My family eats mostly organic. Do we eat organic all the time? No, because sometimes we buy processed food that’s not organic. It’s just the truth of it. And even things labeled as organic, Annie’s Mac n Cheese for instance, is not 100% organic. In fact, they don’t even use organic cheese, which is one thing you may just assume they do use when you’re buying organic macaroni and cheese.
We do make a point to check ingredients and know what we’re eating. We try to make the healthiest choices we can, especially avoiding GMO products like corn, soy, wheat, and potatoes. These things we buy organic 100% of the time or we check the labels if it’s something like potato chips to ensure we’re not getting some kind unGodly (literally!) food items.
95% of the produce we buy is organic; bananas and pineapple are perhaps the few things we buy regularly that aren’t organic. We do this not only because we believe it’s healthier for us but because we want to support farmers who take care of the environment by avoiding pesticides and GMOs that are killing bees and other insects and animals at an alarming rate. The dieoff of bees is terrifying but I’m not going to go into that right now; you can research that for yourself. And there’s always more to learn. I will say one thing about bees, actually, because this is something not many people know:
If you care about bees (or about humans not becoming extinct), do not buy almonds or almond milk from California. More about this later in another post.
Anyway, it makes sense that we would want to have our pets and “livestock” for lack of a better word, though really our animals are our family, to also be fed a clean diet, both for their own health and because we are consuming milk from the goats and eventually eggs from the ducks and chickens.
I would have thought in my Pre-Farmer Leah era that this would be easy. That Leah thought that the only reason people would avoid organic feed is that it is cost prohibitive for some. Or people didn’t view organic food the same way we do…necessary for optimal health.
Ha. That Leah had so much to learn.
It’s actually REALLY DARN HARD to get organic animal stuffs, especially hay and no-soy no-corn organic feed.
Let’s see…Tractor Supply carries organic goat and chicken feed now, but guess what the first two ingredients are? Yup, soy and corn. If you’re not familiar with the dangers of soy I recommend reading up on it, though it’s a controversial subject so you may find that you feel okay eating it. Do what feels right to you. Corn is a cheap filler feed with little nutritional value.
A local feed store in my area sells organic no-soy feed for chickens but it does have wheat and corn in it. It’s also processed into pellets that look nothing like what food should look like in my opinion! And it’s chalky and dusty and just…gross.
So in order to get organic feed that I feel good about I have to either:
- Order from Azure Standard which is a neat concept (a buying co-op with bulk discounts) but in reality in our area it just frustrates us and wastes our time. The truck comes once a month and it is always late. We’ve ordered 3 times from them. It’s been between 15 minutes and 2 hours late. I’m serious. Two hours that you’re sitting in a parked car that requires air conditioning because #texaslife and you have a whining toddler-sized child who needs to pee in a non-existent bathroom. Yes, that did happen. And yes, I’m the mom who plops my child in the grassy spot of the church parking lot because what other option is there, really?
- Order several weeks ahead from a feed store that carries the brands I use but not the products I want so that they will add my order onto theirs when they place their biweekly order. This is what we do end up doing but it’s frustrating too because they never call me when my food comes in, it’s never a predictable regular day of the week that it comes in, and because it’s an hour and a half from my house in each direction.
And by the way, there is a third option of going to an organic feed mill about an hour away from our house, but I don’t care for feed mixes because reading the ingredients it’s clear to me they are always the opposite of actually being natural. Tons of manmade vitamins and things in them. I prefer a nice whole foods diet when possible, supplemented with individual minerals for the goats to choose from. Therefore I make my own goat feed. The chickens and ducks and horses do get mixed feed, but I’m not going to drive two places when I can just drive to the one place and get all that I need.
So yes…in order to get organic and/or non-GMO feed for my goats, chickens, ducks, and horses I have to
a) Plan ahead to make sure never to run out of feed
b) Keep calling to see if my feed has arrived
c) Drive a friggin hour and a half each way
So there’s the feed. Done. But the goats and horses require grasses and if you see how little it rains in good old Texas you’ll know that we don’t have a lush grassy pasture for our animals to graze on. We have to buy hay for them. I never did have farm animals in other states so I had no idea of the highway robbery involved here until talking to one of my friends in upstate New York who has decided to start growing grasses and selling organic hay. I about died when he said he could sell it for $3 a bale. Excuse me? For non-organic hay here in Texas, if it’s the native varieties, hay bales of the same size are $10 a bale. When I said $10 he said, “Are you sure you mean the little square bales and not the round bales?” No, see the round bales here in Texas are $55-85 depending on the size. Highway robbery. But it’s not really, because we don’t get rain and so hay is hard to come by sometimes! And yes, farmers work their butts off more than most people (consumers) can even imagine. Farm life is HARD. Farmers are underpaid and underappreciated. So I really do get it with the cost, but still shocking to see such a difference when compared to New York where it does rain on a regular basis and they can grow more throughout the year.
We were very lucky to have found an organic orchard grass hay place that delivers it to us and that’s $10 a bale too; same price as the non-organic hay sold at Tractor Supply here. Unfortunately a few weeks ago the very sweet hay company owner called me to say that someone had just offered to buy their last remaining bales of hay (he doesn’t expect enough rainfall to get any more hay in 2018). Would we like any more before he sold it to them? He wanted to know. So we coughed up the money for 200 bales ($2 off per bale at least!) because what else can we do? We don’t have any other sources for organic hay. This is our only option.
And dairy goats do well on alfalfa, too. Alfalfa has tons of protein and calcium and alfalfa basically equals milk. Up the alfalfa and you get more milk per goat. They love it; it’s basically to them what cupcakes are too me, except it sustains them instead of making them crazy, ha. To be fair, goats are crazy regardless of what you feed them. So we have been feeding about 50% orchard grass hay and 50% alfalfa hay.
But sadly alfalfa does not grow locally. (Interesting to note because that also means we are not eating locally if we are eating animal products of animals that had to have their feed shipped in. That’s still causing an environmental impact and bigger footprint. The things you don’t think of as a consumer!) Our alfalfa grows in New Mexico, Colorado, and Arizona. Now the scary thing about alfalfa is that it absolutely is not safe for animals if it’s organically grown in the southern part of the country. That’s because it contains blister beetles which will kill livestock. So there is not any sources of organic alfalfa around here because of this, and honestly I wouldn’t want to buy it if there was because that’s quite a risk to take. So we have been buying sprayed alfalfa (sprayed with both fertilizer and pesticides) but that is non-GMO. Unfortunately most alfalfa IS GMO so it’s good to check on that and at least get the God-made variety. Still. The pesticides are not optimal and I’m not happy about it.
We also have in the past purchased Chaffhaye, which is a non-GMO fermented alfalfa that comes
in a sealed bag. It smells like beer (can’t stand it but others love the smell) and once opened must be consumed within 10 days. Everyone seems to think this is a good option but in reality this stuff is sprayed with pesticides too, and in fact they use a pesticide that’s been banned in Europe. Yeah, no thanks.
So what does that leave if you’re feeding alfalfa? Good old processed alfalfa pellets. Those you can get organic; I’m guessing they’re sourced from northern states that don’t have scary blister beetles because even consuming dead ones is deadly. I don’t love processed food. It’s not natural. It takes a lot of energy requirements to process. But it IS organic and since that’s the priority for us then we see that as our best option right now. I can actually buy these at the Tractor Supply down the road; some kind of miracle really since they don’t carry much in the way of organic.
So there’s the feed. But with goats there’s something else that’s needed, too. Minerals. Unfortunately because our soils are so depleted and because most goats don’t have access to tons of browse due to living in pens or cleared areas, they don’t get all the minerals they require. Some people buy a bag of mixed minerals and set some out in a container for their goats to free feed. But that’s tricky because if they need more of one mineral in the mix, they can’t get it without overdoing the other ones. That’s why we buy individual minerals. We have 18 mineral holders that take up one wall of our goat enclosure. The goats know what they need and they take it when they need it. It’s pretty cool to watch and if I were a more organized person I’m sure it would be good to take notes on what is running out when and all that. They do go through phases that maybe have to do with the weather or the seasons of eating lots of something. Some minerals they never seem to eat. It’s fascinating.
Our animals are all happy and healthy looking, so I feel we are doing well. But easy it is not. I sometimes wonder what it would be like to be like most farm people in this country (sorry but not sorry, it’s the truth) who just go to the feed store near them, get the cheapest feed, and don’t think twice about it. I think ignorance actually can be bliss. The amount of stress all the planning and travel adds to life isn’t awesome. But in the end we do what we feel is best for our family members, both two legged and four.
