Don't give up on small dairies

Don't give up on small dairies. You've heard it, so believe me when I say the last year has been incredibly difficult for ALL dairy farms. We just experience the struggles differently based on generation, size and manpower. Dairy farming is a way of life and for many families it has been the way of life for years and years and years. Thank you. Thank you to the children who have chosen to stay on the farm and take it over caringly. Year by year battling the hardships and pushing through to see the family farm continues. 97% of farms are family owned. Every year they grow and they invest in land or equipment or buildings and cattle.

But when the family farm begins most times it is small. The equipment is old, the herd is young and the debt is hefty. What would you say to that farmer with just 7 years under her belt? What would you tell her when she asked, "is there still a place in this business for a small farm?" Because she hasn't been through this before and all she sees are established farms feeling the stress or getting bigger. How would you follow up the response when you notice the tears in her eyes listening to someone say "small farms are going to get pushed out"?

After a year of dealing with "milk surplus" and our income being reduced well beyond what is feasible, I cannot help but wonder when is enough? How many cows do you HAVE to milk?

I am not my husband. He started this business because he does not easily accept no. I am the wife who supported his idea. I am the mom who has gotten attached to being home with her kids and taking care of her animals. I am the farmer who knows the needs of her cattle and of her children and knows if she expands right now something has to give. So when someone tells me they just aren't sure a small farm will make it, it gets me down. I have reasons why I want to stay a small farm. And yes, I know that it takes the milk hauler A LOT more stops to fill his truck BUT he will also get a lot more holiday treats this Christmas.

I ask that you not give up on the small dairy farm. I ask those that can't even define a "small dairy" today to remember the majority of farms are less than 200 milking. And I ask consumers to continue adding dairy in your diet because waking up early and working long days, weekend and holidays is a lot easier to do when people appreciate and need the product.

-Farm on, Nicole

Time away is DAIRY good

Get off the farm. Especially right now, when being on the farm can feel really REALLY stressful.

We are stuck in this awkward stage with our farm where we milk enough to handle chores by ourselves but we aren't big enough to hire full time employees. This is all okay until farmer or I want to get away. We are very fortunate to have relief milkers who know our routine and know our cows and can fill our boots when we need them the most. We are aways off from taking a family vacation because our relief milkers.....they milk. And daily chores include feeding and hauling water and bedding barns and we just don't have the staff for all that. But it is good, we are doing what we love as a family so we get lots of bonding time together.
Lots. Of. Togetherness.
Lots!

A few weeks ago we took an afternoon off from chores to take the kids put put golfing and canoeing. Janiene and Mallory both arrived on time to keep our business running. It may not have seemed like a big deal to them but for my little family it was a much needed break. 

Once a year I get away for two days without my husband and children. I travel with my mom and sisters, the two little sisters who drove me crazy growing up are my very best friends today and I look forward to this little trip away more than anyone can imagine. This year we went to Detroit for a concert. Shut the front door! Our mother got us tickets to Kenny Chesney, Miranda Lambert, Jake Owen and Old Dominion. Did you see who the second artist was? Miranda Lambert. You can see why I've been belting out her songs all summer on the tractor... I've been prepping!! Mallory filled my boots for the weekend which included helping my farmer treat sick cows. 

Stepping off the farm reminds me of the blessings I have at home and I am incredibly grateful to those special people who help us.  I love the experience of seeing something new and meeting new people ...but I love my slow, dirt road life more.

And sometimes we call on our milker's for events that we just can't handle without them. Like tomorrow. When my oldest daughter will have her tonsils and adenoids removed. While it is so important for us to be parents I completely trust and depend on Janiene and Mallory to carry out the work on the farm.

For whatever reasons we leave the farm, when i come back I'm better... I'm in my farm girl mode. And this farm girl is not the easiest to work with all the time but to those who have helped me out in the past and in the future please know I am VERY grateful 💛

Just a little farm tour

It's pretty simple. If you want to visit a farm just ask a farmer. When Stephanie asked to bring her three beautiful girls to our farm...of course I agreed. But first I had to mow, and weed-wack, and pick up the toys and clean up my garden.... I wasn't worried about the animals or parlor because we keep that clean all the time.

I may or may not be the best tour guide, but I had ice cream and figured that would get me on everyone's good side :)  I also had two babies born less than 18 hours before they arrived SO I was feeling confident things would go well. AND it did!! Not only did the kids ask to come back but they left with poop splatter on them, which is a pretty good indication they were up close and personal with my favorite ladies.

It started with the usual "Oh! It stinks..." which makes me smile every time we have company. It means this is NEW for them, something small that I've become numb to. I was introduced to Madalyn, Emily and Lillian (...and I got their names wrong every time). We met twins who were born this morning, a heifer (girl) and bull (boy). They even got to feed the calves their very first bottle of colostrum. Names were chosen and we have a Rosie & Patches in our herd.

Of course on the day of our tour it was 92°F out so after we looked at the calves in the hutches and walked down to the dry lot there was drinking from the garden hose. (Something their mother did as a kid but they were skeptic about trying.) Not only was this tour a learning experience for them but it was a reminder to me that what I do daily is important and special and to enjoy it.        

 

By the time we made it to the parlor the cows were being milked. The girls were able to hand squirt milk from the cow and help bring cows in from the holding pen.

 

Below are some of the questions & answers we talked about today. If you'd like to see more of our every day farm life follow along on Facebook or Instagram @michiganfarmgirl.

Do calves have teeth?
Yes, calves are born with bottom teeth and develop more as they grow.

How long does a cow carry a calf?

9 months and they have heat cycles every 3 weeks until they are bred.

What do they eat?
Calves get milk, water and grain from birth to 2 months.
Heifers and dry cows get grain, dry hay and water.
Cows get "cow chow" or "casserole" or "TMR" (name depends on the tour guides vocabulary), a mix of haylage, grains, vitamins, soybean.

Does it hurt the cow to milk?
No, their bodies produce milk and if we don't express the milk they may feel more discomfort from that.

Why is your front door glass broken?
That is what happens when I mow grass :(

There were a lot more things discussed BUT I had two questions for my guest: 1) do the hutches look big enough for the calves to live in? 2) do the cows look happy? The answer to BOTH was yes.

At the end of two hours I was EXHAUSTED because I never talk that much, BUT I hope it was a good experience for them. And if it became a yearly thing that would be awesome, they would be able to see how things change; because every day here is different.

#happyfarmer

why I am a small dairy

When we talked about starting our own dairy farm we never imagined milking 400 cows.  We currently milk 60 cows and that is definitely enough to keep my farmer and I busy.  I enjoy visiting bigger dairy farms and learning how they operate, but it just isn’t for me.  A lot of farms around us milk more than we do so the question of whether or not we will grow seems to come up. With the trend being to grow I wonder, can a small farm exist? I want to believe they can, that they also have a place in this business.  And for anyone who wants to know why I'm just not on the bandwagon to expand here are a handful of my reasons:

Our barn.  Our barn has 63 free stalls and narrow alleys so it comfortably holds 55 cows.  Cow comfort is an important part of good milk production and happy animals; our cows don’t excel when we have more than 65 head in there.  In the summer we do let the cows out onto a small pasture which helps but in the winter months we don’t have that option.  To expand our herd we would need to build an addition to the barn or (more preferably) build a new, more up to date barn.  At this time building a free stall barn is not a possibility.

We are only 1 family.  Many farms are still family owned, even if they milk a large number.  As the farm continues through generations there are more family members involved and the need to support those families grows.  My husband and I started our own dairy farm so at this time we only need to support one family of 5.  Also, I have three little kiddos who are young and need us a lot.  As our herd grows the labor involved to run the operation grows and I would rather spend more time in the house with   my kiddos than in the barn playing in cow poop.  Yes, I could hire a few employees to help with the workload but I'm not ready to go there.  

Available land.  The area in which our farm is located is populated by other dairy farmers, beef farmers and cash croppers.  As our herd increases we struggle to find more land so we can feed the animals.  We could grow and just purchase the feed we are unable to grow ourselves but that is an expense that needs to be considered as well.

We are young.  We started our farm when we were 23 & 24 and jumped in with both feet.  It seems crazy to think that we could sell  out and do something different but the option needs to be there.  I want to keep the farm small so that if one of us decided to try a new career or if we chose to stop milking cows it would be easy for someone to manage and grow as they desired.

I am tired of growing.  For almost eight years we have been building and growing this business and at some timed it has felt like we were sliding backwards.  Our herd grew from 6 cows to a total count of over 160.  We have  converted an old barn into a milking facility, then started over building a new parlor & milk house, we have built a house & pole barn, and we have built a cow barn.  We went from a newly married couple to a family of five in just 6 years which  is full of exhaustion! I am tired of growing and expanding and to be honest I just want a break.

If there is a farm that milks a few cows or a lot of cows they all have their own struggles and accomplishments, heartbreaks and road blocks. For us, for now; being a small farm that operates efficiently is the goal. 

The kind of farm wife I am

I'm the kind of farm wife that sees a green tractor without a cab, not a JD4020.

I'm the kind of farm wife that says we have a cool glass jar the milk goes through before it pumps into the tank, not a glass receiving jar.

I'm the kind of farm wife that makes hamburger helper, not casserole.

I'm the kind of farm wife who names her cows and their calves and can tell you their dams and grand-dams, not what they score on a body chart.

I'm the kind of farm wife who yells at her farmer when he is being a jerk and yells at her kids when they won't listen. I don't keep up on the laundry, I don't mop or clean windows or bake pies.

I'm the kind of farm wife who will bring her husband a beer and tell him to take a day off. I will schedule myself more days than I can handle and eventually hit a wall and break down.

I'm the kind of farm wife who drags her feet on Saturday morning milkings because it's quiet in the barn and as soon as I step inside the house the real work begins.

I may not be the kind of farm wife he wanted.

I may not be the kind of farm wife I expected myself to be.

But I jumped into this and WE jumped into this. And days are long and kids really dirty a lot of laundry. And we just aren't to the day yet when I feel organized and planned. And I don't know if that day will ever come. And you know.... I don't think I will ever care that the tractor has a number. 

I'm may just need to be good with the kind of farm wife I am.

Being Farm Kids

"I wasn't raised in a barn but I got here as fast as I could"

That definitely apply's to me. My first day in a barn didn't happen until I was 24 years old. My kids on the other hand don't know anything other than life on the farm. And I'm glad for that. For them.

My children have fallen asleep to the sound of pulsator's. They have crawled and learned to walk smack dab in the middle of the parlor. And they've been exposed to more germs in the first 12 months of life than you'd probably like to hear about.

My children have no idea that a lot of families have Saturdays and Sundays off or go on vacations to visit new places. They don't realize that most Dad's and Mom's who work can't take their kids with them. And learning to drive a tractor at 5 is not the norm.

Rain days are their favorite because Dad stays inside. They drink from the well and run around outside exploring until the bugs start to bite. And on good days they get hosed down in the milk house before they take a shower because Mom's tub just can't handle that much dirt.

My children are learning things before they even know they are being taught. Kindness, compassion, loss, independence.This is just life for them and I hope one day they find the beauty in it. I continue to learn every day with them and these memories we make remind me I don't want life any other way. For them or for me.

To see more of our farm or being a farm kid follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/michiganfarmgirl

This is me

I didn't grow up on any type of farm, my knowledge of livestock and crops was from a farm tour I took back in the first grade.

When I say my husband is determined, I don't say it lightly. He knew he wanted to be a dairy farmer from an early age and he worked so hard to get his own equipment and a barn to start in. I am sure our parents sometimes wish we had chosen a different path, but they support us and that means the world.

Three weeks after we said "I do" we started our own dairy farm.  Now all I talk about is cows, well my kids and cows.

We have three children, 6, 4 and 20 months. Having my children grow up on the farm is crazy, but in a good way. They are learning things that I hope they carry with them for life.

For me.... I work on the farm and most days with manure in my hair. I own more barn clothes than good clothes and when I put make-up on my kids think we are doing something special. 

This farm is far from perfect, but we are working at it day by day. Also, our farm doesn't operate like anyone else's so I'm not going to try and educate anyone. I just want to show you what we do, because I think our farm life is kind of cool.

Follow along daily on Facebook and Instagram @ Michigan Farm Girl

Farm on. -Nicole

Have passion

A friend of mine from high school commented a while back that it is hard to believe I am now a farmer. I would have to agree. But, I love being a dairy farmer. I never EVER would have predicted this would be my life or that I would feel so "passionate" about it.

Having your own business takes a lot out of you. It puts a lot of strain on your relationships. And when you feel like you are failing you need to rely on something. I have to be passionate about this life. I have to acknowledge and appreciate the love, dedication and hard work that we put in every day.

When I started farming I had absolutely no idea about anything. I had never touched a cow, owned a pair of rubber boots or fed a baby calf. It isn't just about having a few cows, squirting some milk and bringing in the dough. 

It's being 34 weeks pregnant and my husband had the flu and I milked the cows by myself. It's a business that doesn't close its doors when the owner is ill.
It's working two jobs off the farm and my daughter was at daycare for 11 hours because my husband was running the farm alone. So many of her milestones were witnessed by everyone except her parents.

Its friends who don't invite us out anymore because for years we just couldn't find the time (or energy). The wedding receptions we show up to when the food is put away (thank goodness for family members who save us a plate). And it's when my kids haven't seen their dad in a week because he is out in the fields.

If you own your own business these are the sacrifices that come with it. This is the choice we make.
So right now, when business isn't so good and every day I go out to the barn I lose a little more. Right now when I refuse to cut corners on cow feed or comfort but tell my family no to eating out. Right now it is passion keeping us going. Farm on.