Polar Vortex

Wintry blast of arctic weather across the entire United States hit north Missouri early Friday (12 Jan 24) and temperatures have continued to plummet. This morning was -14F with a windchill of -34F. Well above any record cold, but mighty uncomfortable at best. Grazed pastures are now well frozen even under the 8-12 inches of snow. 

Although, we have plenty of standing forage for grazing, my husband has been keen to unroll big bales of hay to the cattle. If he wants to do it, that’s fine by me. It looked last summer that there would not be enough grass for winter, so he had baled up and purchased a lot of big bales of hay and since we store most of it outside and directly on the ground, right now is a perfect time to feed it up. No mud and the cows do appreciate it although with the extreme temps, they quickly adapted to it being substitutionary feed vs supplemental feed. Once the weather breaks, though, they’ll go back to grazing that green grass under the snow.

It is good for Allen to get out although he is mask wearing and son, Dallas, goes as well to get the gates and to take off the net wrap. Although he is in remission from his AL Amyloidosis cancer, he is not out of the woods yet and must still limit exposure to dust, dirt, livestock, large groups of people, young children, and pets. 

These young long time weaned calves are experiencing their first harsh winter without their mums. Since i ‘retired’ the pregnant cows were sold mostly last year (2023) and carry over the calves and the remaining cows to sell in January 2024. We’ve had too much income due to drought sales and that Allen sold all his fall calving cows because of his cancer and he has no help to manage it all. I can handle the 350 or so spring calvers, bulls, and replacement heifers, (with some help from my sons) but the task of calving out that many fall calvers with Allen’s weekly trips to KU Med for treatments, then the 2-week hospital stay followed by 2 weeks at Hope Lodge near the hospital (i had to stay with him as well) was just going to be too much. 

Oi Vey! Missouri Weather

My best laid plans to wean 2021 calves are once more thwarted by bad weather – rain, rain, rain, mud, mud, mud, cold, cold, cold, and tomorrow’s forecast will add snow. Uggghhh!

So, tomorrow (the 24th) i’ll head up and set up more grazing for my cows and calves instead of mustering in for weaning. Maybe next week!

Was really, really hoping to apply non selective total grazing to this patch of sedge, but impending rain changed my plan to loosen up the animals in anticipation of excessive pugging. Glad i made that decision despite knowing that by doing so, the cows will trample considerable amount of stockpile.

Winter Grazing

Remember when several weeks ago i commented on how fortunate it was that i could begin the grazing program as taught by Jaime Elizondo which he terms #total grazing or #nonselective grazing. Well, the easy street is well over. I went on a couple week getaway and came back to 8-10 inches of snow and single digit daytime highs and below zero night time lows with wind chills well be low zero. Although other producers who are much more dedicated than i am are doing a stunning job of total grazing right through the snow and cold as evidenced by the beautiful photos they post on Instagram.

But i cannot do cold – never could – so if i can get my cows on a 10 acre to 20 acre paddock with tall grass and running water in the ditch and provide them with protein tubs, kelp, and salt – i say ‘sayonara’ see ya in a week. Maybe it’ll be up to 10F by then.

Beef cows do not need barns – why are so many barns built – a mystery. It’s a pain on the old barns to rig up something that will sort of block all the doors and holes in the barns so the cows don’t get inside and make a mess, get sick, or worse crowd up and smash someone to death. (several years ago, nasty weather encouraged the cows to bust down a south doorway, crowded into the barn you see here and 3 young cows were smashed to death! It was a sickening and discouraging day as i dragged them out with long log chains hooked to the pickup. ) Who said ‘life on the farm is kind of laid back.’?!

Hay Challenges

I had planned to talk about the challenges of feeding hay in the winter in north Missouri last year, but never got around to it.  As it turns out, there are a different set of challenges this year, so i’ll roll them in to one blog.

Winter of 2017-2018 was really long, cold, bitter, but it was too long ago and though i know it was a challenge, i can’t remember.  So, starting with winter 2018-2019, which was the second consecutive long winter following a drought made for a very tough feeding season despite selling about 30% of my cows/calves.

My plan was to set out hay for bale grazing in July while it was dry, leaving the Netwrap on for protection of the hay, then using electric polybraid to ration it out to the cows in the hopes of minimizing waste.  Sounds like a plan, but you what happens to best laid plans.  I did set it all out – about 70 bales spaced appropriately on about 5 acres, then set up the tape.  then came the bitter winter early on along with deep, deep snow.  Of course, then with no way of removing the Netwrap because of snow and ice and snow and wind took down and buried the polybraid.  Cows and calves had their way with the hay.

Unfortunately, the amount of mud and trampling destroyed the 1/4 mile roll of polybraid and the Netwrap from 70 bales is buried.  I needed to remove it before grass grows but it was impossible even with Dallas using the harrow to try and pull it up a bit.  Sadly, most of it is still out in the pasture even now February, 2020.  But the resultant organic matter definitely improved forage production!

This year (2019-2020) blessedly has been mild by comparison of the past two winter.  Though we had an early cold snap, it didn’t really dig in cold until Jan 11 when a blizzard rolled in (the day i arrived from Fundo Panguilemu) with 1/4 inch of ice by the time i got to my pickup in the economy parking at airport.

I had started feeding hay way back in August to allow as much forage to grow for winter grazing as possible.  Thankfully, we had an excellent growing season though a late start in 2019.  However, the two previous years of drought has set back our typical production.  But haying while it’s dry only works if your growing paddocks are out of reach for the cows – otherwise, they will practically refuse to eat hay if they see green growing grass.

The freezing spell which lasted until the 31st of January allowed us to unroll hay on frozen ground, but couldn’t take off the netwrap very often because it was frozen to the bale.  We cut it across the bale so we could at least unroll it, but that leaves the netwrap under the hay.

Today (2 Feb 20), it was warm enough for me to survive outside for a while (actually spent 3 hours outside because it was 55F!), yet though thawed enough that i could pull up some of the netwrap from underneath the hay that the cows had left behind.

While i was gone to Chile (first of January), it was dry enough that Dallas was able to unroll about 22 bales on another location that needed more organic matter, so that is set for later to be eaten.  And in December, Brett had set out about 30 bales with netwrap removed on a section that needs soil building with organic matter before breaking through the barely frozen mud.  So once the cows run out of grazing (hopefully there is enough to last ’til first of March), then they’ll back track to these areas where hay is already set out.

I set up the polybraid around the remaining bales hoping they won’t need to be fed this winter.  Time will tell.  But unless it freezes hard again, it may not dry out until July or August.

Welcome to north Missouri – always 2 weeks from a drought in the summer and  cow killing mud under sometimes deep snow and ice in the winter.  It’s been said there are 3 good days a year in north Missouri.

It’s muddy!  Back to grazing.