Kittum Daniel

Tyler Ludens wrote:I think the op position might be that appropriate grazing helps create healthy soils. Personally I don't see it as much of a leap.

I agree. It is that simple.

I agree with Al, there might be something you can do to help fix the mud issue and put the moisture to better use. I would go find the Farm Services office for your county. FSA is a wing of off the USDA. They will have a map of soil types that should cover your area that was done sometime after WWII. The maps of my county was done in 1972 and are surprisingly accurate and useful. The soil type information will have some guide lines on how to work with it.

I had some areas on my property that seemed to stay wet way to long. The fix was sub soiling - problem solved. I suspect that you can find a similar solution to your problem.

For what it is worth I like Earthpaste. It only has 4 ingredients and clay is the main one. As weird as it seems the stuff really works and is quite satisfying.

http://www.earthpaste.com/

As for Tom's of Maine, I am thinking that it was bought out by some big corporation, but then again I could be all wrong. In any case I think it would be good to keep track of who owns who and who is still independent. I check this chart quite often.

http://www.cornucopia.org/who-owns-organic/

That is interesting.

I was a bit offended when someone was suggesting a methane tax on cattle a few years back. I can see where methane and ammonia are issues in bigger confined operations such as feed lots and "dry lot" dairies but those are not the norm.

My question is that if cattle and other ruminants are dangerous then why wasn't the North American Continent destroyed when there was millions and millions of buffalo?

Here is another take on the idea. It is a bit more destructive but it should loosen the ground up and incorporate the cover crop. For what I think you have in mind I believe the single roller 30 inch diameter by 10 foot wide should do the trick. I have pulled a Hodge Built aerator with 55hp no problem but the blades were turned "vertical" while the Lawson blades are turned - in my opinion - "horizontal".

Wow what a pile of worms!

Welcome!

I agree about the whole oats passing through, they are a bit of a challenge for horses or cows to get much out of them. I just assumed everybody was feeding the rolled or the milled oats.

As for the salt, Redmond is good but I believe we found something better and cheaper. I you look at Redmond's analysis their product is 98% salt and about 2% mineral. That 2% mineral is why I think Redmond is "good". Sea-90 is about 71% salt and 29% mineral. We switched to Sea-90 and we are real happy with it after using it about 1 year. I know from other conversations that there is a bit of alarm about some of the mineral content in Sea-90 such as arsenic, lead, and essentially everything else. I had the same concern myself but I do recommend reading the book "Sea Energy Agriculture" to understand why even these minerals have a place in life. Since then we have used several tons of it on fields, pastures, and in feed and I will testify that it has met and exceeded all expectations to the point that that it is hard to tell everything with out being called a liar. This is the product that caused me to cease using and deeply detest commercial fertilizers and weed sprays. I sincerely urge anyone to please check it out.

I am sure you could burn wood and small furniture items in that stove but by chance do you think it could be a coal burner? I'm no expert on furnaces but I don't recall ever seeing a down draft heat exchanger on a wood burner. On the other hand I used to have a coal burner with that exact same configuration! It had a vertical dome top cylinder fire box, two doors with aggressive air intake top and bottom, and down draft heat exchanger with a 9 inch flue pipe. Mine was built in 1916 and the bottom door was modified with an auto stoker.

The air intake system is better fitted for coal burners that sucked air up through the shaker grate. Much of coal ash would melt together into "klinkers" and the "fly" ash was usually too heavy to blow about much. Wood stove air intake would almost always be above the grate to preserve the bed of coals and keep the ash from blowing into the flue system.

I bet if you posted that picture at hearth dot com you would get an authoritative answer answer rather quickly.

Bud is right. It is sometimes called the collar but in wood stove lingo they prefer to call it the stove pipe adapter.

Hello Wes,

I grew up with Jerseys and my Mom still milks about 60 to 80 head but mostly Holstein cattle now.

You already know that Jersey's tend to be more sensitive and temperamental than most other breeds. The fence line contact idea is worth a try and I think it most likely will work but be sure the fence is in decent shape an have some sort of plan B just in case. At 9 months of age the yearning to get back to their moms may be more of a companionship urge as anything else. As for returning the heifers back in, I think 3 or 4 weeks should be plenty long enough.

For the extended milking: In the old days the ideal lactation cycle was 305 days milking and 60 days dry before calving. Most people were able to hold close to that back then but current economic conditions have made hash of it. 380 day lactations with 20 days dry is not uncommon. My mom has made the point that it SEEMS to not to hurt the cows but I wonder about the long term health effects of doing this over and over. Keep in mind she has mostly Holsteins. I don't think Jerseys are able to handle that much physical stress of milking and carrying a baby calf at he same time. I do believe that your plan of extending the lactation period in order to have a better calving date is fine and good, but I also believe that a 50 to 60 day dry spell before calving would be well deserved. After that I would try to stick to the old 365 day lactation cycle. To me that seems much more natural and is should result in healthier cows and calves as well as better milk production.

I like the feed ration even though I have no experience with feeding sunflower seeds to cows. I think it has a good balance of protein and energy for volume of milk and good butter fat content. Although you may already know this, the feed ration has quite a bit of influence on the make up of the milk. Most commercial dairy rations tend to have a lot of protein because they are geared to Holstein cattle and for high volume of milk with a 3 to 3.5% butter fat content. For Jerseys I would back off the protein to 16% and up the energy content. The best ration I have ever seen for Jerseys took advantage of their ability to produce a rich milk with very high butter fat. It was about 35 - 40% alfalfa, 35-40% ear corn (corn on cob still in the husk), oats, sea mineral, and molasses, The milk was sweet and the butterfat content was unreal. I do grass feed beef but I have no idea how well grass feed dairy would do. I would like to see you results because yo may be on to something.