Articles & Notes
Articles | NotesThe Organic Dairy Farm: A Systems Approach
To assure long-term success, the farm needs to be treated as a system where each part affects the others and the farm as a whole. Within that system, instead of quick fixes to individual problems as they appear, a whole systems approach seeks to develop a management plan that prevents problems before they arise or allows them to be noticed and addressed early.
PARASITE PREVENTION STRATEGIES
Internal parasites of sheep, goats and young dairy cattle can be a challenge for both organic and non-organic farms. In the absence of chemical controls, keeping organic animals healthy and productive during the grazing season requires a good understanding of parasite-host interactions, grazing management strategies and animal selection. Worms and coccidia and other organisms are developing resistance to multiple chemicals so even if you are not organic it is advised that you start looking at alternatives to routine de-worming.
Sarah’s notes from the NOFA Winter conference February 2009 Dr Guy Jodarkski’s presentation
Sarah’s notes from the NOFA Winter conference
February 2009
Dr Guy Jodarkski’s presentation
Sarah's notes from Keith Waldron workshop – Flies on the Farm
Keith Waldron – Flies on the Farm
Sarah's notes from Understanding Organics Conference (S.Flack)
Keith is a Livestock and Field Crop IPM specialist from NY state IPM program at Cornell University, Geneva, NY. He works with Dr Don Rutz who is a professor of vet entomology at Cornell
CUTTING FEED COSTS WITH A HIGH FORAGE RATION Sarah Flack
CUTTING FEED COSTS WITH A HIGH FORAGE RATION
Sarah Flack
Growing and Feeding High Quality Forages and Grains
This winter, NOFA and UVM Extension (Heather Darby) organized workshops on strategies to keep feed costs low. Farmer who helped teach these workshops included Guy Choiniere, Earl Fournier, Earl Ransom, Luke Rainville, Brent Beidler, Joe Hescock, Dan Tilley and Jack Lazor. They shared their experiences with growing forages, corn silage, small grain balage and grain.
Calf and Youngstock Care on an Organic Dairy
This fall we’ve heard from several dairy farmers who have had calves with respiratory problems, and yearlings heifers coming in from pasture with poor condition and parasites.
Demystifying paddock size calculations for sheep
This article is “part two” on management intensive grazing, and only covers the paddock size calculations. Refer to one of my other articles or read “Greener Pastures on Your Side of the Fence” by Bill Murphy for more information on this sort of grazing management.
Integrating livestock into your gardens, orchards and back yard
Its nice to have a little butter with your kale, particularly if it comes from your own cow, and the soil the kale grew in was well cared for with composted cow manure. Keeping a family cow or goat, a flock of chickens, a couple of sheep, pigs and even turkeys can bring many benefits to your family and farm.
Medicinal Herb Recipes for Livestock
Cows out grazing in a pasture are constantly eating plants that have some medicinal effects. Dandelions are a diuretic, plantain has antimicrobial compounds in it, trefoil and alfalfa contain tannins and then there are all the plants growing in the hedgerows.
Lactic vegetable fermentation introduction and recipes
Lacto-fermentation is a natural poetic food preservation method that enhances the life in the vegetables and the eater. This method of natural pickling is done with no added water or vinegar.
Making Beet Kvass
Beet Kvass is a slightly effervescent lactic acid fermented beverage which you can easily make at home from beets, water and sea salt. Beet kvass can be made from fresh harvested summer or fall beetroots, and in winter you can make it from beets stored in your root cellar.
Spring grazing management for dairy farms
It is easy to get caught up in the busyness of spring with calving, fence fixing and getting ready for haying and planting, but spring is also a critical time for grazing management and planning ahead. The rapidly growing spring pastures can be hard to keep up with as we start rotating the cows in, but it is important to be planning ahead to when those pastures aren’t growing back as fast.
Grazing basics part one
Our abilities as farmers to do a good job of pasture management means we need to have not only the technical and scientific knowledge of grazing management, but also the observational skills to see subtle changes over time in our livestock, soils and pasture plants.
Grazing part two: calculating paddock sizes and number of acres needed
deally, a pasture should be grazed rapidly down to 1 - 2 inches, and then permitted to grow back up to 6 to 8 inches. A good quality pasture (with high plant density) which is 6 to 8" tall has about 2400 lbs. of dry matter (D.M) per acre.