A harvest and herd update

Today marks the 39th calendar day since we started harvesting silage for our cows back in late August, a time period during which we've been able to chop during parts of 31 days. Quite frankly, I'm ready to start doing something else! But if weather and luck will fall in our favor, a full day today and again on Monday should should see our summer crop taken care off. From there we'll be moving right in to planting some of our cool-season grazing/silage crops. (12:30pm update: luck didn't fall in our favor...might finish Tuesday)

Meanwhile, the dairy side of the farm just keeps on keeping on. We currently have 155 cows in the active milking herd after "drying off" 23 pregnant cows.  Milder weather has led to a decrease in heat stress and an increase in their appetite, so we're starting to see a slow but steady improvement in their milk production. The cows' production should jump even more as we soon begin to incorporate the new silage into their feed ration.

While we have been busy in the field and in the milking barn, Congress has been sitting on their thumbs...or at least when it comes to farm policy. The House of Representative's failure to take action on a new Farm Bill with updated dairy policy is bad enough, but their refusal to even extend current policy left dairy farm families like mine operating without a safety net when the 2008 Farm Bill expired on September 30. They say the matter will be addressed in November after the next elections, but only time will tell.

And with that, I shall let you get on with your day as it is about time for me to get the silage chopper rolling. I hope you all have a great Friday and a "dairy" good weekend!

Chopping & Baling

Heavy rain earlier this week forced us to shut down our harvesting for a couple of days, but we're back in business on two fronts: sudex and bermudagrass.

We started harvesting the sudex (sorghum-sudangrass) on Monday morning, hitting the field just an hour before the rain started falling. Harvesting this tall, thin, and densely-planted crop requires it to be mowed with a hay conditioner before being run through the silage chopper (as we're doing) or hay baler. Timing wise, it's providing us with a transition crop between the June-planted forage sorghum we finished harvesting last week and the almost-ready-to-harvest sorghum we planted in July. We resumed chopping on Wednesday, and should finish with the sudex either Monday or Tuesday of next week before switching back to sorghum.

We're also in the hay fields this week. Early Friday afternoon of last week we started noticing an unusually high number of crows flying around. Upon further investigation, our worst fears were confirmed: army worms! We decided we wouldn't be able to spray quickly enough to avoid major damage, so my father and I cut four hay fields Friday night and Saturday morning. As expected, Monday's rain came before the hay could dry enough to bale, but we "fluffed" it to dry it out yesterday. Lots of sunshine and low humidity did the trick, and we're raking and baling half this evening and the other half tomorrow afternoon. 

If you'd like a couple of more details click "play" on our latest GDF MooTube Minute below. And just one quick little note about our cows, we're currently milking 163 after the latest round of calvings/dry-offs/culls. I'm gonna go roll up some hay bales now...y'all have a "dairy" good evening!

Finished with the corn silage harvest

I disengaged the silage chopper as a dump truck carried out the last load of corn silage from our bottomland at 3:00pm this afternoon. After 74 loads cut off of 45 acres over the course of 15 days, I was glad to finally be able to close the book on the 2012 corn crop.

chopping corn silage

When considering what many other farmers across the country have suffered through this summer, I shouldn't be too disappointed with the result. After all, a marginal crop is much, much better than no crop at all. But it really was a sub-par yield for us, probably around 75% of our average yield and only 60% of last year's exceptional crop. Taking 15 calendar days to get in 6 actual days of harvesting (due to rain/wet ground) certainly didn't help the forage quality either, as the last third of the crop had matured and dried down significantly by the time we could chop it.  As I said though, it's not great but it is something. The crop didn't burn up to a complete loss due to drought, and it wasn't so wet in the bottom that we couldn't harvest it at all (as was the case with our sorghum in '09). 

fully-harvested corn field

So now we turn our harvesting attention squarely to our forage sorghum, and then on to sudex and bermudagrass hay. Will we go into the winter carrying as much total forage as last year? I dunno...I kind of doubt it. But we'll do the best we can with what we have to keep our cows and heifers healthy and happy, all so we can continue to provide you with high-quality milk and keep on doing what we love.  It's not always easy, but it's worth the fight!

Calving heavy and waiting on Isaac

Early last week our milking herd "bottomed out" at 140 cows. That number marked not only our lowest herd count of the summer but also of the past nine years. There are several reasons for the larger-than-normal summertime dip, including our decisions to send several older cows to the beef market this past Spring and to "dry off" some of our lower producing pregnant cows a little earlier than normal. We are seeing that number start to climb now, however, as we have come to the beginning of a long calving season.

Since last Wednesday, we've had six different cows and heifers calve and join the milking herd. Another 23 are due within the next two weeks, with another 20 due the second half of September. The fun doesn't stop there, though, as we expect near-steady calving activity through the early part of December. Yes, we'll still be drying off some cows and culling a few others along the way, but our climb back up to 200ish cows in milk has officially begun.

Ugh.

While we're keeping a close eye on the maternity pasture, we're also paying close attention to weather forecasts associated with soon-to-be Hurricane Isaac. Based on the current projections, it looks like the storm will be far enough west of us not to worry about any damage, but the rain associated with is a real issue. Our silage corn is ready to chop, and with a little luck we could be in the field harvesting sometime tomorrow...COULD be in the field. If mid-week looks to be a washout, there's really no point in trying to chop for a day with the expectation that we wouldn't be able to harvest again until next week. I have yet to see any rain forecasts agree on when we should expect it and how much we should expect to get, so our planning is currently stuck in neutral. Hopefully we'll have a clearer picture by tomorrow morning.

In closing, I'd like to ask that you continue to keep all of our country's farmers and ranchers in your prayers. Unfavorable weather, economics, politics, etc. have made it a difficult year for many, many farm families across America, and your support is needed and appreciated now as much as ever.

God bless, and have a "dairy" good day!

Gettin' busy

With a much milder than normal March now nearly behind us, our long "busy" season is beginning. We actually had three tractors operating yesterday afternoon, the first time that's happened in quite a while. I was busy applying nitrogen fertilizer and pre-emergent weed control to a vacant bermudagrass pasture while one of our farmhands bush-hogged a newly-leased field. Meanwhile, another one of our farmhands was mowing our first ryegrass of the season, which we'll bale and plastic-wrap this afternoon.

Within the next couple of weeks we expect to plant our silage corn and begin our full-fledged ryegrass harvest. The weather of course will dictate when (and in what order) we start, and it will take us 2-3 weeks to complete those tasks assuming the usual amount of weather delays and equipment problems. We'll likely be looking at cutting bermudagrass hay in the first half of May and planting forage sorghum in the later part of that month.