The Bovine Bugle

Finally, dry weather makes for good haying

This past week was the one we have been waiting for since late July. Up to this point we had not had enough sunny, warm days in a row to make dry hay into square bales. We need at least 3 nice days in a row to dry the hay enough so that it won't mold and spoil once it is baled. The "square bales" (actually they are rectangular) are about 3 1/2 feet long, 2 feet wide, and 1 1/2 feet thick and weigh 30 to 40 pounds. We use these bales to feed the younger animals that are kept in the young stock barn.

Dennis Demar, our forage supplier, mowed the hay on Monday and it was ready to bale on Thursday. About 3 o'clock in the afternoon Dad pulled in with the first wagonload of bales. Dad trucked the wagons back and forth between our farm and Dennis', about 5 miles away. The unloading crew was comprised of Karen, Ben, Justin, Noah, me, and my brother, Steve, who graciously came home from work early to give us a hand. Over the next 2 1/2 to 3 hours we unloaded 5 loads of hay for a total of 700 bales. Each bale was placed on a conveyor sitting on the wagon, taken off the end of the conveyor inside the barn, tossed to a waiting pair of hands, and then carefully stacked into the growing criss-cross pile of bales in the haymow. After the extremely wet summer we have been suffering through, we were extremely happy to have these precious bales safely inside our barn.

Of course, there was still the evening milking and chores to do. We finished around 9 p.m., tired but satisfied with a day's work well done.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

Cows keep careful watch on manure spreading

The heifers and steers of Howmars Farm kept a close watch on the action earlier this week as son Ben spread manure over the fields. (Check out those muddy knees!)

Below, Scooter and his mom ham it up for the cameras.

Spreading compost to prepare for fall

Ben has been spreading some finished compost the past couple of days. He spread the compost, mixed with some lime, on two of the grazing paddocks the older group of heifers/steers graze during the grazing season. We usually start spreading compost and aged-manure this time of year to make sure we get all our pastures covered before it gets too wet in the fall to do any spreading.

The compost windrow that Ben cleaned up was built last September, turned several times last fall, and then turned 2 or 3 times this summer. We usually spread the compost at 8-10 yards per acre. We add a couple hundred pounds of lime per load of compost to keep the pH of the soil in the 6-7 range, best for growing forages, and to keep enough calcium in the soil. Finished compost is so much better for the soil than raw manure, and it spreads very evenly, giving good coverage over the whole grazing paddock.

With the windrow all cleaned up, we can start building another windrow with material we stored in our stacking area over the winter. It took Ben about 4 hours to spread 8 or 9 loads of compost. It will take 4 or 5 hours to draw 16-18 loads of compost material from the stacking area to the windrow site. This is why we try to take material from the barn directly to a windrow site. By not putting material in the stacking area when we don't have to, we avoid having to handle the material another time.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

Visit our other daily dairies at Stonyfield.com for all the news:
On environmental issues: The Dairy Planet
Get junk food out of schools: Creating Healthy Kids
Daily life and challenges at Stonyfield Farm: The Daily Scoop
Learn stress-busting, fitness and advocacy tips: Strong Women Daily News

Cow Power--large dairies generating their own electricity

In a recent Mark Trail comic strip in the Sunday funnies, Mark Trail was talking about methane production from cows and what some people think it is doing to the environment. There is some concern that methane from the ruminating cows is contributing to global warming. A few days later in the same paper, The Burlington Free Press, they ran an article about a large dairy in central Vermont that is going to take the methane produced by decomposing manure and use it to generate electricity.

The project on the 1,500-cow dairy farm will cost $1.2 million and will produce enough electricity to supply 300 homes for a year. The manure is placed in a large tank called a digester. As the manure breaks down, methane is produced and is piped to the generator. The methane is burned to power the generator and produce electricity. The electricity will enter the power grid right from the farm. The farm currently has an electric bill of $70,000 per year and hopes to take in two or three times that figure.

There are several benefits to this project. One, the project provides another generation source for electricity. Two, it provides another source of income for the farm. Three, removing the methane from the manure reduces the odor by 90 percent. And four, the cooked and dried manure can be sold as compost, used as bedding, or used as fertilizer on the farm. However, to make a project like this work, it takes a farm with at least 300 cows to generate enough methane gas. Needless to say, there won't be any organic farms here in Vermont (organic farms being small operations) putting in a system like this.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

Many mouths to feed, and a new pail to do it

The calf business has been booming here on the farm, and son Justin is not too happy about it. Justin usually feeds the calves at the afternoon chores. When there were five or six calves to feed, it was a fun job. Now that he has to feed 15 calves it's more like work. He grumbles and mumbles to himself, but he always gets the job done. My mom has started coming to the barn again in the afternoon, and she gives Justin a hand feeding the hungry hoard.

We have so many calves to raise because not only are we raising the heifer calves for herd replacements, but we are also raising 8 to 10 bulls to steer, for use in our organic beef business. It means more time taking care of the extra calves, but we want to be sure to be able to meet the demand of our beef customers in the near future. And when the cousins are here visiting the farm, it means everyone will get a chance to feed a calf. I even bought a new calf feeding pail for Justin today to try to keep his attitude positive when it comes to feeding all those calves.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

Visit our other daily dairies at Stonyfield.com for all the news:
On environmental issues: The Dairy Planet
Get junk food out of schools: Creating Healthy Kids
Daily life and challenges at Stonyfield Farm: The Daily Scoop
Learn stress-busting, fitness and advocacy tips: Strong Women Daily News

The controversial tale of cattle tail-docking

We subscribe to several dairy publications to provide us with information to help us run our farm better. One of those publications is Hoard's Dairyman, started in 1885. In the August 10, 2004 issue, there was a brief announcement from the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) regarding tail-docking of cattle. For those of you who don't know what tail docking is, it is the removal of all but 6-8 inches of the animal's tail. This is routinely done to cows on many farms.

This practice was touted as a way to keep animals cleaner, and to reduce the risk of mastitis infection in cows. Farmers jumped on the bandwagon and many started removing the tails of their cows. I was not impressed with the idea, and since transitioning to organic production 7 years ago, I am even less supportive of doing this to cows. I felt all along that it was mainly something farmers did for their comfort, not for the benefit of the cows. For example, in the new parlors on the large commercial dairies the cows are milked from behind, not from the side. In these parlors there are troughs behind the cows to catch the manure and urine. By removing most of the cow's tail, it keeps the tail from swishing in the trough and keeps everything cleaner for the person doing the milking.

I must say I was overjoyed when the AVMA's Animal Welfare Committee stated it's position on tail docking by releasing the statement, "The AVMA opposes routine tail docking of cattle. Current scientific literature indicates that routine tail docking provides no benefit to the animal and that tail docking can lead to distress during fly season." It made me very sad to drive by a farm in the summertime and see cows outside with no tails to swish the flies off their backs. I applaud the committee for taking the stance they did on this issue.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

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The merits of manure composting--better for everybody!

Back in May, Jonathan wrote about how he uses manure on his organic dairy farm. We thought it ws worth repeating here, for our new Bovine Bugle readers:

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

A heifer gives birth to a calf

We had noticed an animal hanging back from the rest of the milking herd out in the grazing paddock. I was sure it was one of the heifers due soon that we had put in with the cows to get them acclimated to the barn, the milking facility, and the milking herd. Maybe she was getting ready to calve. When it was time for the afternoon milking, I walked down the lane to let the cows up to the barn. There was a new calf, and the mother was one of the heifers, Oriana, in with the milking herd.

I talked about Oriana in a blog I did on May 4. That day she wasn't too well, but she came through that setback fine. She calved 8 days before her due date, not unusual for a heifer calving for the first time. The calf, a heifer, was smaller than normal but otherwise okay. I wonder if the calf was small due to the setback Oriana had in May. Oriana followed me and her calf all the way up the lane, through the gate, and into the barn. After milking, we gave her calf some nice, warm colostrum and she sucked it all down.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

A cool day to cut wood for spring's maple sugaring

Son Benjamin helps split the wood.

A change in the weather brought us a nice, cool, sunny day... a perfect day to split and stack firewood for our maple sugaring operation. We burn 6-8 cords of wood each sugaring season (March-early April). During the summer we try to fill up the sugarhouse woodshed so that we will have a good supply of dry firewood come next March.

We had a few rows of 3-foot-long wood that needed splitting. We use a hydraulic woodsplitter run off a tractor PTO (power take off) to split the hardwood/softwood pieces that are too large for the firebox of the arch. I had the splitter hitched on, and had split a couple loader bucket-loads, before Ben came along to give me a hand. He stacked the wood in the bucket and then dumped and stacked the wood in the woodshed while I continued splitting the large pieces. In a couple of hours, we had the rows of wood all taken care of, and we had another 2 1/2 cords of wood ready for next spring. We did all the splitting under the watchful eye of a snake sunning itself on a section of the woodpile.

We use wood in our sugaring operation for several reasons. It's a renewable resource, we have an ample supply of hardwood and softwood on the farm, it's the traditional fuel that sugarmakers first used to boil the maple sap, and we think it makes our syrup taste better. Many of the sugarmakers now use fuel oil to run their sugar rigs, taking away some of the tradition that makes sugarmaking so special.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

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Clinic day reveals two surprise pregnancies!

My herd clinic vet, Steve Wadsworth, was at the farm this morning to do some paperwork on a project he is doing with several farmers in the area. Noah came in and talked with Dr. Steve about the lariat Steve let him try a couple of clinics ago. That reminded me of what we used the lariat for that day.

Our monthly herd clinic was moved up a day this month. Dr. Steve was participating in a charity golf tournament tomorrow, our regular clinic day, so he came this morning to do the regular monthly pregnancy and post-calving checks, vaccinations, and whatever else we needed looking at. Today we checked 8-10 cows and heifers that we would soon be breeding to make sure their reproductive systems were fine and functioning normally. We had a nice surprise when we checked two heifers that I thought were not pregnant, but we found out they were both almost 3 months pregnant.

The biggest challenge today was to catch Scooter, a 6-month old Angus bull that had been outside with its mother since he was born last November. Scooter needed to be steered and we needed to catch him, which would be a challenge since we had never handled him before. All our bulls that we raise for beef production are steered or "fixed" for two main reasons. The first reason is for saftey. Bulls can become aggressive as they mature and we don't want anyone getting hurt here on the farm from a bull charging. Every year we hear of some farmer in the area being attackd by a bull on their farm. The second reason is we don't want any of our heifers being bred by a bull in our beef operation.

We managed to get Scooter and several other animals in the corral. Using Dr. Steve's lariat--yes, a real cowboy lariat--we snagged Scooter and snubbed him up to a post. We then also put a good, rugged halter on him and then Dr. Steve went to work. The process is very humane, not involving surgery, and we thought Scooter was a very good patient. I think we had a harder time letting Scooter go. Once we started loosening the restraints, he really started jumping around, but we turned him loose without incident. Noah, who loves playing a cowboy, was helping all through clinic that morning and tried twirling Dr. Steve's lariat once we were done with it.

** Read the story of how one woman committed to climbing Mount Washington, New England's highest peak, after attending our Strong Women Summit, in The Strong Women Daily News. **

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Can't make hay when the sun don't shine

The farmer we buy our winter feed from, Dennis Demar, has been done with the first cutting of hay long enough to be thinking of trying to do the second cutting. Dennis puts all the first cutting of hay into large round bales that he bales wet and wraps in several layers of plastic so that the hay ferments. Because the grass is baled wet, he can mow the grass one day and bale it the next. The second crop of hay is put up mostly as dry square bales and this is posing a problem for Dennis so far this summer.

To make dry hay usually takes at least 3 sunny, warm days. During those 3 days you use machinery to spread the hay out and fluff it up to help it dry. With the weather patterns we've had lately, we have been lucky to have 2 nice days in a row. I'm getting concerned because we are almost out of square bales, which we use to feed the young heifers still in the heifer barn. And if Dennis doesn't get the second crop off soon he might be able to take a third cutting from the fields. The weather forecast for the end of the week is looking a little better. With a little luck, we'll be mowing away hay this weekend.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont
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Hear the story of how one woman made a commitment to reach the summit of Mount Washington, New England's highest peak, after attending Stonyfield's Strong Women Summit, in The Strong Women Daily News.

It's blueberry-picking time in northern Vermont!

We were coming home from church in nearby Enosburg when we noticed a sign for blueberries at the local orchard in Franklin. Vallaincourt's Orchard is mainly in the apple business, but for several years now they have had pick-your-own blueberries. We stopped in to pick a few pounds and to see how the crop was shaping up. Chris said because of all the rain the crop was excellent, and after picking a gallon bucketful in no time at all, we had to agree.

Karen, Justin, Noah, and I headed back to the orchard a few days later to pick enough blueberries to freeze for use through the fall and winter. Karen likes to freeze blueberries on cookie sheets and store them in plastic tubs. This way she can easily take out just what she needs for whatever she needs them for (I root for blueberry pie). The picking was even better today. We picked almost 20 pounds of blueberries in the same amount of time it took us to pick 6 pounds the other day. Justin did a great job picking, and Noah, well, he picked for a little while and then took refuge in the shade of a large blueberry bush.

Picking blueberries was a fun break from the chores on the farm, and it's nice to do business with another local farmer in our town. I like to support local businesses whenever possible, hoping people in the area will do the same for me. I know people who drive across the border into Quebec to pick blueberries because it is cheaper, but I would rather support someone right in my hometown even if I have to spend a little more to do it.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

Visit The Dairy Planet
and learn the 4Rs of Stonyfield's environmental initiatives.

Check out Stonyfield's recipe for Blueberry Scones, using yogurt as a healthy substitute for fat!

Catch the news from our other Daily Dairies:

Get junk food out of schools: Creating Healthy Kids
Daily life and challenges at Stonyfield Farm: The Daily Scoop
Learn stress-busting, fitness and advocacy tips: Strong Women Daily News

The grass is green and growing fast

The cows are starting their fourth rotation through the grazing paddocks and the grass is the best it's been all grazing season. The recent rainfall and hot, humid weather has really speeded up the growth of the grass. Through much of May, June, and early July the rain was plentiful, but the day and nightime temperatures were below normal. The cows will have plenty of feed through this rotation, and there will be plenty of "leftovers" for the dry cows following along behind.

With all the lush growth, we've seen a jump in the milk production of the cows. The better the quality and amount of the grass, the less we need to spend on grain to supplement the cow's diet. With better grass quality we can feed a lower protein grain, which lowers the cost of the grain. And with more grass volume, the cows eat less grain so we buy less. This is why grass farmers make milk for less money during the grazing season, and why some farmers have "seasonal" herds. Seasonal means that farmers have all their cows calve in the spring to take full advantage of the grazing season, and then have the whole herd dry during the two to three months of the winter when it is most expensive to produce milk.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

Should junk food vending machines be banned in U.S. public schools?
Visit our other blogs and join the discussion:

On environmental issues: The Dairy Planet
Get junk food out of schools: Creating Healthy Kids
Daily life and challenges at Stonyfield Farm: The Daily Scoop
Learn stress-busting, fitness and advocacy tips: Strong Women Daily News

People travel from miles around just to find the farm!

This afternoon we had one of those surprise visits at the farm that just made me grin. It was just after lunch and I was heading down to the barn to check on some things when an RV pulled into the dooryard. I wasn't expecting anyone so I went out to see what was going on. An older couple got out of the RV and introduced themselves as Ed and Vera from Colebrook, NH. Vera had found information about our farm on the internet and they had decided to find our farm and buy some of our organic meat.

I was flabberghasted that someone would go to all that trouble to find our little farm. We had a nice visit, Ed and Vera bought a couple packages of hamburg (Note to Non-New Englanders: "Hamburg" is considered the correct term for ground beef in New England.), a package of steak, and a small chicken, and we had a good chuckle when Vera mistook the small red gas can on the edge of the garden for a colorful bird. I gave them some road directions to head them in the direction they wanted to go and they were off on the road back to New Hampshire. "Out of the blue" visits like this make life interesting here on the farm. I'm amazed at how small the world has become, and I'm proud of the way how we chose to operate our farm is making a difference to people we meet.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

Visit our other blogs and join the discussion:
On enviromental issues: The Dairy Planet
Get junk food out of schools: Creating Healthy Kids
Daily life and challenges at Stonyfield Farm: The Daily Scoop
Learn stress-busting, fitness and advocacy tips: Strong Women Daily News