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!

Passed the milk inspection!!!

Well, the milk inspector stopped out today for our surprise inspection and we are certified to sell milk for another 6 months!!!!  We were not worried that we would fail this inspection, as we are always working to have clean equipment and safe, wholesome milk, but every dairy farmer knows that the moment that the milk inspector sets foot on the farm....you just get nervous.  It's a guessing game as to whether or not we will get a violation, and we definitely do not want to have a violation so severe that it would warrent a re-inspection, which we would have to pay a fine for.  Today's good news was that we passed...but Alan did leave us a short list of changes that he thinks we should make before he comes to visit us again in the fall.  Simples stuff like painting a storage box, scrubbing off some hard water spots off of the pipeline in the corner of the parlor, and making sure the milk house door is shut~as Alan showed up when we were cleaning up after treating a cow and we had the door propped open.  It's not that an open door or a storage container with chipping paint are bad for the quality of our milk, but its that if we make these improvements we will continue to have a clean and safe environment to make safe and wholesome milk.  Sometimes it just nice to have another set of eyes to check out the job that you are doing.  In case you're wondering what a milk inspection looks like, check out this video from the Minnesota Department of Ag....and check out this video from http://www.dairyfarmingtoday.org/ about milk quality!

Just a note, I might not be around much in the coming days.  We have a tour group of preschoolers coming to the farm next Monday, and I have a lot of activities to organize beforehand.  Since the sun is shining Jon tells me that we will also be hauling out the dry cow yard's manure and hopefully hitting the fields to plant our first field of corn for silage!  I promise to take lots of pictures in the meantime!  Happy Spring!

Manure Management Meetings on Friday

It's been a busy weekend, but I wanted to take some time to recap some of the things that we worked on Friday.  We had a BUNCH of meetings on Monday at the farm with the various professional that we work with to help us make good choices for our land and resources.  This year we are planning to grow our 1st crop of corn!  Previously Jonathan and I purchased all of the feed that we feed our cows from my father in law.  Growing our own crops (at least part of our feed needs) will allow us to save money as we can work to grow feed at a lower cost than we can purchase it...not that my father in law ripped us off, but now we can use our own labor instead of paying him and our own manure instead of giving it away to neighbors. 

We work with our local cooperative's agronomy department, which helps us mange our soils and crops. We pulled soil samples a few weeks ago to determine the quality of the soil in our field.  The good news is that with the management of manure in the previous years resulted in some very fertile soils that will only require a small amount of commercial fertilizer to get the corn started.  The remaining nutrients are already in the soil thanks to cow manure from last fall!  Another excellent bonus is that this lower level of commercial fertilizer will not only reduce the total cost of growing corn but increase the biological activity of the soil microbes (bacteria) which break down cow manure and crop residue (leaves and stalks left over from last year).  We were excited to hear this news and even more excited to get into the fields to get that corn planted!

We also work with a private practice agronomist/manure management specialist.  His name is Al, and he helps us keep track of so many things on our farm regarding manure.  Al has been sampling our manure for the past few years, making sure that we don't over or under apply manure to our soils.  This insures that we will always apply our cow manure at the appropriate rate.  We have even calibrated all of our manure spreaders so we know how many pounds/tons of manure we apply per acre.  One project that we have our friend Al working on right now, is recalculating our manure management plan.  Our manure management plan is a document of many pages which accounts for the amount of manure that our cows produce each year and how many acres that are required in order to apply that manure.  A series of manure samples, soil samples, and calculations are included and used to determine those acres.  As our herd has grown this past winter, we have to re-calcualte the manure management plan, making sure yet again that we do not over apply manure. 

Maintaining our soils is our number one goal.  Manure is not a pollutant when used properly, but instead a GREAT fertilizer which grows some of the best corn in the area!  I even use manure to grow my flowers, fruits and vegetables....and I have an amazing crop each year!

Blink and you'll miss it!

I can't believe it, I blinked and I missed it! Which is especially frustrating since I wanted to capture it on video....planting corn that is. I was hoping to capture video of my father in law planting the last field of corn for this year, and I blinked (left the farm to run some errands in town) and I missed it. We had one field of corn left, it rained last night-much needed rain. So I thought that I had plenty of time to go to town. My father in law was eager to finish, and as soon as the field dried off a little, so at 3 pm he went to the field. I am proud to report that we are finished planting the corn crop. We have some more manure to haul and then we can finish planting soybeans and sweet corn. It's nice to know this year we will finish planting before we start cutting our first cutting of alfalfa.

Other than that, nothing new to report from the farm. I am eager to get into the flower beds and work on making the yard "pretty" again. The prep work for the pre-school tour has started and we are also working on scheduling a tour for a local high school Ag class. It's May and very busy at the farm!

Corn planting continues

Corn planting continues at Orange Patch Dairy. My father in law was able to put in about 65 acres of corn in today and yesterday. He was having his usual early season problems with our 8-row John Deere planter yesterday, which slowed him down. The planter was skipping in a couple of rows...making for very uneven rows of corn. SO.....we brought it home, got it in the shop and fixed it. Back to the field. The weather forecast looks good for the coming days, so we are hoping to apply the last little bit of fertilizer, work that in, and finish planting our 250 acres of corn for the year. Since we work with our agronomist on nutrient management, we are able to utilize our natural fertilizer (manure) first for our fields. Our agronomist pulls soil and manure samples to calculate the amount of commercial fertilizer we need to apply each spring. Usually we only need to apply a "pop up" fertilizer. This fertilizer is used to help the corn plants get a good start on the growing season, after that the plants will rely on the organic matter, nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorous of our cow manure!

Del Monte Foods delivered the packer for the pea field but no drill yet, so I guess that means that the peas will be planted soon! I love peas from the field! We usually plant about 30-40 acres of peas each year to be harvested sometime in mid-June. This allows us to have an empty field in the summer for manure application. Once the sweet corn is harvested in July/August then we move to applying manure on that field and seed the old pea field in with alfalfa. If we time it just right, we get a good rain in August and the fall seeded alfalfa is off to the races! The beauty of farming is getting the most from each acre without depleting it of nutrients. By rotating our crops and planting different types of crops like alfalfa, peas and sweet corn, we are able to better utilize our soils for our cows and our farm.

Chopper shopping update...

Jonathan wanted me to clarify something. Even though we are currently looking for a new chopper, we can't really afford it. Milk prices have put additional stress on our family. We were able to save a little money last year when the milk prices were higher, and we plan on using that to help us update our equipment. One thing that is critical when we are making forages is making sure that ALL of our equipment is ready to run. After the 2008 Forage Season we are not entirely sure that our 1991 model chopper can make it through another 100 acres of alfalfa and 100 acres of corn. Knowing this, we NEED to replace this chopper. Our herd's future production depends on the quality of the feed we make. There's nothing worse than a broken chopper with 100 acres of alfalfa laying in the sun, drying and getting drier or.....raining coming in hours. Dry alfalfa makes terrible feed and rain often causes forages to mold, therefore timing is CRITICAL and equipment NEEDS to be ready to run.

We still haven't found the "right one", but we have found a couple "good ones" according to Jonathan. Jonathan continues to search online for other choppers he might have missed, looking for something a little closer to our price range. He was also talking about leaving for another road trip to Wisconsin next week. We shall see if he does leave, especially since we are FINALLY able to start planting corn this afternoon! We will keep you up to date!