Travis Johnson
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Heres where that rut comes in,, to many farmers( I'm not saying you) only see the amount of grain coming off of an acre, and don't look at the nutritional value of that grain.
Feed a more nutritional feed and feed less of it. Then you end up with a higher net income. We don't feed any oats or wheat anymore. Even in the cold weather we had this year my brothers chickens never quit laying, years before it was not uncommon to have egg production down 50 or 60% in cold weather. Now we are only down 15 to 20%.
I am glad you clarified things though, I was about to head out of state and have that tractor to tractor show down like they had in "Foot loose".
It does get my dander up when I hear that statement though, only because I see so many people fall into the great many farming fads that are out there. It's not so much a rut as it is being cautious.
As for feed, I hear you on that. We went to high protein feed long before it was vogue around here. Now we are making 16 dollars a hundred weight when others are making $9 simply because their quality is down. I can't feed sheep oats or wheat however because of the copper content in it...it would kill them. That leaves me with corn, but I'm fine with that. You get more tons to the acre with it and obviously we plant enough of it. But keep in mind, we grow hybrid-corn too so it is designed to be softer and the cows/sheep eat a lot more of it. Overall it makes good feed and if you were in the same position as me, your probably would feed it out too. It just makes sense.
PS: Have you seen that new corn planted by John Deere that can plant a staggered row? Each row head can be controlled by a computer hooked to GPS so that you never plant over a previous row. Its a cool invention because it will save a lot in planting costs. They call it the John Deere RTK Planter. Here is what it can do. Amazing huh?
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