September 3, 2021
ECAA Vendor Opportunities
You can promote your business while you promote ECAA at the upcoming Pints in the Pines event on September 18th. ECAA will have a booth at the event from 12:00 pm to 10:00 pm in Casey Jones Park, and those who volunteer to hand out information and help sign up members can have a four square foot area of table space to sell your products or promote your services. You may also hang a ledger sized sign in the back of the booth while you are there. We can have up to five volunteers per hour. Volunteer now as slots on the schedule are already in demand by sending an email to execcom@elbertcountyagalliance.org. If you need a booth of your own there are still spaces available through the Elizabeth Area Chamber of Commerce.
Probiotics for Birds
You went out to the chicken coop one day and found two of your favorite hens on top of another one pecking her with bloody ferocity. You broke up the fight, but you were astounded at how your sweet girls could be such vicious demon-birds. The good news is that animal welfare scientists are studying this very problem. In a recently published study, scientists reported that lactobacillus rhamnosus, a probiotic commonly added to yogurts, cheeses, and other dairy products, is shown to provide a therapeutic effect making chickens less prone to feather pecking when under stress. To learn more about how L. rhamnosus helps regulate the communication between the gut and brain in chickens check out the study results at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-96615-x. If you want to try this with your chickens remember they have a limited ability to break down lactose, so take it easy on the yogurt or carefully follow the instructions in the study on suspending the powdered form of L. rhamnosus in water.
Volunteer and/or Work with Horses
Journey With Equus, is looking for volunteers to help build additional sheds as soon as possible. Additionally, they are in need of a new barn manager. This individual should have horse and livestock experience (particularly horses) and the ability to safely drive a tractor. Having building and mechanical aptitude would be a huge plus. Many of the horses came from kill pens and have emotional and physical challenges so being able to remain calm and work safe is a priority. Text Jenny Case at 303-642-6253 for more information.
Harvesting Stress
What many people don’t realize about farming and ranching is that every single day life depends upon us. We can never defer tending to the the plant and animal life for which we’ve adopted responsibility. For most of us it’s not just our livelihood, it’s also humane stewardship. No pressure, right? We might be able to predict the big events like harvest or festival season, but for the most part when dealing with living things we don’t control anything on a day-to-day basis. In a job where everything depends upon just the right set of circumstances coinciding with spare time that we don’t have, we need to plan for how to handle stress and how to take care of ourselves too. With that in mind check out this podcast with Ted Matthews of farmcounseling.org: https://www.agweb.com/news/business/health/how-manage-farm-stress-coming-busy-season. Take care of yourselves.
Shear Love
Get a cup of tea and curl up with your laptop to watch shearing you don’t have to sweat over yourself at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2YvLBsduOMcStpJbZav-mw. If you don’t have fiber producing livestock this channel is also a good place to learn about fiber and livestock.
Have announcements or classifieds that should be included in the next Roundup? Send them to news@elbertcountyagalliance.org