The Bovine Bugle

Answering questions about feed and hay

I had a question on the blog that was posted on February 11t/strong>. The question was, "Do we feed any ensilage to our cows, and is there a lot of hay available with so many farms going out of business?"

Yes, we feed ensiled feed to our animals in the form of plastic wrapped round bales. Ensiled feed is forage that is harvested at a high moisture level and then stored in a manner to encourage fermentation of the feed. With our round bales, the hay is baled at a moisture level of 50 to 70 percent. The bales are then tightly double- or triple-wrapped to keep the air out while the feed ferments. Once the fermentation process is over, in about three weeks, the bales can be fed out and the wrapped bales will keep for 1 to 2 years.

Is there more hay available now that more farms are going out of business?

Probably not to organic farmers. When a smaller farm goes out of business in our area, the farm is often bought by a neighboring, conventional, large freestall operation that needs the land for forage production and for a place to spread its liquid manure. Because of the organic standards we follow in operating our farm, we must use certified forages and grain to feed our animals. My two closest neighbors each have about 30 acres of hayland that is cropped by conventional farmers that use chemical fertilizers on the fields. This makes the feed unavailable to me. Maybe someday I'll convince my neighbors to let me manage their land organically and I would then have the feed to use.

In the last 12 years in Vermont we have gone from 2,000 dairy farms in 1993 to just under 1,300 dairy farms at the start of 2005. But in 2003, Vermont produced 2.3 million gallons of milk from 1400 dairies, 7 percent more than produced by the 2000 dairies in 1993.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

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Meet-ups with fellow farmers

Last week I attended the 86th annnual business meeting of the St Albans Cooperative Creamery. Our farm belongs to both CROPP Cooperative and St Albans Cooperative. Both cooperatives are farmer-owned cooperatives, with a board of directors elected from their farmer membership. We have belonged to St Albans since 1976, and to CROPP since 2001. When CROPP wanted to establish a pool of dairy producers here in the Northeastern U.S. to supply their customers, such as Stonyfield Farm Yogurt, they worked with St Albans Co-op to find farmers wanting to produce organic milk. St Albans has about 560 dairy farms in Vermont and New York, and CROPP has over 500 organic dairy farms nationwide.

The annual meeting is a time to hear about the financial position of the co-op, to elect auditors and directors to fill expired terms, and to catch up on the news with your fellow farmers.

Both St Albans and CROPP are very well run cooperatives, and are always working towards producing an excellent product for their customers while ensuring the best finacial return for their members and the best price for their milk. We are proud to belong to these two farmer-owned, farmer-run cooperatives that work hard every day in the field, in the statehouses, and in Washington D.C. to make sure their farmers are getting the best deal they can.

Of course the best part of the meeting, and the motion from the floor that gets made, seconded, and passed the quickest, is the distribution of profits back to the member farmers of the Co-op.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

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'Deer' Valentine: thanks for the snow

The recent snowstorm left a good 10 inches here on the farm, and we've been having fun playing in it and plowing it. The boys had two snow days off in a row, but I couldn't come up with a good work project for them so they got to play instead. It didn't take long for a snow tunnel to appear in a bank of snow I had pushed up with the tractor. The cows were even out enjoying the fresh white-stuff.

The skiing was wonderful in the meadow and through the woods. Up to this point the snow coverage in the woods had been pretty sparse, but with the new snow all the tree roots, rocks, and fallen limbs were well covered. The deer had been out in the meadow pawing through the snow to get to the grass. Karen pointed out a spot the deer had pawed that had a unique shape to it, and we wanted to send it along today on St. Valentine's Day. I hope you can make out the heart-shaped depression in the snow.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

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Even in severe weather, the hay gets to the herd

Climbing in the square hay bales is standard procedure on the farm.

I had a question from the Tennessean about the blog on hauling in the feed. They wondered if we ever run short of feed in severe weather. I'm happy to say that we have never run out of feed totally, but on a couple of occasions my feed supplier has struggled to get round bales here.

We store about 1800 square bales on a platform over the freestalls, so if we happened to be short of round bales for a day or two we would have feed for all the animals. I don't like to feed these bales to the cows if I can help it, since these bales are meant for the young animals in the young stock barn. If I feed too many of the square bales to the older animals, I may run out of them before next year's crop is put up.

Last winter we did have one day when we were out of round bales and Dennis was unable to get here with a wagon load because of a severe snowstorm with high winds filling the roads with drifts. On that day he brought about a half-dozen round bales, one at a time, in the back of his pickup. All last winter he had to plow roads into his fields to get to the round bales. This winter he has been pretty lucky up till now. By tomorrow morning, if we get the 12-18 inches of snow they are predicting, Dennis may be plowing roads again.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

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Shaking things up in the chicken coop

Noah and Justin get to work shoveling the coop.

An unusually warm February day and a broken water main in town proved the perfect combination to get Justin and Noah to help Karen and me clean out the chicken coop. The coop housing the younger hens was in dire need of cleaning. Temperatures today reached a record high in Burlington, and in Franklin a broken water main closed school at noon sending Justin home and cancelling Noah's afternoon kindergarten. The boys were just "thrilled" to hear what they were going to get to do.

The chickens keep a close eye on Noah's work.

The hens refused to wait outside in the snow-covered yard while we cleaned their coop, so they flew and cackled around the inside of the house while we worked. A few flew up into the rafters and kept a watchful eye on our progress. The boys and I had the coop cleaned out in about 15 minutes, and Karen hauled over some fresh sawdust to put down on the floor. One brave hen finally hopped down to check out the cleaning job, and to see how we had rearranged the grain feeder.

With the job done, Justin put away the shovels and broom while I dumped the bucketload of sawdust and chicken manure on one of the compost windrows. The boys then went off exploring in the woods behind the house while I sharpened a chainsaw to use later cutting a load of firewood.

Justin expresses his opinion of the task he was given on a day off of school.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

Where's Franklin? Click here to learn all about it.

Learn about other organic dairy farmers and the Organic Valley family of farms.

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A winged visitor hangs around the farm

The past couple of days I had seen a different type of hawk perching in the maple right in front of the barn. I assumed with the intense cold spell that the bird was hanging around hoping to catch one of the many birds that are around the house and barns throughout the winter. I did some searching on the web and found out that it is a Northern Goshawk.

I was checking on one of the outside stock tanks as it filled when I found a spot where the Northern Goshawk must have caught a small bird. A circle of feathers was left to show that the Goshawk had been successful in its hunting.

Later in the afternoon, Noah spotted the Goshawk on a barrel near the chicken coop. We were splitting firewood at the time, and when I went to get the loader tractor to push the split wood into the pile I was treated to an awesome sight. As I sat on the tractor on the open side of the dairy barn, the Norther Goshawk came gliding past me, a mouse in one of its claws, and in hot pursuit was a Red-tailed Hawk. The Goshawk actually flew through the dairy barn, with the Red-tailed Hawk going over the roof to try and catch the Northern Goshawk on the other side.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

Where's Franklin? Click here to learn all about it.

Learn about other organic dairy farmers and the Organic Valley family of farms.

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Hauling in the feed

Dennis, our forage supplier, brought in a couple of loads of round bales this afternoon. Because his farm and the other fields he crops are right here in Franklin, he hauls the hay on flat wagons pulled by his pickup truck. His wagons hold 8-10 bales. Three loads, or about 28 bales, will supply us for a week.

Today, one of the loads was all first-cut hay, and the other load had 6 bales of first-cut and 4 bales of second-cut. We feed first-cut bales in the bale rings for all the animals, cows and young stock, and the second-cut bales are brought into the barn behind the feed bunk and fed just to the milk cows. When Dennis can pull some help together, and when the weather and road conditions are good, he tries to haul in a couple of hundred bales in a day.

With the tractor and grabber, I had the two wagons unloaded in about 15 minutes, and then I turned the wagons around so they were headed out to the road, ready for Dennis to come and take them back for some more loads of hay.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

Where's Franklin? Click here to learn all about it.

Learn about other organic dairy farmers and the Organic Valley family of farms.

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Juvenile deliquent heifers and steers commit vandalism

The plastic sheeting of the chicken coop was torn off by the young livestock.

The juvenile delinquents were at it again last night. The older group of heifers/steers ripped the plastic off one side of the older hens coop. I found the damage this morning while checking on the hens. I told Noah I had a project I needed some help with and would he get bundled up and come and help me.

With Noah's stapling technique, the coop was repaired in no time!

It wasn't really a big thing to repair, but with so much to do during this extended cold spell to keep everything in the barn and the house running smoothly it was just something I didn't need. We had the plastic sheet halfway on when Amy, one of the heifers, came over and started to try and chew on it. Noah quickly shooed her away. Once the new sheet was in place we turned the electric fence back on to hopefully keep the stock away avoid having to fix the coop again.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

Where's Franklin? Click here to learn all about it.

Learn about other organic dairy farmers and the Organic Valley family of farms.

ABOUT THE BOVINE BUGLE

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To unsubscribe, send a note to chalvorson@stonyfield.com