Livestock Nutrition With an Emphasis on Small Ruminants
By Dr. Will Winter
Thirty years of experience undergird this presentation by a holistic veterinarian. How to work with mother nature to fulfill the task of raising and caring for sheep and goats for the best possible outcome, grass based diets, eliminating the need for pharmaceutical drugs, learning to respect “weeds” and hedgerows, and when to use nutritional supplements such as minerals. All these subjects and more will be covered by this energetic, engaging, and professional presenter. Dr. Winter lives in Minnesota where he raises and cares for his own sheep, goats, and hogs. He is the founder of The American Holistic Veterinary Medical Association.
Coping with Electromagnetic Fields (EMFs)
By Dan Stachofsky
There is an idea that our world is being bombarded by electromagnetic fields that have a deleterious effect on our health. Where are these fields and where do they come from? How do their effects become known? Twenty free and low-cost things we can do today to help to mitigate them.
Sheep and Goats Seminar
By Amos Miller and Matt Nolt, local conveners of a seminar on various sheep and goat breeds
Amos Miller has been partnering with his milk goats for 20 years now, making cheese and selling their milk from his farm, and Matt Nolt has been involved with sheep for 10 years. They have invited some fellow breeders of meat and milk goats and sheep to come together to share a variety of experience. They will talk about breeds of meat animals and breeds of milk animals (the plan is to review 10 breeds altogether). Represented will be breeds like Saanen, Alpine, and Boer goats, and Katahdin and Dorper sheep, among others. Shepherds present in the audience will be invited to informally share their experiences. It seems domestic sheep and goat markets are wide open for production. There is demand from certain ethnic communities as well as from younger people who are willing to try new things. For instance, it is reported that 60-70% of lamb that is eaten here is imported from other countries. Sheep and goats are well suited for small acreages, and the ewes and does with their babies can easily accommodate spaces that similar numbers of cows and bulls could not. Then in eastern PA, there is the market provided by New Holland Sales Stables just down the road in the town of New Holland. This is one of the largest, if not the largest, sheep and goat public auctions in the whole country! A counterpart is in San Angelo, TX where 6089 head were sold the week of October 10, 2023. The week of October 3, 2023 saw 6197 go through New Holland. There is room, it seems, for more sheep and goats to find pasture and go about.
Making and Using Humus Compost to Partner With Your Soils
By Jonathan Keller of Penn Valley Farms Manheim, PA
Here is another way to partner with the earth and all the living things in it for better end results. Learn the different ways raw manure, regular compost and humus compost support natural workings in the earth. How do plants dictate what they wish to absorb from the soils around them? How does humus loosen tight soils and increase root mass? How do healthy soils reduce weed and insect pressure? This is an ideal seminar for an active husband and wife team to take together, since the things learned will be just as applicable in the family garden as on the 100 and more acre farm. Learn how using organic humus can cut fertilizer costs.
Feeding and Care of Poultry
By Don Brubaker and colleagues from Fertrell in Bainbridge, PA
The Fertrell company has been in the business of formulating and producing natural and organic fertilizer, soil amendments, and livestock nutritional supplements since 1946. The topic for this seminar is the feeding and care of poultry, especially layer and meat hens, but there could be talk of turkeys and ducks too depending on the make-up of the audience. The information given will be focused on a holistic approach to caring for poultry, with a strong focus on management practices that carefully discern nutritional needs, thereby leading to good health. All of this is undertaken without the use of synthetic chemicals or antibiotics. So, the term holistic, which begins in the soil itself, also encompasses good human health when the eggs and meat provided by the animals is made into the best tasting and healthiest human sustenance possible.
Dairy Goat Panel
By two Lancaster County goatherds and two from out of state
Four dairy goat farmers with a broad variety of experience, especially geared toward marketing of milk and cheese, will make up what is sure to be an interesting panel discussion and one that could generate a lot of questions and education. Gerald Bontrager from Iowa is a second-generation goatherd who uses carefully considered mating selections for breed improvement. This kind of management shows up in the milk pail and promotes the sale of his animal’s genetics to other goatherds. Lester Stoltzfus from Lancaster County is the longest in business of the four. He has a lot of experience with creating his own markets out of sheer determination and will by sticking to it. His very first customers were mothers of new babies who could not tolerate cow’s milk, but thrived on goat milk. Isaiah Glick lives in Parke County, Indiana where he helps to consolidate all of the many gallons of goat milk produced there to get it to market. Steve Kauffman, also from Pennsylvania, specializes in the marketing of goat milk as well and sits on a milk marketing board. There will be some in-depth questions geared toward learning asked of this panel. This will be an interesting and inspiring seminar since the panelists are well acquainted friends.
A Community Nurtured by Goats
By John Bontrager of Kalona, Iowa
There is a region in Central Iowa, near Kalona, that is doing a great job with dairy goats, one of the earliest domesticated animals in all of history. There is no other comparable concentrated region in the entire world that produces as much goat milk as this region in Iowa does. This all began in 1996 and just kept growing. There are 70-75 goat dairies in a 12 square mile area with an average of 150 goats per farm, making for a total population of 10,000 plus. Most of the milk is grade B and is used for cheese making. They are being paid $44 to $46 cwt for their milk. They have also found, in the newer ethnic market, a place for selling buck kids. While in the past there were a number of farmers who milked cows and goats both, and there are still a few who do, in many cases the cows have been replaced by goats. A big attraction to goat dairying is that it takes so much less of an initial investment to get started. Also, the animals are small, so it is easier to involve small children in the work of the family.
Join this seminar to learn more about this community and how it has been able to
keep whole families on the farm, avoiding the temptation of off farm work. While this
approach to living is not a part of the rules of the church for this region, it seems that
an informal consensus of thought and lifestyle has brought this about. Come and learn
from an enthusiastic dairy goat farmer.
Sheepdog Herding Demonstrations
By John Fisher of Franklin County, PA
A low-slung canine flash of black and white is seen with tongue lolling as beady
eyes dart about looking for a stray to put back in place. Generations of the kind of
DNA needed for easy training inform the dog, coursing through its body. John Fisher
now has 45 years of experience training sheep dogs to herd, and in the last twenty
years has achieved higher levels of training. In fact, he and his sons are responsible for
taking care of a mob of 1000 ewes and lambs rotationally grazed on a 132-acre solar
farm near them. “The dogs,” he says, “are essential to this operation.” So, while to
those of us who are not accustomed to working with sheep, seeing a good dog at work
with an accomplished shepherd may be just an interesting spectacle. Though to the
shepherd, the dog is just as important as a well-trained horse, mule, or donkey is to a
successful farmer. One good sheepherding dog can easily take the place of one or two
or more people.
Intensive Grazing
By Mark Miller of Middlefield, Ohio
By Mark Miller of Middlefield, Ohio
Mark is a full-time farmer on 25 acres who also has a construction crew doing
work. On his 25 acres he and his family raise beef, turkeys, chickens, and hogs. All of
their animals are kept outdoors with no intensive confinement. He uses an organic
and permaculture approach to the land and animals attempting to be in harmony with
all of the forces of nature as intended by our Creator. He has been farming this way for
10 years now and is passionate about sharing his knowledge as a means to encourage
young people to take up faming. He will be sharing some of the journey that brought
him to finally delve into this particular kind of farming, and how he thought about it
for ten some years before a family situation pushed him into it, and how and why he
has never looked back.
Successful Backyard Beekeeping
By Tim Martin of Terre Hill, PA and Mose Beiler of Delta, York County, PA
Beekeeping, it seems, is mysteriously fascinating. Do these tiny hyper insects know that they are producing honey way beyond what is needed for their own winter food needs and enough to feed millions of human honey eaters? Tim and Mose will team up to bring you information about how to keep your backyard bees alive. They will teach basic practices of caring for bees and they will explain the equipment needed to do it. Participants will learn what kind of equipment to invest in so that they can spend wisely. Mose has been around bees so long that he seems to have a sixth sense about them, as he evaluates their hive activity and other things. While he is now a commercial beekeeper, his knowledge and expertise is very valuable to all. Tim’s operation is more backyard. Both of these beekeepers feel called to their bee activity and they wish to give their knowledge as a gift to others. ✸