RamdomChances

Personaly I've not really witnest much overt crulty towards animanls here, more of just a sublime indifferance. It's not that they want to be cruel to animals is't just they are so far down on the pecking order they they just dont care.

I would be interested in learning how the care of animals (or lack of it) fits in to the Buddhist faith.

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I think its slightly under where the "care of people" fit in but I'm not a Buddhist so might be wrong

Just a bit on the "corn fed" cows. I'm pretty sure that in the states and europe they grow "forage corn" and the cow is fed the whole plant, either just chopped up or made into silage. I dont know weather this would make it a "corn fed" cow or not really....there is probably some legal defination of it. I would of thought that you would have to feed some concentrate as well thought just to get the protien levels up, but I'm not an expert on feeding beef cows.

RC

We have'nt got any ferrel cats around here......the ferrel dogs ate them all

killing for eating it is absolut OK.

So what do you think they are going to do with that....have you seen the price of snake meat!!

Personaly I've got nothing agains the things, but most Thai people arent sitting looking at a computer with their "all the snakes in thailand" or whatever book and when you've know people that have actually died from snake bites, then sometimes the sensible option it to identify wether its dangerous by looking at its dead body.

A big one like that around here would be killed as a matter of course, either for eating or selling.

You are more likely to be killed by a falling cocnut than as a result of shark attack....

I've had a near miss with a coconut tree....well the coconut anyway, we've cut all ours down........dont have much problems with sharks here though

You can get some really good deals on the older second cars especially if you are prepared to get some of the older european makes , a guy down the road just bought a very nice condition peugot 205 for 40,000 bhat, then again you can get some good deals on really old pick-ups, I used to have an old mazda pick-up I bought for 25,000 for the farm.

I think the "newer" used cars and pick-ups are really over priced and the interest rates very high if you are buying on credit.

A lot depends on where you live and what your lifestyle is, when you are 70 km from the nearest supermarket, you do want something that is quite reliable. I've got a 4wd Isuzu that I bought new, it done 140,000 km in 2 years with virtuly no problems. I am seriously considering buying a small older car (around 50,000) just for a run around though, as the Isuzu drinks deisel

As chownah said on an earlier post, cattle here are usually reared one of two ways.

1. "Free Range" or what most of us would call free range, these are the people that actually raise cows, they will have mainly female cows and calfs, which are taken out and grazed on anything really but not usually fed much if any consentrate. A couple of times a year they will get their "surplus cows" take them to market and sell them to the "feed lot" operators.

2. "feed lot" they dont usually raise cattle, but buy in slightly immature cattle from the free range people, these are then kept pened, and feed either rice straw or hand cut grass along with concentrate food, the better the "forrage" you feed them the lower your concentrate costs will be. They will probably be injected with anti parasite drugs (the free range usually are'nt) and then fattened up for 3-4 months and sold on for meat, you cant sell for meat until 45 days after the anti parasite injections, depending on which ones you use, as far as I am aware there are no growth hormones currently used here, mabye some of the really big farms use them, but I've never come across it and I have links and cataloges of most of the big vetenary suppliers here in Thailand.

Consentrate food is made from a mix of localy avalible products and as far as I know does not contain the remains of other animals (well excluding fish meal). The "protien" part is usually provided with soya, fish meal or some other high protien nut type product along with a variety of other things (corn, casava, sohgram). These are the things that provide the protien and carb part of the food but are expensive to buy, the "bulk" of the food is then provided from a variety of by-products form various sources (ground corn husks, rice husks, brewers grains) which are cheap to buy but contain little actual food value. The result is either a powder or pellets that have a protien content of around 18% and cost about 5-6 bhat/kg. We actaully used to make our own and I have a few recipies for differet mixes for different protien contents, making you own drops the price down to around 3-4 bhat/kg (we dont do it now as the quantities would just be to difficult to handle).

The "free rang" people make their money from actally raising the cows and the feed lot by adding the weight allthough some farms combine the two. Free range you need some land for grazing, and someone who has the time to take the cows out looking for grass and to look after them while they are eating it, they are usually just fed rice straw in the hot/cold seasons when there is nothing growing, they will try to sell their bull cows at around 12-16 months and look to buy in female cows preferably pregnant.

The "feed lot " people look to buy in 12-16 month bulls and then keep them for 3-4 months of fattening up, usually penned and all the food is brought to them, as a general rule of thumb for "thai" cattle you woud be paying around 1000 bhat per month of age (i.e a 12 month 12,000 bhat ect). The dificulty of making money from feed lot comes from knowing the market and knowing how to feed them for maximum weight gain against cost, the margins are pretty tight so if you end up paying even a 1000 bhat over the odds you would be making a large cut into your profits (I've been told about 2000-3000 bhat profit a cow over a 3 month period).

There are local beef cattle markets virtually everywhere and a lot of trading goes on farm to farm, the bigger markets you need to get there early, even the night before in some cases, until you know the market well you will need someone with LOT's of experiance with you or you will end up buying at a price that will leave you litttle profit.

There are more and more farms doing Charolaise/Brahmin crosses its not someting I've gone into in a lot of detail, but they seem to mainly deal with agents rather than buying and selling on the markets.

I recon a 1000kg Bramin is possible I'v seen a few at some of the shows that make mine seem small and some of mine are 600 kg (although thats friesian crosses)

RC

I'd love to take them, but without growing up here I dont think they would fit in , and they would have probs with my existing dogs, the biggest of which"s fav past time is already fighting with other dogs. The prob here is that if one of the local farm's/houses has a bitch on heat all the dogs want a piece of the action leading to big fights.

Mine often dissapears for a day or two and then comes home all cut up and bleeding.

I drink unpasturized goats milk all the time as I've heard that is pretty safe in Thailand if from a reputable source, however, I'm also told that cows milk is collected from lots of different farms in small lots and that it is almost impossible to monitor the quality.

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I would'nt of though that cow's milk is any better or worse than goats, yes it is collected from lots of farms, same with most countries really. The quality control is done at the dairy/collection point. They dont just come around and empty it into a big tanker at the farm, usually its take to a dairy in urns, that would have your number on and each number is sampled, befor putting into the big storage tanks. If you have been negligent and sent "bad" milk you would be liable for all the milk in the tank. Of course if you buy straight from the farm, you are bypassing all this so it's just down to the integrity of the person you buy it from.

Kringle no probs mate...I'll try to make sure I've got some, if i'm feeling lazy I just buy it from 7-11

I live in one of the huge chunk's of Thailand that are'nt in your pole....the bit in the middle, between BKK and Chaing Mai.......Central Thailand  I think it's called due to.....well being in the middle

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'I live down the road from RC' !

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And I live right up the the road from RC.

I am a little confused about RC.

A welshman cattle farming? Sheep I can understand, mountain goats possibly, down the pit or in the steelworks, maybe. But cows?????

RC, sorry about that but the Sangsom has just kicked in again

Bill

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No probs mate, when Chinat1 is back here, we'll have to have a "central thai" pissup...towards the end of the month

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I should be up for that cos I can get an overnight pass from the wife.

Do you have any of that paintstripper left that we drank last time?

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Gallons of it mate I'll sort some dates out and give you a bell, prob right at the end of the month, an other one of the "Chinat" crowd may be here by then as well.

RC

Been to countless (well i can't count them anyway ) wedding's here, during the wedding season can be a couple a week and I've never been to one where sin sot was'nt paid/shown, although I've got to admit I dont go to that many in the day and not many "town" weddings

Lop was right, traditanaly it the both sets of parents that decide the ammount, usually decided at the engagment, well announced at the engagument. The gold part is often given at the engaugment as well.

SBK I did'nt know what he was on about either

Ozzy....60,000 for a cow, they was done

I'm led to believe TB is common in Thai cattle. I’ve always been advised to ensure the milk I drink in Asia is pasteurized or homogenized.

Is it possible to contact TB through drinking unpasteurized milk?

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I've never heard of them having TB, Brucelosis (sp) yes there is some of it around, we've never had a case. The gov does blood checks twice a year for free. I had to cull a couple with John's deasies once. We vaccinate for foot and mouth. I'm talking dairy cattle (Friesian's and the like) here though and not, the brahmin's you see grasing on the side of the road.

Our milk is checked for STC count , Bactria, and anti-biotic residues every time we send to the dairy (twice a day). If we happen to send a bad batch we would be liable for the whole ammount that was colected, from around 70 farms (Its not practical to check all the milk before it is stored into the big collection tanks). Its up to each farm to ensure that their milk is up to the required standerds, the penalties are quite high if not. Whenever we treat any cows with medicen you have to get the milk checked for residue before sending, same with recovering from mastitis.

Saying all that milk does deteriorate rapidly here if it's not pasturised and some times you do get borderline cases of mastitis, that you fail to notice. If I was going to drink unpastorised milk, I'd hand pick the cow it was coming from, as I know which of my cows milk had the lowest STC counts .

Personaly I think that drinking fresh unpasturised milk from the farm would be a bit hit and miss, I dont do it from mine....so I know I sure would'nt do it from someone elses. Doing your own pasturisation on a small scale is really easy, the milk tastes great and keeps fresh for ages. I usually get mine in the afternoon, pasturise it , put it in the fridge until the next day and its great, got to shake it well though cos of the cream content....although I could always let it settle a bit and skim it .

Taking advantage of.

I've got loads of it if you want any. You need to be here by 8 in the morning though or about 5 in the afternoon 

I dont know if it's any better though I pasturise mine before drinking it, but even so it tastes much better than shop bought  as soon as you get used to the high cream content.

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Drink all the unpasturised Milk you want. I was raised on whole unpasturised milk growing up in the 50's and early 60's in U.S.A. Please don't believe that unpasturised milk didn't exist. Not everything then in the U.S. had been

Californ-icated yet. In western Masachusetts where I grew up there were small dairy farms and you could get local unpasturised milk. It is too cold in winter to keep the dairy cows outside so they are brought into the barns in the winter. Then in spring, when the dairy cows are let out into the fresh grass, their milk changes with the new grass. My father used to buy the milk, which to me tasted really sour for a couple weeks until the cows got used to the new grass. Terrible taste, just about made me vomit.

Secondly, I DO NOT like high fat cream milk. My father made me drink the high cream milk every day. I almost always got sick with the heavy cream. I guess I have a reaction to high cream high fat milk.

The main point for me is that I would never drink whole unpasturised milk from Thai farms. Do you believe the milk is clean and healthy from a Thai farm. Do you know what Mastitis is? I do.

Not about to drink unpasturised milk from anywhere. Epecially not from Thai dairy farms.

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I'm very well aware of Mastitis thanks after runing the farm for over 4 years. As I said I pasturise my own if I drink it, although the standerds for STC (stomatic cell count) the indicator of mastitis are at least as strict here as in western farms. I suppose you run the risk if buying unpastorised from a farm that they will sell you the crap they cant send to the dairy. We usually have a couple of cows that we cant send the milk due to Mastitis or the medicen to treat it....just give it to the calfs usually. The creamyou can just skimm of the top it you want....hence the term "skimmed milk"

I used to get 30, day,s holidays, about 12 public holidays and I could take 2 days a month "flexi time" so 24 days a year...oh and friday was only half day. So all in all about 60-70 day's a year.....which was nice.

Oh I'm in Pattaya probably less than a week a year

I live in one of the huge chunk's of Thailand that are'nt in your pole....the bit in the middle, between BKK and Chaing Mai.......Central Thailand  I think it's called due to.....well being in the middle

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'I live down the road from RC' !

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And I live right up the the road from RC.

I am a little confused about RC.

A welshman cattle farming? Sheep I can understand, mountain goats possibly, down the pit or in the steelworks, maybe. But cows?????

RC, sorry about that but the Sangsom has just kicked in again

Bill

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No probs mate, when Chinat1 is back here, we'll have to have a "central thai" pissup...towards the end of the month

I've got loads of it if you want any. You need to be here by 8 in the morning though or about 5 in the afternoon

I dont know if it's any better though I pasturise mine before drinking it, but even so it tastes much better than shop bought as soon as you get used to the high cream content.

Well it's been chucking it down here (Chao Phraya basin) with some of the heavest continual rain I've seen here, for 3 days so it's going to hit Bkk at sometime, as to the rest ....have'nt a clue

Well I'll be down on the 11th to 16 th, if anyone want's to get together for a few, just send me a Pm and we'll swap phone numbers and sort something out. I will prob be Patong though as I'm going with some friends and we wont have transport.....yes I know they have Tuk Tuks there

I knew he was Amercian because he asked us about how the seat numbers worked. 

For some reason this line just cracked my up

I live in one of the huge chunk's of Thailand that are'nt in your pole....the bit in the middle, between BKK and Chaing Mai.......Central Thailand I think it's called due to.....well being in the middle

What I wonder constitutes poor ?

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Well there was a big stink a while back about this project. Apparently "poor" we're the ones that had enough money to give a "tip' to the officials who were responsible for giving the cows out.

They are beef cows not milkers and I think you have to apply for them. The idea is a sort of beef bank, where the gov gives out the cows and then will buy them back at a later date, paying the differance in weight gain.

RC

Just hope those buffaloes stay healthy...

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Me to mate....well cow's in my case, but close enough

I pop in every now and again... 

toaster 

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I've been know to pop in as well

Md. CHAMAIPHAN said statistics show that deaths from motorcycles average at a minimum of one person per hour, while this rate increases to three people an hour during festival periods. Of these, 1.4% is children aged less than 15 years

OK I tahke it that "average at a minimum of one person per hour" is the actuall yearly average and of those 1.4% are below the age if 15.....so

There are 8760 hrs a year. which would work out to 8760 deaths 1.4 % or about 123 per year would be under 15......that works out to 0.014 children die/hour....just does'nt make the same sort of headline, does it?

Apparently though

Md. CHAMAIPHAN added that if 90% of children on motorcycles wear helmets then this would help to reduce the number of children fatalities by at least 150 per year

Which is'nt bad considering that from the stats...there are only 123 fatlaities/year