Stonyfield Farmer Blog

Readers ask, farmer answers some typical questions

We've had several questions sent in about the care of our young heifers and bulls, so we thought we'd answer a few of them today. Readers wanted more information on the dehorning of animals, on when and how we "fix" our bulls, and on how long do our calves stay with their mothers.

Cyndy wanted to know why would some farmers wait to dehorn their animals until they were older when it would cause the animals more trauma. (See more from Jonathan about humane dehorning here.) These farmers are probably set in their ways, and have always dehorned all their animals at the same time each year. That was how it was here at our farm until we started having a monthly herd clinic and we found out there was a better way. Having the calves done at an early age, and doing a few at each clinic makes it a very easy, much less painful experience for the calves, and the owners—us farmers.

Terry wanted to know how and when do we castrate or "steer" our bull calves. We raise about six bull calves each year for our beef production. We have them steered by our herd veterinarian, Steve Wadsworth, when the bulls are 3 to 4 months old. I was going to ask Steve today at our monthly clinic the name of the tool he uses to do the job, but he had to leave early to answer some emergency calls and I didn't get a chance to ask him. The tool is like a large pair of crimpers or pliers, and he uses these to pinch the arteries/veins supplying blood to the testicles and to essentially cut off the blood supply so that the testicles do not develop any further. It only takes about 15 seconds, is bloodless, and we have had a 100 percent success rate. It seems much more humane that surgically removing the testicles, or banding them with a tight rubber band that will cut the blood supply. (Read more about steers on the farm here.

Finally, Camilla wanted to know how long do the calves stay with their mothers. On our farm, the calves stay with their moms for 2 to 3 days before we put them in individual calf pens in the youngstock barn. We then take over the duties of feeding the calf. There are some farms that leave the calf with the mother longer, and there are some farms that use "nurse cows" that will nurse two or three calves at a time everyday until weaning. Every farmer seems to do things just a little different, and how we manage our calf-rearing program seems to work well for us. We rarely lose a calf, and our animals are healthy and fast-growing. I do know that a calf nursing on its mother will always outgrow a calf that is bucket-fed by a person. Raising our beef animals has taught me that.

We're celebrating four years of Jonathan writing The Bovine Bugle. Check out one of his earliest reports about calving on his farm.

Got a question or comment for Jonathan about his organic dairy farm?

Write to him here by clicking onto "Comments" just below and following the prompts. We'll be sure he receives your question immediately and answers just as soon as the cows let him.

Reader questions answered: salt licks and bucking up

I've had quite a few questions on recent postings of The Bovine Bugle, and I wanted to answer two of them today. Whether they are questions or thoughtful comments on what I wrote about, I enjoy what the readers have to offer. Lori was wondering why horses need a salt lick, and Leslie wanted to know what "bucking up" meant when I wrote about logging.

I checked one of Noah's horse books sent to him by his cousin, Jason, and his wife, Nikki, on his birthday. It just said to make sure to have a salt lick available to the horse. I did some checking on the Internet, and there seemed to be two basic reasons for the salt lick. One reason for it is that the salt lick provides a basic nutrient needed by horses. Second, by having salt available to the horse, it will cause the horse to drink more water. This is especially important in the cold winter months when horses might not drink as much and put them at an increased risk of developing colic. I remember my grandmother saying to only feed the white salt blocks to horses, not the trace mineral salt blocks. We kids would be sure to take the first licks of a freshly put out salt block before the horses or pony got to it.

In my posting on logging, I wrote about bucking up the tree before skidding it out of the woods. Bucking up refers to cutting up the tree into smaller parts. In the woods, I cut the tree up into two main sections, the branchless stem of the tree and the top. This is sometimes called "topping" the tree. The main stem of the tree I skid down to the landing next to the road, and using my loggers tape, I cut or "buck up" the stem into log lengths. I cut the logs into 8, 10,12,14, or 16-foot lengths with 4" of trim on each log. People used to use a buck saw to cut longer lengths of wood into stove-length wood for use in the house. The logs in the picture are yellow birch logs. I used a Jonsered 621 Turbo chainsaw to do the cutting, not a buck saw!

Got a question to ask Jonathan? Write him here by clicking onto "comments" just below.

Does organic farming provide more humane treatment of animals? Just look at these happy cows!

I received questions from two readers here at The Bovine Bugle that were along a similar line, so I thought I would try to provide an answer covering both inquiries. Katherine wanted to know how organic production results in more humane treatment of the animals, and Rick wondered if our milking process was easier on our cows than it would be for cows on conventional farms.

I guess that because of the standards we have to meet to produce organic milk and beef at Howmars Farm, I feel our cows have a happier, healthier life. Let's start with housing of the animals. Organic cows, heifers, steers, and calves are supposed to have access to the outdoors everyday except in extreme weather conditions. They get to go outside, in the fresh air and sunshine, unlike many large dairies where the cows are inside a building, on concrete 365 days a year. The organic standards say that in the summertime, during the growing season, cows and youngstock over 6 months of age must get most of their forage from grazing. They are outside, doing what they were created to do--eating grass, walking on real ground, making nutrient-rich milk, spreading their own manure. On the flip side, confinement freestall operations have cows that never walk to pasture, never eat fresh, succulent grass, never enjoy the sun and the summer breezes. All their feed is from bunker silos and grain bins, the breezes they enjoy are from large fans placed around the large barns, they walk on concrete all day, and the manure needs to be scraped, stored and hauled every day.

As for health management and milk production management, organic animals are managed more naturally and with much less pressure. We don't dock our cows’ tails, our animals don't need their hooves trimmed very often, and because they have a more natural diet-- grass and long stem hay--they have fewer digestive problems such as twisted stomachs. We don't use hormone shots to make our cows give more milk, or to make them cycle to get them pregnant. This way we don't stress out our animals and they live much longer than on the large conventional farms. Although I can't really say that the actual milking process on our farm is any different than on my neighbor's farm, I will say that we don't push our cows to produce high volumes of milk. With our smaller herd, we take more time with our cows and the atmosphere is much more relaxed. It's not a "hurry up and get those cows milked" situation. The more natural diet, the absence of shots of synthetic hormones, and letting cows be cows gives our animals a much longer, healthier, happy life. There are many more reasons why organic production is so much better for the animals, but I'll stop here for now. We’ve been certified organic almost 10 1/2 years and still going strong!

Got a question or comment for Jonathan about his organic dairy farm?

Write to him here by clicking onto "Comments" just below and following the prompts. We'll be sure he receives your question immediately and answers just as soon as the cows let him.

How humane is de-horning?

Sarah had written in to me here at The Bovine Bugle (You can, too!) a couple weeks ago with a question about dehorning. I waited until we had our monthly herd clinic yesterday with our herd veterinarian, Steve Wadsworth, so I could get some comments from him and also take some pictures of the tool he uses to dehorn our young calves. Sarah had read in a magazine article that dehorning causes severe long-term pain for the animal. We feel that our animals handle the practice just fine, and it doesn't leave any lasting problems.

Our calves are dehorned at our monthly clinic, usually before they are six weeks old. We dehorn them to avoid having them injure each other or injure us. I have seen my cows pound one another with their heads and I shudder to think what they would do to each other if they had horns. Dr. Steve shared a story of a farmer having his underarm pierced by an animal's horn when the animal gave an innocent toss of its head. Dr. Steve uses a butane-fired dehorner to burn the cells that would grow the horns. This dehorner does the job in about ten seconds, is blood-less, and the calf is up and jumping around afterwards. Dr. Steve has offered to anesthetize the calves, and we have tried this, but it makes the calves look worse after the dehorning is done.

I feel having the dehorning done in this manner, at this young age, does not traumatize the animal. There are still farmers that dehorn their animals when they are much older, and I would say this does cause trauma for the animal and it shakes them up for a few days. Our way is much, much better. We do this practice to prevent future accidents, not to punish the animal. There are farms, probably mostly on organic or biodynamic farms, that do have animals with horns because they feel they are a part of the animal; taking away some of the essence of the animal would have a negative effect on the animal's health. At this time, it is allowable under organic standards to dehorn our animals. That may change someday.

We didn't have any calves to dehorn today, since we finished our calving season on December 30th. The calves we did at last clinic had only some small, barely visible scabbing left on their heads. They all look healthy and bright. Only one of the seven cows we checked was not pregnant, and we had no vaccinations to do. Karen, Mom, and I spent more time visiting with Dr. Steve than doing herd work. After Dr. Steve left, the sawdust truck pulled in and left us a load of nice, dry sawdust. Just in time since the bays were almost empty. It was almost 10:30 a.m. by this time, so I decided to take a break before pushing in the sawdust since I had started my morning a little before 4 a.m.

Do you have a question about organic dairy farming for farmer Jonathan Gates? Drop him a line here by clicking onto "comments" just below. We'll see that he tries to answer real soon.

The cost of organic production-is it higher than non-organic farming?

After the earlier entry here on animal health on our farm, Anna-Maria, a sheep\llama farmer from Quebec, sent in a question on production costs. She runs her farm using organic methods, and was bothered when a local television program stated that the cost of running an organic dairy or beef operation was higher than the cost of running conventional farms. She felt her farm didn't follow that trend, and wanted to know about the costs of operating an organic dairy.

I would say that most organic dairies have higher production costs than non-organic ones. This is mainly due to higher concentrate (grain) costs, and higher forage costs. There are some organic farmers that feed little or no grain, but most organic dairies feed grain. We feed a pellleted grain to our cows, and the cost of this grain is more than twice the cost of conventional grain. The organic grain price has risen dramatically in the past year, due to more demand by the increased number of organic farms and by an increased use of organic grains in the human food industry. Forage costs are higher for us since we buy most of our forage and we pay a premium for the feed produced according to organic standards. Even farmers who produce their own forage sometimes have to buy extra feed due to a poor crop year, and this organic forage costs more than non-organic feed.

Other things that make our production costs higher are certification fees, economies of scale, and labor costs. Each year we are inspected for re-certification, and there is a fee based on our farm's production. Non-organic farms don't have this cost. Most organic farms are smaller in size than non-organic farms, and these smaller farms don't get the volume discounts on supplies needed for operation like the bigger farms do. And, finally, many of the practices on organic farms are labor intensive, which can translate into higher operating costs.

In the past year, with rising costs, our profit margin has shrunk since our pay price has remained essentially the same. At the same time, the conventional pay price for milk has been at an all-time high, making organic production not so enticing. Even so, we are committed to producing organic milk believing that it is the best way to farm, and the best way to take care of the land and our animals. If we strive to produce the best forage possible, both on the farm and from our forage supplier, we can reduce the grain we feed and make our bottom line better. This is what Anna-Maria has done on her farm, making organic production a very viable option.

Got an organic dairy farming question for Jonathan? Ask it here by clicking onto "Comments" just below.

Where's the cloned beef?

A reader recently sent in a comment into The Bovine Bugle addressing the news that the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had approved cloned beef. (See this Washington Post article about the approval.)  Kerrie wondered what I thought of this, what would the impacts be, and if I thought cloned animals were really necessary. I must admit I have not done much reading on the effort of getting cloned animals approved for human consumption. But, being an organic producer, I am against food produced in this manor and I feel it is not necessary for the food supply.

The timing of the comments from Kerrie were interesting, since I had just read a recent issue of Hoard's Dairyman, a national dairying magazine, with brief articles concerning tracking cloned beef animals from farm to store and protecting farmers rights to use new technology. Why do we need cloned stock? Do we need them to maintain production, or increase animal numbers? I think the answer to these questions is probably no. I'm sure the lure to have cloned animals is to take a superior animal, and re-produce this animal with the desirable characteristics and body conformity over and over again. And is so often with technology, we rush in to using it without ever knowing the long term effects on the animals, on the population consuming those animals, and on how this technology will eventually impact the balance of life on our planet.

The recent technologies that farmers are now using on their farms--BST, GMOs, herbicide resistant crops, hormone injection programs for breeding cows, robotic milkers, no milk withholding antibiotics-- all come at a price. Do we need these technologies to produce wholesome crops, meat, and milk? Of course not. But the demand for low-priced, uniform food products drives the ag industry to use these tools to meet consumer needs. But, now the consumer is learning the difference between food grown using high tech methods and food grown using methods that promote healthy soils, healthy crops and animals, and healthy, life-maintaining food.

We organic producers always get hit with the question of whether organic production could produce enough to feed the world? I don't know the answer to that question, but if we don't stop doing the things we are doing, will we have a world left to worry about?

As a consumer, make your voices heard. Show your opinion by buying locally grown food, locally raised meats, and locally produced dairy products. The number of farmers producing these types of products is increasing at a steady rate, striving to meet the growing demand. Support these farmers instead of the drug companies and bio-tech companies that supply and direct the conventional farms in our country.

Read more about the FDA's policies and practices regarding cloning:  http://www.fda.gov/cvm/cloning.htm

Do you have a question for organic dairy farmer Jonathan Gates? Write him here by clicking onto "Comments" just below and we'll be sure he tries to answer very soon.

CSI Howmars Farm, Vermont

We received something interesting in the mail today from the American Jersey Cattle Association (AJCA), the association that handles the registrations of our purebred Jerseys. It was an envelope with a green sticker attached to the front stating, in capital letters, "DNA TEST KIT ENCLOSED." I felt like one of the CSI shows had cornered us, and we were being investigated for some terrible thing.

Of course, it was nothing like that at all. We found out that the AJCA has a Random Parentage Verification Program that was started 40 years ago to assure accuracy of the registration records and to obtain research data. They randomly select animals from new registrations for DNA genotyping, the selections being done by computer. The animals chosen from our herd for genotyping were Howmars Lemvig Ula and her daughter, Howmars Manhatten Sage, who we recently sold along with 11 of her buddies to a farmer in Bridgport, Vermont. The sampling procedure was very easy.

For the DNA testing, they needed at least 20 hairs from the animal's tail with the hair roots attached. We brought Ula into the maternity room and put her in a stanchion. I used a curry comb to clean the tail hairs, then I wrapped strands of hair around my finger, held on to the tail with my other hand, and gave a swift, hard pull. Out came the hairs, roots and all. I think Ula was bothered more by the tail brushing than the hair pulling. We turned her loose, and she headed down the walkway to the open freestall area. We took the hairs to the milkhouse where we had left the mailing material. On the provided form, we attached the hairs according to the directions, folded the form, slipped it into the pre-addressed envelope, slapped a stamp on the front, and put it in the mailbox.

It didn't say how long it would take before we got the results, but I will let you all know the results of this interesting experience.

Got a question for Jonathan at Howmars Farm? Write him here using the "Comments" button just below and we'll be sure he gives your question a look real soon.

How to keep the organic herd healthy

I had some questions from readers Casey and Liz that I wanted to answer. It's always great getting your comments and hearing what it was about a particular posting that inspired you to sit down and type up something to send in to Stonyfield Farm and to The Bovine Bugle here. I also get a kick out of where the comments come from, whether it's here in the U.S. or from another continent!

Casey and Liz had some questions about how we keep our animals healthy here at Howmars Farm, both our dairy animals and our beef animals. We raise them all together, so we do the same herd health management practices for all the livestock. Our care for our animals starts at birth when we make sure to get colostrum into the newborn calf as soon as possible. This is crucial to get the calf off to a good start. Then, after staying with its mom for a few days, our calves go into individual pens until they are two months old. During this time they get individual attention, are fed whole milk twice a day, and, when they are a few weeks old, grain and hay are introduced. We keep our calves on milk for at least ten weeks, much longer than on conventional farms.

After weaning, and until joining the milking herd at around age two, the heifers are fed about 5 pounds of grain a day, and 2nd-cut hay or 1st-cut round bales in the winter and lush, green pasture in the summer. The beef animals are fed the same way until they are old enough for slaughter, usually at 26 to 28 months. After calving, the lactating cows receive about 16 pounds of grain per day and are fed round bales in the winter and are on rotationally grazed paddocks in the summer. During the dry period, the non-lactating cows eat just forage while having access to trace mineral salt and kelp.

We manage the health of our animals by watching them closely every day, and by having monthly herd clinics with Dr. Steve Wadsworth, our veterinarian of over 20 years!! We dehorn all our animals at about one month of age, have the steers fixed at around 3-4 months of age, and follow a minimal vaccination program to protect our herd from some common dairy herd problems. In treating our animals, we use medicines approved under organic standards, using homeopathy, herbal remedies, vitamins and minerals, vaccines, liniments, and other supportive therapies to essentially bolster the cows own defenses to allow her body to heal itself. In short, what we try to do, and I want to emphasize this, is to feed to animals well, give them good housing and shelter, and treat them well so that they don't get sick. This is a mantra Dr. Steve has preached from day one here at the farm. It's good advice.

We do have a couple of books on homeopathy by McCleod and Day that we reference sometimes, and Dr. Hue Karreman has an excellent text in print that my vet uses often. We use health products from several companies including Agri-Dynamics, Crystal Creek, Cell-Tech, and Washington Homeopathics. I know there are online discussion groups that many farmers use to get advice on problems on their farm. We use all these tools in managing our herd to keep it healthy, to produce a high quality product (milk and beef), and to keep our herd cull rate around 18 percent. This last figure is much less than the 40 percent rate you hear about on the large freestall factory farms. We've been managing our farm like this for more than 10 1/2 years, laying to rest our fellow farmers’concerns on how could we ever farm and keep our animals alive without using antibiotics or hormones. I think even Dr. Steve is surprised once in awhile by some of the successes we have some of our animals.

Do you have a question for Jonathan about organic dairy practices? Write him here using the "comments" button just below.

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When do cows go out to pasture for good?

A reader sent in a question asking how old is a cow when it stops producing milk for good? My answer would be that it's not how old the cow is, but at what point in her life can she no longer have a calf. If a cow can become pregnant, she can have another calf and keep her mammary system going to produce milk.

Right now, on our farm the oldest cow in the herd is Dena who will turn 13 after the first of the year. We have had cows reach the age of 14 before we had to sell them. If all goes well, and Dena is pregnant from the last time we had her serviced, she will calve again next spring and will continue to produce milk. We have never had a cow stop producing milk because of old age. Because our farm is a business as well as a way of life, we don't keep animals on the farm that would no longer produce milk. We would soon go broke and go out of business if we kept all the cows on the farm after they stopped producing milk and until they died of old age.

We strive, here at Howmars Farm, to take the very best care of our 100 purebred Jerseys so that they live a long and productive life. Over their lifetime they wil give us thousands of gallons of milk and a half-dozen or more calves. We raise all our own replacements, and even are able to sell the extra heifers we don't need to other organic farmers. We haven't had to buy a replacement animal for over thirty years, which is almost unheard of in the dairy industry today. We are proud of the job we do here, and when a cow does have to leave the farm it is a sad day for us all.

Do you have a question for Jonathan? Send it in here, using the "comment" button just below.

Even farmers need self-help groups

It was a perfect morning to attend a farmer meeting. A light, warm rain was falling, making it too wet to do any projects outside so I wouldn't feel guilty going to Guy Choinere's farm. He was hosting a meeting for farmers participating in a project to reduce pollution in the Rock River and Hungerford Brook watersheds. The project is hoping to come up with cost-effective ways for farmers to reduce nonpoint pollution, especially phosphorous, by providing incentives that will benefit the farmers and the environment. The fact that Rock River runs through our farm, and that we are concerned over water quality in our streams, rivers, and lakes, made us want to participate in this project.

The meeting was held in Guy's parents’ garage, on their organic dairy farm. Guy belongs to the same organic cooperative as we do, CROPP/Organic Valley. Six of the thirteen participating farmers came to hear the presentation by the project's director, Jonathan Winsten. He, along with the rest of his staff assisting on the project, outlined what they have been doing so far this summer and what they hope to do for the rest of this year and next year, 2008. He also presented some data collected at four of the participating farms, showing what practices had been used to reduce the amount of phosphorous loss from the farms and how successful and economical each one had been. The information illustrated how farms differed in what practices worked best and what were the most economical. They hope to develop a program flexible enough that it will benefit farms of differing types, and it will encourage farms to participate in helping the environment.

After the presentation, we had sandwiches and drinks and we had a chance to visit with the staff and the other farmers. It’s great to see farmers with operations of all different types and sizes wanting to make an effort to improve the environment in some way. The farms participating range in size from 50 milking animals to several hundred milking animals, and most used liquid manure systems while we use solid manure and compost. The bottom line is that the water quality in Missiquoi and St. Albans Bays in Lake Champlain is suffering, and these watersheds in the project drain into these bays. Farmers in the area have been very proactive the last few years to implement practices on their farms that will improve the water quality in Lake Champlain. Hopefully this project being done by Winrock International, the University of Vermont, Iowa State University, and the USDA-NRCS will provide us with more ways to help restore the health of our environment.

Got a question for farmer Jonathan Gates? Write him here, using the comment button just below, and we'll make sure he gets your question. -- Stonyfield Farm