Earlier this year we signed a contract agreeing to rent my parent's farm. They have retired from milking cows, and have sold their herd and the robotic milkers, which means we can now occupy the farm....and today we moved the calves over. This is pivotal for our operation, allowing us to streamline hay production, herd management, and most importantly keep up with the natural* herd growth.
Currently, all of our young stock is being raised on a rental farm that is adjacent to the home farm. The facilities at the farm have been well loved and well used over the years. As you can see here, the old hip roof barn offers little space-just enough to use it as a corral to load the cattle onto the trailer.
It took two trips but less than 2 hours to move the calves over. Rick had done some prep work to the old barn yard to have it ready for the calves, including this new post;
a bedded pack for the calves to lay on;
and a hay feeder that will hold enough hay for a couple of days.
It was exciting to see them get off the trailer and check out their new winter home.
We will also move the bred heifers over, then bring them back home shortly before calving season begins. During the grazing season we will graze the heifers on half of the acreage, and we will make winter feed (high moisture balage) off the other half.
Renting my parents farm for replacement heifers and hay production frees up our adjacent rental farm at home for the milk cows. This will allow us to milk up to 150 cows this next year. The lane system and paddocks are already set up, ready to be added onto the rotation. The past couple of years we have had to sell cows to keep our numbers low enough for the amount of pasture we have available. One might suggest that we supplement with extra forage, but that would add extra expense and labor, and while it might still be profitable, we are graziers....we stick to our roots.
This also streamlines our hay production. Currently, we are renting 5 separate farms for hay production. They are smaller in size and one is 12 miles from the home farm-which is quite the trip when you're hauling bales. We have chosen to not rent 2 of the farms** and one of them is due to be rotated out of hay production. By giving up three of our current hay farms and renting my parents farm instead, we gain 72 additional acres to graze and make hay from (the other 48 equal the three we gave up) while only increasing our expenses by less than $1,000.00***. And we're 5 miles closer!
So our heifers have better winter housing, we're not traveling all over the county hauling hay, we can milk more cows at home (exclusively grazing) and the farm is still being operated by the same family.
I'm excited for our kids to have the opportunity to go to "Grandpa's & Grandma's" to do chores. It was an experience I got when I was a teenager, and I know they will enjoy it when they're old enough. I'm looking forward to a simplified system of young stock and hay at one farm, and milk cows at the other.
once again....here we go! History in the making...
*If you recall, we only retain about 30 replacement heifers each spring. We sell all other heifer calves and all of our bull calves. Even with this growth control in place, we still end up with plenty of cows to milk. While we are perfectly content with the size that we are, we're looking forward to this modest change in numbers and not having to pick which ones to sell.
**Note to farmers-this was actually our choice-we didn't "lose" the farms or find them unaffordable. We have looked at the big picture and seen an opportunity to simplify our dairy operation and hay production. So please....no rumors :)
***This number includes the costs of hay that we had to purchase to finish out the winter. With the new rental farm, along with good growing conditions, we should not have to purchase any additional winter feed.
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