Drought 2012: How it's affecting US Dairy Farmers

I'm hoping to share a more personal reflection of the Drought of 2012 on this blog in the coming weeks, but for now I have a great resource for you to check out!  Please check out www.dairygood.org for their latest article featuring perspectives from some great dairy farmers across the US.  The article Dairy Farmers Endure highlights a lot of the very same issues that we're facing on our own dairy farm.  Rising feed costs, the risk of not having enough forages on hand, and the stress of financial issues are all hot topics on our farm.  So, please take some time to read this great article!

With high feed costs, we are Planning Ahead....

Well April is here! The weather has really improved in the past few days!  We are enjoying more moderate temperatures and sunshine!  Needless to say, we are working overtime on projects and getting a lot accomplished, but today was for planning ahead.  Often times on a dairy farm, we need to plan ahead, schedule tasks, and make sure that we are using our time and resources to their fullest potential for our cows.  Our dairy consultant/nutritionist Jeremy stopped in for his monthly visit and a planning meeting.

When Jeremy visits, he first walks through the groups of cows and makes observations.  He evaluates how fat or thin our cows are, he watches them eat, he watches them pass manure (and checks that too), he checks our feed, and collects data about the milk we produce.  All of this information helps him to make decisions about what to feed our cows and how much.  Good nutrition is so important to our cows, so we depend on Jeremy's expertise everyday.  Today's report was good: cows are chewing their cuds well, they are passing excellent manure and they are all in great condition (amount of weight they carry-we don't want them too fat or thin).  After talking about the good news we got down to business.

With the recent increases in the corn price, our feed costs are out of control.  The milk price is slowly keeping pace, but it will be hard to make a living milking cows in the next couple months.  Knowing this we needed to develop a plan for our 2011 growing season.  We will be planting our crops in the coming weeks, much of which will be harvested as alfalfa haylage or corn silage for our cows (forages).  After going through all of our options to keep our costs low, while making sure we keep our cows healthy and productive, we decided that we will need to chop more corn silage for 2011.  It is currently more economical to feed corn silage rather than dry corn to our cows, plus cows prefer forages anyways!  We will still feed dry corn (cows need some dry corn too!), but at least we can cut the amount.  We will need to continue to focus on making the best possible feed for our cows this summer, and pray for good growing conditions.  We have a plan, to keep costs low while producing a great product (milk) from healthy cows.  So as we start planting in the coming weeks, we will stick with the plan...stay tuned!

Wish my Camera had Smell-O-Vision!

Today we opened our first bag of 2010 corn silage for our cows' lunches.  We were filled with anticipation this morning as we speculated what we might find in that silage bag.  As you may recall we made 8.35 bags of corn silage this past August.  We worked so hard to get the corn chopped at the right moisture, with the right level of starch in the corn, and chopped at the correct length (check out our video to refresh your memory!).  All of these factors help to make corn silage an amazing food source for cows.  Not only is corn silage a great source of energy (corn starch) but it also an excellent source of fiber (plant leaves and stalk) for our girls.  We feed roughly 50 pounds of corn silage per milk cow each day, making it the primary food of our cows.  When we chopped our corn this past August, it looked like the picture below.  The plants were green & the corn was bright yellow. 

 We sealed it inside the plastic silage bags like a ZipLock bag, with a coating of inoculant (good bacteria used to help preserve the silage). When we seal the bags we never know for sure what we will find when we open them. Every year it is a surprise. We hope that we did our jobs right; that we did the best that we could and would have an amazing feed for our cows. Each year we strive to do better than the year previous. This year we planted a variety of corn that was expected to be higher in digestible fiber for cows, therefore also higher in energy (cows also derive energy from fiber digestion!). So when the big moment came and we opened the seal on our silage bag...this is what we found!!!!

Yep! I sure wish my camera had Smell-O-Vision!  This corn silage smelled great!  It has a sour aroma to it, but with hints of a sweet flavor.  The sour is the vinegar that is produced during fermentation in a silage bag and the sweet is the beloved lactic acid, which makes silage awesome.  It's odd that we look forward to our silage, but our cows' health and well being depend on our ability to make good feed.  This silage was so tasty for our cows, that they ate more than we expected today and we will have to increase the amount fed to them tomorrow!  Hopefully this will result in more milk production as well as continued good health for our cows!

Corn Silage is Ready!

Today we check our corn to determine if it is ready to be chopped for silage....and it's ready!!!!  How do we know that it's ready?  Well, I drove out into the field this afternoon and collected samples of corn stalks.  In each field I chose 10 stalks of corn and chopped them with the chopper.  We collected a sample of the chopped corn, measured it, and dried it with a Koster tester (which removes water from a sample with the use of heated air).   After re-measuring the sample we can determine the moisture of the total corn plant.  It is ideal to chop corn silage at about 65-69% moisture to be packed into the silage bags.  Today's samples told us that the corn is about 64-70% moisture, so it is time to start chopping!!!  BUT....we are not ready to chop. 

Last September, we basically destroyed the processor on our chopper.  The processor is part of the chopper which crushes corn grain and corn cobs into smaller pieces which are more digestible for cows.  By processing our corn we are also able to cut the leaves and stalks into larger pieces which encourages improved rumen health for our cows.  This processor is a critical part of our corn silage chopper...and we haven't fixed it since it broke.  Today we hit the ground running, making sure that we get the chopper fixed!  Jon and his brother Marcus worked long into the evening tonight, putting on the new processor.  They are not done yet, but it did rain tonight which buys us about 1 day of additional time to get it ready to rock.  We have 9 bags of silage to make this year (each about 250 feet long and 10 feet around).  It will be a long task, but with some help from neighbors and family we will get it done as quickly as possible...so the marathon begins!!!  Corn silage season is here!!!!

Corn Silage Season is coming fast!

Our Silage/Grain Corn Variety on July 26th, 2010...looking great! (I'm about 5'7" for a reference for height).

Our Silage Variety plot, noticeably taller than me!  Some as high as 10 feet!

On July 26th, 2010 Our corn was looking pretty darn nice! This is plant producing 2 ears of corn! It's going to make delicious feed for our hungry cows!

Seems like we were just talking about the beginning of summer, starting hay season and the 4th of July, but it looks as though we have blasted through the county fair, the MN State Fair is only days away, we finished our 4th cutting of alfalfa last week and we are looking at starting corn silage in a matter of days as well!  Where did summer go!?!?!?  Above are some pictures that I took of our stellar looking corn crop.  As you may recall,  Jon and I are growing our first field of corn, to be chopped as silage for our cows.  This 25 acre field will feed our cows for about 3-4 months, so it's not really enough for the year, but it helps to be able to raise our own feed instead of purchasing ALL of it.  In order to make enough corn silage for our cows this year we will need to chop about 120 acres to feed each of our cows, heifers and calves for the coming year.  We will fill about 9 silage bags (250 feet long and 10 foot diameter) as well as 2 upright silos, for about 3000 tons of corn silage. 

We planted 2 different types (varieties) of corn this year.  We planted our "usual" variety which is a conventional (no genetically modified traits) which can be used as a grain corn (tends to be harder and higher in starch) or as a silage corn (plant material, leaves and stalks are more digestible for cows to eat).  We also planted a "test" plot where we are trying out some silage specific varieties that are even more digestible for cows.  These 4 varieties (you might notice the difference in heights in my picture, since they are drastically different) are also GMO (genetically modified organisms) varieties.  We are not sure what to think of these crops yet, as we will need to feed them to the cows and let the cows tell us what they think (it's their opinion that really matters!).  Right now we know that the silage specific varieties are VERY tall and are making some nice ears of corn, however the conventional variety is producing some even NICER ears of corn, some plants with as many as 3 ears/plant!!!  In the end though, we really focus on making excellent feed, that provides energy and fiber for our lovely ladies!  It's what our cows tells us about our feed that really matters....if they don't like it, it does us no good, therefore a HUGE focus on quality is key.  Stay tuned for more info from the fields and if you are interested, check out our Facebook Page for more pictures of corn and alfalfa! and some cows too!

Summer Pic from Orange Patch Dairy

Peas ready for harvest on 6/25/10.

My father in law's cows out on pasture.

Fuji the calf, checking out the grass at a local dairy promotion for June Dairy Month.

Jon, adding corn silage to the TMR (Total Mixed Ration) Mixer, making the daily feed for the milking cows.

My view from the corn field on 6/24/10.  Looking good!

One of my cows, being weird, picking her nose...they don't have fingers, so how else should they do it?

For more pictures from our farm, please check out our Facebook page!!!!!

Weekly Re-Cap

Holy Smokes!  This has been one crazy week!  Monday was filled with preschool tours.  Tuesday was herd health day where we learned that we will have over 20 cows and heifers due to have calve in December.  Wednesday, our corn finally went into the ground~Jonathan and I are so excited to have our first field of corn.  Thursday I was at the dentist and making parts runs.  Friday, it rained, but then we had to bed in all of the cows and heifers.  Saturday we dried off 4 cows due to calve in July.  We also moved heifers and calves-graduating them to new pens with more space for their growing bodies. 

Today, well we enjoyed a dinner out with family and then returned home to care for our newborn calf Osseo and her mother Olivia.  Olivia surprised us with a new calf right before church this morning-I swear they do this on purpose!  Nevertheless, we worked even faster to care for the calf and the new cow...and returned after dinner and church to do the final touches.  Osseo enjoyed 1 gallon of fresh colostrum and Olivia enjoyed being moved to the milking barn, where she had all of the TMR that she can eat.  Jonathan worked this afternoon on our disk mower (machine we use to cut our alfalfa) as we know that we will be cutting our first crop of alfalfa soon.  I did a little landscaping.  Seems like the weather forecast is calling for  more cold and wet weather, so I am working during the sunny days while I can.  We had a small dose of frost last night.  The airport reported temps as low as 28.   We woke to frost on the grass and the rooves.  This afternoon I took a quick trip through the corn and alfalfa fields to survey the damage.  Our alfalfa got nipped in the low lands, but on the hill sides it appears that those plants were spared.  If we get some sun and warmer temps, I do believe that the alfalfa will be fine.  Our corn, as it was just planted was safe and sound in the soil (warm, since the soil temps are over 60 degrees) BUT...our neighbor's have corn that has germinated and sprouted out of the soil.  Those plants did get damaged, but if the growing point of the plant was still below the soil...the plant will be ok...so here's hoping their corn will be fine.  I will try to be back a little more often this week, but once we start cutting hay, all bets are off....another busy week at Orange Patch Dairy!

Caught with Our Pants Down

I guess I could say that we gave been "caught with our pants down", at the farm.  Typically spring doesn't officially arrive in our part of MN until early May.  This year we have been treated with some awesome temperatures (in the 70's) for more than a couple days!  These warm days have really pushed the plants along.  Our alfalfa fields are currently on track to need harvesting almost 2 weeks earlier than scheduled.  Our neighbors have been planting corn all week.  Last year (2009) we would have been laughing at them, since we still had snow in some fields at this time!  (last spring was abnormally cold and wet)  Today I had to start mowing the lawn around the dairy barn~which I normally don't do until May 1st, but the grass REALLY needed.  I love the smell of cut grass though, it was amazing!  Since it appears that we have lost 2 weeks of time we are "caught with our pants down". 

We would have used those 2 weeks to do some many other tasks.  I have so much trash to pick up in the ditch that goes past our farm...apparently people have yet to learn NOT to litter!  Makes me so mad, when we work so hard to have a nice farm site and take care of our environment and others just throw their trash in our ditches.  Oh well...I will get to trash later in the coming weeks.  I need to pick up the AgBag (plastic that we use to store our silages) plastic that blew away during the winter storms and hid in the snow drifts.  We need to finish up last minute touches in the parlor before the milk inspector comes~I am almost there but not quite.  I have also been working on doing some much needed fixing in the parlor on the milking equipment.  It works just fine, but there are some parts that need to be replaced.  New works just a little bit better than used.  We have a couple of lots with manure in that need to be hauled out quick before the corn and beans go into the soil...and  FINALLY we have fields to work also to get started planting our own corn....phew I am getting tired just thinking about it.  So...here we go, trying to fit in 2 extra weeks of work into as few of days as possible....one thing you learn on the farm is to always be "flexible"!!!!

Warm March Weather

Oh this Sunday was wonderful. Even though it was cloudy, foggy and rainy...the snow is melting and the temperatures are rising.

This morning we were greeted with a cow in labor. #97, who is 6 years old was in the process of calving, we decided that since she started before we found her that she may need some help. We assisted her labor and delivered a beautiful baby heifer calf. We named her Tracy. Within an hour Tracy was up and running around. We quickly milked #97, fed Tracy, and made sure that #97 was eating her morning meal of TMR (total mixed ration). Seems like we only get heifers on Sunday mornings, which make us late for church, but at least we have an excellent excuse.

We got to church, went out to eat at our favorite Mexican restaurant, and returned to the farm to finish feeding the rest of the cows and heifers. Rest assured no animals ran out of feed, since we usually feed extra on Saturdays to make sure that the milking cows, heifers and dry cows have enough feed to let us enjoy church and a nice "day date". After swiftly feeding the animals, we went home and enjoyed a lovely walk outside. Though brisk, the 35 degree temperatures feel like a tropical paradise compared to a few short weeks ago when it was 35 below zero instead.

This weather is giving me the "itch" to play in the dirt. I am eagerly looking forward to planting my garden and planting our first field of corn. Spring-like weather also gives me the energy to tackle last minute projects at home, before I would rather spend my time outside in the garden. I managed to fully clean the kitchen this weekend and living room. I don't know how much more I will accomplish since we have a busy week scheduled on the farm, but we will see, with this new energy I may still find time. And I am so thankful to have my computer back!

Finally started the corn!

Well, my father in law finally started the corn. Even though it is not dry enough, we are taking it out of the field. We have to. We will have to pay more to dry the corn this year, but if we leave it in the field any longer we will be risking snow, winter, and wildlife: all that will destroy the corn. We hope that this nice warm weather lasts! Please God we need it to last!

Weather is becoming Mentally Frustrating

This weather is becoming mentally frustrating. Yesterday it rained, again....just enough to stop field work and reverse any drying that happened in the fields this weekend. Today the sun was supposed to come out, but we enjoyed a cloudy, cool morning with damp heavy air. This air also didn't allow anything to dry, and when the sun did come out it was 2 hours from sunset. No drying happened today.

We are hoping to get into the fields tomorrow, working to haul some more liquid manure out of the milking barn pit. Once we finish this task, we will pull the pump out of the pit and take it to the neighbor's place to be repaired before we need it again. Once we finish that job we look forward to cleaning out calf huts and hauling that manure and bedding out to the field on Friday. 60 degrees in the forecast for Friday and Saturday makes me hopeful that we can FINALLY hit the corn and soybeans. Once those our out we can start making some much needed bedded for the cows and heifers and haul out our pack manure (7 months worth of manure and bedding from about 160 cows). Stay tuned, I hope to have some videos of all of this action~!

Rain again...

Yep, it's definitely raining again. Looks like we could get over an half an inch. We enjoyed about 3.5 days of almost perfect weather. Local farmers were able to get into the fields and start harvesting their soybeans and corn. Some tillage has also started. We are still unable to harvest our corn, since it is too wet and the cost of drying it is too high. We are waiting for the custom harvester to come and combine our soybeans, so we found other activities to do....MANURE removal.

My father-in-law and brother-in-law worked on moving our manure from the calf/heifer barn this morning. I worked on hauling out liquid manure from the cow barn and Jonathan worked on cleaning up the dry cows and heifer lots. All in all, a LOT of fertilizer was moved to the fields today. We will work this fertilizer into the soils to make an awesome bed for next year's crops. A "Fall Cleaning" of manure. We were very excited about the dry weather, sad about the rain today and tomorrow, but looking forward to the forecast for next week....cool and DRY.

And the rain continues....

God has blessed us with a handful of dry days this past weekend and early week, however the radar is showing a line of rain/thunderstorms looming to the west and closing in. It's be a difficult growing season this year. We started the spring with cool wet conditions. This summer was also cool, but dry and this fall is also cool and WET! We are definitely making up for the dry summer with all of the rain we are receiving right now. This wet weather is preventing us from getting into the field and bringing in the harvest. Our corn and soybeans are all too wet to combine. We would like our corn to be at least below 20% moisture, but right now it is 31-37% moisture. Without sun and warm temperatures, the drying process is becoming more difficult.

In addition to slowing harvest, we are also postponing some critical fall activities. After combining our soybeans and corn, we return to the fields to harvest the foliage from those plants. We bale the dry soybean plants into round bales for bedding for our heifers. We bale the remaining soybean plants in small square bales to be chopped in the calf barn-making for happy, comfy, dry calves =) We chop the dry corn plants and make them into large stacks. We will take scoops of this bedding to bed in our dry cows and feed some of our heifers and dry cows. Cows love to chew on dry corn stalks! Actually cows like to chew on a lot of things.

After we harvest the bedding we spread manure, lots of manure. Manure from cows, dry cows, heifers and calves. We need to make sure we have clean animals for the winter. Also fall is the best time of the year for manure application. We reduce compaction by hauling in the fall compared to the spring. We are also able to incorporate the manure into the soil through fall tillage (plowing, digging) thereby saving the valuable nutrients in the manure to be used by the 2010 crop! Hauling manure is critical to keeping the cows clean and dry but also critical for our crops. Manure saves us money. If we capture all of the nutrients and organic matter available in manure we are able to save the cost of commercial fertilizer that we would have used. Another added benefit is that manure is great for making good soil! Because manure is natural-worms and soil microbes LOVE manure!

When we finish manure hauling...then we have to do fall tillage. Tillage means plowing some fields (using an implement that flips the soil over so the soil surface is underground). We also dig some other fields with an implement called a DMI. The DMI leaves the soil surface on the top, but digs deep into the soil breaking up compaction, making the soil soft for the spring.

So, Dear God...please make the rain stop, at least until the harvest in is, and we have so much to do before snow season!

Corn Silage Season Part 2

A little night time action at the farm. This video was taken on September 7th, 2009 (Day 1). We finished opening the fields and wanted to get a head start on the long and hectic week ahead. The key to making good silage is to make it quickly as possible at a consistent moisture. Consistent moisture helps to make quality forage which feeds our cows who make safe, wholesome, nutritious milk for you the consumer =) Please enjoy our little video of night time silage chopping at Orange Patch Dairy!

Corn Silage Video Part Posted!

Finally I got at least the first video posted from corn silage season! We started chopping on September 7th, 2009 and finished on Monday September 14th, 2009. We worked 6 days and made 8, 250 foot long bags of forage.....equal to about 2500 tons of silage for the cows for the coming year!!! Once the forage is made we store it in bags for at least 3 months to make sure the feed is completely fermented. This video is from the 7th, when the neighbor came over to "open" our fields. He drove his self propelled chopper (a forage chopper that has an engine attached to it instead of chopped like ours which needs a tractor to pull it) through our fields chopping end rows and making "roads" through to make sure that we do not run our precious crop of corn down. Check it out!

Waiting for paint to dry...

Well maybe we aren't waiting for paint to dry, but it's pretty darn close! That corn that we thought was dry enough to chop this week is actually not dry enough...too wet instead. Corn silage is put into bags at our farm, and the corn has to be dry enough to get the bagger machine to push the silage into the bag. A normal corn plant is about 75% moisture, but once it reaches maturity the plant starts to lose moisture and dry down. The ideal moisture for chopping into the bagger is 68% moisture, maximum. We chop corn for a range of 65-68%. Last night's samples tested out at 69% moisture. Then we re sampled the corn today only to find out that one of the fields is at about 72% moisture. NOW....we have to wait for the corn to dry down. We can't start until the wettest field is at the right moisture. Usually corn dries down at 0.5% each day in warm weather, but since we are having the 7th coolest summer ever this year it may take longer. As of right now we are thinking that we might not start chopping until Monday, but that means we can enjoy the Labor Day weekend....a bachelor party, hag and stag party, and a family picnic----all things I would rather do than chop....save that for the weekdays ;)

Corn Silage coming fast!!!!

I thought I would have time on Sunday to post BUT we are looking at chopping corn silage very soon!!!! As a result we have a LOT of prep work to do. This weekend we worked on hooking up the chopper, greasing, lubing, airing up tires, etc. We need to make 8 silage bags of corn, each 250ft. long, holding about 375 ton or 750,000 pounds of silage. That silage will feed about 200 cows for an entire year at our farm. Making it correctly is critical for us to make good milk for the coming year. So if I am missing I am sorry I am busy working on silage, and I will have a full report once we complete the job, hopefully in about 1 week.