Mad Cows, Cramped Chickens, Sick Birds, Dirty Hogs, Stray Dogs/Cats ..

I posted at Captain Bama on the news that "mad cow" has made it into Alabama. Might really ding the local beef market yet it appears she was an old cow from before the ban on "protein supplementation" (you don't want to ask!) applied. I also tackled factory farming, with our county having a fair share of poultry houses but to my knowledge no hog houses (yet?), that is hardly the agrarian ideal. It might be an increasingly scarce way for folks to stay on the land yet there are perhaps alternatives such as free range chickens and grass fed beef like at Thundering Hooves out West. As close as we are to Atlanta there might be an opportunity here? Bird flu looms and I'm not real confident the Bu$h Administration can handle much of anything these days. And we've of course got our need for an appropriately funded animal shelter that is hardly getting local support. Peace ... or War!