Farming Today

     Sorry it has been so long since I posted.  I didn't realize it was nearly a month.  We were extremely busy right up to July 4th with haying, replanting beans, spraying, fertilizing corn, installing fans in the barn and other SPRING projects.  Since the 4th, there have been repairs to catch up on and cattle to pregnancy check and vaccinate.  I've tried to get into the office some because I'm way behind there also. 
     July 5th marked 6 years since we expanded the dairy and started milking at our current site.  It feels like a life time ago, I believe corn was around $2 per bushel when I worked on the initial projects, $15 dollar milk seemed extremely profitable, no one around here knew anything about robots milking cows, auto-steer in tractors was very new, variable rate technology wasn't talked about, we didn't know much about stray voltage, Brent had just finished college, I was still doing tax work in town and Madi was just over a year old.  Fast-forward six years and we have robots milking the cows, the tractor is steering itself planting directly over the strips of fertilizer applied in the fall, we have survived the worst dairy economics since the 1930's,  we have fought a tremendous battle with stray voltage that killed 50 some of our cows in 2008, we produced record corn and bean crops and have witnessed record corn and bean prices which also means record high feed costs, there are 4 kids/grandkids growing up on the farm now.  This past week our kids had calves and projects at the county fair, this marks Mandy and my second county fair as parents of 4-Hers.
     All these changes have happened in just the last six years, during the fair this past week I visited with many people that I haven't seen very often since I was a kid showing cattle at the fair.  It was really an eye opening experience to think about how much has changed in the last 20 years.  I can't believe how much understanding of the farm lifestyle has been lost in one generation.  I showed cattle and grew up with people that came from very similar backgrounds and worked on their farms growing up.  They understood cattle, equipment, and the way of life on a farm.  Now, just 20 years later, many have chosen other careers and even though they treasure their experiences growing up, their kids simply can't relate.  I saw many examples of this.  Twenty years ago the dairy show lasted all day and the younger calf classes had 30-40 dairy calves.  This year I don't think any class had over 4 calves or cows.
     It makes me wonder what things will look like 20 years from now?  It also brings me back to why I wanted to start this blog.  More and more people are getting farther removed from the farm and technology is changing farming faster than it has since the invention of the tractor.  I still carry a pocket knife but I also have a smart phone in my pocket that allows me to look at the radar when I'm in the field, see what is going on with the robots at the barn, even taking pictures of parts to text to the repair shop.  I also carry USB drives that backup the data from the robots or the GPS unit in the tractor.  I'm going to make more effort to keep the blog updated.  This is our responsibility as farmers to keep the public informed. We are also going to try extremely hard to be ready to start giving tours of the dairy farm and robots as soon as next summer. 
    I'll end this post with some pictures from the county fair.  Also check out Mandy's blog she has an excellent post relating to the fair and farm life. 

Project Life. 2013.: Proud to be a raising FARM kids!

mandyproject365.blogspot.com

 

                                              jumping in the straw in the dairy barn

 

 

                                                        Just out of the show ring

 

 

 

pulling hard

Ty's first trophy

2nd place in his first tractor pull

Keeping the barn clean

Hail Damage

     Last Thursday night June 20th we got hit hard with hail.  Two-thirds of our beans were damaged very badly.  Most of the beans that Farm Rescue Planted are gone.  Also gone are the beans that Brent and Dad fought mud, miserable conditions, and late nights to beat the rain.
     Luckily we have good insurance on most of the acres.  There are several options/levels that a person can choose when taking crop insurance just like other insurances.  We have a combination of federal crop insurance which guarantees a certain number of bushels per acre along with production hail.  The production hail guarantees bushels above the federal crop insurance if you get hailed on, again there are many options/levels a person can pick.  I met with our insurance adjuster and after going through the situations we will try and replant some of the beans and some we will not replant.  Yesterday dad replanted about 60 acres before we had a breakdown, we will probably try and replant some more in the next few days however there aren't enough hours in the day and we need to get the hay up and nitrogen spread on the corn along with the daily chores relating to the cows.
    The beans we do replant likely won't yield very good because they are being planted so late. We will still harvest the damaged beans even if there is only a few bushels an acre.  Also the beans that won't be replanted will not canopy and will have more weeds so we will need to spray those acres an extra time or two this summer.  Because we carry good insurance it is never fun paying the huge premium in the fall but after a situation like this we are glad that we have high levels of coverage.  So far we have had an extremely late spring followed by too much rain and now hail.  Even with all of this there are many others around the region/state that have it much worse.                                                                                                                                                                               

                                             A field not hit by hail planted on June 7th

 

 

A field hit by hail planted the same day

 

 

 

Haying and Weather

     Wow the weeks are rolling by in a hurry.  It was a race to get the crops in between rains we finally finished planting on June 10th. Then there were cattle to move and Brent started spraying.  We started haying on Monday June 17th.  This is the latest I ever remember starting because the hay wasn't mature.  There was one other year we didn't get started good until the middle of June because we had 10 straight days of rain.  However that year the hay was way to old when we got started and we lost a lot of quality.  I will dedicate this post to explain how we put up our hay.
    We bale our hay wet and wrap it in plastic to keep the oxygen out.  This causes the hay to ferment and it makes excellent feed for the milk cows.  We call this balage.  Quality feed is very important for the cows to produce well.  If we put up poor feed our milk production could suffer for the entire year.  The quality in the alfalfa is in the leaves and during the day the leaves are dry from the heat of the sun even though the stems are still wet.  Because of this we try to bale at night or when there is dew in order to keep the leaves attached to the stem. We run a baler with knives in that chops the hay into 4 inch pieces.  We switched to this baler last year, it saves a lot on the repair and fuel bill when we mix the balage for the cows.
    After we bale the hay we have around 12 hours to get the hay wrapped.  The sooner we get it wrapped the better the quality.  Normally we like to haul the bales to the building site and wrap them close to where we are mixing the feed.  But there are times when the workload and the weather don't allow for this and we have to wrap the bales on the field and haul them in the winter as we feed.  Once the bales are wrapped we can't take them out of the plastic until we are ready to feed them or the bales will spoil.  In the winter we can haul bales for 2 weeks to a month at a time.  This is similar to sticking your food in the freezer. 
     Ideally we like to bale the hay between 40-60% moisture.  This usually means baling about one day after cutting.  However when making excellent quality balage the wetter stuff get to "hot" and the cows are not able to properly digest it.  Everything is a balancing act and tradeoffs in order to get up quality feed to produce quality milk.
    We baled Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.  I started baling around 9:30 Wednesday night and it started raining about 4am Thursday morning when I had about an hour left to bale.  I kept baling until I got done.  We got about .75 inch of rain and we went out Thursday afternoon and wrapped these bales on the field.  Luckily we did because we had some nasty weather Thursday night.  We got about 45% of our hay acres baled June 17th, 18th, and 19th before it rained. 
    I'll post again in the next couple of days to explain the weather.  It was not good we lost 67% of our beans to hail.  It looks like we will get to start planting again, along with haying, spraying, and applying nitrogen fertilizer on the corn.

                                                   My view at nights this week.

 

 

chopped hay after going through baler

view from the skidsteer when wrapping hay

wrapping

helpers for the day

A New Home for the Calves

 It has been a very busy week of moving cattle for Travis and the guys. The calves were moved from their calf hutches, which is a great home for them from October through June.

In the calf hutches, they are fed pasturized milk twice a day until they are six weeks old, when they are then fed a grain mixture and water twice a day. Madi really likes when they are little and still drinking milk out of a bottle because she thinks they are the cutest at that point. Can you tell just how much she loves them by the big grin on her face?

Once the calves leave the hutches, they are brought to a turkey hutch to live which is a great place for them to be from mid June through late September. The turkey hutches provide a great environment where there is a lot of air movement and also protects the calves from rain and hot sunshine.

The past couple of weeks, all of the new calves were immediately put into a turkey hutch to live.

Today, Travis and the kids worked on moving all of the weaned calves (those that no longer need milk but grain and water instead) from their regular calf hutch home to the much cooler turkey hutch.

 

Farm Rescue

Last week, we had some very special visitors on the farm. Farm Rescue came and helped finish planting the soybeans for us. We are so grateful for all of the help from these amazing volunteers! The work that they do to help farmers who are in need is such a blessing and we hope to pay it forward to them someday!

If you would like to see some photos from media day on our farm please click on this link to Mandy's blog...VIEW PHOTOS HERE.

Putting Fresh Cows on the Robots

    Many of you know that we installed robots to milk some of the cows last winter.  Our first milking on the robots was November 27th 2012.  We installed two Lely A4 robots.  We are currently milking about 120 cows with the robots and 80 cows in the parlor.  The robots feed a pellet to attract the cows to come into the robot to get milked.  Because of the pellet, the robot cows cost more to feed than the parlor cows.  The cows can milk up to 5 times a day.  Our parlor cows are milking, on average, 3 times a day vs. 2 times a day in the parlor.  The extra milking translates into an increase in production.  We put the older cows on the robots because older cows milk more.  Our first calf heifers, some cows that don't work on the robots and later in lactation cows make up the parlor herd. 
    This last week we've been busy trying to get field work done between the rain showers so when we had cows calve they got milked in the parlor.  This morning I got 3 cows that calved this past week put on the robots.  Each cow on the robot wears a collar that includes the cows number, a responder that the robot scans to identify the cow, and a weight to keep the collar from spinning.  Before putting the cow in the robot group we have to make up a collar, enter the cows information into the computer along with her responder number, and singe the hair off her udder so the robot has an easier time to locate the teats.  When the cow enters the robot for the first time we use the touch screen to guide the arm under the cow and get it close so it can find the teats.  The robot uses lasers to locate the teats and attach the milkers.  There is a camera over the cow to locate where the cow is standing front to back. After the first milking the robot records the teat positions and remembers this the next time the cow enters the robot so it knows where to start looking.  On average it takes about a half an hour to get a cow on the robot the first time.  After the initial milking, we are averaging around 7 minutes per cow per milking.
     The cows are much happier with the robots.  They choose when to milk, eat, socialize or lie down.  The cows have transitioned to this system very well.  We use washed sand in the stalls for the cows to lay on, it feels like laying on the beach.  Comfortable relaxed cows will produce more.  Cow comfort is very important.  Another day I will include what the daily procedure for chores with the robots include.


Supplies to make collar(collar, responder, numbers, weight)
 

 

 

Cow wearing collar

 

Cow in robot barn side

 

Screen used to attach milker

 

Robot attaching robot room side

 

Robot attached

 

 

Happy content cows laying on sand

 

 

Kids Summer Project

Summer vacation is in full swing at our house already! The past two years the kids have each raised a bull calf over the summer. Before school starts in the fall they have to sell their calves and they get the money. Yesterday morning, which was the second full day of summer vacation, Madi and Tyson wanted to get their calves. I took the kids to the barn and they helped clean the cattle trailer out and service the robots. After helping with these chores, they got to pick out their calves. Tanner decided he wanted to raise two calves this year and because he has been responsible the past two years, I agreed. Out of the six calves the kids had to choose from, four of them were loaded into the trailer and brought back to our place.

The kids had to feed them for the first time last night. Today, Madi spent most of her day with the calves. She even did extra things (like bed for them and spread it around all over) for her brothers calves because she felt sorry for the calves.  After her grandpa told her that there were two more bull calves born today, she sweet talked me into letting her get a second calf.  So, as of tonight the kids now have five calves at our place.

We took pictures of the fun things they have bought with their money from the last two summers. They are really proud of their purchases! They bought their own trampoline, a 4-wheeler, and Tanner bought an autographed basketball from the 2009 state championship team, his favorite possession!