Ruts
May 14th, 2007 by Jim VThe current May weather is beginning to feel like last May – dry and warm. It was 93 degrees and windy today. Yesterday a farmer at church was saying that it was already getting too dry and that the subsoil is lacking moisture. He said that the first crop of hay will be short compared to other years. I hope we do not have a repeat of last year’s dry summer. One good thing about the warm sunny days, is that we don’t have to watch for bloat as much. Every spring we have to be very careful since our pasture has a fair amount of clover in it. We have learned that we need to move cows off of the pastures with clover when we get two or three days of cloudy cool weather. We have one cow that will eat only clover if she is given the opportunity. She seems to be the one that is most susceptible to bloat. As long as the days are sunny, we don’t seem to have problems.
Our sheep and cows have been on pasture since the end of April. The last few days I have been busy putting in place the extra sections of fence that we use when we are grazing rotationally. I also altered the fencing setup in a couple of places to make paddock rotations easier. We rent some pasture from a neighbor and last weekend I put in some extra posts on this pasture to make the setup of new paddocks faster. Normally this rented pasture would contain some of our cattle and also a steer belonging to some friends, but an interesting turn of events has prevented these friends from placing their steer onto this pasture.
The owners of this rented pasture, a 77 year old woman and her son, have around 20 head of cattle confined under an essentially three sided set of buildings. The 77 year old mother has been complaining that they are feeding expensive $3 corn to these cattle. Meanwhile they have lots of hay ground that could become cheap pasture. This mother and son took care of our friends steer through the winter, keeping it with their 20 head of cattle. The idea was that once pasture became available, this steer would go onto pasture. But now the 77 year old mother is blocking this move. She is afraid that the steer will not stay inside the electric fence, plus she says that the steer will just lose weight if it is placed on pasture. The fence is nice and hot, so I doubt there is much danger that the steer will go through the fence and our friends would prefer grass fattened meat. It amazes me how people get stuck in ruts, doing things the way that they are always done, not being open to new and better ways of doing things. As I think about this situation, I am hoping and praying that in my old age I will not get set in my ways and will be open to new ideas and ways of doing things. There is a time to stand strong and not compromise, especially in areas that are clear Biblical mandates, but there are also times to learn to do things in new ways…. Hey Nathan, I give you permission to talk to me if I am getting too set in my ways.
Jim V
May 14th, 2007 at 9:10 pm
Yikes! 93 degrees in way up there in the north country, this early. Down here in the Ozarks of Missouri it hasn’t got that warm yet. Also after 2 years of drought, this year has started very rainy and damp. We lost the drought a long time ago. Maybe we will get our normal 45 or more inches of rain this year. I heard someone make the wise comment that all of mens civilization, technology, etc, survives because of 6 inches of topsoil, and the fact that it rains. May it keep raining up there. Maybe you will have to try the Elijah thing. He had to pray seven times to get it to rain.
May 15th, 2007 at 5:40 am
Jim,
I’m with you on the lack of rain. This drought thing is getting pretty old down here. When I’m cutivating and disking. I’m beginning to think I’m just rearrainging dust!! Here’s what the NWS has to say about it:
THE FOLLOWING RAINFALL DEFICIT DATA ARE FOR HUNTSVILLE:
THROUGH MAY 13TH:
MONTH-TO-DATE … 1.55 INCHES
SINCE MARCH 1 … 8.37 INCHES
YEAR-TO-DATE …13.50 INCHES
SINCE JAN 2006…28.42 INCHES
SINCE JAN 2005…45.78 INCHES
About this set in the ways thing. I used to pray I wouldn’t be, but as I’m getting older even my wife says I’m turning into a stubborn ol curmudgeon! Who knows, maybe its just destiny
.
Have a good one,
Brad
May 15th, 2007 at 8:46 am
I will be praying for rain for you folks. We have had a pretty rainy spring so far. I sure pray you don’t lose your crops.
May 15th, 2007 at 8:26 pm
Mark,
We are definitely praying for rain. Last night they were forecasting a 60% chance, but nothing came. Usually when they forecast a probability of rain above 50%, we get rain - but not this time. Today it was in the 60s, so things can change pretty fast.
Brad,
You sound a lot drier than we are. We will pray that you get caught up on rain. Getting set in our ways is sure easy to do, isn’t it? I am now getting complaints from my family that I never want to go anyplace. Thing is I did enough going places stuff when I was young and now staying at home seems fine with me.
Loriann,
Thank you for your prayers. So far everything is green, but I would hate to see the dry weather continue too much longer. It is a beautiful sight to see livestock grazing in green, lush fields, but when everything starts to dry up it reminds me that creation groans due man’s fall.
Jim V
May 16th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
Heck Jim! You live down in the rain forest compared to us up our way
I promised myself that I wouldn’t worry about it this year but that’s a little easier said than done. Plowed some sod today and the old tractor had to snort a bit to pull that plow. Sod sure does seem to suck out the moister. But I ain’t complaining, maybe I’ll get the corn finished in a few days and that includes the low lands.
I was thinking of taking a short day trip to eastern Montana and digging myself a truckload of prickly pear cactus. At least that would give the thisles some compitition plus a person could burn the stickers off of them and feed the cattle. Oh well, just dreaming I guess!
May 16th, 2007 at 5:46 pm
Tom,
Yeah, I imagine you are hurting for moisture more than we are. I just hope this rainforest stays somewhat close to a rainforest.
Right now it feels closer to the prairies of western South Dakota - where I hear they also have some cactus. I am going to conserve pasture as much as I can. It may be time for some creative thinking. The thought of feeding hay in the summer bring chills to my spine and takes a big chunk out of my checkbook.
Jim V
May 16th, 2007 at 5:56 pm
Jim,
That just gave me the chills thinking about feeding. I got about thirtyfive cows at home yet eating, the rest got the boot and are on pasture. Hopefully the rest will be on pasture in the next week or so. Been feeding since July and I hope we can pasture till October. I gotta be heading out to Wednesday evening sevices at church now. Butcher three steers tomorrow morning and then get in them fields and see if I can’t get some corn in the ground.
I’ve said it before and will say it again, if Monsanto wants something worthwhile to do they should cross some decent OP corn with Canadian Thistle. Not only wouldn’t it need any rain but it’d keep growing year after year with hardly any water or fertilizer
Heck, wouldn’t even have to plant it after the first time. But then again who ever listens to me 
May 17th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
I pray that you get the rain you need. Do you keep your milk cow in the rotational grazing with your steers? Do you feed the milk cow anything while you are milking her? Our older milk cow, Buttercup will just stand there in the pasture and let you milk her if you want. This cow that just freshened is doing a bit better at standing, but she gets bored. I tried some beet pulp, but she didn’t like it. I give her some flakes of good hay, but she nibbles at best. We don’t want to grain feed….
May 17th, 2007 at 4:21 pm
Marci,
Generally we have our steers in the same paddocks as our cows, except this year we have our steers on a separate pasture that we have rented, while the cows are still at home. I want the steers to fatten as quickly as possible, so they generally get the same quality pasture as the cows. One of our cows will also stand still if you go out into the pasture to milk her.
We feed beet pulp at milking time - plus I mix in minerals. I think beet pulp can be an acquired taste. We keep a neighbor’s cow. At first this cow was not thrilled about the beet pulp, but now she chows it down like all the other cows. You can also try giving them some molasses - it doesn’t mess with the rumen bacteria and it will keep her busy licking up the molasses. If you put the molasses on the beet pulp, you can probably get them more accustomed to the beet pulp. In theory they shouldn’t need an energy supplement like beet pulp, but I am trying to be a little cautious and make sure they get the energy that they need. I have some five gallon jugs that I fill up with molasses at a local feed mill. I also mix some minerals with the molasses. It is a way to get them to eat minerals that are not otherwise palatable. Last winter when I was feeding high levels of copper to get rid of mastitis, the only way to get them to eat the mineral was to mix it with molasses.
Jim V