My Dairy Farm Homestead
- Thread starter olcowhand
- Start date
xlr82v2
Member
Shimp,
Nice looking operation!! I'm just curious, how do you feed... I don't see any silo's or anything, just your grain bins... do you feed all hay?
My Grandpa/Uncle's farm that I grew up on is about the same size... we usually stayed in the 90-110 range in the milking herd and probably 100 more dry cows and heifers, plus calves.
I really miss working on the farm... it's something that gets in your blood I think.
Nice looking operation!! I'm just curious, how do you feed... I don't see any silo's or anything, just your grain bins... do you feed all hay?
My Grandpa/Uncle's farm that I grew up on is about the same size... we usually stayed in the 90-110 range in the milking herd and probably 100 more dry cows and heifers, plus calves.
I really miss working on the farm... it's something that gets in your blood I think.
That would be my post XLR. On far right you can see the ends of 2 silage pits with concrete floors. There are these 2 at 30x150' and two others at 30x100'. Load silage with a payloader into a TMR mixer wagon. We keep about the same number of backgrounded animals as your Gramps did. We feed no hay to the cows, just to dry cows & heifers. Cows get wheat, sorghum, and corn silage, 75% of it being corn silage.
Being you miss it so much, I'll be happy to let you come milk for a few days!
Before I was old enough to be of real help, we did the chickens too. That long barn in background was a chicken barn with natural gas brooders that Dad lowered from ceiling when the fresh baby chicks arrived. Dad raised 5,000 at a time for Southern States Coop. Dad didn't do it long, not enough profit....hardly any, and that was around 1958 he started, he quit chickens around 62.
I thought that building resembled older chicken houses. My grandparents and my great uncle had chickens around the same time your dad did. They heated with wood stoves. The company that was growing here put way too many houses in this area. Led to disease problems and eventually they all went out. I hope it turns out better for us! Almost all the dairy farms in my area have switched to something else.
xlr82v2
Member
That would be my post XLR. On far right you can see the ends of 2 silage pits with concrete floors. There are these 2 at 30x150' and two others at 30x100'. Load silage with a payloader into a TMR mixer wagon. We keep about the same number of backgrounded animals as your Gramps did. We feed no hay to the cows, just to dry cows & heifers. Cows get wheat, sorghum, and corn silage, 75% of it being corn silage.
Being you miss it so much, I'll be happy to let you come milk for a few days!
OK... I thought that might have been what those were... you don't see too many silage pits (ground silo's is what they call them around here) in my area.
We had 2 Harvestore silos, 2 WhiteStar's and a Ribstone. We fed mostly haylage and corn silage to the lactating cows and dry cows/pregnant heifers both. My uncle was the feed ration expert, so I don't know what %'s of what (ground corn/silage/hay) they all get.
Nice thing about your silage pits-- No unloader to break down 75 feet up! Talk about a dirty job... you haven't been dirty until you climb 3/4 of the way up an old WhiteStar or Ribstone to fix the unloader that quit working half way through feeding
.If I was a little closer, I wouldn't mind coming down and helping milk again! What type of parlor setup do you have? When I was milking, we had stanchions with automatic takeoffs. We just got the automatics right before I got out of high school and left for college. We had all DeLaval equipment.