Sunday, April 19, 2009

Sunday morning update: 4/19/09

It's been a couple of days since I've posted, so let me take just a minute to catch you up to speed...

We started chopping rye for silage on Wednesday. So far so good, and since it looks like we're going to avoid most of the rain this weekend we should be able to start again tomorrow afternoon. If the weather (and equipment) holds, we'll finish the rye on Tuesday and start moving into a tricale/ryegrass mixture. We should have one silage pit filled by the end of the week and will have to decide whether or not to start in another or harvest the remaining forage as baleage.

Dad and I attended a meeting at the Upper Coastal Plain experiment station near Winfield on Friday about dairy stabilization. Several other area dairymen, as well as folks from the Ala. Farmers Federation and Auburn, were on hand to meet with Rep. William Thigpen about the issue. As much as we need relief right now, everyone agreed that we need take the time to construct a win-win proposal that will help both our dairy industry and our consumers. We hope to have proposed legislation in hand and ready to go by the start of next year's state legislative session.

The cows are still doing pretty good and are holding their production levels. We're going to weigh milk on Tuesday and will be able to make some decisions about a few cows once the results come back.

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