If you live in Iowa, you know it’s been raining a while. It seems like the faucet turned on in June, and basically hasn’t stopped very much since. I believe east of here (east of Kalona – like Des Moines) has been getting more, but we’ve been still pretty wet. For the conventional farmers it’s been difficult but not disastrous – but for the organic farmers it’s been very very hard. Organic row cropping relies much more on timely planting along with initial and subsequent cultivation. Hard to cultivate when the ground is sopping wet. Are the harvests reduced? More than likely.

Now, how do I feel about it? I love it! Rain waters my grass. Managing the cows properly will also result in timely planting of future seed. Since my grass this year shot to the reproductive stage in May before I could graze it, a lot of grass went to seed. Utilizing high-density grazing, my first time through the paddocks with the cows resulted in a lot of grass seed being planting in moist soil with cattle hooves. As I’ve said before, I strive to organize the grazing paddocks so that the cows have enough to eat for one day or less plus trample at least half of the forage available. That trampling effect lays a layer of grass down as mulch and future organic matter, plus shakes loose all the grass seed ready to increase my grass sward.

I believe that years like this can help focus the debate. We grow way too much corn and soybeans in Iowa. We use way to much questionable hilly erodible ground for row crops, when those areas should be planted to grass or some long-term perennial that will hold the topsoil. The more grass we plant and the more focus we have in managing animals in such a way as to create more topsoil, the more water we’ll hold, the less floods we’ll have, as well as minimizing drought.

Filed under: Animals, Grazing/Pasture on August 23rd, 2010 | No Comments »

Sheep and cows together are a good thing. I’m currently grazing cattle in a planned rotation, moving them daily. I also have a herd of St. Croix hair sheep, which I allow them to graze at will. Couple of comments about this arrangement and my thinking behind it:

1. In nature the overriding principle is diversity – which creates stable ecosystems. The more diversity on my farm, the more stable and resistant to weather shocks (like drought, rain, etc).

2. Cattle and sheep are dead-end hosts for each other’s parasites. The cattle suck up a lot of sheep parasites in their grazing rotation, which help lessen the load in the sheep as they come behind and graze after the cows. The opposite is true with the sheep grazing and cattle parasites.  Every little bit helps.

3. Sheep and cows eat different plants – thus utilizing more available forage and allowing for more animals (albeit different species) to graze ( and increasing farm income, btw). The key to grazing, however, is time of exposure and return. What I mean by this is the initial exposure of the plants to grazing pressure, how long the plants are exposed, and how long does the plant have to recover before being exposed to grazing pressure again.

Ultimately I’d like to have chickens, goats and maybe even pigs in my rotation. This would help diversify my operation even further, encourage different forages to grow, and focus my efforts on maximizing the farm’s potential as a revenue source without compromising my ecological goals.

Filed under: Grazing/Pasture, Organic Dairy, Uncategorized, sheep on July 28th, 2010 | No Comments »

So far, so good. I’m coming up on my one year anniversary on this project. I got the sheep in August of 2009 as ewe lambs  from a cutting-edge breeder down in southern Missouri. One note of importance is the critical issue for any 100% grassfed program is to MAKE SURE your genetics are right. Most sheep flocks are not geared for thriving on grass alone, and most are not geared for a low-labor program.

What I mean by low-labor is cutting out much of the work in raising sheep (and animals, for that matter). I have a hair-type sheep breed (St. Croix), so no shearing. I don’t clip their hooves, I don’t dock their tails, I don’t worm them (they are parasite-resistant), I don’t feed them grain, I don’t help them with their lambing, I don’t call the vet out for every issue. While some may consider this inhumane, I consider it a program of restoration.  Restoration in this instance and in my opinion is getting farm animals back to a status of health and productivity without a lot of human intervention and cost. I always ask myself: “If I wasn’t here, what would they do”? The truth is, wild sheep do quite well. Somehow they manage to live without worming, tail docking, hoof clipping, lots of grain, barns, and lambing assistance. Those that can’t adapt, die — and don’t pass on those genetics that won’t thrive in that environment.

Now, I know I’m generalizing. There are always specific instances where my broad-sweeping statements don’t apply. HOWEVER — all I know for sure is once I got my genetics right and my mindset right, my sheep herd thrived. I breed them in December for a May lambing. This means their third tri-mester finds them on grass (late March into April) right when their nutritional needs are the greatest. They give birth on grass during a time when it’s not too hot, the grass is growing. The lambs that I’m setting aside for my meat sales will finish in November, right when the grass is not growing (and I don’t have to feed hay).  These sheep came from a parasite resistant flock in the same climatic zone that I live in, so they are geared to thrive in humid environments (sheep traditionally have been raised in dry, cool, arid climates).  If a ewe or ram doesn’t do well in my program, I sell her or him. I’m ruthless with this, because if I’m sympathetic and introduce a lot of medication or labor, then eventually I won’t have a low-labor sheep herd.

The greatest part about these sheep is that they will graze the dead grass in winter, and dig down through the snow and ice to eat it. I didn’t feed any hay last year, and we had a very hard winter. The sheep stayed outside, ate grass all winter, and thrived. That mean their manure and urine was deposited on the pasture, not in the barn (where I would have to clean it up, put it in the manure spreader, and take it out myself).  Interestingly enough, so many people thought I was crazy to not feed hay. They almost got angry at how I was such a bad shepherd.  In looking at my sheep now, I’m amazed at how healthy they look, their lambs are fat and growing, the ewes are contented.

Bottom line: since they graze during the winter, I don’t have to make or buy hay (reduction in diesel fuel, equipment repairs, capital expenses). I don’t have to haul manure (reduction in my time spent cleaning, diesel fuel for tractor to pull manure spreader, equipment repairs, capital expenses).  I don’t have to put up expensive buildings to house the sheep as my herd grows (reduction in capital expenses).  Diesel fuel is the life blood of US agriculture – cut that off and the farm economy comes to a screeching halt. One of my goals is to create a farming system that approximates low labor, little to no reliance on diesel fuel, environmentally-sustaining and economically viable.

So far, so good.

Filed under: Animals, Grazing/Pasture, Uncategorized, sheep on July 20th, 2010 | 8 Comments »

Well, we’re in full swing with grazing dairy replacement heifers from a local Mennonite dairyman. So far we’ve managed to graze approximately 13 acres with 30 cows. That might seem like a small amount for so many cows, but what I’m employing is a technique called “mob grazing”  – it’s essentially a replica of the American buffalo/wolf relationship that created the amazingly fertile prairies and plains of the American Mid-West, and the guinsbuck/lion, cheetah, hyena, predator relationship of the vast African savannas/grasslands. What I do is concentrate the animals in a “mob”, or relatively tight group hemmed in by electric fence (the electric fence is the predator) for a short time, usually one day or even half a day. The metric that I use to evaluate success is both subjective and objective. The objective metric is “liveweight per acre” — the number of cows and their corresponding weights added up and divided by the number of acres that they graze for any length of time (in my case each graze area is less than an acre – a lot less).  With mob grazing, a high liveweight per acre number is considered good. The higher the better.

The subjective metric is actually a eyeball evaluation of the condition of the cows. It seems obvious to animal raisers that making animals graze close together could result in lower selectivity (the amount of forage available to the animal at any given point in time). This would be true but if the animals were left in the small grazing area too long — but the idea is to move them often and in high group numbers, thus giving them a high selectivity. The component that is often overlooked and almost immediately rejected by conventional farmers and ranchers is the labor involved in moving cows and electric fence so often — this is key, and it is a cost that must be included in the evaluation of the enterprise.

The idea of mob grazing is to trample at least half of the available forage on the ground and eat approximately the other half. This is accomplished by long narrow sections of strips – encouraging the cows to move up and down. The reason for the desire for trampling grass is that grass becomes food for soil microbes. That soil life will take the “organic matter” and decompose it, increasing biological soil life, increasing fertility, and literally over time creating more topsoil. The trampling effect also has another benefit in that the sharp hooves of the cows concentrated in an area “plant seeds”. There are literally billions of seeds, grass seeds, in the soil already — why spend money for more seed?

This approach to grazing and utilization of animals is on the leading edge of farm sustainability.  With the right genetics, the right rest period for the plants and high-density grazing, farms can recreate topsoil that has been eroded away due to questionable cultivation practices or inadequate grazing management at an extremely low cost.

Filed under: Animals, Grazing/Pasture, Organic Dairy on July 5th, 2010 | No Comments »

Amongst many things I do on this farm, I have a custom grazing service for the Amish/Mennonite dairy farmers in the area. Due to the new organic  pasture rule that has just passed through the USDA, organic dairy farms must graze their animals (except for their bulls) in such a way that  a minimum of 30%  of the total dry matter intake (DMI) that each animal eats must come from pasture for a minimum of 120 days during the grazing season.  While this may seem low to some, it actually is pretty significant given that myriad of ways that dairy cows are fed to produce milk.  The organic consumer, generally speaking, has an expectation that organic dairy farmers have their cows out on grass — but due to how the rules were written in the past ( very general – allowing loopholes) there were huge “organic” dairy confinement operations out west that were flooding the market with cheap fake (my opinion) organic milk. These operations were not at all how consumers were viewing how organic dairies were run. They expected to see picturesque small farms, cows out on pasture, and a happy smiling family working together to build a home, a family and a community. How far from the truth it was.

Well, times are changing. While I’m not against large farms, I personally do expect organic livestock operations to adhere to a pasture-based system. If a large farm can pull that off, then more power to them. It’s hard though. Pasture means land, and land can be expensive in certain areas. There is a reason that dairy in general is concentrated in areas such as the Upper Midwest, New England and parts of the Mid-Atlantic, and the Pacific Northwest — due to the climate. Those areas can be built up commercially, and land can be difficult to obtain in the amounts necessary to run a viable operation.

Here in Kalona, Iowa there is a large Amish/Mennonite community. While some Amish communities focus on other businesses, the Kalona  Amish “business” is an organic farm, with a focus on organic dairy.   These are not large farms, but there is enough land to generally support a large family.  However, with the new pasture rule out, these dairies don’t necessarily have enough land to meet the requirement for all their animals (that’s a change in the new rule).  And here is where I come in — I’m offering to custom graze their calves and replacement heifers during the growing season to free up pasture for their main milking herds. It’s a great partnership, and helpful to me as well as I’m converting all of my 60 acres to pasture.

The next blog post will be focused on the rudiments of grazing animals.

Filed under: Grazing/Pasture, Organic Dairy, Organic News, Uncategorized on April 21st, 2010 | 1 Comment »

Due to my job as plant manager of Farmer’s All-Natural Creamery (where we procure, bottle and sell milk), I get to observe quite a bit of what happens in the organic dairy industry. The past year and a half has been devastating to the dairy industry in general, and very difficult for organic farmers specifically.  A lot of the pain has been caused by general economic conditions and “the recession” that has effected most of the United States (and the world for that matter), but also weather events have played a large part.

Prior to the economy taking a nose-dive, there were three large buyers of organic milk nationwide. These were Organic Valley, Horizon Organic, and Kemp’s (a subsidiary of HP Hood). All three competed with each other in various markets for farmers (meaning milk supply). Last year Hood pulled out of the market, dropping routes and farms at almost a moment’s notice for some (and honored other contracts until the end). This painful restructuring has caused consternation in the supply chain — what does the industry do when there is too much milk overall? It is easy to shut dairy farms down (just stop picking up their milk), but it is extremely hard to start them back up.  Milk by definition is highly perishable, and organic milk is not only highly perishable but relatively expensive as compared to conventional milk. Compounding the problem is the age-old dairy issue: cows give milk every day.  And that milk has to go somewhere.

In a recession people stop going out to eat and eat at home. Usually, a recession is good for the food industry. However, organic food is higher priced, so recessions are bad because while people need food to survive, they do have a choice between conventional and organic food. If organic is a lot higher priced, then it is easy to just “buy down” until times get better — which is exactly what has happened over the last year or so.

There has been a shakeout of the number of organic dairy farms that are continuing to operate.  Recently the industry got a wake-up call when there were two large back-to-back major snowstorms on the east coast of the US. People generally panicked and bought up food supplies to keep them going while being snowed in. Shelves were stripped of food, milk in particular, and all of sudden everyone began asking for more milk. Ironically, there was little to be had.  While this has been a short-term event, it’s highlighted a growing concern for a more long-term perspective.

We are now coming out of a period of over-supply, and entering into a phase of under-supply. With the mainstream consumer becoming more and more aware of the impact that food has on one’s health coupled with the general easing of the recession, I foresee the pendulum swinging back the other way soon — organic milk will be in demand and there will not be enough farms to supply it.

Filed under: Organic Dairy, Organic News on March 15th, 2010 | No Comments »

I switched out our Icelandic sheep herd last fall, in a radical attempt to reset my entire genetics with a low labor/low cost breed that would be parasite resistant in the summer and that would be hardy enough to dig through the snow in the winter and eat stockpiled grass. And, if that wasn’t enough, would also be good eating (meaning – mild tasting). Well, I think we’ve hit on the right breed. We bought a started flock of hair sheep from a grazier in southern Missouri by the name of Greg Judy (http://www.greenpasturesfarm.net/), a renowned grazier who overwinters his flocks and herds entirely on grass.

Hair sheep grazing through snow

It’s now the end of February, and I’ve fed very little hay. It’s amazing to see the sheep dig down through the snow and eat the grass. When one thinks about it, stockpiled grass (grass that was allowed to grow during the fall without cutting for hay or allowed to be grazed) is in fact “standing hay”. The idea is to have the animal go out there and harvest the feed themselves, not us humans spending a huge amount of money, time, effort and energy harvesting the hay and bringing it to the animal. Much less costly, much less effort, and the animal is healthier I believe, in the end.

Filed under: Animals, Grazing/Pasture on February 22nd, 2010 | No Comments »

Here are two current media articles where we and our farm is featured.

The article below was featured in ABC channel 7 in New York, New York.

http://www.greenrightnow.com/wabc/2009/07/17/going-organic-in-iowa-means-reclaiming-the-family-farm/

http://www.zwire.com/site/index.cfm?newsid=20294907&BRD=1140&PAG=461&dept_id=579117&rfi=8

Filed under: Media on July 21st, 2009 | No Comments »

Well, summer is here with a bang. Spring was long, cool and wet, but there was a window of opportunity in April for most of the vegetables to get planted, cover crops put in, and lambing to occur. Lambing went well for the most part. There were a few deaths due to me not being there at the right time — we had a couple of triplets that didn’t make it. Other than that, I was pretty pleased with the outcome.

This is our first year on our home pastures, and I’ve been working overtime putting in our perimter fence along with the electrical part. We use electric fencing to control our grazing, and believe it or not there is a lot of preparation and installation that goes into installing a charged fence properly. Compounding the issue has been simultaneous wet weather, lambing, planting and a host of pressing spring jobs. However, we are rotating our sheep and horses every 2 days, and it’s great to see the response of the grass to grazing pressue.

Our goal is to eventually minimize and possibly eliminate hay feeding in the winter. Right now, I would settle for extending the season in fall to late December, and starting back up in late February. I still can’t see how our sheep would bust through the ice to eat stockpiled grasses, but I could be wrong.

Lots of wet weather lately, and hay making has been an extremely difficult excercise in futility. But, all is not lost and we have much to be thankful for.

Filed under: Grazing/Pasture on June 22nd, 2009 | No Comments »

Normally we plan for the next year the year previous, optimally in November. This year, due to many changes in our operation and the economy, the planning process has extended now into February. We are in the process of several changes that will effect our operation significantly. One, we are really contemplating changing our sheep breed to a hair-type breed, so we don’t have to shear. While Marjorie is still a committed knitter and fiber enthusiast, the time that it takes to transform wool into yarn is huge, given we have 2 small children and a host of enterprises on the farm. Hair sheep don’t need to be sheared, so we would cut out that portion of the operation and concentrate on just raising sheep for meat.

Secondly, we are expanding our vegetable operation. We plan to add another acre of squash and potatoes, and are collaborating with a like-minded grower to help process/package and deliver our wares to our Iowa City markets. Thirdly, we are reconstructing our hen house to include a house movable on wheels — to allow for us to move our chickens around on pasture. Pasture-based chickens are great in helping break down manure left by other animals, and they also get a larger portion of their diet from the ground instead of eating bought feed.

These are challenging times in our economy. We feel this is the best time to be on a farm and growing our own food for our family, our friends, and our community.

Filed under: Farm Planning on February 19th, 2009 | No Comments »