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Holding a managerial role as a millennial can be intimidating and rewarding. Over the past few years, I have progressed into a management position at my family farm. Like any position, you learn a lot as you go.
Most days your automatic scraper system chugs along in the barn, doing its job. Until it doesn’t. Then, it’s an emergency call to your dealer and extra shipping and service fees for replacement parts. All the while manure is building up, impacting cow cleanliness and milk quality.
Drought continues to cover much of the country, resulting in reduced supplies of quality forage and grain. In an attempt to salvage corn and sorghum crops as a feed, cows are turned into the field to graze the total plants (leaves, stalks and grain). This practice, however, may cost more money than it saves due to production and livestock losses resulting from the presence of aflatoxin, prussic acid or nitrate in the grazed crops.
Whether you are a small farm or custom operation that produces large square bales and/or the “bale bundles” for small square bales, the new ProAG 12SR Plus Stacker handles the job. This versatile stacker can go from picking up large square bales to the bale bundles within minutes in the field with a few minor adjustments.
Personally, I am a very visual learner. It is easy for me to “grasp” a concept when I can physically “grasp” it. With this in mind, I sought to create a visual aid to help explain the difference between pure alfalfa silage and hay crop (alfalfa-grass mix) silage using a method from Kurt Cotanch.
• Corn silage should be harvested at 35 percent dry matter (65 percent moisture) and one-half to three-fourths milk line. When results from numerous studies were combined and analyzed, harvesting corn silage at 40 percent dry matter or higher resulted in decreased milk yields of 4.4 pounds of milk per cow per day.
Digest Highlights
DPA petition seeks 2 cents of national checkoff for dairy product donation program
USDA accepting bids for 9.6 million gallons of milk
Arla proposes to pay all 2018 net profits to farmers
FDA comment period on dairy identity standards extended
Dairy’s map ends August drier
California 4a, 4b prices improve
July cull cow prices steady
Global Dairy Trade prices mixed
Louisiana Dairy Stabilization Study Commission holds first-ever meeting
Missouri regulating ‘meat’ advertising, lawsuit filed
Consuming milk at breakfast lowers blood glucose throughout the day
Driscoll | Top Hay is a joint venture between Driscoll Brothers, an Idaho family farm, and Top Hay Agri Industries, a British Columbia, Canada, hay marketing company. In 2017, they opened a hay press facility in Pocatello, Idaho, where Driscoll Brothers would acquire and compress alfalfa, and Top Hay (with on-site offices in China) would be the export marketing arm.
Eligible dairy and other farmers suffering lost export markets and lower commodity prices due to retaliatory tariffs can sign up for federal financial assistance. Applications are available online and through local USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) offices. The application period opened Sept. 4 and runs until Jan. 15, 2019.
