July 28, 2012, zone 1 - first section

Page 14 • Dairy Star • Saturday, July 28, 2012

Page 16 • Dairy Star • Saturday, July 28, 2012

From Our Side Of The Fence

A) Describe the moisture and crop conditions on your farm?

B) What impact do you foresee the drought having?

C) How does this drought compare to others you have experienced?

D) Do you forsee any changes you will make?

E) Tell us about your farm.

Steven and Byron Marsh Shevlin, Minn.

Clearwater County 75 cows

Tim Anderson Winthrop, Minn.

Sibley County 130 cows

Jim Boeckers New Munich, Minn.

Stearns County 120 cows

A) The combination of high temperatures and lack of moisture are leaving us with drought conditions and our crops are showing stress. Our pastures are not coming back with rotation and some are feeding hay already. First/second crop of alfalfa was about half or less the yield from last year. We just started combining oats and it is very light.

A) It’s very dry. We haven’t had rain since the hail storm June 19, and only an inch-anda-half total since the rst of June. It varies a lot around the area. Northern Sibley County got six inches the rst week of June. Not far south of us had rains of an inch or so last week.

A) We had 1.9 inches of rain last night (July 23), but it was severely dry until that point. We had one inch of rain the week before. There is nothing to harvest on the third crop of alfalfa that isn't irrigated. Before last night everybody was hurting around here, but everybody irrigates. The dryland elds were extremely dry.

B) Our milk production really hasn’t dropped. We have lots of fans and ventilation which keeps the cows comfortable.

We raise most of our crops for feed and have leftover corn and hay from last year so we expect we will be okay for now.

C) This is by far the dryest conditions we have ever seen.

Even the watering ponds are drying up in the pastures and this is the rst time we ever remember anyone having to feed hay this early because there wasn’t green grass.

D) Any lasting impacts are going to depend on when we receive rain and how much.

E) Our sons currently farm with us. We own 920 acres and rent an additional 780 acres.

We raise corn, soybeans, oats, barley, alfalfa and mixed hay.

We are in the process of selling our dairy herd and will soon have a Lely robotic milker for sale. 55 years ago there were over 300 dairy farms in the county and now there are less than 10. We will continue with our beef herd and raising crops.

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B) It will take more corn for corn silage—the hail also has something to do with that. We were on the edge of the hail— one eld was damaged pretty bad, others only a little. If we don’t get any rain soon, the hay will be short. We did get our third cutting in without rain.

Our second cutting wasn’t much because we cut it right after the hail.

C) The only one I remember was last year. That was at the end of the growing season— the last rain was July 13, then we had nothing until late in the year, after harvest. We planted winter rye last year. It didn’t germinate—and only half of it germinated this spring. If it doesn’t rain any more, this year will be worse than last. We had decent corn silage last year.

D) It’s just one of those things…what can you do? You just hope next year will be better, or get back to normal. The rains missed us by a little bit— it’s a small area here that’s this dry. If we get some rain in a week or so, I think we’ll be okay. I think the beans will come back.

E) My brother Todd and I operate a family farm in the southern part of Sibley County, in partnership. Our herd, Bernadotte Holsteins, is all registered. We milk 130, with 200 head of dry cows and young stock. We have an 84-stall tiestall barn; we switch one group of 45 cows in and out.

For the future, we’ll take it one day at a time.

My wife Beth and I have two daughters, Meghan, a college freshman, and Marissa, a fourth grader.

B) The high grain prices will be benecial to me as we will have some corn and alfalfa to sell. We have 300 acres of corn in irrigation.

This year I'm not going to buy steers because corn is too high. I paid $1.46 a pound for 414 pound animals and with the current price of $1 a pound for nished steers I wouldn't make any money. You can't feed $7.50 corn to steers if you paid that much for feeders. I'll only fatten my own steers, otherwise we purchase 100 steers a year.

C) In 1988 we didn't have as much land, but 1988-89 was just as hard up to this point but now maybe it's going to get better. We kept the irrigators running as much as we could.

We tried to apply one inch every six days with our ve center pivots and one travelling gun.

D) We may look into another irrigator for a 50-acre eld.

E) We, my wife, Diane, and I moved here in 1979 and we farmed in a partnership with my dad until 1986. One year earlier we bought a second farm for youngstock 500 pounds or more. Since 1979 we've been gradually increasing the herd size. In 1998 we started milking in a parlor.

We have 550 total acres, 465 which are tillable. We plant 120 acres of alfalfa and the rest is all corn.

We have three children, two daughters and one son.

We don't have any changes planned for this year.

Andy and Rachel Emmert and Chris Emmert Hancock, Minn.

Pope County 130 cows A) We are dry but crops are doing fairly well with some areas more stressed than others. We just received seven tenths of an inch of rain this past week.

B) We will receive reduced yields on corn and soybeans. A poor third cutting of hay with a fourth cutting is questionable.

Much higher costs on our purchased protein. We raise nearly all of our own feed but may need to purchase hay for the youngstock.

C) The drought of 1988 was worse when Dad was still farming but we remember what it was like. In 1988 we baled cattails out of a slough that has water in it this year. This year we had federal crop insurance on our corn and soybeans, which is one way to help prepare for it.

D) What can you do?

E) We farm 580 acres equally divided between corn, soybeans and hay. We milk 120 cows with Lely robotic milkers since the fall of 2010. We raise all our own replacements. Our Dad (Ivan) is retired and Mom (Teresa) still helps around the farm with whatever needs doing. Andy and Rachel have two kids age ve that are starting to help where they can. Chris and Andy each own a robot with separate herds. Milk checks are gured out by the production records from the robots.

The robots have eased some of the work and we are very happy with them. Chris plans on building a new heifer shed.

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Roger Guthmiller Menno, S.D. Hutchinson County 110 cows A) It’s extremely dry here. Our corn is all done for and we are in the midst of chopping it for silage. We’re getting about four to ve tons of corn silage per acre where normally we would expect at least 16 tons.

Our soybeans are still hanging in there but they need rain very soon.

B) We kept back all of our 2011 corn, so we’ll have enough grain to get us through the next year. We harvested two fairly good cuttings of haylage, but we’ll still have to buy some hay. That’s going to be expensive as dairy quality hay is currently bringing $200 per ton and up. In a normal year we’ll have extra hay that we can sell to neighboring dairy farmers.

C) We haven’t seen anything this bad since 1988. This year is worse than that; in 1988 we got more hay and were able to harvest a little corn. The drought of 1964 was also a bad one. I was just a young guy back then, but I recall that we chopped corn for silage in July of that year too.

D) Due to the short feed supply, we are going to start selling our Holstein steers at 300 pounds instead of feeding them out. The main thing is to hold on and hope that it rains in the spring.

E) My wife, Alita, works as a medical technician and helps out on the farm, feeding baby calves and such. Our son Brett also helps out. He does most of the outside chores such as feeding the cows and scraping the barn. I do all the milking in the double-6 herringbone parlor that we built 19 years ago.

Our plans include continuing to work toward improving our rolling herd average. We tried brown midrib silage corn the last two years and the cows seem to milk better on it. We’ll probably be planting more acres of brown midrib silage corn next spring.

Dairy Star • Saturday, July 28, 2012 • Page 19

“... very effective and easy to use ...”

— Cade Stanek

OUR-FAVORITE HOLSTEINS THE STANEK FAMILY, Fall Creek, Wisconsin 200 Holsteins: RHA 26,439 m 3.66% f 3.13% p SCC: 200,000 Cade Stanek, is a fourth generation dairyman at Our-Favorite Holsteins, founded by his father. The Fall Creek, Wisconsin dairy is home to the only *RC and *TV Goldwyn daughter of the All-American “Debutante” and full sister to Destry (Debutante’s popular son at ABS).

Above is that cow: Scientific Gold Dish Rae-ET. She has 4/12 GTPI +1939, PTAT +2.96, UDC +2.1, FLC +3.05. The Staneks are milking seven of her daughters and market embryos worldwide.

“There are a lot of reasons to use Udder Comfort™,” says Cade Stanek of OurFavorite Holsteins, Fall Creek, Wisconsin.

Udder Comfort is very effective and easy to use to get udders in shape, remove swelling, and bring out the crease and veining. It also helps us maintain a low somatic cell count for our premiums from the bottler.”

Cade joined his parents, Todd and Mary, in the business after returning from the Univ. of Wisconsin in dairy science. They started expanding, and purchased the internationally known elite index Gold Dish Rae as a fall calf, along with other good cattle. Today they milk 200 cows with a 4th highest BAA in the U.S. for herds of 151-200 cows.

“We use Udder Comfort on springers twice a day for 3 to 4 days. It gets the swelling out, makes them more comfortable and gets them going as quickly as possible.

“For some, we start a week before calving. The quicker I get udder quality to where it should be, the less likely the animal is to have mastitis or other udder problems. In May we freshened 19 heifers through this barn. We consistently used Udder Comfort and kept SCC below 100,000, with very few cases of mastitis. All three barns together average around 200,000.”

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Page 24 • Dairy Star • Saturday, July 28, 2012

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Scott & Jessica Hingtgen

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Dairy Star • Saturday, July 28, 2012 • Page 29

Easing milking time heat stress

A few weeks ago I was entering data into my computer at a dairy farm. Certainly not a very strenuous job! But at 95 degrees Fahrenheit with 53 percent humidity and a human heat index of 107.4 degrees Fahrenheit, sweat was dripping off my forehead.

The human heat index is an indication of how hot it feels

By Jeff Reneau when both temperaDairy Extension ture and humidity Specialist are considered.

Just as I was beginning to feel sorry for myself, the cows were lining up in the holding pen to be milked, some already hufng and puffing. While I drove to the farm in air conditioned comfort, these cows had spent the whole day in the stiing heat and now were jamming into the close quarters of a holding pen to wait their turn to be milked. For them this combination of temperature and humidity represented a Temperature Humidity Index (THI) of 85.

At these conditions, cows are not able to maintain normal body temperature (101.5 degrees Fahrenheit) and will have a drop in milk production of six to eight pounds per cow per day. A quick study of the heat stress charts for cows and humans (below) shows that cows are much more sensitive to heat stress than people. By the time we are just beginning to feel heat stress (80 degrees Fahrenheit with 40 percent humidity), the cows have been suffering for some time. Cows begin to experience heat stress when the THI reaches 68. Heat stress at milking time can be hard on both the cows and the milkers. How can we make it easier on the cows and people at milking time?

What happens when a cow is heat stressed?

• Dry matter intake declines. Rumen PH decreases and rumen fermentation is disrupted.

• Milk production is depressed.

• Water intake may increase up to ve times.

• Key blood electrolytes are lost – sodium by increased urinary secretion, potassium through skin perspiration, and bicarbonate by hyperventilation.

• Respiration rate of more than 60 breaths per minute (BPM) indicates heat stress.

• Body temperature increases. At a THI of 80 or above, cows can no longer maintain normal body temperature. Each 0.9-degree increase in body temperature results in a 12 percent decrease in conception rate.

• Immune system is depressed. Yet during heat waves exposure to mastitis pathogens increases many fold. As a result, cases of clinical and sub-clinical mastitis increase.

The rst rule in heat stress prevention is getting an early start! Routinely follow weather trends and begin heat abatement before a heat wave hits.

Bovine milking time heat stress prevention and rst aid • Reduce stocking rates in holding pens. Cows need more space to dissipate heat; reducing the cow numbers can help alleviate crowding. This will also reduce time spent away from feeding and resting.

• Boost air movement in the barn or milking center. A minimum of ve mph air speed directed onto the cows is needed to accomplish cooling. In tie-stall barns, increasing air ow with tunnel ventilation has proven helpful.

Milker heat stress prevention and rst aid • Increased air movement (ve mph or greater) in the parlor is not only good

for the cows but essential for the milkers.

During times of heat stress, if we expect milkers to up their game of cleaning and drying teat surfaces in order to reduce mastitis, then we need to be sure they are as comfortable as possible.

• Provide a “cool one”… chocolate milk or Gatorade, of course. People working in heat stress conditions need to maintain their own uid and electrolyte intakes. When the human heat index is 90 plus, drinking a cup of uids every 30 minutes to maintain hydration is advisable. During very strenuous exercise in heat stress conditions, people can lose as much as one quart of perspiration per hour.

• Heat exhaustion symptoms need immediate attention. Move the person to a cool place, have them lie down with feet elevated, and provide mechanical ventilation and uids to rehydrate. Heat stroke, where the individual has hot dry skin, body temperatures greater than 104 degrees Fahrenheit, rapid heart rate and dizziness, etc., is a very serious matter and requires immediate medical attention.

DAIRY COW TEMPERATURE HUMIDITY INDEX (THI) Temp °F 72 74 76 78 80 82 84 86 88 90 92 94 96 98 100 102 104 106 108 110

Humidity % 0 5 64 65 65 66 66 67 67 68 68 69 69 69 70 70 71 71 72 72 72 73 73 74 74 75 75 76 76 77 77 78 78 79 79 80 80 81 81 82 81 83

10 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84

15 65 67 68 69 70 70 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 80 81 82 83 84 85 86

20 66 67 68 69 70 71 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 82 83 84 85 86 87

25 66 67 69 70 71 72 73 74 76 77 78 79 80 82 83 84 85 87 88 89

30 67 68 69 70 72 73 74 75 76 78 79 80 81 83 84 85 86 88 89 90

35 67 68 70 71 72 73 75 76 77 79 80 81 82 83 85 86 88 89 90 91

40 67 69 70 71 73 74 75 77 78 79 81 82 83 85 86 87 89 90 92 93

45 68 69 71 72 74 75 76 78 79 80 82 83 85 86 87 89 90 91 93 95

50 68 70 71 72 75 75 77 78 80 81 83 84 86 87 88 90 91 93 94 96

55 69 70 72 73 75 76 78 79 81 82 84 86 87 88 90 91 93 94 96 97

60 69 70 72 73 76 77 78 80 81 83 85 86 88 89 91 92 94 95 97 99

HUMAN HEAT INDEX 65 70 75 80 85 90 69 70 70 70 71 71 71 71 72 72 73 73 73 73 74 74 75 75 74 74 75 75 76 76 76 77 78 78 79 79 77 78 79 79 80 80 79 80 80 81 82 83 81 81 82 83 84 84 82 83 84 85 86 86 84 85 86 86 87 88 85 86 87 88 89 90 87 88 89 90 91 92 89 90 91 92 93 94 90 91 92 93 94 95 92 93 94 95 96 98 94 95 96 97 98 100 95 96 98 99 100 101 97 98 99 101 102 103 98 100 101 103 104 105 100 101 103 104 106 107

Humidity % Temp °F 40 45 50 72 74 76 78 80 80 80 81 82 81 82 83 84 83 84 85 86 85 87 88 88 88 89 91 90 91 93 95 92 94 96 99 94 97 100 103 96 101 104 108 98 105 109 113 100 109 114 118 102 114 119 124 104 119 124 131 106 124 130 137 108 130 137 110 136

55

60

65

70

75

80

85

90

81 84 86 89 93 97 101 106 112 117 124 130 137

82 84 88 91 95 100 105 110 116 123 129 137

82 85 89 93 98 103 108 114 121 128 136

83 86 90 95 100 105 112 119 126 134

84 88 92 97 103 109 116 124 132

84 89 94 100 106 113 121 129

85 90 96 102 110 117 126 135

86 91 98 105 113 122 131

Stress threshold for lactating cows. Respiration rate may exceed 60 BPM. Milk loses begin ~ 2.5 lbs/cow/day. Reproductive loses are detectable and rectal temperature exceeds 101.3°F. Caution for people depending on age, exposure and activity. People may not feel heat stress until 80°F and 40% humidity.

Mild to moderate stress for lactating cows. Respiration rates may exceed 75 BPM. Milk loses ~ 6 lbs/cow/day. Rectal temperatures will exceed 102.2°F. Extreme Caution for people depending on age, exposure and activity.

Moderate to severe stress for lactating cows. Respiration rate exceeds 85 BPM. Milk loses ~ 8.7 lbs/cow/day. Rectal temperature exceeds 104°F. Danger for people depending on age, exposure and activity.

Severe stress! Life threatening conditions for lactating cows. Respiration rates are 120-140 BPM. Rectal temperatures may exceed 106°F. Extreme Danger of heat exhaustion and/or heat stroke for people when working in these conditions.

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• Intermittent sprinkling of cows with water (for three to ve minutes every 10 to 15 minutes) coupled with circulating fans directed onto the cows helps turn the holding pen into an oasis to cool cows.

• Fly control also reduces unnecessary stress, helping prevent the counterproductive heat stress behavior of bunching as well as the y defensive stomping that causes splashing of lower rear legs and udders. This will improve udder hygiene. Anything that keeps cows cleaner eases pre-milking cow prep.

• Provide water in return alley or exercise lot spiked with electrolytes (“Gatorade” for cows). Early Florida studies (Collier et at., 1982) found that rumen concentrations of sodium and potassium were low in heat stressed cows. Since heat stressed cows markedly decrease feed intakes but do increase water intake, it seems logical that providing water spiked with electrolytes may help offset some of the electrolyte loss caused by heat stress.

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Page 32 • Dairy Star • Saturday, July 28, 2012

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We are celebrating life this summer. We are celebrating life journeys Just Thinking Out Loud as they begin and also as they end. We have been tting these celebrations in between the daily routine of summer chores and, thankfully, recent rains. It has been a relief to shut off the pivots for a couple of days. The recent rains combined with hot, humid days have created wonderful growing conditions for the alfalfa elds. The only problem is that it makes poor drying conditions for baling. The hot weather has also created extra work in keeping the sheds

By Natalie Schmitt clean and dry for the youngstock. It is Columnist all a part of the extra summer work, but it is nice to be able to work together as a family. Everyone is pitching in and and I always knew they kept an eye helping so much this year. With boys as out for me. At his funeral, his son exbig and strong as Mark, they can put in plained that his dad very rarely said “I a man’s full day of work. We’ve always love you”, but his actions spoke louder told the kids that if they work hard, than his lack of words. He showed his they can play hard when they’re done. family his love every day by working to Fitting everything in has made us all provide and care for them. exhausted yet exhilarated to be in the Sister Justina and I celebrate our middle of such commotion and it isn’t birthdays together. We were born 10 even county fair week yet! days and 50 years apart, yet she made In June we had ten graduation par- me feel like I was her most special ties along the seven mile stretch of friend. It was her mission to show road that runs past our driveway. I was people they were always loved because teasing a couple of other families that she knew what if felt like to be alone. we should have just popped up a large Her life mission began when she was tent and pulled in a couple of port-a- orphaned at three weeks of age in New potties to the main intersection and York City. When she was 18 months had a neighborhood celebration for our old, she was placed on an “Orphan graduates. Instead we kept running into Train” heading west to Minnesota to each other every weekend. It was great be adopted by a family in Holdingford. to connect with neighbors again. We She was one of 200,000 orphans who have all come to the same conclusion. It were shuttled west from the east coast is amazing how fast our children are growing up and we We h W have b been fi fitting i iin aren’t that old yet!

Besides all of the graduations, we are starting to cele- celebrations in between the brate the next phase of life for daily routine of summer chores several of our neighborhood kids. I was invited to a baby and thankfully recent rains. shower for my children’s rst baby-sitter. We were the 1854 b 5 and d 1929. rst family Carmen ever baby-sat for. between When she was of age, she became She was the youngest of nine children a Franciscan nun.

She faithfully served and had very little experience with babies. Her rst time changing a diaper her community and God for 82 years. resulted in it being put on backwards. She served several parishes in central Jonathon survived, Carmen learned and Minnesota throughout her life. She was over time they grew up together. She once told that “she who loves to work is was the one I could call with only ve always on vacation. Since work was alminutes’ notice to come watch the kids ways a source of joy for her, she gured while I ran chopper boxes for the guys. she was on vacation most of her life!”

It is strange to see her belly protruding We use to joke that is why farmers as she waddles across the room. The never left the farm, they were already large belly is due to the twins she is car- on vacation! I believe one reason Sister Justina lived to 100 years of age is berying. What a celebration!

Once our kids were out of diapers cause she climbed three ights of stairs and Carmen had graduated, I started several times a day until last year. She to call the neighbor boys to watch the never stopped moving to let her body kids. With three little rough and tumble catch up with her age. She was truly farm boys, a male baby-sitter was logi- young at heart.

Don and Sister Justina were of a cal. They loved having a “big boy” to generation who demonstrated their love wrestle with on the living room oor. for family and community by working Katie didn’t mind and seemed to jump to care and provide for them. As we right into the action as well. We will be celebrating Keith’s wedding in a cou- celebrate the end of their lives, may ple of weeks to a young lady we have our young graduates, parents-to-be and known her entire life. It is such fun to newlyweds work for their futures with watch two young people work togeth- the same focus, dedication and joy as er as they start to create their own life my two dear friends.

Natalie, Mark and his brother, Al, journey.

Schmitt farm together near Rice, Minn.

While it has been fun celebrating They milk 100 registered Holsteins under beginnings, we have also been celebrating endings. I said goodbye to two the RALMA prex. Their four children are dear friends this past week. Don was a great help around the farm and are pushing survivor of the “Great Depression” and Natalie out of several jobs. Therefore she is WWII. He was a man of integrity and thankful to have something else to do. For very few words. He and his wife “ad- questions or comments please email Natalie opted” me when I moved to Minnesota at mnschmitt@jetup.net.

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Page 40 • Dairy Star • Saturday, July 28, 2012

ORDER NOW. BUY EARLY. SAVE BIG.

Order a Model Year 2013 T7, T8 or T9 Series tractor from New Holland NOW and take advantage of special incentives that reward early buyers—in addition to published offers!

The earlier you buy, the better the deal*. You also get these Built My Way benefits: MODELS FACTORY-BUILT TO YOUR REQUEST THE LATEST INNOVATIONS AND IMPROVEMENTS FROM NEW HOLLAND THE BEST FINANCIAL PACKAGE *Check with your local New Holland dealer for timing.

NEW T6 SERIES TRACTORS:

TAILOR-BUILD YOUR PERFECT COMBINATION

New Holland T6 Series tractors are a natural fit wherever hard work is done.

Every model features a clean-running engine with ECOBlue™ SCR technology that delivers a minimum 10% fuel savings*. And every model gives you the ultra-quiet comfort of the spacious Horizon™ cab to keep your productivity at maximum level all day. After that, you can specify your T6 tractor with the features you need to meet the exact requirements of your operation: CHOOSE YOUR ENGINE: 4-OR 6-CYLINDER, 90 TO 120 PTO HP CHOOSE YOUR TRANSMISSION: 16FX16R, 24FX24R, 17FX16R ECONOMY OR FAST MOVER CHOOSE YOUR HYDRAULIC SYSTEM: 18-GPM OPEN CENTER OR 26-GPM CCLS CHOOSE YOUR FRONT AXLE: STANDARD FWD, SHARP-TURNING SUPERSTEER™ FWD, OR ULTRA-SMOOTH TERRAGLIDE™ FWD CHOOSE YOUR REAR AXLE: 98” BAR AXLE OR HEAVY-DUTY FLANGE CHOOSE YOUR CAB ROOF: LOW ROOF FOR LOW CLEARANCE OR DELUXE HIGH ROOF

Stop By One Of These New Holland Dealers For Details...

A & C FARM SERVICE INC.

ARNOLD’S EQUIPMENT INC.

MELROSE IMPLEMENT INC.

MORRISON COUNTY TRACTOR & EQUIP.

TITAN MACHINERY

PIERZ, MN

ALBERT LEA, MN THIEF RIVER FALLS, MN WINGER, MN

ADKINS EQUIPMENT INC.

FRANZEN SALES & SERVICE

MODERN FARM EQUIPMENT

SCHLAUDERAFF IMPLEMENT

TJOSVOLD EQUIPMENT

PAYNESVILLE, MN

DETROIT LAKES, MN

ST. CLOUD, MN

FORT ATKINSON, IA

MELROSE, MN

SAUK CENTRE, MN

LITCHFIELD, MN

©2012 CNH America LLC. All rights reserved. New Holland is a trademark of CNH America LLC.

GRANITE FALLS, MN

TRUEMAN-WELTERS INC. BUFFALO, MN

WERNER IMPLEMENT

VERMILLION, MN