Goats rampant the cauliflower field – intentionally

Goats apparently love cauliflower. The video shot by Spanish animal nutritionists involved in the SOLID project leaves no doubt. The movie star goats belong to the Pérez Family, who run a dairy goat farm outside Granada in Southern Spain.

The farm has been involved in the participatory research conducted by the Animal Nutrition Institute at CSIC in Granada aimed at finding the means to reduce livestock feeding costs as part of the SOLID project.

Apparently, the goats also enjoyed being involved in SOLID, in particular as it implied new and interesting diets such as self-service dinner in the cauliflower field, humorously documented on the video.  They also tested silage made with waste from the tomato and olive industries but self-service cauliflowers was the winner!

Read more about the tomato and olive silage

…. and watch a video about feeding goats with byproducts.

 

Fruitful SOLID meeting in Granada

The annual SOLID meeting in Granada was a major step forward for SOLID towards the completion of the entire project. A very successful meeting, according to the overall project leader of SOLID, Nigel Scollan.

By Ulla Skovsbøl

For two days in May the elegant lobby and the shady conference rooms of Hotel Saray in Granada buzzed with intensive discussions on cows and goats, organic farming methods and low-input farming, breeding and feeding and milk production as about 50 agricultural scientists and stakeholders from most of the 10 EU countries involved in the SOLID project met for the 5th Annual Project and Stakeholder Platform Meeting.

The participants agreed that the scientific discussions in plenum as well as in smaller groups were fruitful, but also the excursions and the social events contributed to make the Granada-meeting a success.

“It was fantastic to have the privilege of visiting Granada for the 5th Annual Project meeting of SOLID.  The location was excellent and it was a delight to see so many of the “SOLID family” together. The meeting provided a forum for each of our work packages to update on progress and permit discussion with our stakeholders on implications of the research conducted,”  SOLID´s overall project leader Nigel Scollan, Aberystwyth University (UK), says.

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