End of Harvest Season
This time of the year, we’re at the end of our harvest season and we’re storing our feed for our cattle and straw for bedding. We store most of our feed under shelter to preserve feed quality and nutrition. This means making sure all the bales are brought in from the field, and into our coverall (a large canvas hoop structure) and our two barns.
On the grain side of things, we are just finishing up our grain harvesting and storing it in grain bins on our farm. This means we have to combine it, auger it, and put it into the grain bins.
In a typical year, at this time of the year, we do corn silage (chopping up whole plant corn), and are just finishing up haylage. Haylage means cutting grass/legumes that is/are less than 60% moisture, but not dry and wrapping it in plastic wrap, making 4 x 4 bales for feeding young cattle. We do this to preserve nutrition and palatability. It’s like candy for the cattle!
Equipment Maintenance and Repairs
Another task that needs to be done on the farm this time of the year is putting equipment away, cleaning equipment, and checking for any repairs that need to get done for the next year.
DID YOU KNOW?
- There are approximately 60,000 farms and ranches with beef cattle across Canada.
- The average beef cow herd size in Canada is 69.
- There are a lot of small cattle farms with 39% of the farms having less than 47 cows.
- In 2016, Canada produced 3 billion pounds of beef, up 9.6% from 2015.
- Canadians eat 40.12 pounds (18.2 kg) of beef per person annually.
- Canada is the 12th largest beef exporting country in the world.
- Beef production contributed $16 billion to Canada’s economy (2012-2016 average).
The things we do on the farm year-round are to ensure the optimum health of our cattle and our land. As a farming family, we are stewards of the land. What some people may not be aware of is that cattle sustain soil with the nutrients from manure for healthy grass. Healthy grass = ground cover protection from blazing sun, wind, and pounding rains. Cattle are the ultimate manure spreaders. My husband says, “Why would I spread manure if the cattle can do it for me?”
*Note: We do spread manure on our fields, but it is from our young cattle that overwinter in the barn. The rest of our herd spreads manure on our fields themselves, year-round.
If you’re interested in learning more about cattle and conservationists being on the same side of the fence, here’s an article on agriculture and grasslands.
Pride of Producer
Though there is never any shortage of work to be done on the farm, the most important thing to us is healthy cattle, healthy soil, and customers that are happy with the product we produce.
Here’s a quote from my husband, John:
One of the most important things to us is to leave the land in better shape than we received it in.
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