The Bovine Bugle

A cow with an upset stomach

Brault's Slaughterhouse called early this morning to say they would be at the farm around 9 to pick up animals we were shipping for our beef business. We shipped an Angus steer and a Jersey cow we wanted to cull from the herd. We cull or remove a cow from the herd when her milk production is poor or when we can't get her pregnant again.

In the afternoon, Karen noticed that one of the older bred heifers was standing off by herself and not looking very well. We brought the heifer, Oriana, into the maternity room and put her into a freshly-bedded pen. Her temperature was okay, but she seemed a little bloated and uncomfortable. Sometimes in the spring when the animals first start grazing they might eat a plant that upsets their digestive system. I thought this was probably what was happening to the heifer. We gave her aspirin and an Epsom salt drench. Epsom salts is a magnesium salt and acts as a mild laxative to help relieve digestive upsets. When I checked on Oriana before going to bed she was looking much better and had drunk some water and eaten a little hay.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

Don't Fence Me In

Once grazing season begins we are repairing and replacing fence off and on for the next month. The last couple of days we had been working on replacing some worn out barbed wire behind the house with high-tensile electric fence. This was in preparation to move the older heifers and steers across the road and into their summer paddocks behind our house. I guess we weren't going fast enough for them because three of them had to go through the fence of the pasture they were in and wander down to our neighbor's house. Getting a phone call from your neighbor to say your cows are out is not fun, but these three came back pretty easily.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

The cows are let loose!

HOORAY!! The cows started their first rotation through the grazing system today. After a busy couple of days of the fencing crew going full tilt, we’re ready to let the cows out on grass. Karen, the boys, and I had replaced fence posts, spliced together broken fence wire, and checked the watering system that brings drinking water to all the grazing paddocks. The cows, as always, ran around with their tails in the air, kicking up their heels, and acting like they had never been outside before, even though some of the girls are 9 and 10 years old. They enjoy the start of grazing season as much as we do.

I suppose we do our own little dance when the cows go to grass. It makes our days easier. With the cows getting their forage from the pastures, we don't have to haul round bales into the barnyard and the barn to feed them. The amount of manure we have to handle on a daily basis is reduced by about 75 percent, which means less hauling and stacking. We also pasture our heifers, separating them into two groups--an older and a younger group. Heifers older than 6 months are required to be out on pasture during the grazing season in order to comply with organic standards. Having the heifers out grazing further reduces the time and labor needed to care for them, too.

The time that we would normally spend taking care of the animals we can now devote to all the other things we do here at Howmars Farm during late spring, summer, and early fall.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

Lush, nutritious grass keeps the cows happy

This morning I needed to head over to Doug Flack's for some electrical fencing supplies. Doug sold me my first supplies that started me in rotational grazing 17 years ago. Grazing is so important on our farm, as it is on all organic farms. The majority of conventional farms does not graze at all and often do not let their cows out of the barn at all. This boggles my mind when you have a cow that is designed and made to go out to eat grass and farmers keep them shut up in a barn, haul the feed in, haul the manure out, and they call that progress!

Rotational grazing is a system designed by Andre Voisin, a French biologist, chemist, and farmer. The system takes into account the needs of both the plant and the animal, not the animal alone. The Voisin system divides the pastures into small areas (paddocks) and rotates animals through them. The system provides the cows with lush, nutritious grass, and then allows the plants time to regrow before they are grazed again. With the electric fencing system we use, we have great flexibility to take the 45 acres of grazing land we have and divide it into paddocks for our milking cows, heifers, beef animals, and poultry.

Grazing our animals with the Voisin system provides our animals with the very best forage possible, keeps our animals healthy by giving them exercise and sunshine, and give us--the farmers--a break by reducing the amount of labor needed to care for the cows. After a long, hard winter we love to see the cows go out to pasture!!

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

Preparing to set the cows out to graze

With the grass greening up and some very warm weather in the forecast, I thought I'd better get ready to do some fencing. I headed to the woods around mid-morning to cut some northern white cedar for fence posts. We're fortunate to have a fair amount of this tree species growing on the farm. We cut the cedar trees into 6' lengths to use for posts, and if the trees are fairly big in diameter we may split the 6' section into 2 or 4 posts. We also cut longer cedar poles 10 to 12 feet in length to use for corner braces. By 1 o'clock, I had 25 to 30 posts cut! This supply of cedar, along with the insultimber electric fence posts I buy, should repair most of the fence on the farm. I'm planning to go to Doug Flack's tomorrow to buy the rest of the fencing supplies, to get the pastures ready for grazing. Doug sells Gallager Fencing Equipment, a New Zealand-based company. Many of the techniques we use for fencing and grazing here in the U.S. have come from New Zealand.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

One family member is out of commission

My Mom had hip replacement surgery in Burlington, Vermont at the end of April. We're hoping it will give her some relief from the pain and discomfort she has been enduring the last few months. But through all the discomfort she never stopped coming to the barn. Farmers are a tough bunch, often working through physical pain because there is no one else there to do the work. We can't call in sick, the cows would still be there waiting for us!

Noah and I went to O.C. McCuin's for some parts to do some repair work in the barn. The farm and home store has been run by my brother-in-law Owen's family since 1920. The McCuins are probably responsible for keeping many of the farms in this area in business, including ours. Noah and I fixed a leaky water bowl in the heifer barn once we got home, and then we got some other things ready for afternoon chores since Mom and Dad wouldn't be here. On our farm we have a nice daily routine where everyone has their jobs that they do and all the work gets done. When something changes the routine, the work takes a little longer.

After supper I used the loader tractor to load two barrels of syrup into the back of the pickup. Our maple syrup producers’ cooperative is taking in syrup tomorrow so I thought I'd have the truck loaded and ready to go for Dad.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

Grain vs. grass--How they feed the cows

Recently, one of our readers posted a question after reading one of my blogs regarding our organic beef. The question was: "Are our beef and dairy animals all grass-fed or do we also feed them grain?"

Here at Howmars Farm, all our animals receive some grain on a daily basis. We introduce grain, in small amounts, to calves when they are a couple weeks old. By the time the calves are weaned they are eating a few pounds a day. From the age of about four months until calving (for females) or slaughter (for steers) the animals receive 5-6 pounds of grain per day. Once the heifers calve and begin milking we increase their grain intake gradually to 16-18 pounds per day. During the cow's dry period they do not get any grain.

Why the debate over feeding or not feeding grain to dairy and beef animals?

Mainly its the nutrional difference of dairy products and beef produced with or without a diet including grain. For instance, studies have shown that dairy and beef products produced without grain have a much higher level of CLA's (conjugated linoleic acid) than those products produced using grain in the diet. There is an excellent website, www.eatwild.com, that has information regarding how good meat and dairy from grass-based animals is for us.

Why do we feed grain here on our farm? We feel because of the genetics of our registered Jeseys they would not do well without grain in their diet. Our cows are high producers and we feel their health and production would suffer without grain. The other reason is that there is no premium that we could receive for producing milk without grain. To make changes in our genetic program or our feed program would result in lower production from our cows. Like any business, if our production is going to be lower we would hope our price paid per unit for our product would go up to maintain our income level.

Thanks for the question--and send more using the comment feature below!

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

VITAMINS AND MINERALS FOR A NEW MOTHER

Irma and her newborn calf are doing great! I had given Irma a homeopathic remedy, calcarea carbonica, the last few days prior to calving to help her system handle the demand for milk production. Calcarea carbonica is made from the middle layer of the oyster shell, and is used as a prophylactic remedy to prevent milk fever in fresh cows. After calving I added electrolytes to her drinking water to help her with stress of calving. The electrolytes are in granular form in an 8 ounce container. I add half a container to 5 gallons of water. The electrolytes are essential minerals the cow needs but may become deficient in during times of stress or when feed intake is reduced. The product I used contains potassium, calcium, and magnesium. I can't be sure if these pre- and post-natal therapies are the reason Irma is doing so well, but she is doing much better than the last few cows that calved. Cows calving during the winter months and older cows calving are more apt to have metabolic problems such as a lack of calcium or magnesium. The cow then loses her appetite, and her condition can worsen. By giving the cow homeopathic remedies or electrolytes we can alleviate these problems and keep the cow eating and feeling good.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

On the farm, it's Christmas in May

After chores this morning I went out to finish cleaning the freestall barn and stacking the manure. We had lunch and then the boys and I loaded the wagon with some tools and headed over to the Christmas trees to do some shearing. We have over a thousand balsam fir and blue spruce trees growing on a couple of acres behind my brother's house. Normally we shear or prune the trees in the fall but we are a little behind this year. We use shearing knives, a long handled knife with an 18-inch blade, and hand clippers to trim and shape the trees. We need to get the trees sheared now before the buds break and the new growth starts.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

The merits of manure composting

When I came in from chores this morning, Karen had two phone messages from people wanting to get some compost today. One person was a new customer from a couple towns over who would come with her pickup for a little over a yard of compost. She eventually wants 6 yards or so. The other call was from an organic vegetable grower right here in Franklin. He has been buying compost from us for the last 3 years. He wanted two dump trailer loads (7 yards) . It's only two miles into the village so I delivered it right to his garden with my tractor and dump trailer.

Now that we are composting most of our dairy manure, we sell some for another source of income for the farm. We are doing more composting of our manure because we feel the compost is better for our soils than raw
manure or even manure that has been stacked for awhile. More and more organic farmers are composting their manure for the same reason. The majority of conventional dairy farmers store their manure in pits and add enough water to make it liquid. This makes it easy to pump it into big liquid manure spreaders, and to handle high volumes of the liquid manure. Many
organic farmers feel this liquid manure is very harsh on the soil and, more importantly, on the organisms living in the soil. Compost is a very gentle product
and feeds and nurtures the organisms in the soil. Composting usually requires more time and effort than a liquid manure system but organic farmers feel its
worth it.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

Analyzing the grain and hay needs for spring

I was getting ready to go to the barn when Mike Thresher, the grain salesman from Morrison's Custom Feeds, pulled into the dooryard. Mike stops by every few weeks to see how things on the farm are going and if we have any questions or needs. Mike also takes forage samples of our hay to be analyzed to make sure our grain ration fills in any nutritional gaps left from the forages. Today we mostly discussed changes we will make in the grain once the cows begin grazing the first grass of the season. After Mike left, the man we buy our hay from, Dennis Demar, pulled in with a wagon load of round bales. We had a lively discussion on the national organic standard regarding replacement animals for organic dairies. Dennis would like to raise some heifers using organic feed and then sell these heifers to organic dairy farmers. He wanted to know who he would have to buy the calves from in order for them (the calves) to qualify for organic certification when they are ready to be sold as springing heifers. Under the National Organic Standards (205.236 origin of livestock), the wording is rather ambiguous and people are interpretinginterperting it in two different ways as to where replacement animals can come from. Because of this I couldn't really give Dennis a clear answer. I suggested he talk with the people at the NOFA-VT office to get their opinion on the subject.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

Syruping Season Clean-up

My son, Ben, and I continued cleaning up the sugaring equipment today. The storage tank still had about 50 gallons of sap in it which we drained out. The pans are 12 feet in length and a width of 4 feet, requiring 15 gallons of hot water with a strong acid soap to help loosen the residue left from boiling in 5500 gallons of maple sap.

While my Mom and Dad milked and my son Ben did heifer chores, I put round bales inside the freestall barn. I bring the 1200 pound round bales into the barn using the loader tractor with the bale grabber attachment. The barn is set up so that I can drive in behind the feeding area and place 4 round bales. The hay fed with pitchforks. We bring 4 new bales into this area every 4 to 5 days. In total, we feed about 3 round bales everyday, about 700 every winter to the milking herd and older heifers and steers.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont