Re: I've read the new standards

Marjorie Rayburn (mrayburn@chowan.ces.state.nc.us)
Mon, 5 Jan 1998 10:21:42 -0500 (EST)

I am not an authority on the organic standards by any means. However,
my husband and I raise sheep and cattle (hormone-free and antibiotic free
except in medical treatment situations) on our farm in North Carolina and I
have wrestled with these same questions in our operation - to see if we want to
go to the additional effort to become organic.
As far as feed is concerned, as long as you can get a good idea of what
proportion of the sows' feed would come from gleaning non-organic corn fields,
it should be permissible if within allowable limits. (How much supplemental
feed-organic- do they also get?)
Vaccination is definitely permitted.
To me, NOT vaccinating is not an option. We have lost some animals to
preventable diseases before we were on a GOOD vaccination program - a heifer to
black leg, lambs to some clostridial diseases - all preventable by vaccination.
A livestock producer (organic or otherwise) cannot afford to lose animals to
preventable disease which might be prevalent in their area. That said, I will
also tell you we don't vaccinate for everything. There is a footrot (can be
bad in sheep) vaccine for sheep. It protects against several strains of
footrot organisms. However, we have been able to virtually eliminate footrot
from our flock by severe culling of all individuals with chronic footrot
problems and making sure we got rid of any of their offspring that were still
in our flock. You've got to know the disease potential in your situation. If
you've had no history of a given disease (and your herd is closed) and a
disease is not found in your area, you may not want to vaccinate. Once there
is a potential for a disease, go ahead and protect your animals. Also,
vaccinating the sows should help protect their pigs. So, timing is important,
too.
Regarding use of paraciticides - Looking at the animals and taking
fecal samples for analysis would give you a fairly good indication of when
worming was needed and for which paracites. You surely don't want to wait
until animals start showing the ill effects of internal paracites before taking
action. It is also important to know when internal paracite populations are
likely to build up (in the case of sheep, there is a demonstratable rise in
some worm populations before lambing) and to time your wormer applications for
those periods. Using this information to design your paracite treatment (or
prevention) program would be "NON-ROUTINE" - at least from my perspective.
Routine worming would be more like worming on a calendar basis, say once a
month, in the absence of any demonstrated need or evidence of a potential need
based on the animal's and paracite's life cycle and environmental conditions.
There are ways to reduce the incidence of paracitism, but I don't believe you
can completely eliminate the problem in most situations without relying on
paraciticides to some extent.

In general, one of my biggest concerns about some people raising
"organic livestock" is that they will focus on the need to do it without
"synthetic inputs" and end up with sickly, unhealthy animals. And from the
aspect of animal well-being, etc., to me that is not acceptable. Raising
livestock is different than raising crops. You are dealing with living,
breathing, non-human animals. Although they are destined to provide us with
food, we, as humans, have a responsibility to respect their needs and provide
them with good quality, humane care during the time we share this earth with
them.

I'd appreciate hearing any further discussion on this topic. I realize
some of the organic purists may have some problems with my philosophy, but I
will ask them how much experience they have had raising livestock and ask them
to think about the moral aspects of withholding treatment from animals that
would otherwise keep them healthy. Also consider that what is practical for
raising a few pigs or lambs, or a steer to put in the freezer may not be so for
a larger herd or flock.

I also strongly feel that an integrated livestock-crop (including
vegetables) farm is a more sustainable system than one in which livestock and
crops are separated on different farms or even in different parts of the
country.

Thanks for letting me have my say. I plan to incorporate these
thoughts into some more official comments on the organic livestock standards.

Marjorie Rayburn

P.S. These are my personal comments and opinions and may or may not reflect
the views of the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service or NC State
University.

On Jan 4, 9:36pm, Greg and Lei Gunthorp wrote:
> Subject: I've read the new standards
> I just read the new proposed USDA standards on livestock production.
> Can anbody tell me if the following assumptions are correct?
> I can use vaccinations. I only vaccinate sows prebreeding now.
> I can use 20% non organic feed. Can this be sows gleaning non-organic corn
feilds in early
> gestation.
> I can use paraciticides if they aren't used routinely. Would worming only
sows be considered
> non routine.
>
> The way I read it, these production practices would easily comply.
> If they have lowered the crop and vegtable standards to these levels watch
out because
> organic prices are coming down. I'm raising organic pigs according to these
regulations once
> I quit banding my corn!
> Best wishes,
> Greg Gunthorp
> hey4hogs@kuntrynet.com
>
>
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>-- End of excerpt from Greg and Lei Gunthorp

--
Marjorie Rayburn  (Ms. IPM)
E-Mail  : mrayburn@chowan
Internet: mrayburn@chowan.ces.ncsu.edu
Phone   : (919) 482-8431


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