Grazing in Michiana
I know this column is supposed to be about grazing, but I find it rather hard to get my mind on grazing in February.
First of all, my heart goes out to all financially struggling dairy farmers. It seems like no matter what marketing strategy we choose, all dairy farmers are affected financially. Some, more so than others, but we are all affected.
Never in my lifetime have the economics of industry and agriculture co-existed. If industry was going well, agriculture was lagging, or the other way around.
I don't know how long the industry will stay where it is today. But sooner or later it will change.
At least that was the pattern in the past, so let's not give up.
On the main floor of the Willis Tower in Chicago, there use to be a wall plaque that said, "Small family farms in the Midwest are what made Chicago a city. Industry came later."
I am a firm believer that industrial agriculture alone will never feed the world. We also need the small family farms. So I encourage you, let's continue on for the sake of the next generation.
Now a bit about feeding cows and grazing. Last fall, we seeded 22 acres in alfalfa and endophyte-free tall fescue.
Fescue is not very palatable for grazing, but works very well in a cut-and-carry situation. We seed another 10 acres in clover, rye grass and plantain for pasture. These 32 acres were also seeded with barley as a nurse crop.
Barley matures earlier than wheat, oats or rye, and does not smother the small sprouts underneath as easily as other cover crops do. Neither does it draw as much moisture from the soil.
The barley was quite tall and thick this fall. So we lightly grazed it with the dairy cows before frost.
After a hard frost we do not graze the milk producing cows on barley, as it puts an undesirable flavor in the milk. We now graze the dry cows on it, weather permitting, and ground is frozen.
Late spring, we harvest barley in the dough stage, as baleage. It is quite palatable. Cows eat it well. It puts fiber and energy in the ration and helps balance out the protein in high-quality alfalfa baleage. We feed no corn silage.
We make 4-by-4 size bales of baleage, that way we can mix three bales of various quality baleage together in our TMR, to get the desired balanced ration.
We also add about 7 pounds per cow per day of grain mix, 6 of ear corn, 1 of dry barley grain, minerals and a small amount of molasses.
We also think it's very important to free choice dairy mineral, kelp, salt and humates.
We never use soybean meal, but in the past if we felt we needed added protein in our milk, we added field peas. But I'm not sure it's cost effective.
Sometimes I think that in the past, we have made balancing a cow's ration a little too complicated.
A farmer can usually tell what a cow needs by observing the consistency of the manure and body condition. This ration may not produce the highest milk production, but it produces a healthy cow.