Chase's Organic Dairy - Farm Blog » organic practices

Patching the Pasture

Laura228 — Sun, 02 May 2010 19:45:05 +0000

Last fall’s mild weather allowed our cows to stay outside much longer than usual (into mid-November) but that took its toll on the pasture we were feeding them in. We’ve been working this spring to repair and reseed the heavily used area where the cows ate silage from hay rings. We first used a disc to break up the ground a bit, then seeded it with oats from an organic dairy farmer in our area. The final touch was a layer of chaft from the hay mound. This layer should help provide a bit of cover for the oats we seeded, and also contains lots of seeds from last year’s hay. We can’t wait to see lots of green! Click here to view more “Patching the Pasture” photos.

5/1/10: View from the hill - Vaughn and Cole are sowing oats

On the Ground!

Laura228 — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 16:35:19 +0000

It’s early in the season but we’re on the ground today – just barely. Vaughn and Cole are dragging some hay fields and pastures. Old metal wheels drug behind a tractor do a great job of breaking up the manure that was spread there (or dropped there by a cow, LOL) last fall. Smaller pieces allow the nutrients to get back into the ground more quickly… for greener pastures. For more pictures from the day, please click here.

Dragging pastures in the spring

Feeding Up in the Winter Months

Laura228 — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 20:52:26 +0000

The cold days of January are upon us, and the busiest place on the farms these days is inside the barn.

Happy cows doing what they love best - eating!

Click here to view more photos of what’s happening in the barn during the winter months.

Lots of feed for the winter months

Laura228 — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 00:41:10 +0000

Lots of feed for winter.

I was headed to the barn with coffee this afternoon and took a moment to snap a pic of our haylage bales. What a lot of work that group of bales represents! They are stacked two high. We are feeding them in hay rings outside for now. When its gets colder, we’ll unroll them in front of the cows and feed them up inside the barn. When it’s so cold that the bales freeze, we will feed dry bales from the top of the barn. It takes a lot to feed our herd all winter!

Catching up on calf cards

Brooke — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 00:05:32 +0000

Today is Saturday and it’s my Dad’s day off from the barn, so I had some time to catch up on our calf cards. Below are some examples of the calf cards I make for the barn. They contain information about the calves so we don’t have to go look them up in the “big book” to get a little bit of info! It also helps us know when the calves need to be weaned. We stop giving them cow’s milk, gradually, about 2 months after they are born. After that, they eat grain and hay and drink water until they are old enough to be turned outside to graze.

Supplementing fall pastures

Laura228 — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 18:22:22 +0000

The cool days of fall are upon us and the grass is still growing, but very slowly. We recently set out some hay rings and are starting to feed some haylage to make sure the cows have enough to eat. We love opening the bales and smelling the sweet scent of good haylage. The cows absolutely love it and are eating it up almost as fast as we can lug it to them.

Waiting for someone to bring her some sweet haylage...

While recent rainy weather has helped wash nutrients from the wood ash into the ground, it’s also making high traffic areas of the pasture quite muddy. We’re hoping for some sunny weather soon for our farm, and also for area potato farmers who are trying to finish their potato harvest.

Spreading wood ash

Laura228 — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 21:18:25 +0000

The spreader arrived and we can now begin spreading the wood ash from New England Organics. The wood ash helps balance soil PH and adds nutrients like magnesium and potassium to the soil. It’s similar to putting lime on the ground. Vaughn and Lew are very impressed with the big spreader and wish they had one just like it for spreading manure!

Lew's working today to load and spread the wood ash from New England Organics

It takes many bucket loads from the tractor to fill this super spreader - almost 20! The spreader can hold over 300 cubic feet of material.

This spreader has twin expellers that work very well for distributing the ash without creating big clouds of black dust.

Barn Kitties

Laura228 — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 11:40:16 +0000

Jingles

The barn kitties are growing and changing every day, and are having lots of fun with each other. We all enjoy watching their antics. They also serve an importance purpose on our organic farm. Our barn cats catch lots of mice and even an occasional rat, eliminating the need to use poisonous chemicals on the farm. The kittens’ mother, Whiney, often brings mice to her kitties. We are happy to see she is already teaching them to be good mouse catchers. For more photos of our barn kitties, please visit this album or this album.