Super Powered Cows

Should cows have super powers? If they had them would they use them for good or evil?

We had three heifers answer those questions this winter on our farm. They had the ability to jump fences in a single bound. Their leader, who we'll refer to as Zod, would challenge them to leap the fence from their pasture into the adjoining field of ryegrass. Thus the question of "is the grass always greener on the other side" answered. At least for them.

Like the three Kryptonians Superman faced in Superman II and the Man of Steel, these superpowered cows did not use their abilities for the greater good. Eventually we caught them and two saw the error of their ways and pledged to only use their powers for good. Zod, however, did not calm down, nor did she make any agreements.

So we exiled her to the phantom zone.



Ok, so technically we didn't send her into a flying square rotating in space, We did send her to be sold at the stockyard. It was disappointing to see a nice animal leave, but if she could not abide by the rules then she could not stay. Even if she had super powers!

Donut Drive Through On The Farm

Time To Fetch The Cows

By four a.m. each morning I am driving out to the pasture making sure all the cows have come in to be milked. Yes, I did say four a.m.!

Today I was thinking as I drove the tractor down the lane that what I, we, really need is a drive through Dunkin' Donuts at the end of the lane.

Time To Make The Donuts

It would be nice to grab one of those chocolate coffees and a cream filled donuts, the white kind and not the yellow or the chocolate cream is a dream. Yes, there is a recurring theme of chocolate in my life. Life I think would be perfect. Getting up in the morning would be a joy.

Of course, there could be downsides. I can imagine a long line of cows waiting to get their caffeine fix before being milked. I'd have to hurry them up and then without their mochas and frappes they might get irritable. Then what if the field man from our dairy cooperative came to see us because of high concentrations of caffeine in the milk supply. Could we be fined for that?

 Or maybe.... this could be a new market for milk sort of like that cool, new Fairlife milk. We could market caffeinated milk with all the health benefits of milk and without the chance of darkening your teeth like coffee can.

Addictions

Then there would be my new habit of getting a coffee and donut everyday. Every morning I'd have to get my fix and leave the nice barista/donut-baker a tip. After a while I'd have to have it. My wife might want to know where our money's going. Then there's the problem with the daily donuts and fat, cholesterol, and obesity. 

After careful consideration I think not having a Dunkin' Donuts on the farm is okay, and so is the occasional trip to town.

Dunkin' Donuts photo: By Anthony92931 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Donuts photo by Qfamily

Preparing For The Cold On The Dairy

With an upcoming cold spell coming we are trying to get things ready for ourselves and the cows. While it won't be as bad as last year's Polar Vortex, it still isn't anything we are looking forward to.

One of our biggest concerns is that the silo unloaders and the conveyors might freeze. We've purchased some large, high quality hay bales and have them ready to feed in case that happens.

While we do keep our baby calves in the calf barn they will appreciate more straw bedding when the temp's drop. We may also feed them more milk to keep their energy levels up.

Of course the cows are not the only creatures on the farm that need to stay warm. Don't forget the farmers! This week we purchased a new forced air heater to put in the dairy barn to keep us warm while milking and to thaw out any frozen pipes.

Unfortunately this means we'll be replacing our old one that plays the first note of the Star Wars theme when it comes on. Don't believe me? Give it a listen.


Winter weather we are ready as we'll ever be!

Hunting For The New Year

Moments before I took this photo Fred contentedly sat on the post warming himself in the sunshine. As I clicked the shutter he dove for a mouse on the ground.

Moving Calves With A Song

Two bent corral panels and one dented truck later, we were finally able to move ten heifers from field A to field B. The last three of the group, and especially the final one, were a little trying but we managed to load 'em and move 'em.

Not all heifers were easily tempted, but we did get them up!

Sorta sounds like a country song. So with apologies to Kenny Chesney's American Kids.

Trying to move those bovine animals
Hoping they don't break no more corral panels.
Coaxing them along ain't no easy sight
A little bit sweaty but we got them alright.

Weeds, Corn, and GMO's

Every year we plant corn to harvest as silage for the cows. This year's crop is growing well and so were the weeds. A few days before I took this photo we had our corn sprayed with Round Up. The GMO corn is not hurt, but the weeds do not survive.

Had we not been able to spray, the weeds would have taken over the corn and stolen nutrients, water, sunshine, and fertilizer.

What's real interesting to me is the photo I tweeted out of the sweet corn in my garden when the wind blew it over. Monsanto retweeted it and then I got a few negative comments in return.

Looks like I need a sweet corn chiropractor. #corn #gardening pic.twitter.com/bvQ3iq9WEU
— Ryan Bright (@Farmerbright) June 30, 2014

“@MonsantoCo: RT @Farmerbright: Looks like I need a sweet corn chiropractor. #corn #gardening pic.twitter.com/k8eTcz4Dmz” ur fault monsanto. 😒😒😭
— BIGCHIEF666 (@triplenicks666) July 3, 2014

@MonsantoCo @Farmerbright Monsanto corn? You need a pathologist!! #noGMOs #poison
— Kathryn Joy (@JoyK8) July 2, 2014

The funny part is that the garden corn is Silver Queen sweet corn, and not anything special. What people's perspectives are based on what they've read or heard is not always true. Recently Popular Science put together an article about GMO products entitled Core Truths: 10 Common GMO Claims Debunked. Are GMO plants tested? Should we be worried? I'm about as worried about that as I am mutant cows.

Top 5 Superpowers A Farmer Would Like To Have

Feeding the world one day at a time might sound like a great super power, but deep down inside every farmer would like to be able to do a little more to get the job done right. Here are the top five super powers that a farmer would like to have.

1. Weather. The ability to control the weather would be a power that any farmer would want. Too hot for your cows, or too darn cold for you and your cows? Too dry or too wet for your crops to grow? The ability to manipulate the weather like Storm can do would be a farmer's dream.                                               


2. Super Speed. If you had super speed like the Flash, think of how many farm chores you could accomplish in one day? The average farmer gets 584 less hours of sleep a year than most people, so getting more done in less time could actually get him/her the rest they need. Plus, with super speed you could outrun possible manure splatters, which is always nice.                                                                            
3. In a world where people demand sustainability and want farmers to be even better stewards of natural resources, what better represents going green than the emerald ring of the Green Lantern? How do you plow a field with a net zero carbon impact? Using the green ring from Oa, you could do any type of manual labor without using any fuel or having any emissions.                                                             
4. Telepathy and telekinesis. Professor Charles Xaiver could possible be the next best thing to a veterinarian. Imagine being able to read a cow's mind and communicate with her to find out how she feels and how to give her medical help? Not only could you convince animals to do certain things, like not jump that fence, but if they were injured you could easily lift and move them to safety.                     
                                                 
5. Super Strength. There are so many ways that farmers could use a little extra muscle. Flat tire on a tractor? No problem because with super strength you can just lift it up and change it. One of the best uses ever comes from the original farm boy turned super hero, Clark Kent, when in his pre-Superman days on Smallville he pushed fence posts in the ground as easy as you might put candles in a birthday cake.

What super power do you think a farmer needs? What super power would you want to help you get your job done?  

Take A Walk On A Calf's Side

This calf had outgrown her stall today
She needed to move to a bigger place to play
When we passed the silo
All she did was go go go
And said, "Hey, Farmer, take a walk on a calf's side."
She said, "Hey, farmer, take a walk on a calf's side."
Doo do doo do doo do do doo...

Moving Baby Calf With Milk

When our calves get to be about two months old we move them, usually with a bucket of milk, from our calf barn where they were housed in individual stalls. They have been slowly weaned from milk for the last ten days or so. Now they will be in a large pen with six to eight calves that are approximately the same size. I have no idea what they might be singing next!

Wanted Cow: Milking Or Dry

Most of the time the cows are on a good schedule. They come in from the pasture, eat, drink, get milked, eat again, and go back out. Twice daily and all. But there are exceptions.

Saturday was a different day. I opened the gate to let the cows come in to eat. I watched them walk in from the pasture.

)

Then it happened. One cow slipped in the feed way which panicked another cow and another and....

That's right, dominoes. They all took off toward the milk barn and looked left, right, and left again to see if they could see what was out to get them. In order to calm them down I turned on the silage conveyors to remind them they were here to eat. It worked. Slowly, very slowly, they walked back to the feed way and began eating.

Then I saw my friend in the field, Whitey, who did not come in. And she had seen the huge commotion and was currently holding her head high in the air, sniffing and looking around. So, like the Good Shepherd in the parable, I left the cows that were now eating to go fetch the "lost" one in the field. Of course, that's where the comparison ends.

Whitey was so scared that she refused to come in from the field. I got her to come to the lane once and that was as close as I could get her. Perhaps if I were on horseback, no, perhaps if I had a team of mounted cowboys we could've brought her in, but I didn't. So I left her in the field.

The same way you have to learn there are some battles you can't win with a three year old, there are also some battles you can't win with a cow. She eventually came in and ate after all the cows had been milked. We got her the next morning and she was fine and calm, as were the rest of the cows.

Some days are crazy, even on a dairy farm.

The Cows Coming In For Lunch

Dear Diary, I'm Done With The Cold

Dear Diary,

I am very thankful that we finally made it above freezing today and practically over 50 degrees. Let me tell you, I am done with the cold. This is the kind of thing I've been dealing with:

Frozen Ice In The Cows' Water Tank

We just finished our second round of cold weather. While other farmers may deal with daily highs in the 20's regularly, we don't in the south east. We have busted ice for the cows and calves to drink. We have carried hot water to pour on frozen pipes to try and thaw them. We have just plain carried water so they could drink. Let me be truthful diary, I never knew calves could drink so many bucketfuls of water in order to get their fill until I started carrying it.

Round three of cold weather is in the forecast for tomorrow. Lets hope this is the last one for at least a little while. In the meantime I'll keep my coveralls out and my gloves on the heater vent.

Rural By Design: How to Save Farm Land

The week before Thanksgiving I attended a meeting for PlanET and the Knoxville Metro Planning Board that hosted Randall Arendt to speak on how farms and rural landscapes can be preserved. He is a planner and author and promotes what he calls rural by design.

Typically when a developer chops up a piece of property they use it all in the simplest way possible while following local ordinances. More often than not this results in houses on large lots. If the lot buyers/homeowners hoped to move to the country the country/farmland would actually be eaten up by the house lots.

How do you plan then for new lots with houses and farmland to be side by side? Mr. Arendt's idea is that we should change the ordinances that require wide setbacks and large lots and instead make the lots smaller and closer together. Also, the most usable farmland in the piece of property should be said aside as agriculture only, and not be able to be used for anything else, thus preserving it.

Here's an example of a conventional development by Arendt from Land Choices:

Conventional Development credit Arendt

Here is an example of the same plot using conservation by design:

Conservation Development credit Arendt

The first version shows the farmland eaten up by roads and large lots. The second version shows how the same number of lots can be built and still retain much of the farmland. You can see more at Land Choices.

Randal Arendt gave several examples on how the farmland could be used including Christmas trees, horses and stables, crops, cattle, etc. He believes the property gains value by the lots being able to be a part of the rural landscape instead of eliminating it. I'm sure he could expound upon that much, much more.

I thought it was very interesting, but wondered how do you sell the idea to farmers that are in a position to sell some of their land. After ordinances are modified to allow the new densities of the properties, would landowners want to go down this road? How would the homeowners get along with the farmer creating dust when tilling the farmland that their houses surround? What about cattle that inevitably get out and walk in their yards? Would they be okay when the farmer sprays the crops with pesticides or herbicides or even fertilizers or manure?

Preserving rural land is a good thing and planning in this manner may work to do it. How would you feel about selling your land in a development like this or in buying a lot in one?

Ode To Our Silage Conveyor

The chain is a pain when it stretches in the rain

--My Fair Conveyor

 We have silage conveyors that carry the silage from the silos to a long feed trough that all the cows eat from. Unfortunately, one of them has been giving trouble lately. Last week we had a downpour that washed all the oil off the of the drive chain for our longest conveyor. It began to slip. And jump the cogs. No matter what we did.

Bad stretchy chain

In order to feed we eventually had to replace the chain with a new piece that we cut to length and installed.

Over the weekend the wide belt that carries the silage began slipping on the drive roller. The good news was that we had a replacement waiting to go in, but it still meant installing it.Yesterday we took it upon ourselves to replace the roller. We hoped to loosen the belt enough that we could slip it out the front, but in the end we had to cut the belt apart and remove the roller.

The roller fits on the end and the belt wraps up and around it

Next we attached new lacing to the belt and put it back together. Hurrah, for a long job to be finally finished! Hopefully, the conveyor will run well through the winter now and we'll have happy cows instead of hungry ones.

A Warm Sand

This morning from the warm confines of my coat and coveralls I gazed out onto the first big frost of the year. A cold frost.

 Everybody always talks about how beautiful a cold frost is, but I was thinking how nice a warm sand would be.

Instead of a cold frost coming and making everything, well, cold, what if instead we could have a warm sand? Look, we had a warm sand this morning. We'll have to mow the yard today because of all the sun. The flowers are brighter, the corn is taller, you know, because we had two warm sands this week. Honey, let me go off and dust your windshield and start the a/c because we had a very warm sand this morning.

Lets Toss Logic Out The Window

Obviously sand doesn't melt away like frost so it would hang around and build up and beaches would form everywhere. Or rather they would be deserts, I suppose. In this hypothetical the sand would melt away, otherwise this wonderful hypothesis doesn't work. Just go with it.

When you look out today and see the frost killing your flowers, and see how your windshield is covered, why not give warm sand some thought.

Which would you rather have? Me? I'm thinking this would make a good premise for a children's story book. Hmmmmm.......

Silo Repairs

Harvesting our corn had been going well until I kept stopping up the pipe that the silage is blown through to the top of the silo. The kernals of corn are hard and wear down the metal, which is what happened to the top elbow and distributor on this silo. It was no longer smooth and so the silage would catch and start backing up.

We hired some silo guys to come and replace it. 

Elbow on the left and distributor on the right

You can see him working seventy feet in the air on a small ladder taking the old one off and putting the new one on. The distributor is worked by the handle shown in the photo. Flipping it up and down between loads makes sure the silage is blown in evenly in the silo. If you put it all on one side you stand a very good chance of causing your silo to lean and fall. 

70' Upright Silo -> Don't look down!

The new parts solved our problem and the corn silage I've blown up the pipe has kept on going. No stops and no problems.

Potty Training Cows and Kids

While scraping the lots today...



I momentarily gave thought to the idea of potty training our dairy cows. Maybe it was from lack of sleep, maybe it was from what seemed to be sheer volume our girls seems to put out, I still thought about it in spite of the fact that I know that by spreading it on our fields it makes a good fertilizer. Again, it was only momentarily.

Then I reminded my self of my success rate of potty training at home. This is the kids' bathroom toilet. Study this photo well because one of the most important features is hiding.

Here it is! I call it the "handle."

The handle is for flushing. Flushing the bad, the stinky, the....well, it takes it all away. I can only assume that the "handle" has magical properties because those below the age of two can find it with their fingers faster than finding the holes in their nose. And they know what to do with it. Flush. Flush. Flush. Evidently between the ages of two and twelve the handle mysteriously vanishes, and thus it is never used.

The two year old, the young bull of the house, is as trained as the cows in herd. What is the difference in relieving one's self in the middle of the pasture and the in hallway of your house? Unlike the cows, who leave their mess for someone to find and scrape away, he does inform the household of the great deed he has done.

As it turns out, I am not the first to imagine potty training cows and calves. Alison Vaughan, who studies at Western College of Veterinary, is doing research on potty training cows. Her idea is that if they do their business where they don't lay down then they will stay cleaner and healthier. Sounds like a good plan and she has had some success.

Me potty training the cows? I guess I will let cows be cows and kids be kids.

Ultimate Cow Photo Bomb

Last week I posted this photo to twitter and got a comment.

http://t.co/LcqEIwWtQQ - "Oh waiter, another round of silage and a bucket of grain to go, please."
— Ryan Bright (@Farmerbright) September 12, 2013

@Farmerbright LOL! #Dairy cows make the best photo ops! Seems like they know when there's a camera there!
— Jeannine Otto (@AgNews_Otto) September 12, 2013

Yesterday while I brought the cows in I saw one pawing the ground with her front leg sending dirt into the air. I thought it would be a great video so I started recording. Then another cow came in and photo bombed it. I guess she did know the camera was there and was jealous it wasn't on her! While I don't normally post this kind of humor, I did think this was a funny incident. I call it the ultimate cow photo bomb.

Rain, Corn, Rain Again

What a difference a year makes. Last June we were enduring hot, dry weather and I was even on the news talking about how bad it was for farmers. This year has been the opposite: rain, rain, rain. We had a terrible time getting our wheat and rye up for spring silage to feed our cows because the fields stayed too wet for us to get in and then it seemed that what we mowed was too wet to go through our chopper. 

When we did have a few dry days when we were not chopping we did manage to get a few bales of hay rolled and our corn out. More rain came this week, but it was dry enough yesterday for the sprayer to come through and take out the weeds in one field of corn. 

Our Round-Up Ready corn was definitely ready to be sprayed. I took the photo on the right this morning. You can see how the weeds between the rows of corn our already turning yellow and sagging.
The weeds, if left unattended, would soon take over the field and ruin our corn crop.

This corn is designed so that we can have a sprayer come in and spray the field and only the weeds are affected. I have a hard enough time keeping the weeds out of our little garden, and I can't imagine having to take the hoe out to tend acres and acres of corn.

We're expecting 2-5 inches of rain this week according to the weather folk on TV. That's more than our share. Too bad we couldn't have had at least some of it this time last year...

She Had Milk Fever

Yesterday's fresh cow turned into today's downer cow. Sometimes cows that have recently calved get what is called "milk fever." the treatment is to administer calcium. Upon seeing her down this morning we gave her an oral tube of calcium gel. We waited and finished milking. When she still had not gotten up we went ahead and gave her an calcium solution by iv. This is just like a human would be given an iv.

The good news as you can see from the photo is that she got up on her own and began grazing. We'll keep her away from other cows for a few days to minimize the chance of one of them pushing her and knocking her down. Hopefully in a few days she will be fully recovered.

Blue Sky Between the Barns

Warm weather and beautiful skies are finally making it to the farm! Today has been the first day in a while that I could send the coveralls to the washing machine enjoy sunshine and a light jacket. I'm sure the cows and calves like it, too.