Just Tuesday

Being Tuesday, Bruce had his advanced grazing class again.  That means that there is a rush put on the morning chores and then not much else happens for the day.  It is good for farmers to get out and catch up on what is going on elsewhere.  Grazers are enjoyable people to be around : )

We got the results from the milk samples we sent in for somatic cell counts. There were a couple that were a bit high but the two with the highest counts were the cows we suspected were our problems.  One we already pulled out of the tank for calf milk and the other one is due to dry up so she will be dealt with during her dry period.  Bruce took milk cultures on the last cows that freshened and the two that are due to dry up.  In a couple days we will know how they are all doing, hoping for no staph aureus cases.

Tonight the brown goat kid decided to entertain us by playing with the extra pail in their pen.  She would lift it up on her head, nose in the air, and walk all over the pen, changing directions when she ran into something.  She dropped it off and picked it up and played with it over and over.  She is the mischievous one!

We had a bit of a panic attack tonight when we came out of the barn.  The dog is able to leave the barn now with the doors not closed as tightly so he had left before us.  We walked out to the very strong smell of skunk.  Bruce instantly went looking for him and thankfully he wasn't involved.  A few months ago he got sprayed in the face.  It isn't exactly our idea of fun when we have to give a skunk smelling dog a bath after milking.

We farm....who needs a casino

Newborn picture, smallest kid

smallest kid at 8 weeks

her sister, 8 weeks

I thought it was time for a baby picture update.  These guys are really growing! Their horns are a good two inches long already.  The smallest kid is still the smallest but her sister is pretty comparable to how big  the rest of the kids are.

We got to the barn this morning to find our water heater isn't working again.  It is time to replace the current system whether we like it or not.  Bruce reset it again and left a message with our dairy equipment supplier to get us some pricing information.  Otherwise today was more of the same.  Bruce filled the feed box. As part of this process he had to let the silo unloader down a door again.  The silo has 22 feet in it.  Hopefully we can get it down to the point that they can put the new augers in.

An option we have available to have more control of our milk price is forward contracting.  We could do it through a broker if we wanted but we also have the option to contract with the help of our milk processor. We are able to contract in 25,000# increments.  Anything we produce over our contract gets priced at the going rate.  In an effort to protect ourselves from the low prices we experienced the last couple years we have opted to contract some milk for the months of February through September at this point.  Contracting basically locks in our price, and that price replaces whatever the class III price is.  The class III price for February was announced on Friday as $17.  Since the 2009 price for February was $9.31 and the 2010 price was $14.28 we took advantage of being able to contract for $16.  As it turns out we have lost the opportunity to make $1. per hundred pounds on the milk that we have contracted.  On the bright side, anything we don't have contracted is priced at the $17. rate and therefore increases our overall average price.  Even though it's disappointing to lose money on this contract, I am excited for the higher price.  The industry really needs this, so in the big picture it's all good.

Raising Corn & Feeding Corn

Yesterday I was gone, working on a flooring project for my parents.  Bruce spent his day doing some crop planning for spring.  Our seed was ordered last December but now he has the fertilizer (nitrogen) needs figured out also.   We need to buy commercial nitrogen fertilizer to supplement the natural forms we have available on the farm.  The process we use to figure out how much we need goes something like this.  Example:  Yield potential of our soils is approximately 150-200 bushels of corn per acre.  Rule of thumb is 1# or unit of nitrogen (N) required per bushel of corn grain produced, so for 160 bu. corn you need about 160 units of N.  The sources of N that we have available are manure, legumes (alfalfa, clover, soybeans), and commercial fertilizer (urea, anhydrous ammonia, 28% nitrogen).  A good alfalfa crop puts into the soil approximately 150 units of N, so in the first year of corn following alfalfa, we don't need to apply any extra.  In the 2nd year of corn, we have 50 units of N that has again become available from the alfalfa crop.  If we apply manure at 30 tons per acre, it supplies about 90# of N (3# per ton), so in the 2nd year, to get our 160# we need to apply 20# of N per acre.  In the 3rd year of corn we have no credits left over from legumes.  One pound of N per ton left over from last years manure, which gives us 30# of N.  If we again spread 30 tons of manure per acre, it supplies about 90# of N (3# per ton) for a total of 120# of N available.  For this crop we need to add another 40# of N to get our 160# of N per acre.  In any given year we have all 3 of these scenarios taking place so we need to figure out what the circumstances are for each field, and treat them accordingly.  Nitrogen, being upwards of 60 cents per pound, is too expensive to waste.  On the other hand, if you get a $5.50 bushel of corn in return for a 60 cent pound of nitrogen it's a good investment.  This is why it's worth while to figure out exactly what you need.  If it's over applied it is wasted and can be an environmental threat, if it is under applied we loose yield and therefore money.  If we put on more than we need it is wasted money.  Thus, we give it careful thought.

The rest of the day was spent doing the routine stuff.  My project went extra late so he ended up feeding, milking and then feeding calves alone also.  Not exactly a short day but everyone survived.

Since we would like to get more animals out of the barn soon Bruce changed the way he feeds that particular group. Currently they are fed a TMR but today he fed them straight haylage, which is what they will get in a feed box, and then sprinkled the shell corn across the top of it so they get used to eating this way.  During the winter Bruce fills 5 gallon pails with corn that has been processed through the roller mill.  Ed comes and gets 9 pails of corn and 2 pails of soybean meal for those animals in his yard.  He sprinkles this on the haylage in the bunk  Bruce also feeds the heifers here 6 pails of corn and 1 pail of soybean meal.  The goats get 6 pails of the milk cow TMR mix also.  So while the feed is mixing in the morning Bruce has been filling the corn and soybean meal pails.  After milking he fills the pails for the goats with feed he has put in a pile when he fed earlier.  The pails for the goats and animals here get hauled to the buildings in the skid steer bucket.  They need the extra energy and protein that corn and soybean meal provide, especially now that it is cold.  Other events for the day were Joe coming to check out some details on using tractors and their maintenance.  He helped us last summer and is currently taking tractor safety so we are glad to help since his family doesn't own tractors.  Bruce also bedded the pens today.  For a bit of Sunday entertainment he checked out Craig's list and happened to find someone looking for some barn identification boards that I have been wanting to disappear from here for years.  It might be this guys lucky day....I definitely feel like its ours!

Quiet

Most of the day was spent with obligations other than farming but there were some things to note.  I dug out my ice cleats this morning.  The driveway between the milk house and my hutches was ice with water running down it.  Since I am fully aware I don't bounce as well as I used to I decided to make a special trip home to get the cleats before I fed calves.  From the looks of things I will need them for a couple more days.

Our milk plant took me by surprise today by having the samples we took in yesterday completed.  There was no one in that group with a high cell count so that was good news.  We did take a few more samples in today.  Bruce has a pretty good idea who is causing this count to raise so she will be taken out of the tank tomorrow, either to be treated or we will use her milk to feed the bull calves.

Thats it for the day.  Nice and quiet.

Self Inflicted Chaos

We are able to check our milk sample results online about 48 hours after our milk is picked up.  Our somatic cell count has gone up since we tested milk.  In an effort to see who is causing trouble we sent samples in from the cows that have freshened since we tested.  We have a testing unit we can use but it took a bunch of extra time to milk the cows we needed to, all with that specific milking unit.  Since they are spread around the barn it was a challenge at times to keep track of everyone.  In the end we had the samples we needed and sent them with the milk hauler this morning.  It would be nice if we had the information back from them by the weekend but the lab tends to be slower than we like so it will probably be Monday.  At least we have the process started.

We had Vicky, our nutritionist, here also today.  She brought lots of reports that were created through the milk testing process we do every month.  For the most part the news was good.  There are always things that need improving and some things that are just a continuous frustration.  If the cattle would only read the manual.....

I delivered our financial records at 2:00 on Tuesday afternoon.  By 4:00 I had a phone call with a question.  After 2 email questions the next morning, our taxes were done and in the mail.  They (the corporate taxes) arrived today along with a bill for $465.  I cannot imagine what they charge when your records are a challenge.

This afternoon about dusk Bruce took out the daily load of manure. For about the forth or fifth time in about as many days he saw a large deer herd foraging in the fields just west of the buildings. There were about 30 -40 in one group and several smaller groups farther west. We haven't seen this many deer in one group for many years so it seems odd after seeing hardly any all winter that all of a sudden a whole bunch would just show up. Makes you wonder what drove them away from where they were or what is drawing them to where they are.....

Time to Breed Heifers

Today would be one of those days Bruce would say he puttered.  He got a pallet of lime delivered but we aren't set up to just set the whole pallet in the barn so he got that carried in.  Barn lime is finely ground limestone that serves two purposes.  We spread it on the walk alley in the barn so its not slippery under foot.  It eventually gets scraped into the gutter and spread on the fields where it sweetens the soils for our crops.  Bruce let the silo unloader down a door and the feed box got filled again today.  Now that the animals spend the summer harvesting their own feed we are much more aware of how much more time it takes to keep everything fed during the winter. We have a group of heifers ready to breed so we had our breeder come and insert cidr's.  These are a slow release hormone that are inserted vaginally, somewhat like an IUD.  In one week the heifers will get a  prostaglandin shot, the next day the cidr's are removed. The heifers will  then be watched closely for signs of heat (estrus) so we can breed them.  We use this process to synchronize their ovulation.  Watching for individual heats is incredibly time consuming so grouping them allows us to focus on watching them for a few days instead of every day for a couple months. If we watch heats naturally they need to be watched approximately 1/2 hour twice a day.  The optimal time is dawn and dusk, which also happens to be the time of day we are milking the cows.

Yesterday & Today

Had I written last night the day could have been summed up in a few sentences. I was gone.  Bruce removed horns and banded some of the bigger bulls.  In order to do these things he had to make a trip to our veterinary clinic to pick up both tetanus shots and V9 vaccine.  Bruce reads a lot.  In doing this he has learned that waiting until male animals are older and then banding them has some advantages when it comes to feeding out steers. When you band them as calves they never have the natural opportunity to produce testosterone and therefore can't utilize it for growth.  We find that waiting gives us a steer that has grown more and is thicker since testosterone produces more lean muscle mass.  All animals are given V9 shots yearly.  These vaccines protect against many cattle diseases such as pneumonia, BVD (bovine viral diarrhea) and Lepto, which in adult cows, causes abortions.  Lepto becomes even more of a concern now that we graze cattle because it is carried by white tail deer. Today Bruce and I both had appointments in town so we did the routine morning things and both headed in the necessary directions.  For me, the financial records have been delivered and the taxes are already started.  Bruce had an advanced managed grazing class.  He has taken both the beginning and advanced classes before and has been a speaker at the beginning grazing class.  Since there are always new things to learn, he is once again choosing to attend class. Grazing people are unique in the fact that if something works well they are willing to share their information so others might reap the benefits also.  If something goes badly they are more than willing to share that experience also. In class today they worked on some budgets and found, even with the high price of corn, there is still money to be made grazing cattle.  The speaker today was a NRCS national grazing specialist and is always an interesting guy to talk to.  He was the guy who also helped us set up our first heifer pastures.  It is good therapy for farmers to get out of their routine once in awhile and catch up with what other people are doing.