)
Category: Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Contests, Races and Other Competitions, Farming

Long Life Cow Award

Ballydrum Celsius Betty recently won the Northern Ireland "Long Life Cow Award" -- for the fourth time. When I first saw this, I assumed it meant she was an extremely old cow, and I thought it was odd there was an annual cow longevity contest. But no, it seems that the Long Life Cow Award is more like a lifetime achievement award for cows, given to cows who consistently produce a large amount of high-quality milk.

Ballydrum Celsius Betty is only 15 yrs old, which isn't even particularly old for a cow, since cows often reach the age of 20. Apparently the oldest cow on record is Big Bertha, who lived to be 49. After her death she was stuffed and is now on display somewhere in Beaufort, County Kerry.

Posted By: Alex - Sun Aug 04, 2013 - Comments (2)
Category: Farming, Cows

Please Poop, Mr. Cow!

Although modern science has been able to send a man to the moon, it has not been able to make cows poop on command. An effort to solve this shortcoming is described in a recent issue of Applied Animal Behaviour Science.

The thing is, it would be really nice, for the purpose of general hygiene, if farmers could convince cows to stop pooping wherever they felt like it. So researchers devised a series of tests to see if prompts such as walking through a footbath, or being exposed to blasts of air or water, could stimulate bovine defecation. No such luck. The researchers concluded, "None of our tests reliably stimulated defecation, which seemed to occur most when cows were exposed to novelty."

Posted By: Alex - Sun Feb 17, 2013 - Comments (7)
Category: Science, Experiments, Farming, Cows, Excrement

Cranberry Tour

Wooden bridge inspection. Arrow dipping. All pinnacles of monotony and boredom. Does the student-led cranberry tour measure up to these high standrards?

You decide!

Posted By: Paul - Tue Apr 17, 2012 - Comments (2)
Category: Boredom, Education, Regionalism, Farming, Documentaries

Sunglasses for Chickens

Invented in 1937 to control cannibalism among chickens. Apparently chickens have a natural instinct to peck each other, but the sight of blood intensifies this instinct. So much so that if one chicken has blood on its feathers, all the others in the flock will peck it to death. This was a real problem for farmers until these rose-colored chicken sunglasses came along, which made it hard for the chickens to see the sight of blood. Nowadays, farmers must have other solutions to the problem of chicken cannibalism, because these glasses are no longer manufactured and are considered collector's items. (National Band and Tag via Feathered Forager)

Posted By: Alex - Mon Apr 02, 2012 - Comments (6)
Category: Animals, Farming, Cannibalism, Fashion

Another Helping of Food Related Weirdness – 7

Scientists have a history of accomplishing what was once thought impossible, be it walking on the moon, splitting the atom or alleviating pain and disease. But now they may have discovered something that will eclipse all that has come before; scientists are on the verge of making chocolate better! A team lead by Dr. Siela Maximova from Pennsylvania State University has pieced together the genetic code of the cacao tree, and not just any cacao tree but the Criollo variety that is widely recognised to produce the very best chocolate. Because of its poor disease resistance, Criollo is almost entirely ignored in favour of hybrid varieties that yield more – if inferior – beans, but Maximova et al hope their work will enable the development of new, elite strains of cacao (News.com.AU).

Meanwhile, here is someone who is taking the chocolate maker’s art way too literally. Jean Zaun of Fredericksburg in Pennsylvania uses a mixture of dark and white chocolate, food colouring and confectioner’s glaze to recreate famous works of art, including the frames, in a deliciously edible form. Her subjects have included the works of Van Gogh, Munch and Da Vinci, as well as a portrait of Ozzy Osborne commissioned by his wife. While the chocolate artworks are edible, Zaun believes they should be souvenirs rather than snacks. “They are meant to be consumed by the eye, not the stomach.” Zaun Explained (Daily Mail).

And the misuse of materials won’t stop there, at least not if Dr. Peter Eisner of the Fraunhofer Institute gets his way. Concerned that meat consumption is both unhealthy and bad for the environment, Dr. Eisner has started looking for ways to supplement or replace animal products with vegetable equivalents. His first success is a milk substitute derived from lupins that can even be used to make cheese, meanwhile co-worker Daniela Sussmann has extracted a protein from the seeds gives low-fat sausages more of the sensation of their unadulterated competition. Eisner reckons that our ever growing appetite for meat could one day be disastrous, arguing that the resources needed to produce 1 kilo of meat could instead yield 80 to 100 kilos of fruit or vegetables (Softpedia).



More in extended >>

Posted By: Dumbfounded - Mon Jan 10, 2011 - Comments (7)
Category: Agriculture, Animals, Farming, Art, Food, Bacon, Candy, Junk Food, Nutrition, Vegetables

It’s Not What You Think

I know what my first thought was when I saw the headline 'Weed Dating'. Unfortunately it doesn't involve that kind of weed. This is a take on the popular speed dating model - except instead of meeting for a few minutes in a bar, you meet in a field, and pick weeds. Participants weed a row with a potential romantic interest and then move on to another row and another partner. While there hasn't been much romantic success, the idea has created enthusiasm among Farmer's Associations around the country. You can read more about weed dating here.

Posted By: Nethie - Fri Oct 15, 2010 - Comments (14)
Category: Agriculture, Domestic, Nature, Farming