I love getting photos from friends when they see something cottony and think of me! Not only do I love the fact they think of me when they see cotton, I almost always get to talk more about the fluffy white gold!
The latest photos come from my friend the ranch hand Ryan Goodman (Twitter, Ag Proud blog, Sitting in the Pasture blog). While I’m sure like all good ranch hand’s Ryan has lots of tough cotton clothes maybe by Carhartt or something, this was something different. He saw the sight and tweeted me “Hey @JPlovesCOTTON I found some #cotton in our cattle feed barn!”
Here are the photos:
For those of you who may wonder, that is cottonseed hulls from the gin. (You may find this Cotton 101 post of interest as it is related to ginning.) Since Ryan “found” it on the ranch, I’d be willing to bet which of the uses that seed is for – which would you guess?
As a hint, you could read this post by Kathy Swift and look at this other photo Ryan took!!! Have you ever seen cottonseed? Ever try to pull the lint off.
If you’d like more resources on what livestock eat, check out these blogs:
- California rancher Jeff Fowle’s CommonSenseAgriculture posts on It’s more than corn: Balanced Diet & Nutrition, Digestibility & Energy, Minerals & Vitamins, Importance of Physiological Stages, Feeds, and a post on Force Feeding Cattle: Grass-Fed vs Grain-Fed
- Kathy Swift, DVM’s CowArtAndMore blog
- RayLinDairy’s post What do Cows Eat?
It is difficult to find skillful persons about this issue, nevertheless, you seem like you know exactly what you are referring to! Thx
Thank you! I really love cotton & have worked with the farmer who produce it for longer than I care to remember!