Farms.com Home   News

Agriculture This Week: Farming always evolving

When you have grown up on a farm in the 1960s and ‘70s it is almost beyond belief the changes in farming we see today. 

It was a mixed farm for me, and that meant pigs and grain. 

In my youth I hauled a lot of ground grain to feed the pigs using cleaned five-gallon pails that originally were filled with some weed spray, or another. 

Looking back over some 40-years it seems like it was such a crazy thing, but repurposing the pails was pretty standard. I’m pretty sure potatoes came from the garden to the cellar bin in similar pails. 

Of course I clearly recall Dad taking plugged nozzles off the sprayer, his gloves getting soaked in the process, and then simply blowing out the nozzle with his breath. 

Knowing what we do now it’s a wonder what health problems were caused in a time we didn’t know better, or were reluctant to change. Dad lived to a considerable age, his heart giving out one day, but one wonders. 


Trending Video

Cull Or Keep? Sheep Sorting Day

Video: Cull Or Keep? Sheep Sorting Day

To Cull Or Keep? It's decision time at Ewetopia Farms. Today, we tackle one of the toughest parts of sheep farming—deciding which sheep stay as part of our breeding program and which ones will be culled and sent to market.We start by getting another batch of ram lambs ready for shipping, a job that never gets easier no matter how many times we do it. Then, we move on to our older ewes to evaluate whether they’re still fit to produce lambs for another season. These decisions are never made lightly. We carefully consider their age, past lambing records, udder health, and overall condition.