Boggs Farms is currently undergoing an essential philosophical and operational "menu" adjustment in order to persevere economically. The option is to stay the course and risk slowly dwindling away. We refer to our long standing commitment of meeting all our livestock's total year-round dietary needs with just fresh growing green forages as the carte du jour. While nutritionists praise the virtues of exclusive fresh grass grazing for those meat animals intended for human consumption -- it is not the norm and has become increasingly infeasible on our farm.

Bountiful green grass in January is a wonderful, but rather unnatural (and expensive) concept. As the cost of energy and energy related products like fuels and fertilizers continue to skyrocket, it has become increasingly unaffordable. Recent "climate change" is a temporary (?) factor as well.

For nearly 20 years, fresh growing winter forages (without hay or grain) has been the backbone of our winter livestock feeding program and has served our farm to perfection. The merits of growing cool season forages is enumerated in three sections* listed on our home page. However, times are changing. In the last three years energy prices have doubled and previously unfathomable prolonged days of torrid heat and drought has decimated our annual plantings of cool season forages. Until moderation returns to energy prices (unlikely) and also to autumn weather patterns (unknown), we have to make adjustments to remain viable.

This means reducing our dependence on the superb, but energy-intensive weather-sensitive winter forage crops and to depend more on our warm season grass hay, and possibly some purchased feedstuffs as required to supplement the protein and/or energy content of the hay. The hay we produced in the summer of '05 was satisfactory in energy, but slightly deficient in the protein required by young lambs and lactating ewes. In compensation, we are offering carefully controlled amounts of cotton seed meal (CSM) to balance their nutritional requirements. CSM is a high protein animal feed byproduct of the Louisiana cotton industry.

Whether or not this dietary change will significantly affect the desirable Omega-3 and Conjugated Linoleic Acid content of our lamb meat is beyond our ability to foresee; but we do continue to guarantee that our products are always "wholesome, delicious, and nutritious!"

Thank you for your time, consideration, and continued patronage.

December 2005

*The three articles are listed in the Menu as: Wintering Sheep, Ryegrass, and 4-H Grazing Contest.