March is Leaving Like a Lion...

Well it sure looks like March 2011 is going to leave us like a Lion.  It came in like a Lion, and it's suppose to leave like a Lamb, but I doubt we will get that Lamb like last year.  We had snow and cold to start March, and now we are leaving March with cooler than normal temps with a chance of rain/snow tomorrow.  We have local flooding in our rivers and at the farm we have MUD!

Dare I say it...I wanted Mud Season so badly only weeks ago, but now I am throwing the white flag of surrender! I give up!  It's not that the mud affects me directly, but it's that I have to deal with the aftereffects it has on Jon.  My calves, heifers and milking cows are all inside or in lots that are sandy, therefore drier.  BUT...in order to feed all of our cows, heifers and calves...we have to get to our silage bags out in the field south of our milking barn.  In that we field we have MUD!  We have mud so deep and thick right now that if you walk through it with boots on, the mud will pull those boots right off!  The mud has the consistency of a thick modeling clay...tacky yet still slimy.  We are no longer able to get to our silages with the skid loader, but instead we have to use the loader tractor with Front Wheel Assist (a fancy ag-way to say extra traction!).  The loader tractor is leaving ruts and tracks almost 3 feet deep!  You could fall and get lost in ruts that deep!  Driving the loader tractor is not for those with weak stomachs.  The ruts also track up and down over pieces of top soil that are still frozen and top soil that is thawed out all the way to the clay base.  That darn mud gets in everything and is everywhere!  Jon has brought home mud in his boots, on his boots, and on his clothes.  Mud even gets in his hair.  Needless to say Jon would be tickled pink if we could get a week of 50 degree temps and sunshine...here's hoping April brings us more "spring-like" weather!

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 2010

Well I know it's been a long time since I blogged, but I am hoping now that a majority of our forage harvesting for the year I will have more time to devote to this blog.  Since we were busy chopping corn silage last week, taking about 4.5 days to chop over 2800 tons of corn silage for our cows from about 135 acres of corn, I thought I would do a short/long/informative recap of the week's events.

A little information about corn silage first though.  We strive to feed our cows a high forage diet (a diet composed mainly of fiber/forage instead of grain, which promotes excellent rumen & cow health).  The vast majority of our diet's forage comes from corn silage.  We like corn silage because it not only provides valuable fiber material for our cows but also highly available energy in the form of corn grain.  The corn grain in corn silage has been processed (crushed so that rumen bacteria can digest the corn starch to make proteins to feed the cow) and the corn is also wet-also making it more digestible.  Our cows eat over 100 pounds of feed each day, and over 50 pounds of that is corn silage.  As such a large portion of our cows' daily diets, corn silage quality becomes very critical. 

Excellent cow health on our farm starts with excellent nutrition.  We harvest our corn at 65-69% moisture.  A normal corn plant is about 75% moisture, but after the corn grain is mature, with the onset of fall, corn plants begin to dry down and lose moisture.  With the warm temperatures this summer and excellent growing conditions, we had an earlier than expected harvest of silage.  We also had to work faster than expected to beat the weather.  With temperatures in the 90's and strong southerly winds, the clock was ticking.  Usually corn will lose about .5% of moisture each day in normal temperatures, but with the increased temperatures we were losing more moisture than expected.  We pushed even harder to finish the harvest, and thanks to an awesome friend of the family (who donated his time and his tractor) and an awesome brother in law...we were able to reach our goals.  On Sunday night/Monday morning we ran the last load of corn silage into the bag, celebrated with a beer and "hit the hay".  Monday we sealed silage bags, and boy did they smell amazing!  I LOVE the smell of freshly fermenting corn silage.  It's comforting to know we have most of our feed for our cows for the upcoming year in bags.   We have been truly blessed!  Please feel free to check out the pictures below from the week's events as well as a new video I added to YouTube.

Rows of delicious feed for our cows this coming year.

Chopping corn silage in "our" corn field.

Filling the bagger (the machine with packs the corn silage into the long silage bags).

My brother in law and our friend showing off, as they are side winding corn silage into the 2nd silage box so that the chopper doesn't have to stop chopping.

Thanks to the dry and warm weather we had a fair amount of dust on our field roads coming into the farm.

Tall rows of corn, green and full of nutrients for our cows!

Last load of the night!  It was a hard one to get in, thanks to some break downs, but we got it done!

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!

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!

Rain delay...

Darn rain shower...poured .3 of an inch on us tonight, just as we were starting to really get going on chopping for the day. We have 3.75 bags of sialge done and we need a total of 8 bags of silage....so we have a LOT of work to do in a short period of time. We need to make 2 bags of silage each day for the next 2 days so we can go to a wedding this weekend. God willing we will get it done...so we pray.....the corn is too wet to chop so we must wait for it to dry. Hopefully tomorrow we can start early to make up for this RAIN DELAY.

Sleep needed!

Just thought I would let you know I am still alive, just that sleep is needed. After surviving the county fair with about 5 hours of sleep a night, we moved right into 4th cutting of alfalfa hay. Yesterday (Monday) we started cutting our 100 acres of hay, and today we finished cutting and chopped it all. 100 acres of 4th cutting hay should have filled at least 7/8 of a silage bag, but since we have been SO DRY it only filled about 1/3 of a bag. This means we will have to make more corn silage for the cows in order to have enough feed to feed the cows this winter. Corn silage will be starting in a few short weeks, so we will have to do some planning before then. Our alfalfa was beautiful, but so dry....so we hope for rain for a better 5th cutting of alfalfa in September. I will add more info from the fair hopefully tomorrow ;)

Taking a little break...

So apparently it's been almost 1 week since I last blogged. That was not intentional, but weather related. We cut our hay last Friday, and tried to chop it Saturday and Sunday, but Mother Nature had other ideas. Clouds moved in, heat moved in, sun disappeared, humidity appeared and so did the rain. Rain and humidity make for bad hay making :( As of right now, we have 120 acres of 130 acres of alfalfa chopped and in the silage bags. The remaining 10 acres are laying in the field and have been rained on 4 times already. We are hoping to get it done tomorrow.

Yevette is growing so well now!!! She's gaining weight like a champ. For a calf half the size of a normal calf...she's eating as much as a normal calf would!

Joey is now fully weaned. She is drinking water twice a day and eats calf starter-about 4-5 pounds each day.

It's late though, so off to bed I go...hay to make in the morning!