The Bovine Bugle

The trouble measly mice can cause

Today I had planned to go to a seminar on how to manage the soils on your farm and how to improve soil fertility. The seminar was being put on by my cooperative, CROPP (Organic Valley), and was featuring Gary Zimmer, a nationally-recognized soil expert. But, as often happens on the farm, something came up and I had to stay home.


The source of the problem: chewed-through wires become corroded

This morning during milking four of the six grain feeders stopped working in the milking parlor. We finished milking, bringing 5-gallon pails of grain from the extra grain bin to put into the mangers for the cows. When the morning chores were all done, I collected the necessary tools, climbed the ladder up to where the grain bins are located, and started trying to figure out where the problem was under the grain-dust covered plywood floor. After removing several sections of plywood I found the problem. A wire had been chewed on by mice, the wires had corroded, and two of the three wires had broken. This had cut off power to four of the grain feeders.

Ripping up the floor to expose the wires, then putting it back together

With a new 6-foot piece of 14-2 wire, some wire nuts, and elecrical tape, I had the feeders back in working order by lunchtime and all of the plywood pieces nailed back in place. It was a job well done, even though it meant I had missed today's meeting. It isn't the first meeting to fall victim to some more important farm issue and it won't be the last. But there are two excellent farmer seminars happening next week so let's hope the cows and the farm equipment cooperate so that I can make it to one of those.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

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Posted by Blogger Chris at March 8, 2005 09:23 AM