Farmerjan's journal - Weather

[farmerjan]

The hay won't lose nutrients except in the outside 2-4 inches that get wet... If the hay was rolled tight, they will shed most of the rain.
Honestly, at this point, after all the rain, I don't think I would move them inside. The wet will not dry out now and it will cause mold. Hay should be put in under roof/cover,,, a couple days after being rolled and before it gets wet from a rain. A .2-.3 inch of rain would not be bad if they had a chance to dry out for a week or so.... but there has been alot of rain on them now right? You could cause heating and possible fire if they are packed in there now. We never move hay under cover once it has gotten a soaking on it. We have covered them with a tarp sometimes after getting wet, but there is still mold and that can be worse... In a roll, the rain will only penetrate so far and that will be "waste hay".... our cows will lay on it and pick through the outside layer... you will lose 2-4 sq bales worth (50 lb bales) in the weathered hay off the outside of a roll...

I would be very uneasy about putting hay inside under cover unless it can be done so the bales do not touch each other... so they can breathe. At this point, all according to how much rain you have had, you will not save much if anything, of the hay and like I said, could cause more problems with musty and moldy hay...

 

[farmerjan]

Friday evening. The rain stopped and it actually got sunny out there today. The ground is still very soggy and slippery on the hills...
We wound up with about .25 inches... not at all what I thought. Of course, it melted that 4 inches of snow also and did it in 2 days, so there was alot of wet all at once.
It was 58 this morning and thermometer said it got up to 75. It sure was warm feeling out there.

Went to the grazing conference... it was okay. Not as good as some they have had. One man from Argentina that has a big operation.. he was very knowledgeable but with his accent I had trouble understanding some of what he was saying... Plus he talked fast ... the next guy was from UGa... but he was born and raised in New Zealand, so has a "kiwi" accent... he talked a little slower and they have 3 dairies in Ga also... milking a total of about 2000 cows... between the 3. He talked alot about nutritional quality of grasses and they rotational graze all their cows at the 3 different farms... The 3rd guy was from Mn... they run beef cattle and talked alot about different enterprises and what size cattle fit their operation; and they must have some high end customers as some of the prices they get for their beef and all was way out of my league.. plus they have someone that takes all their feeder steers from their cow/calf herd and feeds them out so they do not deal with selling at the stockyards and such.. they do alot of grazing of cornstalks in the fall/winter for their dry cows... but do some cropping also... sell alot of "organic" beef and such... They run cattle much like Kit Pharo, who they have gotten many of their bulls off of, he does alot of rotational grazing before it was "popular"... but the frame size on the cattle is smaller than what we mostly can sell here... 3-4 as opposed to most around here are in the 5 and many bigger like 6 frame size.. It is like they are breeding back "down" to the much smaller cattle of the 50's-80's... I think cattle got too big in the 90's... but at this point in time, around here they have to have a frame size in the 4-5's at least or the calves are small and then they don't grade as 1's and 2's.... and the smaller frame size ones get discounted... I don't necessarily agree with it.... don't mind the cattle being a bit smaller... but there is not the market for them here...
It was a decent day, and you always learn something... I am not sorry I went. DS did not go, he could not get out of work with the boss still off... he said he thought he could, but then this morning he texted me when I asked if he was going to ride with me or go separate,,, and said he would go separate. Then about 15-20 minutes later texted and said he didn't think he was going to make it.

Got home about 3:30... it was nice out. I went up to the calves about 4:30 and they are still doing fine. Not putting on the coats until it gets colder... and they are seemingly very content.... I am going to cut the 2 bigger/older ones back to about half rations of milk....

Have a dentist appt on Monday... I lost the whole cap and it feels like the part of the tooth it was attached to/fitted on, broke off at the gum line also. I think I had a root canal in that tooth years ago... not sure if there is any fixing to it... it doesn't hurt. It is a molar. Guess I will find out the options...Of course it happened now... I am no longer on the dental plan at work... 3 months ago I lost eligibility..... A crown here is about 2,000 now... but there is nothing there to put it back on... don't know if they can glue it back down on the broken off part.

Farmer that does his own sampling called and I will drop off bottles Monday when I go to town... not much further to go north to the farm... he thinks he can do them mon/tues... so I will have to go back up Tues and get the samples and do the computer work. Have a farm scheduled for Wed. that is 50 miles south of me so no help to save the second trip back to the farm. Time to see about the 500 cow herd again... plus some others to call/text...

This super warm weather has me wanting spring now.... at least I got to turn off the heaters and all in the house for the last 2 days....they came and delivered propane today while I was gone... it has gone up to 3.19 for home delivery... Wish I had gotten some laundry done and out on the line since it was so nice... but then, they were calling for showers and all... they sure do not seem to know what is what anymore. I am going to look at the forecast this evening... but last I heard was for rain Sat eve/night/into Sun morning... I think next week is supposed to get some sun and temps back to normal of 40's and 20's....

 

[Baymule]

Broken off tooth, crown gone, sounds like they will have to cut it out. You’ll have a sore jaw for a while. Sorry about that.

Tha grazing conference sounds like it was a good outing. Always something to learn.

 

[Mini Horses]

Dental? May be time to look at advantage plans, now that your major ops are all done.

 

[Ridgetop]

Honestly, at this point, after all the rain, I don't think I would move them inside. The wet will not dry out now and it will cause mold. Hay should be put in under roof/cover,,, a couple days after being rolled and before it gets wet from a rain. A .2-.3 inch of rain would not be bad if they had a chance to dry out for a week or so.... but there has been a lot of rain on them now right?

Thanks, Jan. I was going to ask about that since by the time we can get the hay under cover it will have been sitting out for several heavy storms. We need to do some work on that side of the barn too so I think I will wait until the next hay crop. We have a lot to do in the meantime at the ranch anyway and any bad hay can go in the garden to make mulch paths between rows of veggies. By next year we may be putting up the new hay barn. That will give me 11'x 60' more of livestock barn space.

 

[Ridgetop]

Have a dentist appt on Monday... I lost the whole cap and it feels like the part of the tooth it was attached to/fitted on, broke off at the gum line also. I think I had a root canal in that tooth years ago... not sure if there is any fixing to it... it doesn't hurt. It is a molar. Guess I will find out the options...Of course it happened now... I am no longer on the dental plan at work... 3 months ago I lost eligibility..... A crown here is about 2,000 now... but there is nothing there to put it back on... don't know if they can glue it back down on the broken off part.

I didn't have much tooth left either since part f the tooth had broken off too, but the dentist said she would have to "build up" the tooth so she could fit a new crown on. Not sure what she did, but jaw was painful from all the tugging and super extending of jaw (rear crown). Came home and took ibuprofen and put an ice pack on my jaw. I go back in 3 weeks for the permanent crown. Does Medicare off any dental plans?

 

[Mini Horses]

Medicare no. Advantage plans, yes for most. Mine covers dental, vision, hearing, OTC buys -- with limits, of course. My crowns cost me some co-pay but $300 is way better than $2k. Cleanings free. X-rays too. Plans vary by company & area.

 

[Ridgetop]

Will have to check them out if we have to switch plans. Apparently, our insurance is still negotiating. We will eventually need a PPO when we move permanently to Texas.

 

[farmerjan]

Thanks, @Mini Horses ....If it wasn't for this shoulder and possibly some surgery for it in the future, I would look at the advantage plans. It was suggested by one friend about how down the road it might be more sensible for me, financially, since the knees and ankles were done. Unfortunately, the shoulder is at the point where the chiropractor said he doesn't think he can do much more for it... something I am thinking about.... it all goes back to the bad car wreck in 1989.... and the chiropractor gave me back so much use of it for over 30 years so I really can't complain...

Temps got down to 44 last night so a little cooler... It started out sunny, and there was a very slight breeze that was warm too... I did a load of laundry, socks/white clothes, and got them hung out...
It got up to 67 with mix sun and clouds. It is getting cloudier now. I just went out and got the clothes off the line and they feel dry... so good....

Bottle calves still doing good and I will not put their coats back on this afternoon even though it is getting a little cooler... Sky does look like we will get something with the clouds building in the south.

DS called and wanted to know if I could help with some gates since he had to feed hay. Also, we have a group of cows that he put on the hill that just don't look good... they are losing weight and the only thing different that he can tell is the water up there. Fall calving so new baby calves.... Different well/water system.

We went up, and I am in complete agreement, they look terrible. Thin and gaunt looking... There were still 2 rolls mostly not touched, that he had put up there, and silage yesterday, so the cart was half full... So I took a couple of bottles of water for samples, going to see about getting it analyzed. We pulled the plugs and drained the waterer... it has 4 holes for the cows to push down.... and cleaned out all the gunk in the bottom of it and rinsed water out through it. They came and drank some after we had it refilling, but not like they were "dying of thirst" .... He opened the gate to the other field so they can go back to the other waterer... and is going to take the other silage cart up there that has head locks... and see about catching all the cows up in it and worming them... When he feeds silage, he dumps grain on top and so they are getting some extra protein...
He is also going to dump a couple gallons of bleach down the well in case there is something bacterial... it won't hurt it and we have done this regularly over the years to different wells when they have gotten real low and such...to treat any possible bacterial things... Hey, all the city water is chlorinated. We used to regularly dump chlorine bleach in the hand dug well at the one house I lived in... about 2-4 times a year... You taste the chlorine for a day or 2 and then it is gone... maybe some clostridial bacterial... something might show up since I took the samples before we cleaned out the waterer...

I am wondering if there is something that is "feeding into the well" from a source of water that might have some contamination in it??? All the rest of the cows look good... and these cows were in with some others that got put somewhere else and they all look fine... so naturally, we are looking at the water.

Also, he has seen a couple of coyotes and had a friend come up and they shot an adult pair the other night... maybe they are worrying/running the cows/calves? He did find a dead calf and that is what made him look and found the tracks, then saw a coyote... and the next night after the guy got the 2, he saw another one so he called the guy and said there was at least one more up there....

The rest of the cows with fall calves at 2 other fields, look pretty good. He is feeding all the same ratio of hay... a bale of the sorghum-sudan grass, some wheat/oat hay, orchard grass hay; so can't seem to figure out why in this one field... plus silage to 4 different places, plus the silage in the barn to the feeder steers and they look good.

Going to head up to the baby calves... got some grain today so will put some in the bunk feeder... I didn't have any this morning and they had a little to clean up so that works. It is getting very cloudy out so would like to be done before it starts to rain.

 

[murphysranch]

I have an Advantage Plan. Its $24 a month, and its been great! I don't know about Dental tho.....