Hemp vs Marijuana

I want to apologize to the membership for my “political statement” post. Not for what I said, but rather for where I said it. I have edited the politics out of the post. DanNH is right, we get enough political opinions elsewhere. I deserved to be called on it. This is a fun learning and doing place and we all want it to continue being fun. Pepe

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Thanks Pepe. We all have political opinions and that’s great. Nobody should apologize for that. But as you said, this isn’t really the place for it… even in the off topic section.

Stay classy San Diego! :sunglasses:

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Politics causes me upset stomach.

Solutions to actual problems we can solve makes me feel better.

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I told a coworker the story in comment 16 here and the next day she told me of her own struggle and handed me this poem. I just ran across it and want to share it with you all. Every time I got close to the edge of slipping back I read this poem.

You just never know where help is going to come from.
Pepe

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I know lots of folks are convinced MJ has all these great properties, but I can tell you this: My wife works in a profession that has her seeing clients who are regular, long time MJ users, and there is an identifiable trend in the medical community with these people - something goes wrong in their heads after a while. They don’t think right, and exhibit behaviours similar to other well known brain ailments. They also develop the exact same problems a long term smoker develops if they smoke it. Things like COPD and lung cancer, not really hard to see the connection either.

I personally don’t give a rip if a guy wants to use MJ, but you can take what I’ve said above to the bank, it’s 100% reliable, 100% observable, and 100% documented.

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I realy apreciate all the honesty from you guys. It shows how great members are here as persons.
I dont smoke canabis, did try it a couple of times but didnt realy like the effects much. Im thinking to try again some day , have a nice bud prepared for more thain a year now :smile:
Alcohol is still more of a preffered drug here, afterall we live surrounded by vineyards. Its actualy a custom here for men (and a lot of women) to not drink anything else thain wine mixed with mineral water, called “špricer”, althugh its important to say a “thirst vine” is very different from “party vine” in term of alcohol content. A špricer has a alc content of about 3-5% at most.

Ok, now forvthe other part of this topic, and the main reason replyed to it.
I am constantly looking for ways to make our farm independant, l mean not just produce our food, but allso produce our foods food. Animal feed.
Hay eaters are asured of high quality feed, problems come at the animals in need of high protein diets. Rabbits, pigs and poultry and fish still depend on bought feed.
So far l have tryed with soy beans, they showed uneconomical. Duckweed shows some promise, and the next is hemp seed.
I did some research but am interasted if anyone has any experiances with hemp seed based feed?

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I used to raise a lot of rabbits, they did well on good alfalfa hay, rolled barley and poplar branches. (Trembling aspen). Rabbits in the wild prefer to eat the bark from aspen, and it also serves to keep their teeth trimmed and give them something to do.

No personal experience with hemp meal, but it’s a byproduct of oil extraction, a significant product. I expect it would be good feed. Hemp is a tall and dense crop, which will compete well against weeds. But the seed is carried on the top part of the plants, and the stalks are very fibrous, which will complicate harvest and processing the waste.

Here the established practice for harvest is to straight cut the field with a combine harvester at about 4 ft / 1.4m, then cut and bale the stalks after. If not needed for fiber the stalks still have to be removed from the field or tillage will be impossible. So the work to obtain the seed is higher than grain or soybeans.

Regards,

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Good info on the rabbits. I have debated them myself. I think they wouldn’t be hard to raise and there is a specialty market for them. I have thought about it just because I have hay. I sort of feels like just putting in more beef is putting all my eggs in one basket.

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I like rabbits but developed some kind of weird reaction to them one year ( helping a chum process some one fall ).
My hands swelled up, itching and burning.

Since then I have not handled any live, domesticated or wild rabbits ( but I have eaten some cooked meat with no ill effects ).

I know this is a little off topic but I have often wondered if my reaction was caused by the animals or something they may have been bedding in or feed.

Has anyone else ever had this happen?

That’s an exceptional reaction. It could be either way, you would probably have to do a process of elimination, if you can recall the bedding material maybe expose yourself to that, and then rabbits not raised on that bedding? Could it have been some pesticide on bedding or rabbits? I guess just as cats can cause reactions it may happen rarely with rabbits too.

The rabbits were very easy to raise, I had no disease issues, just fed them as described, some cattle mineral supplement, dandelions, peelings and bits from the garden. The hutches I used were made from wood, raised 3ft, enclosed on 3 sides, 1" sq wooden slat floors spaced wide enough to be fairly self cleaning, (some claim the wire mesh is uncomfortable footing, I tend to agree), vee shaped hay mangers between adjacent hutches with mesh small enough to keep the young from getting through. The mangers allow bulk hay to be placed in, but the rabbits have to pull it in to eat, and can’t waste it by walking on it. The posts should be wrapped in tin to prevent weasels or rats access, or made from pipe, roof sloped to the back.

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I handled rabbits from since I was kid.
Bedding my chum used was just ordinary straw.

I guess its just one of those weird things, but I am suspect of a lot of what I handle.
Over the years since I developed mild contact dermatitis related to coatings, nickle and chemicals at work.

But the Rabbits is REAL weird ha ha
Eating them is just fine.

Its a shame too, because rabbit and chickens are some of the most ecologically friendly things you can raise and the only things in most cases you can have in city limits.

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I used to have lots of rabbits, 6 mothers, provideing enough meat for my family and a few to sell. I fed them with dry clover hay, fresh cut grass in the summeer and a bit of grain, but they grew slow without a adition of bought pellets.
And allso l had losses of around one third due to dessise.
Last one was in spring, l lost about 40 butching sized rabbits in a week. Only 4 bucks survived, those l let out to run free, and burned the cages.
They still jump around to much of my surprise, the fox didnt get them.
Well, exept one, he got a invitation for dinner, in form of a .22 :smile:

I have arenged today with a friend to sell me a few females in the spring. Ill let them free and see what comes out of this…

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Allergic probably. If I get stung by those mostly black wasps, I break out in hives and my lips swell up like I just got a Botox injection :grin:. Itching from head to toe for a good 5-6 hours.

Sounds more like a BAD 5-6 hours to me.

well I’m going to jump this thread from rabbits and allergies back into the Hemp. I handled my first hemp stem last week and was surprised how woody it is. Reminded me of aspen wood. I though this stuff will make great biochar and possibly engine grade charcoal. Several days later I received a call from a fellow biochar “nut” (that is my wife’s term) who asked me about making hemp stems into biochar. Seems the hemp farmers have lots of stalks and no easy way to dispose of them. I’ll be looking into it.
Gary in PA

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Hemp should be ok, and as you say there’s good availability. I suspect the charcoal will be low density, high flow through stuff…

Keep me posted as this is where Im headed. Hemp pellets, I believe will be the holy grail for my machines. Easy to mill to and process and could use a lesser expensive pellet mill. The grain pellet mills can be had for less than a $1000 bucks.

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I wounder if corn stalks would make good pellets ground up. looks like the whole state gone too pot with all the stock aid fence squares every other road. in fact there is a cop a mile from my trailer house growing for resale.

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Good question, hopefully I can find funding to get a mill, so I can start trying different fuel sources.

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