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Farming
Magazine PO Box 85 Mt. Hope, OH 44660 farmingplc@farmingmagazine.net |
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My Reasons for Seasonal Grass Dairying —Matthew Schlabach We live in times of change. For decades energy prices stayed relatively the same, not rising much faster than inflation. Milk prices didn’t even keep up with inflation. Now we are seeing new record highs both in the cost of inputs and in the prices we are paid for milk. With oil prices up to one hundred dollars a barrel and the ethanol boom not over yet, feed prices have gone through the roof. All these alternative energy sources that were supposed to come on once oil hit 20 dollars a barrel evidently have not kicked in or more likely didn’t prove to be efficient after all. Feed prices have increased by around 50% in the last year alone. The milk price has also posted some heretofore unheard of numbers. Since the commodity milk price tends to generate toward cost of production, it will be interesting to see where it will return to and still support the U.S. dairy industry. The whole agriculture/food system seems to be in a transition. High energy costs as well as higher fertilizer, seed, and all the other input costs will change the way our food is produced and marketed. In all this, I believe, lie tremendous opportunities for us on small family farms, and seasonal, grass-based dairying is certainly one of them. While the price of machine harvested, stored feed has indeed skyrocketed, the cost of grazed grass has pretty much stayed the same. Today the cost of stored feed is probably at least four times that of grazed grass. Anything we can do to utilize more grazed grass and less harvested feed will be to our advantage. Higher feed prices have made its alternative, grass, worth much more. Suddenly we aren’t just turning this low-cost grass into $13 milk but into $20 milk! Spring seasonal freshening can help in the utilization of more grass. |
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Regular contributors to our magazine:
-Jim Van der Pol
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—Bob Kidwell Walking across the lush, green field, the early morning sun beginning to dry the dew-drenched grass, ewes stretching as they rise from their resting spots, lambs nursing, thrilled to find their mothers standing at last, it’s hard to recall the advantages of lambing in the winter. There are several, of course, but scenic beauty isn’t one, nor is the warm sun. For many years we winter lambed our 150 ewes in the barn. Then we found an easier way that involved a little yellow box, a plastic, sort of waterproof tackle box. In the old days, prior to two years ago, lambing started in mid January, usually during the coldest weather Michigan could dish out. The cold weather and crowded conditions made it necessary to start the lambs nursing immediately and confine each new, happy family to four-foot by four-foot pens called lambing jugs so the easily befuddled ewes could learn the identity of their own lambs. Ear tag numbers didn’t help much with this. As can be imagined, this whole process was rather labor intensive. We made frequent trips to the frigid barn to be sure the mothers were put in the jugs before their recent birth experiences slipped their minds. |
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Also in this issue are:
Spring 2008 |
The Bees Need our Help! —Kim Flottum Winter relaxes its grip here most years only with reluctance. Its hard-fought compromise with summer is spring—a time of forgiveness for meteorological sins past, and hope for kinder, gentler days to come. Often it’s hard to tell if winter has indeed let go as cold and snow and wind plague spring as much as winter. Too often winter’s grip refuses to relax, and not nearly enough does it step aside with even a tease of summer warmth. When it comes to all the kerfuffle about global warming, I read the papers, watch the movies, keep tuned to the web...and plainly see the results of our aberrant behavior. Still, a hesitant week in what’s supposed to be spring tends to cast a doubtful shadow on all those warming predictions. Beekeepers, like all farmers everywhere, live for the promise that next year will be better—better prices for the goods we need, better weather, better tools to solve the problems we encounter, and certainly better prices for the crops we raise. Yes, next year will be better. We have to believe that; we have to. But for the past several years next year hasn’t been better. It fact, next year seemed to be far, far worse. And no matter what beekeepers did, when they did what they were supposed to do, what they had always done, what everyone said to do, their honeybees still died. It was a mystery, an unknown. A plague of uncertainty ruled. But it seems, perhaps, this spring has been different, at least for some beekeepers—those who have finally realized that the old rules no longer apply, that “business as usual” isn’t part of the program, and that just hoping for a better year probably won’t bring a better year. |
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