Jonathan Gates reports from Howmars Farm in Franklin, Vermont. Howmars is a certified organic dairy farm, one of many Organic Valley/CROPP Cooperative farmer members who supply the milk that goes into making Stonyfield's yogurts and smoothies. The entire family pitches in on this third-generation farm. Jonathan and his father, Howard, converted the farm from conventional dairy farming to organic 9 years ago. Meet Jonathan. He farms with his wife Karen, sons Benjamin, Justin, and Noah, and Jonathan's parents, Howard and Mary.
Our oldest nephew, Jason, and his wife, Nikki, were just leaving the farm after Sunday dinner when they noticed an odd site. They backed their car up, and when we asked what was wrong they said one of the heifers was inside the stock tank we use to feed them hay. We all walked out to see this oddly funny sight.
The young heifer was indeed inside the tank. After debating how to get her out, Jason and I decided to try tipping the tank so that she could get her feet over to top edge and outside the tank. It worked like a charm. Must be she wanted to get every last bit of hay that was left in the bottom of the old stock tank. Jason commented that tilting the stock tank a bit was lot easier than helping Ben and me move into the house the new woodstove we had just purchased. The Hearthstone stove weighed just under 500 pounds, and gave the three of us all we could handle. This will make the 2nd woodstove we have in the house. We hope to cut our heating oil consumption by a lot. With the price of fuel oil well over two dollars a gallon, we should almost pay for the woodstove in one heating season. Of course, it means Ben will have more wood to split, and Justin will have more wood to stack.
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I just wanted to send a couple of shots of the cow who was in the process of calving when the Stonyfield group was here visiting the other day. The cow's name is Zita, and she delivered her calf around 2 in the afternoon. I went down around 4 with the four-wheeler to bring mom and her calf up to the barn. Yukon, our Black Lab, was with me and you can bet Zita was not taking her eyes off the dog as we got close to her and her calf.
Zita followed me all the way to the maternity pen in the barn, as I held the new bull calf on my lap. I suspected she would have a bull since she was 4 days over her due date. Usually, when a cow calves earlier than her due date she has a heifer, and when she calves later than her due date she has a bull. This bull was lucky because one of the technicians who breeds cows here on the farm wants some Jersey bulls to raise for beef. I called her to let her know I had a calf for her, and she said she would be by to pick it up in a couple of days. So Zita's boy will be around for at least a couple of years instead of just a few days.
--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont
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Today we're pleased to announce that The Bovine Bugle is moving...literally. Jonathan Gates up at Howmars Farm has taken up his video camera and sent us these wonderful shots of his organic herd contentedly grazing in the fields last week. [That's Jonathan's voice you hear, along with the munching of the grass.]
Those of you who have been faithful readers of The Bovine Bugle will now really get to see the action on the farm. We hope to have new "moo-vies" here about once a week, in addition to Jonathan's usual written notes and photos, so please come back and visit often. Also, we'd love it if you used the comment feature below or made a note on the video to tell us what you think of this moo-vie, and what you might like to see in "moo-ving color" in the future.
Click on the play button below--that's the arrow pointing to the right--and wait a minute. The video may be choppy. Play it once, then play it again for a smoother picture.
ABOUT THE BOVINE BUGLE **Got a question about organic dairy farming? Use the comment box below and we'll make sure Jonathan answers soon! Subscribe by using the box at the upper left.
Above: Stonyfield's CE-Yo Gary Hirshberg helps Jonathan move some fencing while out on a tour of the farm
with Stonyfielders and some representatives from our advertising agency.
Yesterday we hosted a farm tour for people from Stonyfield Farm and for people who work at the advertising agency that Stonyfield uses. Altogether, we had about a dozen in the group. We led them through the farm, showing them the facilities, the animals, and the pastures, and telling them what a typical day entailed for us. The group asked some great questions, and some really good dialog took place between everyone.
Gary, from Stonyfield, helped lead many of the discussions during the tour. He even gave me a hand in moving fence for the cows when we went down to the pasture to see the cows and talk about intensive grazing management. The group almost got to see a cow having her calf, but she didn't deliver until about half an hour after everyone left.
I think get-togethers like this are so important. The people visiting the farm get a much better understanding of what it takes us to produce the raw product for their dairy products. And we, as farmers, get a better understanding of what it takes to make and market these products so that we can be paid for our milk. Communication like this helps everyone involved in the process.
It may look like this cow is just taking it easy
on a nice summer's day, but she's actually
in labor and about to give birth!
The yellow chain around her neck indicates
that she's been taken out of the milking rotation
(saving her milk for the calf-to-come).
--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont
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***HELP!!!***
Is your name Cynthia? Did you write the following comment to The Bovine Bugle last week? We'd love to talk with you. Please contact our Chief Blogger directly at chalvorson@stonyfield.com
Here's the comment: "I love to read about your farm as I am sitting on the 47th floor of my Midtown Manhattan office building. It gives me a little break in the day and reminds me that there is more to life than spreadsheets and Starbucks! Thank you for taking the time to share your interesting life. By the way... I had Stonyfield yogurt for breakfast!!"
Our trip to Popham Beach was great, with wonderful weather and fun stops along the way to and from the beach. We wouldn't have been able to take a couple days off without my parents here to take care of things, and sister Patty helped out too. When my siblings and I were growing up my parents didn't have anyone here to help them, so overnight trips to anywhere just didn't happen.
The beach weather was nice and hot, but there was some hot stuff happening right here on the farm while we were gone. Ben had cleaned out the bedded packs from the two shelters we overwintered animals in, placed the material in a windrow; and turned it with the Sittler windrow turner. The material had plenty of hay bedding in it, and it heated up very fast. This morning when I took the pictures the windrow was steaming, and you can see by the thermometer that the temperature of the material was over 160 degrees in some spots. HOT STUFF! These high temperatures will cause the composting process to proceed at a good clip, and will kill weed seeds and pathogens that may be in the compost material.
The conditions around here are still very dry. We won't have to use the compost covers to keep excess rainfall off the windrows, and turning the windrows will go easily with the good traction along the edge of the windrows.
ABOUT THE BOVINE BUGLE **Got a question about organic dairy farming? Use the comment box below and we'll make sure Jonathan answers soon! Subscribe by using the box at the upper left. To unsubscribe, send a note to chalvorson@stonyfield.com
**WE NEED YOUR HELP!**
Help us decide on some future flavors for our frozen yogurt and ice cream products!
We'd be grateful if you took our on-line consumer survey by August 17.
While the farmer's on a break, learn some about Jersey cows
Dairy Farmer and Blogger Jonathan Gates is off duty, taking a much-needed family vacation to Maine after bringing in an impressive load of hay last week. In his absence, we thought we'd remind his readers of Stonyfield's "Have a Cow" program. For $3, you or someone you love can sponsor a cow and learn about life on the farm through quarterly newsletters and updates on the sponsored cow's adventures.
Here are five facts to know about Jersey cows, the type of cow which provides most of the milk used at Stonyfield Farm:
Jersey cows:
*Weigh about 900 pounds
*Produce about 4.5 gallons of milk each day
*Vary in color from light to dark brown sometimes with white spots
*Give extra creamy milk with a high percent of butterfat
*Are the second most popular breed of cows in the U.S. and have lived here since 1815.
ABOUT THE BOVINE BUGLE
**While Jonathan is gone, look for special features here in The Bovine Bugle blog.
**Got a question about organic dairy farming? Use the comment box below and we'll make sure Jonathan answers soon!
Subscribe by using the box at the upper left. To unsubscribe, send a note to chalvorson@stonyfield.com
Dairy Farmer and Blogger Jonathan Gates is off duty this week, taking a much-needed family vacation to Maine. In his absence, we thought we'd remind his readers of Stonyfield's "Have a Cow" program. For $3, you or someone you love can sponsor a cow and learn about life on the farm through quarterly newsletters and updates on the sponsored cow's adventures. Here's a sample of a Cow Biography that comes with Have A Cow sponsorship. This letter is from Glenwood Dana, who just happens to live on Jonathan's farm:
Hello from Howmars Farm,
I'm a tall, reddish-brown Jersey cow with white patches. I was born in Vermont on January 3, 1995 and my name is Howmars Glenwood Dena. I freshened with my first calf, a bull, on June 25, 1997 and I have been producing about five gallons of milk a day since then.
I go out to the pasture with the rest of the registered Jerseys between mid-May and mid-October. Here we dine on nutritious grasses and legumes which, in turn, help us make milk. My real owner, Jonathan Gates, uses an intensive rotational grazing system. With portable fiberglass posts and electrified wire, he divides the pasture acreage into smaller sections called paddocks. Each day, the 70 members of the milking herd clip and nibble the "greens" from a fresh paddock.
After we've eaten our fill, the 35 dry cows and heifer calves finish up what's left. Then the paddock is allowed to regrow for three or four weeks. With this sustainable grazing system, the soil does not become compacted or eroded by our hooves, and we get to eat the grasses when they're nutritionally at their peak.
Since Howmars Farm has only 45 tillable acres of land, careful management of its resources is essential. Jonathan has always spread manure to increase soil fertility, but since we've become a certified organic milk supplier, even closer attention is given to the pastures. As Jonathan notes, "It all begins with the land and how we treat it."
First, a certification team inspected our farm and farm records. Then, soil samples from all sections of the pasture were tested to determine what supplements were needed to improve its quality. The nutrient level of our soil tested high; all our fields required was some lime (the crushed mineral, not the fruit!)-a common need for New England farmland. These results demonstrated that Howmars Farm already was using ecological soil management techniques.
The grass that grows from the soil feeds our herd in the warmer months, and we, in turn, feed the soil with our manure. From such earthy beginnings is good milk made!
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**WE NEED YOUR HELP!**
Help us decide on some future flavors for our frozen yogurt and ice cream products!
We'd be grateful if you took our on-line consumer survey by August 17.
...requires the entire family. Below, a brother and two nieces join Jonathan Gates' boys as they strive to cut and store the season's hay.
We finished putting in the second cut square bales today. The bulk of it we put in yesterday, but because of mechanical problems we unloaded the last two loads today. Altogether we put in 1900 35-pound bales. The quality was excellent, and we are done a month earlier than we were last year. It has been just a great summer here in northwest Vermont for the grass to grow. With all this heat and sun the nutritional value of the feed should be great. As usual, mowing away the hay was a family affair. Karen, Ben, my brother, Steve, and his wife, Jill, our nephew, Jason, and even the kids were up in the hay mow working hard in the sweltering heat.
With that job done, we are taking a couple of days off to go to the beach in Maine. We have all the livestock on fresh pasture so that they will be happy until we get back. Ben even towed out a bigger house for the turkeys so that no one will have to move them while we are gone. You could say its the turkey's vacation house.
Mom and Dad will take care of the milkings, and move the fences for the milk cows after every milking.
We are so thankful and so lucky to be working with our parents so that we can take off for a couple of days with the boys. From putting in hay, to taking care of the farm when some of us are taking a few days off, this is truly a family farm.
--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont
ABOUT THE BOVINE BUGLE
**While Jonathan is gone, look for special features here in The Bovine Bugle blog.
**Got a question about organic dairy farming? Use the commetn box below and we'll make sure Jonathan answers soon!
Subscribe by using the box at the upper left.
To unsubscribe, send a note to chalvorson@stonyfield.com
Awhile back Michelle sent in a question on a blog I did about pregnant cows. She wondered what happens to the calves after they are born. What happens to the calf depends on whether it is a heifer (girl) or a bull (boy).
We raise all of our heifer calves that are born each year. Our girl-to-boy ratio is usually close to 50:50, so each year we will have 25 or so heifers born. We will keep about half of these heifers for replacements in our own herd, and the rest will be sold to other farmers, either in-state or sometimes out-of-state. We are able to sell some of our replacements because our cows live longer than on most farms, so we don't need to replace them as often.
The bull calves' fate is usually not as good as the heifers. Because we do all our breeding with artificial insemination, we don't keep any bulls on the farm for breeding. We do keep some bull calves to steer for our beef production. We raise them for at least two years before they are processed. Once in awhile we sell a bull calf to another farmer who will raise it to use for breeding on their farm. Most of the time we sell the bull calves at a commission sale a few days after they are born.
Got a question about adding to the farm, or any other topics related to organic farming? Write me here and I'll answer as best I can!
--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont
Check out today's Special Report in our blog, Creating Healthy Kids! We've gone to the X Games in Los Angeles to participate in a fun environmental initiative, complete with mini-"moo"vies you can watch on your computer.
Okay...so it's not that beautiful, but it's necessary...
We had a hoof trimmer come to the farm today to trim the hooves of about a dozen of the cows. Most of our cows never need trimming since they are out walking to and from pasture and keep their hooves worn down naturally. The few that we needed done were cows that had "toes" a little too long because of injury, because of getting a little more grain than they needed, or because it was in their family history that they were passed down poor feet.
John arrived at 7 AM, and by 7:30 we were starting on the first cow. The hoof trimming trailer he uses has a chute that the cow walks into, then the cow is secured to a tilting table as the table tilts and rises up. The whole process takes about 5-10 minutes, and doesn't bother the cow at all. Right after we let the girls out of the chute, they went right to pasture and began grazing as if nothing happened. The tools John uses are a small hand grinder equipped with a special disc to trim the hoofs and a hoof knife to trim and clean the hoof when needed.
By trimming the cow's hooves, their feet stay healthy and it keeps them from developing more serious problems that could cause lameness. We try to have a hoof trimmer come at least once a year, and we usually only have to do a small percentage of the herd since the cows are out walking and exercising a good part of the year.
On large conventional farms where the cows are kept inside on concrete year-round, hoof trimmers like John will visit the farms 2 or 3 times a year and trim all the cows. For a herd of, say, 400 cows that would be over $3600 per visit to have the hooves trimmed. Healthy feet are just another one of many benefits of having your dairy animals out grazing during the grazing season.
Got a question about cow hooves, or anything else on an organic dairy farm? Write me here and I'll answer as best I can!
--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont
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This past weekend was a very busy one for us. We had signed up for a boat building workshop at the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum in Ferrisburg, VT. The boys, especially Noah, had talked about wanting to build a boat. When Karen spotted an article in the local paper about the workshop, we all agreed to pitch in on the cost and to get done things at the farm so we could make the 1 1/2 hour trip every day for three days.
I was up by 3:45 AM to get chores going, and once my parents, Howard and Mary, were both at the barn I would help Ben finish the other chores and get the pasture set for the cows. Ben and I were out of the barn by 7, and we were on the road a little after 7:30. Since we didn't get back home until almost 7 in the evening, Mom and Dad took care of all the chores in the afternoon.
The family boat building workshop was great. In three days we had a 12' rowing skiff built and ready for launch on Sunday afternoon. Four families were there building their boat together, and we all carried our boats down to Lake Champlain and launched them, without sinking, late Sunday. It was great working together to accomplish this goal. The instructors who volunteered their time were just great, and were so skilled and patient. It was a wonderful family weekend. And to top it all off, our picture was on the front page of the Burlington Free Press which ran an article on the workshop. What a hoot!!
We moved the 6-week old turkeys into the poultry tractor ( the movable shelter) this morning. The shelter was ready for the new occupants since Noah and I brought the 60+ meat birds to Adams Turkey Farm this morning for processing. It seems like only a few short days ago that the day-old chicks were arriving at the farm.
The meat chickens, now nine weeks old, looked great and were ready to go. We had to wait a couple of extra days to have them processed because Dave and Judy had some equipment problems in their processing facility, and they couldn't process any birds while they waited for repair parts to arrive. Ben and I loaded the chickens in the back of the pickup, and Noah went with me on the 50-minute ride to Adams'. Noah was a great help in unloading the birds, as he climbed into the back of the truck and kept crowding the birds towards the tailgate where I could reach them.
Dave and Judy were doing double-duty today, trying to catch up on the backlog of chickens their customers wanted processed. On a normal day they would process 150 or so chickens, but today they thought they would have to do over 300. Throw in the fact that they were doing all of this on a hot, humid July day, and I would say they were earning every penney of the fee they charge for processing our birds.
--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont
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Jonathan Gates reports from Howmars Farm in Franklin, Vermont.
Gary, from Stonyfield, helped lead many of the discussions during the tour. He even gave me a hand in moving fence for the cows when we went down to the pasture to see the cows and talk about intensive grazing management. The group almost got to see a cow having her calf, but she didn't deliver until about half an hour after everyone left. 
Our trip to Popham Beach was great, with wonderful weather and fun stops along the way to and from the beach. We wouldn't have been able to take a couple days off without my parents here to take care of things, and sister Patty helped out too. When my siblings and I were growing up my parents didn't have anyone here to help them, so overnight trips to anywhere just didn't happen. 
