Ep. 5 - Cussing to Calm Cattle Working

In this episode of Stone County Extension Saves the World, Tyler and Anna discuss going from working cattle overly excited to becoming more low stress handling.  News about the Asian Longhorn Tick(Haemaphysalis longicornis) in Arkansas.  Anna talks about creating and feeding Sourdough. 

More information about the Asian Longhorn Tick can be found at the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture Cooperative Extension Website

https://www.uaex.uada.edu/farm-ranch/pest-management/insect/animal-insect-management/asian-longhorned-tick.aspx

Transcript

Hey y'all, welcome back to Stone County Extension Saves the World. I'm Tyler Caston here with my partner in crime.

Anna Harlan.

And we're on a Monday morning.

After the first frost.

Yeah, first frost, so.

We made it to November 10th, I guess.

Yeah. It's a wonder nobody called saying, what happened to my vegetables? My tomato plants are dead.

Does that really happen?

It happened once.

Yeah, it sticks with you.

But one thing about the frost, I know here in Stone County, a lot of our producers deal with Johnson grass. And it's a time of year after frost when our, with Johnson grass, we have to worry about prussic acid. And there's other things we worry about, like with high nitrate. But After a frost, that's when prussic acid becomes an issue because it goes up real high. And typically what we want to do is wait about 7 days or until that Johnson grass plant turns completely brown before grazing. But if you've had your first frost and you've got Johnson grass, it'd be a good idea to pull those cattle off of it until it turns brown. It takes about 7 days. And I think we're going to talk a little bit about some beef cattle or just cattle handling practices. I've got the brucellosis vaccinations coming up. It's always fun. I really, that's one of the one things that I look forward to. I kind of dread it.

Until you, until it's the day.

Until we get going. But it's one of those things. But I like doing it, going out and seeing everybody's different.

I think it's been said that working cattle together really brings families close.

Is that what they say? It's a bonding thing.

It's a bonding experience.

Yeah, I guess that's been my experience. I learned how terrible I was at working cattle throughout the years. I remember me and my sisters working one time when dad had left us alone. Oh, no. I'm pretty sure One of them, I can't remember, ended up walking home because they got so fed up with me. I wasn't treating them very nice, but it can be stressful.

Now, I think one of them shouldn't be getting any black leg, right?

Yeah, one time I gave one of my sisters accidentally a black leg shot. She reached in and we were vaccinating. And she was kind of just standing in front of me and was giving one a shot. And I was holding the syringe, getting ready to come give it a shot once she was done. And she, I think he kind of jumped her and she backed into me and I stuck her right in the back of the arm with the black leg.

Well, at least she doesn't have to worry about that happening to her.

Well, I think it's a, probably it's due for an update and probably need to get her again.

Yeah, I bet she'll be willing for that.

Yeah, I've got several stories about working cattle that I could probably tell. And I know you've had experience with it too.

I've had some fun.

We did that artificial insemination project, the AI.

I would say that Me, you, and my nephew, who is 4-Her at the time, who's now at vet tech school in Beebe, I felt like we all did pretty good together.

Yeah, we got them up, synchronized. Well, originally we got them up and Preg checked them, did blood tests. We had that instant blood test, which was kind of neat, that we can, it was just kind of, you draw blood and we were doing it from the tail and then you drop that blood on the test. And what was it, like 10 minutes later, it'd tell you if they were pregnant or not.

Yeah.

It was a pretty simple deal. We missed a few.

Well, a few have deer-like tendencies and my mom has pretty tall facilities in some areas of her working area. And she had the spring of school years ago and he could jump any gate, any fence. And I feel like his offspring really, they kind of made me a little mad in front of one of the specialists that day. But overall, I think it was pretty successful, wasn't it?

I think we were about 60% and I just learned how to.

Yeah, for the first.

It was more of to get me practice to, get in there.

Yeah, and my mom didn't have a calving season at all.

Yeah, we're the kind of the goal of that project was to bring herd into a more shorter calving season. And we did that.

She was in between bulls too, so it was a good time for her heifers.

And so what we did is we got them up, bled them, preg checked them, sorted the ones that were pregnant off. off and then started synchronizing the ones that were open. And then we did a 14-day synchronization where I think it was pull cedars after seven days, or first day, give them a shot, put cedars in. Seven days later, pull the cedars, give them another shot. I'd have to look at the exact protocol we did, but then it may not have been a 14 day or it may have been like one of them sevens. And we'd separated the cows and the heifers because they'll be a little bit different. But yeah, we were about, I think it was what, a little over 60%. I didn't think so. That's pretty good from like my first time. And of course, a specialist at the time kind of, he helped me do a few, but.

Your rate was just as good, I think.

Yeah, I did it again with another producer. We AI'd a few and right around that 60%.

We wanted to kind of experiment too, because we sell direct sell beef and we wanted to kind of try out some Wagyu genetics.

Yeah, we looked at the genetics, the EPDs and picked out like a good We'd selected for a little bit of calving ease for the heifers, or we picked the one that had the best calving ease for, because we're using the same on heifers and the cows, and then also had good ribeye area. That's something we looked at. And so it'll be interesting to see here in a what, probably another year and a half.

And we were happy two of the, we needed these two to be steers and the gender reveal turned out in our favor.

Yeah, we wanted them to be steers because we're gonna.

Eat them.

Eat them, yeah.

I'm really looking forward to that. So, but we were all pretty calm. Second Lieutenant, Little Page, not so much. He's a little bossy. You always have one that might be bossing out the directions, but The less yelling and things you can do, that's part of.

You want to, I've learned over the years, like I used to, I'd get real stressed at them, like yelling at them, pushing on them, because they don't act right. Well, why aren't they acting right? Because probably their experience is there's some fool standing outside the shoot, freaking out, yelling at.

Me and throwing things.

Yeah, I definitely don't want to go in there. And if they could understand English.

I've seen some tempers flare and I've been told one time, you've got to stick to him, you got to push him through. And I had a calf turn on me and that thing could move.

Yeah.

And I got took down and it's just a little calf.

Some of them, they're a lot stronger. Calves are a little different.

Calves, it's harder because most people's facilities are set up for cattle, not calves.

Yeah.

Or in all of my family anyway.

Adult cows, yeah.

Adults.

And yeah, you have a chute that's wide that, you know, normally you're 1000 pound cow can move through. Well, you bring the calves through there and they're just able to spin and turn around. And once they figure out they can do that, they're going to try every time. And of course, one of them will always get its foot hung up or its head hung up. It's like my dad says.

One will turd and the other will push it.

Yeah, cattle always give you something to do. That's, I guess that's the one thing he, why he likes raising them is that it, they all, he's like, that's a good thing about cattle is yelling. never run out of anything to do. I remember one time we were sorting, separating 2 herds. My dad does stalkers and he gets like the 300, 500 pound, raises them up, sells them, and he'd get heifers and steers. And so I think we were at the time separating a steer herd and a heifer herd. And we'd about halfway done, put them out in the field and I'm just kind of looking out there. All these little pigeons start flying up like all at once and it scared them and they all ran through the fence, broke the fence and then, and got mixed in together. So that's took a, what would have taken maybe 4 hours to, and then it was an 8 hour deal. So it's always something to do. Always something to do. And We were joking earlier about, it's a bonding deal. I've been yelled at several times throughout the years. But it's one of those memories where you look back and it's like, at the time you hated it, but now you look back and it's like, that was fun. You think so? Yeah, dad always, he'd joke. A lot of times, dad, he was running his cattle, the fruit business, and the rock yard. And a lot of times what I hated the most is he'd always be on the phone.

Y'all be doing the work and he'd be on the phone.

He'd be on the, well, we'd have to wait on him, because he'd have his, he had his job. I had my job. And once you get into a rhythm, it goes really, it can go really quickly when you're vaccinating. You know, you get in that rhythm. I give these shots and do the air tag and someone else gives an implant or wormer and He'd have to stop and answer the phone and it just threw off everything. Threw off the whole flow. I know with me and my cousins, I'd get them over there sometimes to help me. And I mean, we could, we could work some. We could get through it quick because our thought is let's get it done and let's go play.

Yeah.

But dad, it was like, let's work, get these done, and then let's go work something else. So it didn't matter.

The work never ended.

Yeah, the work never ended.

I feel like when we worked cattle when I was a kid, it was like a family event. And we would get to eat burgers from Guy and Shirley Buchanan's, and that was always a treat. I don't know, something about like a sandwich after you've been working hard all day, or a Guy burger, we used to call it. was like a nice event, working cattle together. Yeah, but. It's not as much fun when you're older. I just don't, I kind of feel like now I'm not gonna put myself in a position to get injured anymore. And then I remember one time, my dad was mostly a patient man. He had his moments, but we had a cow that wedged her head in between the two panels going into the chute and could not pull her head back out. And my dad lost his temper, which scared me because I never saw it. And then Brandon just calmly asked my mom, do you have a jack? And just went and got a jack out of the back of her truck. And he had to jack the metal apart. Their head's kind of like a wedge. Like it was not coming back out.

It was not coming back out.

And he just very calmly, while my dad, you know, lost his temper, just made it to where she could pull her head back out. Like it was no big deal. It was just calm to him. It's nothing.

Yeah. That's how you need to be.

Calm heads prevail.

Calm heads prevail. So with working cattle, we'll talk a little bit about handling them. You want to be low stress. You want to understand kind of what that animal, the cattle are thinking. Cattle are, they're a prey animal and they're also a herd animal. So What kind of makes them nervous is, A, you get out there and you move around. Their eyesight, being a prey animal, kind of sits on the side of their head so they can actually see kind of behind them and in front of them. But there's a blind spot like directly in front of them and a blind spot directly behind them. So you want to be able to, when you're walking around them, that they can see you to kind of stay off. So if you're trying to move them a certain direction, You have to kind of move, put that little pressure off on them, and then once they feel that pressure, and all animals are different. If you mess with your cattle a lot and they tolerate you, that you can pet them, it's going to be harder to kind of get them to, you may have to, it might be better to actually lead them with a feed bucket. But some cattle, they're real flighty, and so we want to know that fight or flight zone and kind of put that pressure on them until they start to move. When we want them to stop, we back off a little bit to relieve that pressure. But just think about all the balance areas of cattle. And one way to learn this is to actually go through the beef quality assurance training. I know that I'm trained that I could actually teach that. You can go to in-person classes. Several of us agents around are trained up to do that. But then it's also available online for free. And I think it's a three-year certification that you can get. But it talks about practices that you, know, beef quality assurance, think we're producing meat. We want to produce a high quality product to the consumers. And Safe handling and knowing how to handle them is one of those practices. And while we're talking about it, as I mentioned, going around to doing the bangs or the brucellosis vaccinations, you see all sorts of setups. probably better than what they used to say. One of the guys that I'd go around and do it with, and who we do it with, used to be the Arkansas Livestock and Poultry. I believe they're now the Arkansas Animal Health Division, formerly Livestock and Poultry. And so me and the tech that covers our area would go out and do these. And they used to do a lot more back 30-ish years ago, they had hit up everybody in the county. They said it took a long time. But now Arkansas is a brucellosis-free state, and it's still something that the Arkansas Animal Health Division provides as those techs come around and they'll brucellosis, they'll give the cattle the shot and then give them an ID. Now they use those electronic ear tags, and then they also put a tattoo in their ear. But what brucellosis is, it's It's a disease that can cause abortion or just erratic abortion. And so they, but they pretty much got it wiped out here in Arkansas to where Frankie, he retired, but he used to say, because I'd miss a few every now and then. And he'd say, it's not a big deal as we'll probably never see it again in his lifetime is what he'd always say here in Arkansas. But yeah, missing. That's another thing is you want to be set up to, you don't want it to have your head gate open to a field.

For the whole field.

Yeah. Sometimes they can be tricky where they'll run up and you think that you're going to catch them and then they'll stop all of a sudden and you shut the gate before they got there and then you open it again and they'll just shoot out. I've had that several happen.

How do you know about that?

Well, I've missed several over the years, but Frankie, he always said it's kind of like deer hunting where if you're worked cattle and you say you've never missed one in the head gate or you've been deer hunting, you say you've never missed one, you're one of two things. You either haven't done it long enough or you're lying.

Well, and two, when you're a new person that the cattle aren't used to, I would imagine that adds to it.

Yeah, that adds to their stress. And so when we're around cattle, we want to have a low stress level, not only for the benefit of that animal, but also for the benefit of ourselves and the people around us. Like I said, I got so mad at my sister's one time that she was willing to walk about 3 miles home.

Oh, you must have been bad.

Well, I think what, I think she shocked me. I don't know.

Did you deserve it?

No, it was an accident, but I let her know about it.

You got upset a little bit.

Yeah. Well, so we use the hot shots and I'll say a kind of a quick thing about them. Some people don't use them. Some people do use them. We use them as a tool. We're not sitting there and just laying it to them. It's just you kind of, how I do it is I'll use it and kind of poke them, give them a warning poke, and then just give them a little jolt to get them to move rather than, you see a lot of people that'll like twist their tails or sit there and beat on them trying to get them to move forward. Whereas that hot shot, it's not like you see in the movies to where they're getting electrocuted, you know, when they use a cattle prod. They're like, oh, they got a cattle prod and they shock somebody. It's like a, I've gotten shocked before and it's kind of like, a quick pop.

Yeah, I've had the joy of grabbing an electric fence once. It's not that bad.

And cattle's hide sticker, but, and it's our old beef specialist, our Our former veterinarian with extension, she didn't really promote it, but our former beef specialist, she kind of included it in the BQA as an option.

So I would think it depends on like anything how you use it.

Depends on how you use it. We don't want to be abusive to these animals, but again, think about twisting their tail and beating them.

Kicking them, yeah.

Or you could just use this little battery-powered hot shot, give them a little jolt, and then they move forward. And it again depends. We were working cattle one time for a guy doing the brucellosis and they were just taking forever. they were used to this guy and he had all the time in the world probably when he'd work them take, I'm going to work my cows and take his, not push himself and just whenever they didn't wanted to go, let them go into the chute. Well, we were doing it and he, we're doing it.

Yeah, he had a schedule.

A schedule. And the tech asked him, he's like, have you ever heard of a hot shot? And he's like, I haven't used one in years. And then the guy's like, well, if I were you, I'd get one. He was ready to go. I thought it was funny, but it's, you know, it's preference for people. But it is an option as a tool using a hot shot or a cattle prod to get them to move. You know, another Another cattle handling tool, we've got those cattle, those paddles that have a rattle ball in them or even like with a flag. I like to use those a lot. Something that kind of extends your hand and you can get it out there and show it to them and they'll see that flag and it kind of, you can make like a whip or a swishing noise so it'll make a noise and they'll move away from you. So being calm, knowing the fight or flight zones around cattle, knowing that point of balance of how to move them. I mentioned they're herd animals. If you try to get one up by itself, a lot of times you might get lucky, but a lot of times you're going to have a bad time because they get separated from the herd and that gets them nervous. If you need, like you've got one and you just want to get one up, it's almost better and save you a lot of time to grab it, three or four more and bring with them. That way, they're comfortable traveling together. Say you're pushing them up a chute and you're going inside a barn. If it's dark inside that barn, then cattle, they can't tell what's in there. So they're going to be, if they've never been in there before, they're going to be like, what's in there? Could be a big old monster. So they, you know, Give them time to get in there. Don't just run up on them. get in there, get in there. push them nice and easy. Let them have time to get in there because they can't, you know, if they're going in a barn, they don't see. And then when we get them up into the chute, we want to be careful looking around, making sure our facilities don't have like hanging nails or something that think about we don't want to bruise that animal's hide. We don't want to cut up that animal because if we bruise the hide, we're bruising up the meat and that's lowering the quality of the meat. Also, along with the quality of the meat is where you give your injections. Anymore, what we want or what they should do is give all injections in the neck unless it specifies on the label to give it somewhere different. But that, you know, used to guys, they'd give it into like the rump or something if they're needing to give an intramuscular shot because there's a lot of muscle there. But a lot of times those intramuscular medicines could cause like a not a lesion, but like a bad part in the meat. And that's something that when they go to processing, they're just going to have to cut it out. So we want to do a lot of those shots in the neck. Familiarize yourself with the label of any vaccines you're using, or if you're using antibiotics to know how much you need to give per, and it's usually recommended on a, you know, poundage. So per 100 pounds, give this much CCs, and then it'll tell you where to give it. So it may say intramuscular or subcutaneous or intravenous. If it gives you several options there for where to give the shot, always choose that sub cue, and that's underneath the skin. If you're not good at giving shots, how you can make sure that you get it in the skin is do that tent method where you grab their neck and pull it away and then go straight down. Once you do it a few times, you can kind of figure out how to get yourself on an angle. Using the right length of needle and the right gauge of needle can be important. Like for our sub cue, you know, half inch to 3/4 of an inch is good. If you need to go into the muscle, probably at least an inch is good. If we're giving a shot into the muscle, you just want to go straight in to the neck. You can feel that muscle on their neck and give it. When we're given, if we're having to give multiple shots, we want to space out every five to six inches or a hand width in between. You know, and we want to be safe about making sure our needles are clean, good The rule of thumb is to change probably every 10 needles. Okay. it costs a lot if you're changing needles. In a perfect world, you'd change after every needle. But it might not be cost effective. So every 10, it'd be a good idea to change it to make sure we got clean needles or as soon as you notice it's bent or the sharpness, it's gotten dull. We want to change out that needle because for one, it's harder to give a shot. That needle will kind of stop and you have to put a little bit of pressure. And so that's, think about it going into you. That's likely hurting. And so, but when it's sharp, it'll slide in there nice and easy. If you pull it out and notice blood's on it, definitely want to change that. If you drop that needle and it gets dirty, change it. Otherwise, we could have issues where you get those big old What would we call it?

Like a pocket.

Like a pocket of infection there. Cyst, would that be what you'd call it? Or abscess. That's what they're called, I think. Dad, he always has a joke about that. And you'd, they'd get these big, you've seen them before.

Oh yeah, I've seen the videos.

Those big old abscesses, if you like pimple popping, you'd enjoy seeing this.

I don't like that videos though.

But you'd have to lance it and then squeeze that stuff out. Probably give them a little bit of antibiotics, but dad would always say when he's doing it, he's like, grab a bowl and some crackers. We're about to have some soup.

Oh God.

Every time, that's what he'd say.

Oh, that's terrible.

But we can prevent that by making sure we're using clean needles and doing proper practices when we're handling our cattle.

So in between using the different needles, do you need to be dipping them into an alcohol solution or?

Probably not. I don't think BQA recommends it because if you're dipping, you know, probably recontaminating. You could use some sort of disinfectant, but more than likely, if it gets dirty, it'd be better to just change your needle. I know, like, say you're doing an implant gun, you know, it might be something that you'd wipe off with a disinfectant after you use it each time. You could probably do that with a needle as well, like that you're going to inject into the neck just for sanitation, like have some sort of disinfectant that you could wipe it off each time. But I don't know that alcohol would be recommended. And again, if your needle gets dirty, it'd be better to just change it.

So I have plenty of needles on hand.

Yeah, definitely have a few on hand. More than you're going to expect to need.

Yeah, because you don't want to be in the middle of that and not have everything. Yeah, because most of us are in rural areas and working cattle after hours, so.

Yeah.

Hot topic lately seems to be this tick that's going around. So can you tell us?

Yeah, the Asian longhorn tick. What is it? The scientific name.

Oh.

Let's see if I can do it.

Let's see it.

Aemaphasalis longicornis. I'm sorry, y'all. I can't pronounce it.

That hillbilly just comes out.

Haemophallus. Haemophallus longicornis.

Is that how CB would say it?

That's how, yeah, and that's how I'd say it. Haemophallus longicornis. Yeah. Why it's a big deal is because it's known to cause this thyleria or thyleria. I'm not sure I say thyleria because it's spelled with a T-H, but I think I've heard others say it like thyleria. But what it is, it's like a protozoa and it acts kind of like anaplasmosis to where it can cause, eventually it could cause death, but they'll be lethargic and It might cause jaundice and make them anemic. And it's spread by this tick. And the big deal with this tick is that it can reproduce asexually. Like it doesn't even have to have a male. And so a female tick can lay maybe like 2,000 eggs. Oh my gosh. And then it can reproduce asexually.

And then all of them can.

Yeah, all of them can. And so you get this rapid infestation of ticks that carry this thiluria and we've seen it in several counties here in North Arkansas where cattle are testing positive for this thileria. And so our extension entomologist, Dr. Kelly Lofton, he actually emailed about this Asian longhorn tick earlier. One thing he says that was interesting is there is a vaccine available. However, they're not sure of how effective it is. And so they're doing some research trials, but he says it is labeled for Asian longhorn tick. But as far as like controlling them, many guys will think, well, I'll just spray my pasture for them, but there's really nothing labeled for pastures or hay fields. There is stuff that would be labeled for like use in lawns, but it's not labeled for use in pastures and it would have to be. So what we would want to do is like doing Treating our cattle, like doing our pour-ons, something like Dectomax or Ivermac pour-ons would work against these ticks. Using insecticide impregnated ear tags would be something you would use. And again, you'd want it labeled for the Asian longhorn tick and then using like self-treatment devices like back rubbers or dust bags so we can The insecticides, we can use them on cattle, but they're not labeled for like spraying across a field. So there are some options for using like some insecticides or pesticides to keep that tick off of your cattle. So looking at that, I've seen some deals about grazing them. You want to avoid, if you know like around wood, wooded areas is where a lot of ticks are going to be. Avoid grazing those type of areas. we did have the freeze over the weekend and so that is probably going to help lower the population. But a lot of guys, they're worried about getting the thyleria, but it's, again, it's a protozoa that's spread from this tick and it can affect both cattle and, you know, adult cattle and calves. Similar to anaplasmosis, whereas that anaplas, It really only affects adult cattle, but this thylaria is going to affect cattle and calves. So that's kind of the update on that. Well, looks like we've got some sort of goop here in front of us. This actually, is this some throwing dough?

No, that's not throwing dough.

Not throwing dough. Is it a dough?

It's sourdough.

Sourdough, okay.

It would not be optimum for throwing as it is rather sticky.

Sticky. Yeah, you don't want it.

Too sticky.

You don't want it sticking to you because you know, you get caught, that's evidence.

Yeah, we won't be throwing this dough. So this is sourdough. And I actually have two kinds for those who are watching. And I have one that I keep normal and take good care of it. And then I have another one that I abuse. And so it has what's called a layer of hooch on it. And when I first heard that term, I had a lady mention it at one of the first classes we had done. I think we were at Desert County. And I thought she was lying. I was like, hooch is like moonshine. You know, that's what they do in hollers. But it actually is part of the fermentation process. And so this one has hooch on it. And this one's a really strong sourdough. I don't feed it very often. And so we're going to have Tyler in his weak stomach. Smell it?

I won't yay.

I don't know if I want you gagging on the sourdough on the cliff.

Yeah, it's not. It's like a sour.

It's really yeasty.

Yeah, yeasty smell.

So that's one of the ways that you can get your sourdough starter stronger is by not beating it as often. And it's really funny because everyone who comes to these classes has such different views of what they like as far as bread goes. So I handed that to you and you kind of had a negative reaction whereas some are just like, oh, that's exactly what I want.

Smells like roses.

No, it doesn't smell roses.

Smells like rolls.

It's kind of has a beer yeasty scent. to it. Like I said, part of the fermentation process. And that one has a lot of hooch. So it's really strong. Whereas my other one, I fed it today. And it's not super strong, but it does have that sour flavor. And so sourdough is really popular right now. And I just kind of got into it because teaching these classes, because another agent's like, got people asking for this. And we really, I really didn't know what I was doing at first. And so thankfully, one of our master gardeners here, Vicky, is very talented with sourdough. And she's extremely advanced. And I'm not as advanced, but I say that I'm really good at keeping my starter alive and getting people started. And so sourdough's been around for hundreds, if not thousands of years. It's traveled across continents, been handled down through generations.

How do you keep it alive?

How do you keep it alive? You have to feed it. So there's something else to take care of. Come here a little.

Do you rock it?

No, I don't rock it, but I wasn't going to give it a name. I guess that's a thing, is naming your sourdough starter. And my daughter Whitney named it Dola. And I thought that was pretty cute. So I was like, all right.

Dola.

I've heard of Jane Doe and GI Doe and things like that. Yeah.

So he named yours Dola.

Yeah, Whitney named it Dola. And so a lot of times when we think of sourdough, we think of San Francisco sourdough, and that has a unique yeast bacteria that's native to that area. So it's going to be a little, it's going to be harder to have necessarily that flavor because like I said, it's unique to that area. But there's some good sourdoughs. And I say that when you've had one here for a while, it's the Ozark sourdough. It's what I call that.

Yeah, weren't you telling me like there's natural yeasts in there?

Yes, yeast. is natural in a lot of flowers, like it's present. But you can try to start your own from just flour and water. And if that yeast is present, then it can start to and grow and you feed it and it develops. But the easiest way to get a starter that has a flavor you're wanting and is ready to go is to either get one from a friend like I did, or you could purchase it online at some different places. There's all kinds of different starters. So this one's a traditional one. So flour and water. Whereas Leanne Blevins in Baxter County, she does a potato flake starter. And so if sourdough bread's not as much your thing, but you want a really nice bread for the holidays or occasions, the potato flake starter's a good one and much cheaper to feed.

Yeah.

So you're gonna be feeding with sugar and potato flakes?

So yeah, talk about how you feed this thing and what that is.

So when you feed it, it's a lot easier to teach people consistency. So I'm going to give you a certain amount of starter and you're going to take it home. And after you feed it one time, you have a different amount. So it's going to grow and change. And so if you add flour, it has to be unbleached bread flour.

Unbleached. Unbleached.

Unbleached.

Unbleached bread flour.

Yeah, not unbleached, unbleached. And unbleached bread flour and water that's non-chlorinated. I typically use bottled spring water. Well water is fine. If you have filtered water that you've let the chlorine dissipate, open container for 24 hours and that way you can feed it with this. So I put enough flour and water in there to get it to a thick pancake batter consistency. And I know there are a lot of people out there who like exact measurements or they want to know it's one part flour, one part water, but ultimately your starter's changing sizes and you just need to go with that thick pancake batter consistency. I really like a dough whisk so you can look that up. It's kind of a wild looking whisk. It's hard to clean, but it's It's the best to keep it from being lumpy and that's another thing you don't want. Lumpiness when you're feeding your starter, it doesn't like it.

Doesn't like lumps.

No lumps. Another thing, like I said, that unbleached flour is important because a lot of people try to do all-purpose and it's not the same. And that's a common issue. And one thing that I do that I feel like is key to help a lot of people keep their traditional sourdough alive is I keep it in their refrigerator.

Is that required?

It's not required, but if you're going to keep it on the counter, you're going to need to feed it almost every day, at least every other day. Whereas the refrigerator, I get by with a week easily.

Every week you feed it.

Sometimes I go a little longer, but ideally at least once a week if kept in the fridge. So I tell most people.

So the maximum amount of time that you would wait a week.

I've gone this one with the one that's really strong. It's gone two to three months, but I kept it in the back of the fridge and I'd feed it good. And I actually just fed it recently. So it was stronger, stronger sour flavor, if you can imagine. But I can get by with longer than a week. I've done it quite a bit. But if you're using it a lot, you're going to be feeding it more. You might keep it on the counter more. I found that it's really resilient because I'm not really easy on most things like that.

So how would you use the sourdough once you say you feed it? How often do you, should you use them?

Well, one thing you have to pay attention to in recipes is it need to be a discard recipe, which means it's an unfed starter. It doesn't mean you have to throw that starter away. It's just unfed. And then if it's active, you've fed it within a certain amount of time. It's got a lot of those gas bubbles. There are a few recipes that call for starter fed certain amounts. So that's just something to look for. But Sourdough can be used for a lot more than just a loaf of bread. But if you're looking for, there's a lot of not as concrete information as I would like about it as a health benefit. But there is a little bit of research out of Colorado State Extension about lactic acid and different things. But if you're looking for more of that, that's going to be the long fermentation process. So I keep a, We've got a cool little booklet that me and Leanne Blevins have made. And there's a recipe in there and it takes 3 days basically to make that loaf of bread. And I know for some that sounds like a long time, but that's part of that long fermentation process. But what I like to make typically is cinnamon rolls, crackers. Leanne made pumpkin cookies recently with sourdough. One thing that Vicky made a lot of was like crumpets, kind of like an English muffin for breakfast sandwiches. And so that would be ready to go for her to make a quick breakfast sandwich for, if you had your family and you could freeze those and just warm them up. I mean, you can make waffles, pancakes, cakes, cookies, brownies.

What was that you did that one time that got left in the oven over the weekend?

So Heather will probably not forget this, but I've made many an oops. And when I teach a class.

You're a mess maker.

I'm a mess maker. maker. I'm queen mess maker. And I try to tell everyone when I'm teaching the class that this is like a big experiment. It's okay to make mistakes because I've made a ton.

And so we've all had to deal with it.

I've accused you of one of them. We'll talk about that one too. So I was going to dry out some of my starter and I was worried about flies and it was Memorial Day weekend was coming. And so I smeared out some of my starter to dry it. But I thought, I'll put it in the oven. So I had two very big sheet pans of it, and I put them in the oven. And I wasn't the first one here after Memorial Day, but Heather and Michaela were, and Michaela was interning for us at the time, and the back door was open and in the parking lot, I could smell it, and I was convinced it was a dead possum.

Yeah, it smelled like something dead.

It was so bad that I thought, oh my goodness, opossums got in our office and died. And as I made it to the kitchen, it just got worse and worse. And they had done decided that it was in the oven. But they hadn't opened the oven because I'm the one that did it. So I had to open it. And I opened it and it was like, it was orange and green. And I guess it had released so, I was getting sick thinking about it. had released so much moisture. And I've smelled a lot of bad smells in my time. I have helped pull calf pieces out of a cow, dead and been dead a while where the hooves are slipping off. I mean, I've grew up in chicken houses. I've smelled some bad smells. And this is top three all day, every day.

It would have been like, have you ever heard of collect a smell? Like where you, hey, buddy, smell this. No. We used to do it.

Oh, like with the bottle?

Like try to make something as stinky.

As could be and.

Then like stink I'm gonna leave my old sweaty gym socks in my bag, my gym bag for a week and then make your buddies smell it. That would have been a good one to collect to make your friends smell. It was bad. That's nasty. Like I walked in later.

Later.

And walked in and I was like, dang.

I gagged the whole time. We took it off the pants. And then So we had to shut the door to the kitchen and we didn't put a sign on our other door. We got 2 doors that you can get in our office and we didn't lock the door. And boss come through and he opened the door and he looked like he'd had a rough time.

Yeah, I was like, how was that?

He just had no work.

He's like, what was that? I was like, and a sourdough project.

Yeah, so we had to leave the doors open and oh man, it was rough.

Did I tell you my secret about that? How I'd come in over the weekend and smelled something and just shut the door and left.

No, you did not.

Yeah, like I just had to come in here and get something out of my office and like come in like on Sunday and open the door and it's like, dang, what is that? I was like, but that's a tomorrow problem.

So it got worse. It got bad. And another time I had fed it and I had too much in the container when I fed it. And I come in the next day and it had flipped over and was on the floor and I blamed you. I don't know what I thought you did.

Yeah, you'd blame me that I'd knocked it over.

And left it, which sounds like you would leave it if you had.

I probably would have, but I didn't this time.

It had got so much gas in it that it had danced around and knocked itself over. And then that one time I had it, wasn't this year at Ag Appreciation Day, I guess it was last year and I forgot it in my car. And I only had a small amount of starter in the bottom. And the lid had bowled up. And if you go to our UADA Facebook page, we videoed me opening it and you could hear the echo from the, like the boom it made through the mountains behind our office. So needless to say, I have, I have done it all. I've killed sourdough starter. I've made it explode. I've made one of the top three smelliest smells that ever smelled. But enough of the bad. One positive about it, and a lot of people, what they're looking for is a continual yeast. So you're not having to buy the yeast from the store that's lab created. At first I would try to make starters with lab created yeast and they just didn't last long term and they never really developed the sour flavor like the traditional one you can buy or get from a friend. And so I really, I like this one. I like how, like I said, resilient it is. I keep it in the refrigerator. I do the unbleached flour. Don't let it come into contact with metal. Like it doesn't need to just sit in metal. I really like the food grade plastic containers with a plastic lid. A few agents have taken the starter home and had the, it's like a canvas duct type fabric lid and put it in the fridge. And you know how fridge, like you leave stuff gets moldy in there. And so they've got mold on their starter. And if you ever get mold on your starter, like it's got to go.

Time to don't keep it. It's not adding flavor.

It's not safe anymore. And if it smells as we say in the Ozarks, then it's not good anymore. You need to throw it out. If it smells yeasty, it's great. But if it's weren't like it did that day we come in here, then it's a no go.

That stuff that you left in the oven was weren't.

I'll tell people you'll know. You will know. But I love to make cinnamon rolls with it. It's nice to have the pizza crust recipe that we've made with our 4-Hers a bunch. I think that's a pretty big hit and the kids enjoy it. And so I do have a sourdough class coming up in Van Buren County in December. So if you're interested in that and you're in Van Buren County, I believe it's the 8th of December, but you need to call their office to be sure. I have classes here and there and give starter. I charge just 5 bucks usually for it.

You're passing it out for free at the Ag Appreciation Day.

I was if you came to my demo that day or stopped by our booth that I had it for free, which is a good deal because some of these unbleached flowers can get more expensive, you know, over time that you're feeding and having classes and But it's been a lot of fun. I've learned a lot with it. And it's really just a popular thing. People are trying to control as many ingredients as they can right now. And so either with the traditional starter or like I said, that potato flake starter that Leanne makes that we have a recipe for, that's a good way to go. And holidays are coming up, baking's coming up. And if you listen to this podcast, you're welcome to come to our office and get a free sourdough starter for me. So I feel like that's a fair offer and I have a really good little packet about all my care instructions. So I just hit on a few of them, but ultimately it's really not that tough. If I can do it and I'm really queen mess maker, then you can make it work too.

So you're talking about your mistakes with sourdough and I was talking about cattle earlier. Well, the other day I went out to pull some soil samples for one of our producers and she took me around and we went and hit all these fields. Well, we get to this one field and there's like a lone cow. It's gotten separated from, not supposed to be in there. Well, it's in there. And so we'd drive by it and go pull some samples while we're coming back out and it's kind of standing there by the gate. And I was like, you want me to try to get her back in? And she's like, yeah. Before she could tell me, well, no, because then they'll all come out. I'd open the gate and went to get her. Well, here they all come pouring out of there. And I'd let like, I got them stopped before too many got in there, but she was like, I should have told you that they all come through. And I was like, I'm sorry. She's like, you'll have to help me get those things up. And I was like, oh my goodness, what have I done?

One turned into how many?

One, not many, like two or three, but. they were gone, I'd let them out of the gate and they were getting away.

Oh, they took off.

Yeah. And so it was like, uh-oh, I've showed up to this lady's place. I'm the county agent and I've let several of her cows out.

You're the negative of that.

Yeah, and she's probably like, what kind of guy?

Agent are you?

Yeah, what kind of, I thought you knew about beef cattle. Did you not know to not leave the gate open? But it, worked out because she's like, you'll just have to help me get them all up later. And I was like, I was thinking, she is kind of like, oh, this, because she's gonna have to do it all herself, I guess is what she's thinking. But I was like, I think we'll be able to get them. And so we go on and what she decides is she'll drive the tractor over and like put out a bale hay, maybe try to attract them. when we went to get the tractor and she was putting out the hay, all of them left and that were in the field, they're supposed to be and went down there to her and I was able to open the gate and run up there and just push them back in. But.

Oh, good.

Yep.

That reminds me of the rooster in the city park incident.

What's that?

You don't remember?

Oh, letting that suckery.

Oh, during bleeding for the fair and I guess she went to get the rooster out of the cage to be bled.

Yeah, and then let him loose.

Yeah, and that's why Martha said she doesn't get him out of the cage. And then 20 minutes of us chasing this little baby rooster. Good thing he was a hateful little baby rooster because he got to fight.

Yeah, he'd get over there and that's how we ended up catching him is he'd get over there and try to fight the other ones in the pen. And luckily, but yeah, we chased him for 20 minutes. I was about to be like, well, I guess there's a wild chick.

There's a wild chickens in City Park. Thankfully, they weren't real upset with us about it. They understand what dealing with chickens is like. I've put chickens in my vehicle to go to the fair before, and I left the cage open apparently, or it like jostled open while I was driving down the road, and I never saw them again.

They were gone. I remember you telling about that. You're like, I had a, wasn't it?

I had two, like a really nice, like a, like a Americana and another one.

Oh yeah, and they were the ones that were given to you. Yes.

I was really hoping that she wouldn't ask. I mean, I thought they'd turn up because it was just right like 1/4 mile down the road, but they were gone.

Yeah, she'd give them to you like you were a caring home to care for the chickens and put them in the fair for her and they escaped. They probably, you know how it is out in the wild. They're probably living it up.

Or poop.

Coyote.

It's accidental. I learned after that to use something to tie that closed because it will come open going down a dirt Rd.

There's a good lesson. Learn from mistakes.

Yeah. Coming up this Friday, we have Grow Your Own Groceries with Faulkner County. So we'll be on that webinar for that. So Grow Your Own Groceries asparagus. And I'll be demonstrating a few recipes.

Yeah, I'll be teaching you how to grow asparagus with I know how. I planted some out there at the community garden. So I'll show you kind of my experience with that through its first year. But yeah, if you're interested in learning how to grow asparagus and how to use it.

Yeah, I'm going to bake it and I'm thinking about pickling it too for a class. So if you'll tune into that, we'll be happy to see you.

Yeah, hopefully you'll learn something, but that's Grow Your Own Groceries with Faulkner County. I think Krista Quinn.

That's this Friday.

That's this Friday, November 14th. So check that out if you're listening. If you're listening after that date, it's already happened. You got anything else for us? I think that's good.

I think that's good.

To wrap it up. We'll see you again. Thanks for listening. See you again next time.

Have a good week. Yeah.