[compost_tea] Spraying livestock with compost tea??

From: David Hall <dchall8_at_texas.net>
Date: Thu, 08 Jan 2004 15:30:19 -0000

I thought I had an original idea this morning before reading all the
discussion about compost tea and mad cow disease. Let me go through
my thought process.

Many farmers and ranchers are going to some effort to fence off
their water sources to keep livestock out of the water. The idea
behind that is that animals need to drink fresh water, not polluted
water. But when the livestock get in the water, all the bodily
functions take place. If the water is a stream or river, the wastes
drift downstream with microbes working on them all the way. But in
most cases, the water is a pond dug specifically to provide water
for the animals. Over fertilization is easy to achieve in a closed
pond with animals wandering through it all day.

In nature, animals love to get into the fresh water, so the fencing
is working against what the animals would do normally. It occurs to
me that an animal in a virgin stream or even a lake/pond would pick
up microbes on the hair and skin from the water. Many animals take
mud or dust baths, so apparently there is something in the soil that
the animals need to have on their skin, hair, or feathers. If
plants can have 10-20 layers of beneficial microbes growing
invisibly outside in the open air, why can't animals? Has anyone
done this research?

Could there be a benefit to routine spraying of livestock with
aerated compost tea to keep an active culture of beneficial microbes
on their hides, hair, wool, or feathers?

David Hall
San Antonio, TX


 

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Received on Thu Jan 08 2004 - 10:55:07 EST

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