Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Forage Plants
True grasses, legumes, and forbs are considered forage plants. True grasses,
such as timothy, brome, bluestem, fescue, orchard grass, and even corn, are
monocotyledons (monocots), or plants that initially grow from a single leaf.
The legumes, such as alfalfa, clover, and bird's-foot trefoil, start growing from
two leaves and are called dicotyledons (dicots). Another difference between
monocots and dicots is the root system: typically, monocots have a more
raising artifi cially. So what I built was basically a greenhouse with double insula-
tion and ridge-vent insulation to raise lambs in. It was one of the best things we
did at Old Chatham! They had beautiful, modern barns — with well-designed
ventilation — but that greenhouse, which cost less than 10,000 dollars, was by far
the most effi cient and effective building on the property.
“It had better air quality than the other barns, and it was really a pleasure
to work in there, even in the winter. Raising lambs artifi cially on a large scale,
you deal with pneumonia and other health problems, and those were drastically
reduced from the regular barns. You never could get the air quality in the regular
barns like you could get in the hoop houses.”
Ken told me that before he left Old Chatham, they also installed an auto-
matic feeding system that allowed the lambs to nurse at will, with constant
access to warm milk. “That also made a tremendous difference in how the lambs
performed,” Ken said. “The units were manufactured by Biotic Industries [see
Resources], and they were fairly inexpensive for how well they worked.”
At Glynwood, Ken's fl ock is much smaller; there are about 20 mixed-breed
ewes. “We have some East Friesian-Dorset crosses, but for a while I had a
California Red ram, so now they really are a mix. I used to think, if I was going to
do a commercial operation raising lambs, I'd have some East Friesian in the blood-
lines, because they're very productive ewes: they contribute to multiple births and
have abundant milk to raise the lambs. So that's basically why we've ended [up]
going with East Friesian as the foundation of our small fl ock. If you breed these
East Friesian crosses with a paternal sire, like a Texel, those lambs have the genet-
ics to grow fast. They make beautiful hot house lambs for the Easter market,” Ken
said. Then, with a laugh, he added, “At least, that's my two cents.”
