Agproud Q. 6 Charity

Question 6. What cause do you care about and how have you supported your favorite charity?

My wife and I strongly feel it is important to help kids. Roughly one in seven kids in our area does not have enough food to eat. Over the years we have helped with several fund drives to help children in our area.

Currently we support our local Back Pack Program. The way this works is children in need are given a back pack full of food and vouchers to take home over the weekend, when they otherwise may not get anything to eat.

I do the easy part, I just donate money. The money is used to purchase the food, and volunteers then fill the back packs. I know the money I give is important, but I do want to say that I feel it is the volunteers who organize this program every year, and the people that take time out from their schedule to help fill the back packs are who really makes this program come to form.

One evening when my wife and I were grocery shopping a little girl who knows my wife came up to her to say hello. This girl was so excited that night because she was going to have pancakes for supper. She received a back pack with pancake mix, fresh fruits, and vouchers for some milk and eggs. She told us that there was enough that she was also going to have pancakes for breakfast the next morning! She even informed us how the back pack program works “these nice people, I never met give money so I can have food to eat”. That comment got both my wife and I choked up. Even though that happened a couple years ago I got a bit teary eyed just typing it.

I want to mention the Back Pack Program got started here by a leadership class through our local Chamber of Commerce. They started this several years ago and it has had a residual lasting effect.

One of my wife’s high school classmates had a little girl with a brain tumor. Another woman in our community wanted to put together a fundraiser to help with medical expenses. She wanted to do an auction and a free will donation lunch. She was asking for help on Facebook. I told my wife to message her and tell her that we would donate enough ground beef to serve at least 600 people, and also a beef bundle as an auction item.

Going back even further we started a fun program at our church. We donated the beef from a calf to our church, and some of it was sold off in a silent auction. The money and the remaining beef were used to serve needy people in our area. The parish really had fun with this. One thing they did was hold a name the steer raffle, to earn some extra money.

We would not be able to do any of these things if we had not been so blessed to be in the cattle biz, and I had not learned the right things from the right people.

Shoo Fly

Every year there are numerous articles about fly control. All of them revolve around using some kind of gimmick for control. Now it’s no mystery why these freebee publications will only write about gimmicks that siphon money out of the pockets of cattle producers. It helps them sell advertising space. They probably also don’t realize there is another way: well managed grazing

I know there are people that read this and want me to provide research to back my claims. I don’t care for scientific research, no matter who conducted it. Here is why, science only tells us how we should act if we want to attain definite ends. So for that research to worth a hoot my cattle, the flies, the weather, and other factors in nature must all act a certain way. Ha! Good luck with that.

Here is what happened for me with better managed grazing. I started putting my cattle into groups of 200 head or more. I use poly wire to split the pasture into smaller grazing cells, and rotate daily to every third day. Cell size will vary based on terrain and water. I rent several different pastures, that are only a few miles apart. I will rotate around one then load the cattle up and haul them to the next pasture, then rotate around that one. (I haul them because I have to cross two major highways, and am surrounded by irrigated corn with no fences around it and I have no help)

One day when I was hauling cattle from one pasture to the next, I had an extension researcher riding along with me. He did the typical routine of rolling up the window every time I loaded and unloaded. He finally noticed that I was not doing the same, and he remarked that there were not any flies getting into the truck. We then looked at the cattle and there were little to no flies on them!

At first we were only interested in how my new grazing system would affect my grass, now we were both interested in following up on how it would affect my cattle and flies. For the next month I had the same results, until I rotated up against the perimeter fence and the neighbor’s cattle bunched up next to mine. Then I had flies, a lot of them. I also ended up with their bull too, I was running stocker heifers.

After loading the cattle up and then moving to the next pasture I still had the flies for a while. This pasture has no neighboring cattle. I rotated as I needed to and eventually the fly load lessened. I think this is because my grazing system breaks the fly cycle. In the short amount of time it takes for a fly to lay an egg and for that egg to become a fly my cattle are gone away from that area.

I have only done this for two years, and have noticed a big difference in fly control. I mentioned the neighbor’s bull for a reason. Long story short they ended up paying for a preg check on my cattle. That got expensive for them in a hurry. The following year, they didn’t turn their cattle out into that pasture until I rotated away from the perimeter fence. That year I didn’t end up with their flies or their bull. To me that one variable right there is why science doesn’t mean much out here. It proves how other people’s sloppiness can affect your plan.

We all know that parasites can affect cattle performance and their behavior, so I don’t feel I need to get into that, to keep this short as possible. I do feel that I should do some cost comparisons.

For my grazing system I had to invest in a fence charger, rolls of poly wire, pigtail posts, a water tank, valve, and portable water line. I bought extra poly wires and posts so I could build fence several cells ahead when I have time, so all I have to do is move the cattle which only takes a little while. My total cost for all this was around $5000. That is a lot of money. Thing is I started this program to help improve the pastures, and it has. This is a small investment when compared to that. Also at the end of the year I still have all that equipment.

If I were to spray my cattle for flies it would cost me $400 for a concentrated solution, that they recommend I mix with water and diesel fuel. The fuel would cost an additional $36. Its by far the cheapest solution. There is labor involved to gather all your cattle in, unless you use a rubber. Here’s the rub for me. Why do you want soak your cattle in a little bit of poison over and over? Second, these products will also kill the good bugs that are essential for a healthy pasture. Not to mention the pests you are trying to get rid of will come back before the beneficial bugs do. How do you assign a cost to that? I am not sure but I can assure you it would be high.

Fly tags would cost me almost $2000. I have used fly tags in the past and they are just crap. In fact when I buy my grass calves, if they already have fly tags in their ears (which is the wrong time to even have them in, leading to the flies building a resistance to them) I cut them out, even though they are brand new.

Then there is using flow through control in your mineral. I’ve tried this and it didn’t make a whole lot of difference. Also I have never gotten a straight answer on how it affects dung beetles. That literally could be a million dollar question that I have not yet got an answer to. If I were to add Altosid IGR to my mineral it would cost me an additional $1600. If I used it in tubs for 60 days it would cost me and additional $1900. (cost difference in tubs with compared to without, so you would also need to add in the cost of the tub/mineral itself) Then begs the question of what do you do with the empty tubs. Around here no one takes them if they are plastic. I can’t help but notice that people around here just leave their empty tubs accumulate in their pastures. Nice uh?

Now for Vet Gun. If I were to purchase this thing it would cost me $1250. That includes CO2 cartridges, gun, and the balls. If I were to go out and start shooting a couple hundred head with this how do you suppose it’s gunna end? If I were to walk into a crowd of people and start shooting them with a paintball gun is the crowd just going to stand there? Heck no! Plus what if I miss and hit one in the eye? To me this just looks like it don’t end well.

Then there are predator wasps. I have a little experience with these guys. I have noticed a little affect with them and the cattle seem to hang around the area where the wasps were. I plan to experiment with them more in the future

Now I didn’t start my grazing system to control flies. I did it so I could look at all my cattle in just a couple hours (I couldn’t do that when I had 50 here 200 there 20 in another pasture and so on. There was too much travel time between pastures). I did it to improve soil and grass, and cut down on less desirable species, while lightening my work load. Using my system I grow more grass. Assuming I only grow a mere 150# an acre more grass, and it’s valued at $60 a ton, there is my $5000 initial investment for water line, tank, posts and poly wire in just the first year! And just a reminder, I still own these things. With the other fly controls, you spend money, use the product and it’s gone. You also are not improving rangeland, or wildlife habitat.

All of these controls take time/labor except the mineral. All of these have a negative impact except the controlled grazing and the wasps. To me it comes down to what kind of person you are. Are you really a steward of the land or not. Are you really a stockman or not. It comes down to your work ethic, and managerial skills.

Daddy's Day of All Stars

When my daughter was four she went through a phase where she was afraid of bugs. It didn’t matter what we said to her about bugs, she was terrified. At the time we also had what we called “Daddy’s Day”. On this day she’d spend most of the day with me, and all of it if the weather would allow. (feeding cattle in the rain or freezing cold is a bit much to ask a little one)

On one of those daddy days I had it with her freaking out about bugs. I came up with a plan on the spot. I asked her if she wanted to go for a four wheeler ride, which I knew she’d be more than eager to. I always have a spade on my wheeler, so I grabbed a fishing pole and we were off. I took her to an outdoor class room, a pasture I rent.

When we got there I got off the wheeler and tried to show her all the different bugs, and tried my best to explain to her how not all of them are bad. I didn’t seem to be getting anywhere with her. If I caught one and tried to show it to her close up she’d freak.

Then we found an All Star team. Dung beetles. I didn’t know much about the other bugs I found, but I know these guys. I simply explained to her the beneficial role these guys play in supporting a healthy pasture, pasture feeds calvies, calvies feed dung beetles, the beetles feed the soil, and soil feeds the grass. We were trying to teach her to recognize patterns, and explaining that cycle like I did helped make sense for her. There also was the element that whatever is good for the calvies is good as a whole.

The beetles we found were rollers. These guys can easily entertain a little one. She became very excited, because she thought they were playing ball, just like she does.

I then took out my spade and turned over some soil. Boom! There was the other All Star team. Earth worms. I again gave her a simple over view of the benefits of earth worms. She seemed to really be catching on.

After finding a way to get through to her and help her realize not all bugs are bad, we took a few worms and headed over to a farm pond that is always good for bull heads, which is just perfect for a kid her age, since they usually bite fast.

I feel it is important to include this last bit. There was a lot going on in the first 400 words, that I’m afraid most may have missed, since the focus was on bugs. First, by setting up a “Daddy’s Day” we have provided a structure where our little girl really has a strong presence of me in her life. She gets exposed to many life lessons that farm life, and commerce provide. As you can tell from this story, I slow down a bit on daddy’s day. I take the time to use our large class room to teach her things, and we also use it for play time. Like four wheeler rides and fishing. The surprising thing is how much I have learned. It is difficult some times to explain things about agriculture to a four year old. But when I hear her explain what she learned to someone else I get to relearn about what I do through her eyes. This has opened my eyes to more things, helping me to learn more, by giving me a fresh perspective. It has also helped me communicate better.