We have completed our harvest. The last crop in was the corn. We had all of our corn chopped for silage. Christopher's corn was combined. It was wet but will be rolled (cracked) to be fed to the cattle in the feedlot.
We have weaned all of the calves. We do this in a multiple step process. I thought I had written about it before, but I guess not. I will have to try to do it next year. Anyway, weaning, as you probably can guess, is when the calves and cows are separated so the calf will no longer nurse the cow. We now have the calves in the feedlot.
Our cattle have been enjoying fall grazing. There are some grazing a barley field and others are in the corn, pea & canola fields. After we harvest these crops there is still some waste. There are ears of corn & pea pods laying in the fields that fell off the plant for some reason, the barley & canola seeds that did the same and have now started growing again making for lush, green grazing. This is a great way to add value to the crop (that would have otherwise been wasted) and to extend the amount of time that we do not have to feed them hay. We did get a couple of inches of snow Saturday/Saturday night but that was not enough to end this "aftermath grazing". Some of the snow has settled away and I hope for a bit of sunshine to take care of the rest that is out in the open areas.
The men have been busy working on fence repair. There are some new fences being built and others are mended. Some of this fence was around a field of Sudan Grass that was planted as a cover crop (to help dry out soil that did not get planted in the spring). We had to wait until after November 1 (government regulation) to utilize this crop. We plan to let the cattle graze this field as another way to help preserve our winter hay supply. Our hay supply is a little short this year due to all of the rain we've had. Most years we can cut hay in sloughs (marshy ponds) and get quite a bit of hay, but this year they still had water in them.
The forecast sounds like the ground will freeze up this week. Once that happens we will get busy hauling the hay and straw home.
No photos this time, but it was time for a farm update instead of Andy!!
How nice that you can utilize the fields as extra graze for the cattle and congrats on getting the harvesting completed! :)
ReplyDeleteThe past three or four years have been a challenge with both planting and harvest. We have had tremendous amounts of moisture and have had to leave many acres unplanted. It is nice to be able to get in and out of the fields although hay hauling needs to wait until the ground freezes up (about four days the way it looks).
DeleteThat's really beneficial that the fields can provide that extra grazing. It sure saves on the hay supply.
ReplyDeleteWe usually try to do the aftermath grazing but some years the snow beats us to it! Snow settled away today so it will be very easy for the cattle.
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