New Americans turn to goats to address food demand

WTTG-TV / The Associated Press ^ | April 18, 2014

[2ndDivisionVet]

COLCHESTER, Vt. (AP) -- A bunch of kids in a minivan are solving twin challenges in northern Vermont: refugees struggling to find the food of their homelands and farmers looking to offload unwanted livestock.

The half dozen kids - that is, baby goats - that arrived last week at Pine Island Farm were the latest additions to the Vermont Goat Collaborative, a project that brings together new Americans hungry for goat meat with dairy goat farmers who have no need for young male animals. Some dairy farmers who otherwise would discard bucklings at birth or spend valuable time finding homes for them now can send them to Colchester....

[aposiopetic]

ping

[familyop]

Oregon does have some relatively good communities and individuals. I have some relatives there. Portland, despite its negatives, even passed a permitting process for rocket stove mass heaters (first link below). That’s really something.

If you’re interested, the information follows. It’s not a commercial effort, and most of the building is done by the owners. It’s an “open source” home energy design effort, so to speak (very little wood used, much thermal mass for storing heat, very inexpensive to build,...).

http://www.ernieanderica.info/rocketmassheaterpermitting

http://www.richsoil.com/rocket-stove-mass-heater.jsp

http://www.permsteading.com/viewforum.php?f=6

http://donkey32.proboards.com/board/3/rocket-stoves-heating

http://donkey32.proboards.com/board/1/materials-casting-refractories-etc

[familyop]

I’m originally from the Midwest, BTW (’90s). Little culture shock there. ;-)

[familyop]

Oh...they haven’t solved the problem with those heaters and property insurance, yet. It seems that expensive lab testing hasn’t been designed for measurements on something like that. So it’s most suited to knowledgeable owner-builders.

[nitzy]

Dude, your prejudice is showing.

Who the hell cares? Do you really think it is a good idea for the USDA to say who is and who is not allowed to kill goats?

Just because these people are foreign doesn't mean we need to sick big bureaucracy on them to make sure they don't kill goats in a way that humans have been doing it for millennia.

[S.O.S121.500]

+

[MSF BU]

Makes sense to me. We always had great luck with the smaller operators, along with the advantage of knowing exactly how are livestock were fed.

[shotgun]

These folks were from the “Deep South” and probably had to wade across a certain river...

Only allowed that one time.

[EinNYC]

I have seen videos of amateur Muzzies just hacking away at live animals until they die of shock and bleeding. I do NOT condone this. Better to have trained professionals do the slaughter so that the animals die in a humane fashion. Whether the people are foreign or not has nothing to do with it.

[nitzy]

Bleeding out is the humane way of killing chickens. I consider myself pretty good at it. Since I don't have a government certificate should I not be able to do it?

I have seen videos of people being irresponsible with firearms. Many people think we should restrict firearm use to only trained professionals.

I think a better option would be to let everyone use firearms but put penalties on their misuse. Similarly, we should let anyone slaughter animals but make it illegal to do so in a torturous manner like you describe.

As a conservative you should know that governments only create problems they don't solve them. Running to big daddy government as your first option to prevent bad things never works out.