April 6th Farm Report
April 6, 2009
We are well into calving now. We are up to 68 calves, with a few more girls (38) than boys (28). The milk supply is great and increasing every day. When you come out to the Store, stop by the paddock by the driveway and look over the newest babies. If you time it right, they will be zooming around the paddock, kicking up their heels. Like babies all over, they sleep, eat and play (in that order).
March 20, 2009 – Calving has started!
March 20, 2009
It’s been awhile since I’ve written a post – winter was long and uninteresting. But now – the babies have started! Our milk supply in February and early March was extremely low this year – a function primarily of very little grain feeding (about 3 pounds of oats/molasses/mineral) per animal per day. Love it or hate it, grain does “make” milk. We believe our animals are healthier without it, and that subsequently, the milk quality is better tasting and better for you.
The animals look good coming into calving season. Except for one unfortunate baby whose front legs were bent back, preventing a timely entrance into the world, the balance of the calves have been lively and healthy. We have moved 4 of the calves to their outside paddocks already. These paddocks are big enough for a good run and have a group size hut bedded with clean dry straw for bad weather and a good night’s sleep.
Our Store’s foot traffic has slowed a bit. A few of our customers have lost jobs or had their work hours cut back. We certainly feel for anyone affected by the current economy. Both organic and conventional milk are feeling the slowdown. We’ve just been informed that our milk price is getting cut $1.00/cwt (hundred weight) in February, with another $1.00/cwt cut in May.
Now is a good time to remember the basics. Stay away from processed foods (organic or not). With limited dollars, you need to look for nutrient dense foods that give you maximum health. Any time you let a processor put together a food for you (ex. – spice seasoning packets, salad dressings, canned soups), you will pay more and get less.
April 12th farm update
April 12, 2008
Things have been busy here – our cows have had over 70 babies in the last 4 weeks. Except for one backwards one, everything has gone well. If you can, stop at the farm to see the baby calves in their paddocks. We have 2 paddocks right by the barn. Each paddock has a large shelter bedded with warm straw, for those rainy days. The paddocks are large each so that the calves can run around as needed. Like little children, they can only sleep so much before they have to run around and play. It’s so good to see the babies outside kicking up their heels and hopping about. If you are lucky, you will be here when we move calves around. Nothing like a new paddock to get the crew running with glee.
The raw milk issue continues to gain attention. We were privilaged to speak to an Associated Press journalist from Milwaukee, who wanted to write an article about raw milk. I know the article was picked up by several local newspapers. Being an AP article, it could be picked up national wide. The misinformation about the safety record of raw milk continues to frustrate. Please go to the westonaprice.org web site and check out the “Raw Milk” site. They have a rebuttal against the FDA powerpoint against raw milk. Also on the wesonaprice.org web site is a PowerPoint presentation put together by Lee Dexter and Sally Fallon entitled “Raw Milk and Raw Milk Products, Safety, Health, Economic and Legal Issues”.
Our blog is back!
December 9, 2007
One thousand apologies to everyone. Server problems combined with slack blogging on my part resulted in a long dry spell.
A dry summer (again!) was followed by the most glorious fall that we a have had in many years. The rains started at the very end of July and continued well into September. Our pastures were spectacular! And the cows responded!
We bit the bullet this year and installed a pod irrigation system. Believe me, we didn’t want to do it from several perspectives. Although grass irrigation is considered near zero loss from a ground water perspective (a small amount is lost to evaporation), the cost of digging a high capacity well and buying the pods, the time spent moving the pods (every 8 hours) and the monthly electric bill from running a motor 24 hours is not insignificant. That said, we believe the increased grass growth gained from our own highly mineralized soils will be worth the money and effort. It sure better be.
From the poultry side, we had serious problems with owls beheading our pastured meat birds. We probably lost 50 plus of the chickens and 15 turkeys. We know it was owl because they love the head and internal organs, and will leave the rest of the carcass. It is really discouranging to find a beheaded, gutted chicken almost every night. Soon after we moved the turkeys out to pasture, we found 10 (yes, 10!!!), beheaded turkeys. Wow. We tried several tactics, but the most effective was to simply go out every night at dusk and push the birds into their huts and wrap the huts in poultry netting. What a pain! Frankly, I’m not sure what we are going to do next year. We obviously have a healthy, well fed owl in the neighborhood now, so we have to assume he/she will be at it again next year. Oh well, we have 6 months to think about it.
Egg production is down, as usual for this time of year. I anticipate a nice increase in production as the days get longer in early January. Please keep in mind that we do NOT use articicial light to stimulate our chickens to continue to lay (thus the down time). We believe this rest period is essential for the health of the chicken, and will result in a better production period once they start up again.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
August 21, 2007
Let’s start with the good news. We’re getting some rain! To say that it was getting critical here would be an understatement. It’s a bit easier handling the heat when the ground has had a good drink.
The bad news is that the preditors are out in full force this year. Our poor laying hens have been hit by fox during the day (he was seen!). We think we lost at least 10 hens to Mr. (Ms?) fox. To get away from the fox, we moved the hens across the road to a field the cows had been to a couple of days earlier. This turned out to be a bad move. One night we forgot to shut the chickens up in their moveable hen house because we were out late moving the new little laying hens into their moveable hen house. When Wayne came out in the morning to move the house to a new spot, he found 17 dead chickens! They were scattered all over the place, some as far as about 200 feet out. We think it may have been a dawn hit by a mother coyote with pups. It is the rare preditor that kills for fun, but in this case only a few of the chickens were actually eaten. The scene of the crime is usually just littered with feathers and a few body parts. The sheer number of untouched but dead chickens indicates some recreational activity. Needless to say, egg production is down.
The ugly news is that we are 99% sure that we have an owl attacking our pastured meat chickens and turkeys. To date, we have probably lost over 30 chickens and over 10 turkeys. We just love our pasturing system since it allows the birds so much freedom to eat greens, bugs and just run around. The electrified netting around the huts has done a fantastic job of protecting the chickens from the ground preditors. This is the first year we’ve lost so many to the airial ones. We’ve tried flashing red eyes, motion detector lights, the neighbors dog, etc., and nothing seems to deter it. We’ve cobbled together some poultry netting to keep the birds in the huts at night, but the system isn’t designed to be shut and opened, so it’s going to be a real pain.
I’m sharing this with you so that you understand some of the challenges of pasturing. It’s a wonderful way to raise animals, but it has it’s dark side too.
The calves keep coming (and coming)
April 12, 2007
Well, as of this morning we are up to 77 new calves and moms. The calving season has been going very well. Birthing is always a very stressful time, for both humans and animals. If there is a problem in feed quality, or any other weakness in the system, calving time is when it will show up. Jerseys are particularly suseptable to milk fever, a sudden drop in blood calcium brought on by the demands of calving and milk production. We did lose one cow, either to milk fever or a heart attack, it’s hard to say for sure. She had a beautiful live calf and we found her dead the next morning. Not a good way to start the day. The calves are doing very well, even with this challenging April weather. We haven’t had to assist at any birthing this year! It is so nice when the births are easy – so much better for the health of both the calves and mom. Most of the calves are born in the well bedded loafing sheds. We let mom lick off her calf (if she wants to) and then we take the calf into the barn for its all important colostrum and a musi shot (selenium and Vit. E). It’s unfortunate to seperate mom and baby, but we do it for several reasons. First off, if you are going to seperate them, its really better to do it soon after birth and before they bond. If left together for even 24 hours, the seperation is really tramatic – with both bawling at the top of their lungs. Done soon after birth, mom usually doesn’t even seem to miss her calf all that much. The second reason we pull the calf away is that we can’t depend on mom to feed her calf that very important first colostrum. The dairy cow, for the last 100 years, has been bred for milk, and more milk, and more milk after that. Mothering ability hasn’t even entered the equation. As a result, mom often has her calf and then walks away. A calf isn’t born with any natural imunity. It absolutely needs that first milk for its very life. Thirdly, even if we did try to leave baby with mom, think about the logistics of trying to bring 77 cows (and their calves) into the parlor for milking. The calves could NOT come into the parlor (no room), so where do they go while mom is busy? And how do we seperate them temporarily twice a day? So, we play mother, and bring the calves into pens in the old dairy barn. They are there just long enough to learn how to suck off the New Zealand nipples (about 3 days), and then they are moved outside into groups of 13. Each calf paddock has a shelter that we keep well bedded with straw. They stay together as a group until weaning (7-8 weeks old), when they then move out to pasture. We then add each newly weaned group to the already weaned group until everyone is old enough and we have just one large group. And another years calving is done!
Milk Supply is Good and Increasing
March 19, 2007
Today is March 19, and we have calved in over 20 heifers/cows. The milk supply shortage is a thing of the past. We have forgotten how small a small jersey heifer calf can be. All of the calves are doing well, and we have already moved 12 outside. We had 8 born in an 18 hour stretch a couple of days ago, 3 last night and 2 today. Wow. Thank you for your patience and we hope you will continue to enjoy our milk!
Milk Shortage Re-Addressed
March 8, 2007
We have milk everyday, just not very much of it. But the heifers have started to freshen (calve) and as of today (March, we have 2 new babies. The tide is turning (albeit slowly). For those people who live farther away, I suggest getting here early, as close to 9:00 as you can make it. I’ll try to keep the blog updated on the milk supply via the baby calf count. When we hit around the 20 new babies mark, we will have plenty of milk available for everyone. Thanks for being patient!
Get Updates by Email