Profitable journey (1955)

you I that's the thing is he now I'm oh my feet a grass me a little Rick and in the summer boiled you grow I came to run on in common for the pic have led to a grass if he can bind him but other cattle don't leave much behind him and then besides lk oh boy we do later geese run out among the Emmett hills and in the winter we do fat him well and garm to the market / to sell to gentle votes and then when I am nothing else to do boy I can take my hook and gloves and go and cut a lot of buzz and briars very 8 in novels or for lightin fires this is farming today changed beyond the wildest dreams of the country people who less than a hundred years ago lived off their land kept their cow and patted their keys to sell to gentle folk whether we like it or whether we don't those days are gone for good and farming nowadays is a business and a highly skilled highly competitive business at that it was a bit over 200 years ago that farming started changing growing up into a business as the Industrial Revolution drew people from the land into cities and the great commercial centers so these rapidly growing populations made the first demands on the farming community for greater efficiency and higher production phrases were still very familiar with today and year by year as the cities grew the agricultural output grew with them but it seems that every step forward we take in Modern Life brings not only new advantages but new problem and so it has always been with the development of modern methods of transport came competition for the farmer in his growing market in the form of cheap imported produce from abroad and to the first of his basic problems that have keeping production levels high enough to satisfy the needs of the country's larder with added a second how to do this at a cost low enough to meet competition and still show a reasonable return for the long hours and hard work of his seven day a week job production up costs down is a problem as old as commercial farming itself and it is with us now as much as ever but today we've got science on our side and with its help we've gone a long way on the road to finding an answer submit a grass we mow nowadays has behind it years of research into soil properties and plant nutrition and seed fertility as we cut not only bigger but better quality crops to every acre and this is true of every aspect of arable farming and far from picking a blade of grass on the common our scientifically bread herds are fed a balance scale of nutrition without which there hi gallon each yield just wouldn't be possible yes even the most conservative farmers a day he would agree that farming is scientific and why shouldn't it be as far as we're concerned scientific means efficient and wherever you look in farming you can see evidence of scientific research and the readiness with which the successful farmer has put the scientists discoveries to work within his own pattern of management's like farming itself research goes on day in and day out all over the world continually discovering new or improved ways of producing more quickly or cheaply in fact more efficiently and I think it's true to say that no where are these advantages to be seen more clearly than in the field of animal feeding young people starting in on livestock farming nowadays must understand nutrition not just the oil fiber and protein analysis but the whole range of an animal or a bird's nutritional needs and the ways we have of satisfying them as we progress through breeding development further and further away from purely natural livestock with birds capable of laying 232 240 eggs a year or the cows producing more than a thousand gallons of milk in a single lactation or the pig achieving specialized body conformation and wait for baton in under six month so the specialized reading of need animals to make the greatest use of their inbred capacity for growth becomes something the farmer must clearly understand we must make sure first that the feeds we give to our stock do satisfy all their nutritional needs and second that our poetry and our pig and our cattle are able to make the fullest use of these fee nutritional research and the improved production facilities of the great speed compounding industry or making it more and more easy to feed a completely balanced fashion but how to make sure that these speeds are not wasted as for many years been a more difficult problem there is probably no such thing or two completely healthy animal now that may sound a bit far-fetched but looking back we can all remember the birds which didn't lay up to expectation or the batch of pig that took longer to get to market than we'd record on that didn't seem to be anything wrong with the look of them but they just didn't do so well well livestock like this I nearly always suffering from what is called sub-clinical disease now this is quite simply the result of a buildup of harmful bacteria inside the bird or animal which have the effect of upsetting the smooth working of its body to the extent that those its physical development and its production capacity are reduced now this is a very real condition which is prevented farmers for many years from getting the full margin of profit from their investment in stock and feeding stuff and then along came the scientists with an answer in the form of a new antibiotics discovery for in 1949 at the thigh an amid laboratories at Pearl River in America scientists came upon an absolutely new growth factor in animal the Year previous vitamin b12 had been discovered in the cyanamid workers were trying to find out how much of this new vitamin was present in certain fermentation residues tests showed however that when these residues were added to the feed of young chicks they grew faster and look better than when vitamin b12 alone without it this remarkable difference over a long series of tests proved to be due to a substance called Oreo meisten chlortetracycline which was a broad-spectrum antibiotic which is a locked in for the rich sound let me explain the bacteria which build up under normal farm conditions retarding growth development and all the same kind there are many different species and of the many antibiotics that have been discovered some have an effect on a few kinds of bacteria while others affect many kinds it isn't very difficult therefore to understand why those which acts on a limited range are called narrow spectrum antibiotics and those that are effective over a wide range are called broad-spectrum antibiotics in the cyanamid laboratories long and careful experiments with a new broad spectrum antibiotic Ori of meissen proved that when minut quantities were added to an already balanced feed the growth response was far and away above that the same feed without the new antibiotic comparisons of weight and development told really remarkable story the birds that had been fed with Oreo meisten were heavier weathering was more complete and mortality was cut right down pigs grew faster we'll found a carcass formation they suffered less from costly and wasteful diseases and they made better and therefore cheaper use of their feet and this general picture didn't apply just a farm animal dogs were healthier and more vigorous grabit put on flesh better and faster and mink grew better with finer thicker coats proving the general benefit to be gained by all animal but of course the real value of this discovery was with farm animals and the problem facing the scientists was that of turning a laboratory discovery into a practical farming fact the whole cyanamid research team with its enormous resources of knowledge and machinery concentrated on the problem of producing the most effective feed supplements and they needed all their resources but they were dealing with a very potent material which needed only to be used in minut quantities for a ton of feed despite its far-reaching effects with laboratory tests that is factually finished China me then carried out a series of field trial first on their own experimental farm and then under practical conditions on farms all over the country well I've no doubt that like me a lot of you read about this work in the Molly prick as I've said you've gotta keep abreast of what's view these days and I expect like me you ready the result that found within America were getting and wondered perhaps with some mental reservation just how this new development in feeding would affect our own livestock on British farm under our own conditions of management and we farmers weren't the only ones thinking this way British firms do institutions carried out many exhaustive field trials until in 1953 official blessing was given for the use of Oreo my sin in commercial feed ID a mixed invite a compounder or available to the farmer at 40 fact 2 a's now I'd better explain that I'm running intensive pigs and poultry and for the last few years I've run about 30 breeding cows taking most of the pink suit a bacon and about 1500 layers on deep litter with about 2,000 growers to follow on obviously if earlier my sin was effective as it was supposed to be it could save me a lot of money and I'm not one of the people who think they've got enough of that so after a while I decided to go round and our other farmers who'd been a bit quicker off the mark than me about the result they were getting my first while he was cuffed I was using a good compounded feed and I couldn't see how it would pay me to lay out another 10 shillings a ton for fatma or as much as above a hundred wait for the rearing meal well among others mr. e w pepper of steeple morden in half at sure gave me the answer he was one of the very first or affect users in this country and that generally improved health of his whole herd has meant as far as he's concerned but for every foreign sentence of pinky spend on oreo my sin he gets at least an extra pound of pig profits of course I found the profit figures buried from farm to farm but were always quite convincing and the tests carried eyes at the Agricultural Research Council's field station at Compton showed an extra profit of twenty nine shillings of thick down at lower Gannicus farm at fraud was in Worcestershire mr. tireman was much more concerned with that old bugbear scouring his piglets hadn't been eating and as a result they were doing very poorly after arranging to have Oreo meisten included in his creep feed the trouble cleared up and on his farm he continued to feed it regularly to his young figs with no more trouble and weaning weights higher than it had before it was to shut mr. t jackson of action farm near starport with over 5000 birds kept both on deep litter and in batteries was naturally enough a great believer in bringing all his birds and delay at the same time we've all known a nuisance and cost of having late started in any system and he'd found that all you my son in the feed for around five or six weeks before moving the birds off range and into their laying quarters I've got all these birds off to a really good start at the same time and he said they laid better too so did mr. K beard of lease intimate was too shocked when I saw him later in the year his birds were averaging 85-percent and he told me that he personally reckoned it was a good thing to feed in audio mice in about 36 grams to the ton about midway through the season to ease them over the strain of this regular high production he didn't get so many birds breaking down he said and the cost was more than covered by the extra eggs they got from all the burn digs again when I called nether street farmers dramamine musa and met mr. David lennart breeding troubles a couple of years ago had started him using it he was getting more than his share of runs and I don't suppose there are many of us who haven't been sorry to do away with young pigs that not worth keeping but Mr Lennard added three quarters of a pound of all effect to a to each hundredweight of his creep feat and actually got his grunting through to bacon at the same time as those on normal ration and for a profit point of view it trade off very well another laying bird situation I ran into on my travels on mr. our Pauling's farmer kitesurf in Suffolk he normally kept around 3000 playing birds he was very saw the advantages he was getting you see said I'm working on the whole on fairly tight margin any sudden drop in egg production affects me a lot you never know quite when that'll happen when it does I've got to get on to it quickly I always keep a supply of all effect ready to mix in with the mash as a sort of emergency measure till I can get in a stock of feed with it in and it really does get them going again another thing he told me was that like many smaller farmers he always ran a few birds on for the second year and by including audio meissen in the ration towards the end of that time he could extend the laying period by as much as six to seven weeks what's more their body weight kept up right to the end and he got a much better price when he eventually cleared them out I suppose among the smaller pig men buying in wieners from a number of other farms the greatest enemy is virus pneumonia mr. W Stephens of emperor in Worcestershire tell me that whenever he heard that dry cough in his houses he used in his mind to add another three weeks to its feeding bill if he was lucky because the real danger is that while virus pneumonia in itself doesn't do much harm it pulls the pigs down and lays them out into secondary infections which really do cause damage for him or her my sin had seemed to build up the growing pigs resistance to these secondary infections and had cut out that coughing but none of us likes to hear from our Pig one of my biggest objections overcome not by a farmer interested like myself in pigs and laying birds but by leftenant Colonel Corvin a box house shopped and in herefordshire who takes around 20,000 turkeys through his farm every year I'd always felt that if your management were really good antibiotics wouldn't make much difference there wasn't much doubt about the standard of management on Colonel Corbett's farm and when I told mr. Percy Bailey the turkey manager what was in my mind he laughed yes he said he did just that thought himself what's more when he started on or effect he'd been unable to see any difference in his Birds need said so to his travel okay belong to see him but he was told that unless he was using it at the correct level he might as well drop his money down a drain better still keep it and not use antibiotics at all he had been using five grams of the tongue but when he switched to the proper level of 18 grams he could see the different the boats feathered better got away quicker and he had far fewer casualties they had better and while feed conversion improved slightly he raised his average weight per bird to market by more than two and a quarter pounds in the same time and as far as he was concerned he found it paid to feed all the way through from hatching to slaughter just like my broiler contact out in Sussex mr. mb mills manager Fisher farms limited there's really no other answer for Euler's he said just look at the birds you've got on these floors here if you think you're working to tight margins in other branches of farming you want to try this business well over a quarter of a million birds have got to leave our farms about every ten weeks wearing an average three and three-quarter town once more we don't make a living unless our feed conversion is better than three two one we can't afford to lose bird and we're only getting a three percent mortality here now as far as I'm concerned preventative level aureum ison in the feed isn't a matter of choice it's an absolute necessity all these men and others I met and talked to were practical farmers who are just saying what they had proved themselves maybe some of you have seen some familiar faces people you yourselves know and what these men thought convinced me to I think I knew then that might have been a profitable journey and that's what it's turned out to be on my farm today the use of antibiotics is an integral part of my management program it's giving me a greater overall margin of profit than I had before at little additional costs or trouble my birds are laying better both in numbers and size of aches and they're doing it on less feed I often wonder how many of us realize the amount of food material we waste hi its passing unchanged through the body of an animal or bird not healthy enough to make use of it when your birds are using all their feed to the fool then your profits aren't going into the dropping spit and it's no trouble because I'm using a proprietary feed fortified with the correct level of Oreo meissen by the compounder both in the laying houses and then the starter essence the baby chicks my pigs of course for a different matter but they are really no more trouble to feed for my young litters I'm using a proprietary creep feat which has built into it the manufacturers recommended level of 36 grams of Oreo mice into a tongue young pigs need a good creep feed to carry them over the fall away period of the scows lactation and personally I carry it on for a couple of weeks after i move the star away from them so they don't get the upset of separation and of a feed change at once after that I change them gradually over to my compounders we know ration with Oreo my sin at the rate of 18 grams per tonne you will notice how even the little while I'm weaning out at around the 43 pound average it's that evening i think is really important I don't get valuable fattening house accommodation occupied by one or two slower pigs and bullying and fighting isn't any sort of a problem when they get to around 120 pound mark I use a pig finishing Russian which I make up myself I draw lot of my own grain which I mixed with a balanced a meal that I'm able to reduce the amount of all effect that I add to this feed to only 10 grams of tongue and believe me it hey isn't that a lot of trouble people ask me well judge for yourself I mix up a couple of tons of feet at a time and I way out my six tons of ore effect its sufficient for two tons of feet at the 10 gram level how do I know well with a simple little table on the back of the bag which gives all the information you want so many grams per tonne so many pounds per ton and in practice I find it works out at about six handfuls per six pounds I put about half a ton of my veil into the mixer but at the balance I leave it to turn over in the machine well I mix up a bit of my darling meal with your effect fire hands as early as I can and I feed this into the mix about a scoopful and then letting the rest of the cereal let it turn over for about half an hour doing it like this I make sure I get a thorough mix and that's all there is to it well that's all you are my sin on my farm Y&I add it to my own feet I use for a fact to a which is this but as i've told you i also have polio meissen already mixed into my compounded feet I suppose that if you'd walked around my farm for years ago you would say you couldn't see much difference today but how can you see two weeks less feeding for every pig on the place just how different there's a bird that is laying 17 dozen eggs a year really look from one that is laying 20 dozen how can you see unseen disease subclinical disease or walking around a farm see lower mortality or all the other benefits that Oreo Mason can bring you can see them only as i did in the results of others and finally you yourself can achieve buys you and so we come full circle for today efficient farming we said is scientific farming and here surely is a contribution by science that we who farm can take and use with confidence and meet the challenge of today with the methods of tomorrow