Day 3 Grass Farmers

If there was a theme of the day it would be the tours of "Grass Farmers".  I believe most people on the tour today received more info than we could possibly take back with us to Alabama.  We had the opportunity to tour some top of the line farms and I will do my best  to give an overview of each of the stops.  After arriving later in the night on Monday, to the Heart of Cajun  Country, LaFayette, LA (Laugh-yet) we headed to New Iberia sugar cane country. In New Iberia we were joined by NRCS Agent Stuart Gardner, who provided us with a ton of information on the bus between each stop.  We toured 2 farms in New Iberia, "branch cousins" Harvey and Shannon Gonsoulin (Gone-so-lay).  Harvey and Shannon both use an intensive grazing system to raise their cattle.   They rotate cows every 1-3 days through 28 different pastures. In the pictures I have uploaded you will see where a group of cows have been turned out to a new grazing pasture.The Gonsoulin's move the hot wire  fence approximately 200 feet each day until they reach the end of the particular pasture the cows are grazing.  Also in each pasture the cows have access to mineral and water troughs.  We traveled by hay wagons and were provided a giant grass fed beef hamburger and just a little LSU vs AL football talk.

Our next stop took us to Avery Island, the home of Tobasco sauce.  We toured the packaging and labeling factory where they ship out 700 thousand bottles of Tobasco 

a day. The Milhenny family owns the entire island which is actually a salt dome.  They also mine the salt there on the island which is used in the storing of the Tobasco in oak barrels.