Mighty Mousers: Rosie

No, not Mighty Mouse (though we might have a few of those around too!), Mighty Mousers are our beautiful and essential cats!  All of our animals here at Brickhouse have and job, and our cats aren’t excluded from that.  Cats serve an important role in keeping our feed supply safe and clean for the cows by keeping it rodent free!

When mice or rats get into our grain supply they can introduce all kinds of nasties that spoil the grain, including molds and their droppings (ewg…).  In addition they carry a disease called Leptospirosis.  If a cow gets infected with this disease (“Lepto” to many farmers) it causes her to miscarry her calf.  Even if the cow recovers, she will continue to shed the virus and poses a potential danger to the rest of the herd.  Because of this if one of the cows is discovered with this disease they often have to leave the herd.  While we vaccinate against this disease, just like the flu there are many strains and we cannot protect against all of them.  Thus preventing possible vectors (such as rats and mice) is an important part of keeping our heard healthy.

That’s where our Mighty Mousers spring into action!  In these segments we are going to give you access to our awesome line-up of felines – Starting with Rosie!

There is a strict hierarchy in our little pride of kitties and Rosie decided she wanted to be everyone’s adopted mother!  She has been seen seeking out other cats to share her catches, and even cleaning them up as if they were her kittens!

Her loving attitude isn’t restricted to other cats!  Rosie is most notably the friendliest cat on the farm.  Whenever she sees you coming to the barn she always greets you with a friendly mew and a rub on the leg, inviting you to scratch her ears.  She is the most common companion throughout chores and while we know she is a proficient mouser she definitely won’t turn her nose up at some spilt milk!

Stay tuned to meet the rest of our furry super heros!

Feathered Friends - Purple Martins

We have lots of birds around the Brickhouse, but some of them are particularly helpful to us.  The top three are Purple Martins, Brown Headed Cow Birds, and Barn Martins.  These birds all perform unique and important roles around the farm.

Of these, Mom’s favorite is the Purple Martin.

Purple Martins are one of the biggest of the swallows, measuring in at roughly 20 cm long beak to tail.  You can recognize them by their slightly forked tail and beautiful acrobatics in the air.  Adult males are solid black with a glossy steel blue sheen, females are dark on their tops with some of the same sheen and light on their bellies. 

Purple Martins are migratory birds (moving between North and South America each year) that like to return to the same nesting place year after year; this habit is called “site fidelity”.  As long as nothing disrupts their breeding/hatching success (such as predators) a pair of purple martins will return to that same site their entire life.

Getting ready to hunt some more after a short visit to the nest!

Purple Martins also possess a quality known as “site tenacity”, this means they can and will fight for their nesting sites.  This is a good thing because they have heavy competition for nesting sites from starlings and sparrows.  While we try to discourage these competitors, without help from the Martins themselves we would never see a successful hatching of Martins.  Part of this competition comes from the fact that all three birds are called “cavity-nesters” and prefer manmade housing of similar size.  While the sparrows are genuinely looking for a home, many times the starlings are looking for surrogate parents for their young and will kick out Martin’s eggs, laying their own in place of them and then leave so the Martins will raise their young.   Since these competitors are not protected or endangered, almost every spring the boys can be seen protecting the Martin houses while the birds are establishing their new nests for the year.

A Male and Female keeping watch over their nests.

The biggest reason we love martins and work hard to attract and protect them is their diet.  Purple Martins are obligate areal insectivores – which is a fancy way of saying they only eat flying insects and they only eat then while flying themselves.  Martins are also generalists (aren’t we all?  I know I love food in general!) which means as long as it flies it is on the menu.  As such they eat a huge variety of insects, including but not limited to: beetles, FLIES, midges, mayflies, bees, wasps, moths, MOSQUITOS, damselflies, grasshoppers, butterflies and leaf hoppers.   We especially love the inclusion of flies and mosquitoes in their diet, and they eat a lot, especially since they can feed their babies up to 60 times per day! 

Martins love to practice their eating aerobatics while we mow the pastures.  They swoop around in front of and behind the tractor as it scares up bugs of all kinds.

Eating is not the only thing these birds do on the fly.  They also drink and bathe while flying!  It is so neat to watch them soaring over the pond and then suddenly dipping lower to skim the water with their beak, leaving a pretty V in their wake.

We so appreciate these marvelous birds, and even go so far as to add them to our list of feathered friends!

Drought Reaches Brickhouse...

Drought is something many of us don't think about in our day to day routines, something from Bible stories or suffered by people living on other continents.  This summer, however, we have been reminded that drought can reach right into the heart of our very own neighborhoods.  The 2012 drought is the largest of the last 50 years and in the top ten for droughts of this century, it is even starting to rival the dust bowl (source from The Weather Channel's site).  And that was just at the end of June, not counting the continued lack of rain into July.  What does this mean?  Well, for most folks it just means ugly yards and hotter temperatures, for farmers it threatens their livelihoods.


The consequences at Brickhouse are twofold, both immediate and delayed.  The immediate consequence is decreased quantity/quality of our pastures.  Remember those lush green pastures Grandpa was mowing in our previous post?  They have turned brown and crispy just like the lawns in your neighborhood.  We have to be very careful how we graze the pastures now.  Too much grazing will permanently damage the stand of forage since the cows will overgraze the few green things left in the pasture.  This also means the cows aren't getting what they need from the pasture as they usually do.  So we are needing to pull from those stores of hay we put up for winter to supplement their diets now.

Just two months ago...

Same pasture right now...

That's where the delayed consequences come in.  We are already feeding hay to keep the cows healthy - hay that was intended for winter months when there wasn't enough pasture to graze on.  Not only are we depleting those stores very early, we also are not going to have opportunity to make much extra hay to compensate since the hay fields are stunted and brown right now too.  Normally we can expect four cuttings of hay in a season.  We were able to put up two from most of our fields before the drought set in - we have already missed the window for the third and now may not be able to make the fourth (normally we stop cutting the hay fields during early fall to give the plants time to store up carbs for the winter).


In addition to the anticipated roughage (hay) shortage, this drought and accompanying high temps hit corn growers at a crucial time.  Corn pollinates during a period called "tasseling" where it releases its pollen which fertilizes the corn seeds.  Without fertilization the corn plant cannot make corn.  Period.  No second chances.  Pollen is very sensitive to temperature and humidity.  If it is too dry the pollen will dehydrate and be unsuccessful.  If it is too hot (above approximately 88*F for an extended period of time) the pollen will die and, of course, be unsuccessful.  We had exactly those conditions for two long weeks during which most of the corn in our area was "tasseling".  Much of the nation suffered similar conditions.  This means that we will not have enough corn to supply our needs as we usually do, and that it will be unusually expensive to buy corn because of a nationwide shortage.


So what's a dairy farmer to do?  Co-ops around the country are brainstorming and communicating with their growers to figure out that exact question as we speak.  While we don't have a complete plan yet, one of the things we know will happen here at Brickhouse is making more silage and less grain corn.  When making grain corn we only harvest the ears of corn and leave the stalk behind.  This give us the most concentrated energy and is simplest to store for future use.  Silage however uses the whole stalk.  While its not as nutritionally dense as grain, it does provide more roughage and will help offset the shortage of hay we are experiencing. 

Another option being considered on a national level is temporarily shutting down ethanol plants (the ones that use corn to make fuel).  This would reduce demand for corn and make it more available for farmers who need it for feed.


While its going to make for a rough year, here at Brickhouse we are hunkering down and doing all we can to prepare for the added challenges coming our way.  


How has the drought affected your neighborhood and what steps are you taking to counter the damage?

Lessons From the Ant, Preparing Baleage for Winter

Take a lesson from the ants, you lazybones.
    Learn from their ways and become wise! Though they have no prince
    or governor or ruler to make them work,
 they labor hard all summer,
    gathering food for the winter.

Proverbs 6:6-8

Ants are creatures of little strength,
    yet they store up their food in the summer...

Proverbs 30:25

In order to survive and be successful we need to be wise in how we manage our time and resources.  We need to look to the future and be prepared to care for ourselves and those under our care, including our animals.  We seek wisdom from many places; those more experienced around us, scripture and nature itself to name a few.  All of these sources tell us that though it may be hard to think about winter’s cold during a balmy summer day, we must not only think about it, but also prepare for it.  Thus much of the work during summer is preparation for winter’s bite.

It is no small feat to get enough hay, grain, silage and baleage stored to feed roughly 200 plus cattle (including dry cows and heifers) from late October to early April when there isn’t enough grass in pasture to sustain them.  It takes all of us working in concert, the weather cooperating, and equipment working at peak standard to get it all done.  Each feed type has its own unique process to get it cow and storage ready.  Today we will look at baleage (remember baleage from our last Farmerese lesson?).

Once the hay is tall enough and we have a forecast of enough sunshine to get the jobs done (hopefully three days to a week), tractors start up and head to the field.  It takes all generations working together to get this job done efficiently.  Roger’s Dad, Benny (first generation), comes in to help Roger (second generation) and the boys cut and rake the hay, Roger usually operates the baler, Andrew (third generation) is often on the rake or helping to move hay bales and Daniel (also third generation) operates the wrapper.  When he is available to help Rob (Lisa’s dad) comes and fills in where needed.

Long windrows of hay waiting to be baled!

It is a bit of a mad rush to get the 70 acres of hay that are good enough quality for baleage cut, raked, baled, moved to the wrapper and wrapped at just the right stage.  Baleage is a little trickier than dry hay (which true to its name, completely dries out before baling) because it needs to retain just the right amount of moisture to ferment (somewhere between 55 and 65%).  If the hay is too dry, the microorganisms won’t grow quickly enough and the hay just rots, if it is too wet the microorganism population explodes but then quickly runs out of food, also causing spoilage. 

Fresh big bale from the baler!

Once baled we wrap our big bales in white plastic using a special machine that gets the plastic very tight so air cannot get in (which can also ruin the baleage).  It’s really neat to watch this machine at work. 

Our "in-line" wrapper.

See this piece of equipment in action on our Facebook page!

The cows absolutely love this; we love for them to have it too.  Because of the added moisture the cows can consume more of this without needing to take a break to drink like with dry hay.  The more food they can eat the more milk they can make (within reason of course)!  It’s so funny to see them crowd around a freshly opened bale in the winter, sometimes steaming in the cold air due to the lingering heat from the fermentation process.  After a few summer months fermenting in the heat this baleage will be just what the cows are craving on those cold winter mornings.

At the end of a long day's work I think we’ve completed work even an ant would be proud of.

Snaking rows of completed baleage.