Agriculture

The horrible thing you never knew about ducks

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The horrible thing you never knew about ducks

On the Venn diagram of strange animal mating behaviors — from lobster golden showers to garter-snake orgies — duck sex is on the border between cartoonish and sadistic.

That’s right, our beloved mallards engage in some seriously disturbing mating behavior. The “dark side” of duck mating has its own chapter in the new book “The Evolution of Beauty: How Darwin’s Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal World — and Us” by Yale ornithology professor Richard O. Prum. It’s a controversial subject, earning notoriety in 2013 after news leaked that the federal government contributed $400,000 to study the mating habits of ducks — dubbed “duckpenisgate” by Mother Jones.

Ep. 194 – Austin Troyer – Grazing Reclaimed Mine Land

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Ep. 194 – Austin Troyer – Grazing Reclaimed Mine Land

6/14/21 by Clay Conry

Web player: https://podcastaddict.com/episode/124417387
Episode: https://chtbl.com/track/115875/https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/http://storage.googleapis.com/providers.globalagnetwork.com/podcasts/working-cows-podcast/episodes/Working-Cows-Ep.-194-Austin-Troyer.mp3

Austin Troyer is a first generation rancher in Ohio. He and his wife have gotten their start by finding undervalued land and putting the work in to make it usable. We talk about the process of obtaining these leases as well as getting them ready for livestock and finding the right class of livestock to take advantage of the topography and forage.

This is a fascinating podcast about recovering formerly mined areas for cattle grazing – not only turning mined areas into good use but also helping to rebuild the soil with hoof action, grazing encouraging growth and manure fertilizing the land.

NPR

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A Giant Organic Farm Faces Criticism That It’s Harming The Environment : NPR

Hardly a week goes by, it seems, without a big food company making promises to deliver products from green, sustainable farms. Turning those promises into reality, though, can be complicated.

Take Gunsmoke Farms, a vast property that covers 53 square miles just northwest of Pierre, S.D. The food company General Mills, maker of Cheerios, announced in 2018 that it would convert the farm to organic production. The company planned to turn it into an educational hub to teach other farmers "how to implement organic and regenerative agriculture practices."

Now, some of Gunsmoke Farms' neighbors say that the farm is doing more environmental harm than good.