Dodged the Tornado

When it stays around 70 degrees for a few days in January, you can just about count on a severe thunderstorm brewing up before too long. Well, today was that day. A strong system moving through Mississippi developed into a tornado and caused lots of damage to a dairy in Weir, Mississippi, and to the school at Caledonia (just about 20 miles from here). The same tornado did some damage here in Lamar County, and was projected to track right over our farm. Luckily for us, it weakened before it got here and didn't cause any damage on our place. Nevertheless, it was a very tense few moments around 2:30pm watching the weather alerts on the barn's television while listening to the howling wind, driving rain, and small hail. The cows weren't too fond of it either.

Wintertime in Alabama

Lows crept down to about 17 degrees this past Wednesday morning. Other than the general misery of working in weather that cold, our pneumatic system in our milking parlor was frozen and we had to milk without some of the automation that we're used to. It only really cost us a little over an hour worth of time though. After the sunrise and through day, the temperatures never got much above freezing, and Thursday morning lows were around 20 degrees. Since then, though, we've warmed up enough in the afternoons for everything to thaw out and will stay completely above 32 degrees today. In fact, we're climbing and expecting highs on Monday to possible hit 70 degrees. Welcome to wintertime in Alabama!

Our cows are still producing very good with a bulk-tank herd average of 64.5 pounds of milk per cow per day. Our butterfat content has dropped over the last six weeks from the 3.6-3.7% range to 3.3-3.4%, and that's probably an effect of the overall increase in production volume.

We're making a change in our cow's feed as well. We've replaced half of the wheat/oat baleage this past week with corn silage, and will be fully replacing it with silage when we run out of the baleage during the weekend.

A rainy Friday

The first thunderstorm moved through this morning a little after 4:00 am, and we've had a couple of passing showers since then. It looks like the rain will continue to be off-and-on throughout the morning, and hopefully by lunch we will have gotten around an inch. We'll probably find some "indoor" work to do this morning in the milking barn or in the shop.

The generally mild afternoons we've had this past month has really helped our wheat, oats, and ryegrass to thicken up. In fact, we could probably graze a couple of the fields in mid-January if we get a warm, dry period of about ten days.

The cows have been milking really well, and the bulk tanks have been showing about a 62 pounds per day average. We're almost out of baleage and will be replacing it with corn silage next week. Hopefully the cows will be able to transition quickly and keep their production up.