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It sure has been a busy year here on the Wood farm.  Our cattle herd continues to grow, and we are riding out the ups and downs of the cattle market.  We realize how fortunate we are to be able to stay afloat, even with discouraging cattle prices.

Ingenuity, hard-work and our passion for these animals and this business continues to drive us forward.  I was recently at the store and a sign caught my eye.  It was a small wooden sign with the saying “Always look for the silver lining.”  That saying hit home and reminded me that even when we have our days of dark clouds, there is always – ALWAYS – a silver lining to be found.  If we didn’t believe that, we wouldn’t make it in this business.

BELOW IS AN UPDATE FROM THIS LAST YEAR:

Winter 2016/2017 – Faced with low prices for feeder calves, we decided to carry our calves over through the winter.  This was our first year having calves throughout the winter.  This meant managing two separate groups of cattle – calves and cows.   For us, it is best to keep our cows separate from our calves – mainly due to the dynamics of our hay bale feeding system.

Every winter brings a new set of challenges (I like to call them”learning experiences”) but, all in all, our calves did really well with respecting the wires and navigating our hay bale system.

It was pretty neat to watch these babies figure it out all on their own.  They have turned into some fine yearlings for us.
Our cows are old pros at winter hay bale grazing and the yearling heifers picked it up quite quickly.

Spring 2017

Spring is always a welcome sight on the farm.  Seeing that grass – even if it is brown – is a sight for sore eyes and of course, the baby calves.  Those frisky, adorable babies make a long winter all worth it!

Our first calf was pushed into the world on April 23rd and they kept coming for the next month.  In total, we ended up with 16 healthy calves.

We lost one calf from what we suspect was some sort of weakness syndrome or developmental issues.  She never did stand and despite two days of bottle feeding colostrum, she just didn’t make it.  When she was born, there was something odd about her eyes…like she wasn’t all there.  It was a rough few days for all of us and as a mama myself – it hurts my heart to see a mama cow crying over her dead calf.

Story time…..When I was pregnant with my 2nd son a few years ago, I had a stillborn calf.  Hubby was gone in the woods for a few days for work and out of cell service and I was home alone with my 2 year old son and my very pregnant self.  It was easily the lowest point I have had thus farm in cattle farming.  But, as our mentor told me – as I called him sobbing and asking what to do – sometimes there is nothing you can do and this is just the way of life on a cattle farm.

Happily, though, this year I was blessed to be able to witness a few of the births.  Amazing – simply amazing – what these cows can do and the instincts they have.  Of course, there always seems to be a story with each calving season about “that” cow.  This year, it was a first – calf heifer and a small one at that.  I was doing a herd check and caught her water breaking. 

Since first-calf heifers take a little longer to labor, I wasn’t too concerned when 30 minutes had gone by and there was no progress, despite multiple attempts to push.  Then, I saw two little hooves sticking out and the pushing continued for another 15-20 minutes but with zero progress.  Ultimately, those two hooves disappeared and the heifer stood up and basically said “I am done.  No more pushing. ” Thankfully, the hubby was home, so I called him up and we agreed that we needed to get the heifer in the chute and pull the calf.  

Now, my husband and I have pulled a few calves before but this was by far the hardest pull experience we have ever had.  At one point, we didn’t know if we would be able to get that calf out.  This heifer was barely pushing and she never did push the hooves back out on her own.  The hubby had to reach inside and pull them out enough to slip the chains on.  The chains kept slipping off and as I said before, this heifer was SMALL.  We eventually progressed enough to get the head and front legs out.  At this point, we had half a calf dangling out – a live calf, staring at us.  Usually, after you clear the shoulders, the rest of the body slips out pretty easy.  Not in this case.  This heifer was so small and this calf was so large, we struggled and struggled with zero progress and this heifer was giving us NO help.  I tell you what…it is one thing to try to pull a calf when they are still inside their mama…it is an entirely different experience when you get half the calf out and you are literally stuck and mama cow has given up.  By some miracle, that mama cow gave us one big push and we pulled with all our might and she pushed again and we pulled the rest of that calf out.  I can still remember the thrill when we realized we had actually pulled the calf out and it was alive and unharmed!  It was a good feeling for sure.

Please check back for Part 2, where I talk about vaccinations, pregnancy checks and our game plan for 2018.

We hope everyone has had a successful and productive year thus far!

 

We live in northern Maine.  Cold, snowy winters are the norm – not the exception.  Winter can start as early as the beginning of November and last until well into “spring” time.   We accept this way of life – albeit grudgingly at first –  but nonetheless, we hunker down and get it done – rain, sun, snow, sleet, freezing rain, ice, etc.

 

 

 

Our animals’ livelihoods depend on us and being a cattle farmer is not a pick and choose career. This is not a hobby.  This is not something we will get bored with in a few years.  And, this certainly is not something that we do as a status symbol. For us, our beef cattle farm is so intertwined into our work and personal lives that there is no separating it out.

 

 

Being beef cattle farmers is not just something that we do, it is what we are.

Plain and simple.

 

 

 

 

This all being said, our devotion and passion for being beef cattle farmers has been tested day after day this winter, as we, in northern Maine, shatter one record after another and plunge down into recorded temperatures only experienced 2 other times in recorded history.

For example, with wind chill, our temperatures last night were just shy of -50 degrees F.

I can probably count on one hand the number of days we have had the last two months where the temperature reached 20 degrees F or higher.  There have only been two days in the last two months where I have been able to take our 2-year old son outside to play.  Two days.  We are active people and we are used to being able to be active outside even in the winter.  Our son is active – oh so very active.  Two days.  It.can.drive.a.person.crazy.  The month of February will likely go on record as the coldest February in recorded history in Maine.

If it isn’t a blizzard outside, we are having 40-mph wind gusts or the temperatures are hypothermia- inducing type temperatures.   Or some sort of horrible combination of these weather conditions.

It has been a bitter, brutally cold winter thus far and our cattle are the ones most affected.   Miraculously, our cattle are still with us!  🙂  All I can say is that we have some tough, thick-skinned cows.  Our herd count is currently at 20 animals, with 10 first year bred heifers, 9 bred cows, and one heifer calf.  They astound us every day with their ability to not only withstand this type of cold but to, for the most part, maintain their body condition.  We do have one cow and one heifer with body conditions not where we would like them but body condition has been a concern with them even not in the winter.  They may likely be culled from the herd at some point.   But, as a whole, we have been impressed with our cattle this winter.

We have discussed in depth in previous posts our method of wintertime feeding – hay bale grazing.   Now, not only have we been experiencing a harsh winter but winter came about a month early for us and with that, we had to start our hay bale grazing a month earlier than we had hoped, in early November.  Our girls transitioned well coming off pasture into hay bale grazing.  We were especially pleased with how quickly our first-year heifers adapted to this type of feeding.

 

As winter roared into December and then into the new year, though,  we noticed that our cattle were consuming almost double the dry matter that we had anticipated for them.  Our girls were consuming unbelievable amounts of hay and with the bitterly cold temperatures we were experiencing, I can’t say we blamed them too much.  BUT, we were starting to notice quite a bit of waste and a pattern developing where our girls would eat the highest quality portion of hay in each bale and then attempt to move onto the next bale.

At times, our cows were ignoring entire bales of hay and attempting to crawl under the electric wire to get to more hay.   Due to some issues with terrible winds and rain disrupting the tarps over our hay bales in late summer/early fall, we did end up with a range in hay bale quality. That being said, though, the hay quality in even the worst quality bale was/is certainly still a sufficient food source.

To be frank, our girls were starting to get spoiled and a bit lazy.  They wanted to take the cream off the top of the milk pail with no interest for the actual milk.  We had to start restricting access to bales and “encouraging” them to clean up bales before opening up more access.  This worked well for a while.

Then, January hit and temperatures plummeted even more and we were facing a huge problem.  Even with restricting bale access and pushing our cattle to minimize hay waste, we simply did not have enough bales to last our the winter.   We were straddling a very fine line with pushing our cows but also not letting them lose too much body condition.  We had to do something and we had to do it NOW.

We are fortunate to have a good relationship with our hay supplier and he came through for us in a big way.  In the end, he delivered almost 50 round hay bales to our farm.  These hay bales had been stored in his barn from the previous summer’s cutting but they were still sufficient bales to feed our cows.

Because of the weather conditions and our limited resources, we were not able to get all 50 bales positioned into our existing hay bale rows.  So, we supplemented our restricted hay bale grazing with feeding out the older hay bales in our round hay bale feeder.

After a few weeks, our cows’ hay consumption finally started to balance out and we are close to our goal value of dry matter consumed/day/animal.  Those 50 additional bales are long gone, and we are back to full-time hay bale grazing.   We feel confident that our remaining hay supply in our hay bale grazing sites will last us until green grass.

Oh, sweet, green grass.   Please let springtime come early this year!

 

We have a famous farm mom here at the Wood Farm!  Sara, Wyatt and the cows made Lancaster Farming news for their special Mother’s Day photo feature.  We’re very proud!

See photos here