Growing Food for Cows

Its harvest time here on the dairy. We’ve been busy cutting the oats and rye grass that we grow during the winter months here in California. I guess that’s one of the great advantages of being in California. The growing season is long enough so we can grow 2 or even 3 crops per year instead of just one. Back east many farmers can only grow one crop before the winter snow covers the ground. Here in California, the sunshine state, we can really make the most of the land that we have.

I think that’s one of the many goals dairymen have: to maximize the resources we have. Many people wonder why all cows are not on pasture, and housed in barns. It’s probably for the simple reason that grazing cows requires a lot of land for pasture. If all our cows needed to be grazed, it would take thousands of acres of pasture land to grow enough food for the cows. Cows eat a lot!

The modern way of dairying is probably more environmentally friendly too because we are producing more food with less land. Instead of growing pasture grass, we grow feeds that grow thicker and grow much taller. For example, in the summer we will be growing corn which grows upwards of 6 feet, here in California. The entire cornstalk can be eaten by the cows so you can produce a lot of food with very little land.

I think everyone would graze cows on pasture if they could, but there just isn’t enough land to do it. By maximizing our land to grow as much food as possible, we are conserving land so it can be used to grow other crops for other food we need.

I took some pictures around the dairy where we grow the food for the cows. From the pictures, you should be able to see the process of how we make the food for the cows

** The Field, about to be cut**

From the picture above, you can get a better idea of how much food can be grown. The oats provide much more food than a pasture can provide. Once the oats are grown, they are cut and piled into very neat rows. Also surprisingly there is still a great deal of wildlife around the dairy noting the picture below. Jack the Jack Rabbit seemed to be following us.

**Jack the Jack rabbit was following us**

** The Field after its been cut**

** Cutting the field **

** The machine cuts the oats and puts it into rows**

When the oats are ready to be cut, we use the machine shown in the picture above to cut them. After its been cut and piled into rows, another machine process the oats further cutting it into smaller pieces, and then shoots it into the trucks. Cutting the feed into small pieces really helps make the feed more digestible for the cows. Basically this means that more food is actually digested and used by the cow to make milk, instead of simply passing through the cow’s digestive system unused. 

** The chopper then cuts it further into smaller pieces **

** and loads it into the trucks**

** The not-so-bright camera person**

** This tractor packs the pile to eliminate oxygen that could cause spoilage**

The feed is then piled into a large pile and packed tightly by a tractor that pushes the cut feed into the pile. The packing tractor is essential because it eliminates oxygen from the pile. If the oxygen remains in the pile, spoilage will occur. So the oxygen is eliminated, and bacteria are added to start the fermentation process which then preserves the food for years. The silage pile shown below will be all gone by next year though. As I mentioned before, cows eat a lot!

** The truck unloading**

After we finish cutting the oats, we will be planting the corn so stay tuned.

Filed under: Farm, California, Chopping, Conserving land, Crops, Cutting, Growing food, Oats, Summer

What do Cows Eat: Oats

Summer is here!

It’s the beginning of April, and summer is here! Somehow it seems that we skipped spring this year. It went from rainy and cold to sunny and hot in a matter of days. We’ve been enjoying some great weather here in the California valley so far this month. The temperature swing however has had some detrimental effects on the baby calves though. Unfortunately they don’t like dramatics changes in the weather. The upside is the oats are growing now finally. After a cold winter, they finally have some great sunshine to grow in.

**Summer is Here @ 91 degrees**

I think I will start a new series of blogs called “what do cows eat.” It may surprise some people what cows actually eat because on the farm, we use a variety of feeds for the cows. California also has a lot of different crops growing, and many of these crops have by-products that we can feed our cows. As a result, our cows get a mix of many different foods.

During the winter months, we grow winter forages like oats and rye grass. These crops grow well during the winter, and give us another feed source when were not growing corn. I guess one difference between organic dairy farming, and modern dairy farming is that instead of grazing the grass, we grow the grass, cut it, and store it all year long for the cows. The oats get pretty tall too. I took some pictures of the oats

**One of our Oats Fields**

**If you were really short walking through the field**

**Watch the sunset…**

**Now its Dark**

Filed under: Dairy, Farm, Cows, Dairy, Feed, Grass, Heat, Oats, Pictures, Rye Grass, Summer, Sunset, Weather

Keeping Cows Cool and Comfortable

I took some video earlier this summer and decided to make a short little clip about what we do at the dairy to keep cows cool and comfortable. In California, it often gets pretty hot in the summer and cows do not tolerate heat very well because of their thick skin. Sometimes it gets over 110 degrees in the California valley, so we use a variety of ways to keep our cows cool in the summer.

Our dairy has an advantage that other dairies do not have though so we are pretty lucky. We live near the delta in California, an area that is the waterway to San Francisco. We usually get a pretty cool breeze throughout the day from the air that flows though the delta. The cool breeze that we get is very helpful in the summer.

There are many ways to keep cows cool. Shade is the obvious one. In the video, you can see the much larger barn in the background. That is our newest barn on the dairy, and has been designed to maximize air flow and shield the cows against the sun. The large barn creates an atmosphere that is usually 10 degrees cooler than the outside temperature in the summer. The older barns are less effective, but still provide some protection.

Some dairies use fans, and place them throughout the dairy to help increase airflow to keep the cows cool. On our dairy, we only have fans in the milk barn, but they are very effective in keeping the area cool.

Mister are probably one of the most effective ways to keep the cows cool. At 80 degrees, we turn on the misters. These misters are basically just water lines with little mister nozzles that put out a fine mist. The mist keeps the cows cool.

Although this summer was pretty mild, with very cool temperatures, we still used our misters quite a bit. We want to keep the cows cool because the hot weather will stress them out. When the cows are stressed, they are more susceptible to disease, and produce much less milk. So it is really in our best interest as cow caretakers to keep them comfortable in the summer and protect them from hot temperatures.

The combination of shade, fans, and misters really do keep our cows cool, and help keep these cows happy California cows.

 

Here is the video I made earlier this summer!

Filed under: Cow Comfort, Dairy, Cooling, Cow Comfort, Dairy, Fans, Keeping Cows Cool, Misters, Shade, Summer