The Bovine Bugle

The benefits of grass grazing, for both cows and people

Sandy had a question after reading the September 13 blog, "More nice weather means more hay to put away". Sandy asked if organic cows, or mine in particular, get more grass than other cows? Her doctor has recommended that she take a CLA supplement, and she has read that grass-fed cows have higher levels of CLA in their milk and in products made from their milk.

First of all, CLA stands for Conjugated Linoleic Acid. It is a beneficial fatty acid with many health benefits. Dairy products and meat from animals on grass diets have higher levels of CLA than their counterparts being fed stored feed and high levels of grain. If someone wanted to raise the level of CLA's in their diet, they would just need to source out suppliers of dairy products and meat being marketed as "grass-fed only".

Do organic cows, including mine, get more grass than other cows? I would say that,for the most part, organic cows do get more grass than conventionally housed cows. Most organic dairy farmers, like myself, use rotational grazing to intensely graze their pastures during the growing season. For me, that means from the end of April until early October most, if not all, of the forage eaten by my cows is grass. Unfortunately, there are some very large organic dairies in the U.S. that are taking advantage of a weakend National Organic Standard in regards to pasture requirements for dairy animals, and these dairies don't actively graze their milking cows. Some would about argue how truly "organic" is the product coming from these herds. Is a confined 3,000-cow organic herd any better than a confined 3,000-cow conventional herd? If cows aren't out grazing in the sunshine, it just isn't right.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

Planning for a conservation project

This morning Tyler Webb and Ann Fackler from NRCS--Natural Resources Conservation Service--came to the farm today to start planning a project we hope to do here on the farm. We hope to construct some better compost pads for our composting operation and to improve some of the lanes the cows travel on from the barn to the grazing paddocks. Howmars Farm applied for partial funding for these projects through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, or EQIP. This program encourages farmers to pursue projects that will reduce the impact of farming practices on the environment.

Tyler and Ann spent a couple of hours shooting elevations and taking measurements to aid them in drawing up some designs for the compost pads and the cow lanes. The plans will then be used by my contractor to determine how much earthwork needs to be done, what type of materials to use in construction, and what specs to meet in the finished product.

While I'm waiting to get the plans from NRCS, I'll need to get some compost spread from the composting sites so that I will be ready to start the project . With the last two weeks of wonderfully dry weather, I should have good luck getting on the fields to spread the compost.

----Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

Getting ready for Barndance II

We're busy getting ready for a barndance we are having next Saturday, September 25. It's being called Barndance II since we had the first one last year in August. This is a brainchild of my OLDER sister, Patty. We hold the dance in the farm utility building (it's not a garage!!) we rebuilt two years ago. The building is called the "Horsebarn" since the building it replaced housed the horses when the work done on the farm was done using horses.

The whole idea started early last summer when Patty brought up the idea of having a band she knew come up and play in the newly built barn; sort of a barn-raising party. The idea just took off from there. This year's dance is shaping up the same as last year's. Patty booked the band, Ten Rod Road, during the summer. This past weekend the "crew" got most of the cleaning done in preparation for decorating. Patty, Karen, Ben, Justin, Noah, nieces Emily and Maddy, my mom, Mary, and I worked Saturday and Sunday spiffing up the downstairs of the barn. During the week we'll be getting things to decorate and cooking goodies to share that night. Already half a dozen colorful mums, picked up by Mom and Patty Sunday morning, adorne the stairs in the barn. And, for some reason, I'm in charge again of getting the portolet delivered and set for the evening. Could it be all my experience handling compost material?

All the invited neighbors, friends, and family are looking forward to an evening of fun, fellowship, and dancing. Everyone is bringing some food to share, so the tables will be full of wonderful treats again. It's going to be a wonderful celebration, and kids from 2 to 72 can't wait for Saturday to get here!!

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

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Why small eggs are small eggs

In our last Bovine Bugle entry, we talked about the difference in size between the eggs from a very young hen and from older hens. Eggs from the younger hens are smaller, as the hen's body gets used to producing. In the photo above, the egg on the left is from a younger hen, a pullet egg. (Son Noah holds the eggs for the photograph.)

--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

One young hen leads the way

We had a nice surprise the other day when we found the first egg laid by one of the young hens we started this spring. These hens are about 4 months old, and we wondered when we might see the first egg from them. The hens may start laying as early as 15 weeks of age, so our hens are doing very well.

We changed them from the "grower" grain to the "layer" grain several weeks ago to get them ready to produce eggs. The grower grain gives them the right nutrients to grow in size and stature. A good-sized, healthy hen will lay better than a hen who didn't grow to proper size due to lack of nutrition. The layer grain is, of course, the ration that provides the hen with those extra nutrients needed to produce large, hard-shelled eggs.

Son Noah wanted to know why the egg we found in the young hens' layer box was smaller than the eggs from the older hens. I tried to explain to him that when the young hens start laying, their bodies are just getting used to producing eggs and so the eggs are smaller. But, I told him, it wouldn't be long before the young hens' eggs would be as large as the eggs from the older hens.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

How fast can a cow run, and other puzzling questions

This afternoon our nephew, Zach Baker, was giving Karen and me a hand doing some things around the farm. We moved the layer hen house to a fresh patch of grass, and then moved some heifers from the young heifer/steer group over to the older heifer/steer group. The four heifers we were moving weren't very cooperative and we had to chase them around some before they went through the gates we wanted them to go through. This prompted Zach to ask me, "How fast do cows run?".

I had to admit to him I really didn't know. I do know that many times I have tried to run and get in front of an animal to turn the animal back where I want her and I just could not run fast enough. Then Zach, showing confidence in his older cousin, asked it the cows could run faster than my son Ben. Ben is a cross-country runner and quite fast, but I told Zach that even Ben could not outrun every cow. I told him that at next herd clinic I would talk to Dr. Steve and see if he could tell me how fast cows can run.

Kids aren't the only ones who ask interesting questions. I remember a milk truck driver who picked up our milk for several years once asked me do cows sleep. I thought they did, but I posed the question to Dr. Steve and he felt that cows do sleep, but not the same way you or I do. Some mornings I have to poke a cow for several seconds before she will stir and finally get up. It's always fun to have kids or even adult visitors here on the farm and to hear what questions or observations they will come up with.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

More nice weather means more hay to put away

Our forage supplier, Dennis Demar, mowed some more fields Thursday, and despite a brief spell of rain Friday evening, the hay was ready to bale Saturday afternoon. We were happy with the timing because the boys had gone back to school this week and we would have been short on help if the hay had been ready during the week.

Dad thought he might have the first load of hay here around 4 or 4:30, so we decided to hustle around and have the cows milked before we started unloading hay. We were milking by 3 o'clock, and we had the last 3 cows waiting to come into the parlor when Dad pulled in with the first load around 4:30. While Mom and Karen washed up from milking and took care of the young stock, the boys, my brother, Steve, his wife, Jill, and I started unloading the first wagonload of hay. Once Karen was done in the barn she came up to the haymow, too. Dad kept the wagons coming pretty fast, but he never waited too long for us to empty the load he had just brought us. By 7:30, we had put in another 850 bales, bringing the total to around 1550 bales. What a relief to finally have our supply of square bales safely in the barn. Dennis might have one more load for us tomorrow. We'll have to wait and see.

The decision to milk the cows first turned out to be a great idea. We would have been in the barn until at least 9:30 if we had waited to milk the cows after unloading the hay. With good family teamwork we had all the work done at a reasonable hour.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

The farm help goes back to school

Tuesday was back-to-school day for all the boys. Son Ben is a sophmore, Justin is a 4th grader, and now Noah's in kindergarten,and they're all off to school!This means a big change in our daily routine here at the farm. All summer the boys were pitching in to help with the chores morning and afternoon, but now that will happen only on weekends, vacations, and after school, when there isn't practice for something.

Karen and I will pick up most of the slack, taking care of the fencing for the cows and the feeding and watering of the turkeys and chickens. Ben took care of those things almost every day through the summer. In the morning it will mean we will get done 30-45 minutes later than what we had been. It makes us appreciate the help our boys give us. My herd clinic vet, Dr. Steve, has had farmer clients that he felt almost went through a period of depression at the start of school when their sons or daughters went back to school leaving them with more work to do. While we get used to the back-to-school routine, I just keep reminding myself not to get too worked up about what needs to be done around the farm. I try to prioritize what needs to be done first, knowing that everything will get done and situations will always work themselves out.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

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Compost makes the grass grow best

Today I attended a field day at the Fourges' family dairy farm in Alburg, Vermont. Travis and Henry are also Organic Valley farmers, and they started shipping organic milk the very same day we did, October 1, 1997. The past two summers, they have been working with Bill Murphy, a University of Vermont professor, author, and grazing expert, on experimenting with different soil amendments and with irrigation to see what would give them the best grass production on their farm.

Their test plot was divided into at least 8 different plots, with one plot a control where nothing was applied to the land. On the other plots they applied such things as compost, fish-based fertilizer, fish-and-kelp-based fertilizer, crab meal, and a balanced N-P-K fertilizer. I was very happy to see that the plots yielding the highest tons-per-acre were the plots that had only compost applied to them. This means a lot since compost can be generated right on the farm at a low cost to the farmer, compared to buying these other soil amendments that can be quite expensive per acre to buy and apply. I hope Mr. Murphy will be publishing his findings so that I could post them here at some point.

It was nice to visit someone else's farm to see what they are doing different from us, and it was nice to see some familiar faces and hear what is going on in their lives. I even managed to make a deal with one of the folks at the meeting to trade some turkeys for half a pig to put in our freezer. Pork is the one thing we don't raise here at Howmars Farm....yet. On September 15, another field day discussing soil and forage fertilization will be held at a couple of farms just miles from our place. I'll have to go to that one to hear what those farmers use on their fields and to put up Professor Murphy's findings for discussion. A little controversy is always interesting.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

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And the rains came down!

Well, we really paid for the week of nice haying weather Sunday afternoon/evening through Monday morning. A severe thunderstorm hit our area Sunday afternoon while we were milking and, after that passed, the rain continued through the night and into Monday morning. The rainfall total was close to three inches.

It was pretty wild in the milking parlor during the storm. We were about half done milking when the storm hit. At one point the power went off for about 5 minutes. We stood there in the dark, listening to the cows eat their grain while we hoped and prayed that the power would come back on soon. Our farm has never had a generator or even a generator hookup to connect a generator to supply power to the farm in case of a severe power outage. Most farms in our area have a pto-powered generator on the farm that they can run with one of their tractors to give them power to milk their cows, run feeding equipment, and cool their milk. Once the power came back on, we put the milking machines back on the cows we were milking when the power went out and went on with the milking. The lights flickered a few more times, but we didn't lose power again.

All the animals made it through the rain in good shape. With all the rain it will make it harder for Dennis to finish cropping his fields. He risks making ruts in his fields when he tries to crop them. Some of his fields actually have water sitting in them. Farmers risk compacting the soils in their fields when they are trying to do cropping when the fields are so wet. It has certainly been a challenging summer weatherwise for the farmers here in Vermont.

--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

Bales of hay--round or square?

Judy, from Chester County, Pennsylvania, had a question on yesterday's blog entry about putting up square hay bales here on the farm. She sees a lot of round hay bales where she lives and wondered why we put up square (rectangle) bales. Actually, the majority of the hay we feed here on the farm is put up as large round bales.

We put up 1600-1800 square bales to feed primarily in the young stock barn. The younger animals get started better on the second-cut dry square bales, and they are easier to handle bringing into the young stock barn. For the milking herd and the older heifers/steers outside, we bring in 700 wrapped round bales. One round bale is equal to 15-20 square bales. The round bales work well for feeding the older animals. The feed is good quality, because they are wrapped in plastic we can store them anywhere, and handling them with the tractor takes less manpower than storing and feeding all round bales.

So, here at Howmars Farm we feed both types of bales. But sometimes I wish we were still feeding all square bales. There is just something nice about going to the barn on a cold January night to give the cows another feed of hay before going to bed. You climb the ladder to the haymow and throw down a dozen bales. The cows poke their heads through the uprights of the feed bunk in anticipation of fresh hay, their breath coming out in puffs of steam from their nostrils. You take each bale, place your jacknife under the twine strings, and cut the bale open, freeing the hay that has been compacted for the last 5 months. As you finish, you walk back along the front of the cows listening to them munch contentedly on the hay. Wrapped round bales are nice, but, as usual, the old way of dry square bales just seems nicer.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

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