BMancastei' Farming, Saturday, June 3, 1995 Dairy Lifestyle Improves With Grazing, Season Production JOYCE BUPP York Co. Correspondent AIRVILLE (York Co.)— Keeping up with six miles of fence could be considered almost a full time job by many farmers. But for the Melvin and Barbara Marks family, the six miles of fencing crisscrossing their Air ville farm has lessened the time crunch on their dairy operation. That fencing encloses and sepa rates their 50 tillable acres into 22 paddocks, each one and one-half acres, used for intensive rotational grazing of their 40-head dairy herd. From early April through late fall, the Marks’ registered Hols teins live outside on grass, return ing to the bam only for their twice-daily milkings. The bene fits, say the couple, have been many. “I can’t remember the last cys tic ovary we had in a cow. We’ve had one twisted stomach in the last three years, and I haven’t trimmed a hoof in four years,” said Melvin Marks. Forage harvest equipment use is also way down, along with diesel fuel bills. Manure hauling time has been pared. And moving the cows several times daily offers some quality family time for Mel, Barb, and their three daughters. “We wouldn’t go back to dairy ing the other way,” said Barb. “He has more time with the family, rather than being out planting com and baling until nine or ten o’clock at night. When you’re a young mother with young child ren, that’s important.” Now the Markses, recently named 1995 Outstanding Young Cooperator winning couple for Maryland and Virginia Milk Pro ducers Cooperative, are nudging their herd toward seasonal produc tion, to gain even greater herd effi ciencies from intensive grazing. Melvin Marks switched from field harvesting to herd harvesting of forages four years ago, in the spring of 1992. After hearing and reading about others successfully using intensive grazing tech niques, he parked his tractors, til lage, and forage harvest equip ment and began stringing fence. “We had always let the dry cows have the run of the farm any fpMESTEA mKm imL As Melvin Marks swung aside a single strand of fence to a new paddock, the fami ly’s milking herd followed right on his heels. Waiting In the wings to clean up leftov ers In the previous location were the bred heifers and dry cows. A system of move able plastic tubs and hoses make water available to all the Marks’ 22 paddocks. way over the winter,” he said. “But when we first turned the milking herd out that Erst day, April 24, they didn’t seem to know what to do.” An early spring had pushed the grass that first year and growth was already higher than was desir able. Some was wasted during the season because the herd could never catch up with the lushness, pushed by plentiful summer rains. Marks ultimately rotary mowed some paddocks to maintain the grazing rotation schedule. But it was a learning season, one on which the couple has since buiit and fine-tuned -with each succes sive year. Thirty of the 50 acres of pad docks are pastured the most inten sively, planted to a combination of alfalfa and orchardgrass. The other 20 acres, sown with Ladino clover, perennial ryegrass and birdsfoot trefoil, are grazed if the summer becomes hot and dry and baled for hay if not needed for pasturing. A parcel of rented ground nearby provides additional haylage and forage crops, plus added disposal acreage for wint er’s lagoon-held manure. ‘The cows love the alfalfa and orchardgrass, but don’t seem to like the clover mix quite as well.” said Marks of his pasture mixes. Milking cows go onto grass just as early as it starts to grow, usual ly about April 1. During periods of fastest growth, the paddocks may be split into halves or thirds, and grazed portions of the day. Graz ing rate averages to about one pad dock per day over the season, Marks figures, unless mid summer weather turns extremely hot and droughty. Water is available in all pad docks through a system of hoses and moveable plastic barrels. Additional watering troughs are on this summer’s things-to-do list. While Marks purchased a flexi ble tine harrow to drag the pas tures and break up manure clumps, he rarely uses it. Grass diet manure remains loose and usually disappears into the soil after a single soaking rainfall. “It’s almost amazing, but the bacteria and the earthworms in the ground really help break down the manure. We’ve always tried to I • V V ** 5- '-Zf v v> * * , - -vV v> sn. %. a Melvin and Barbara - J 95 Young joperator Couple winner for Mary land and Virginia Milk Producers Cooperative. Four years ago, the Markses switched to Intensive-grazing dairying and are now adjusting their herd toward a seasonal pro duction pattern. They find they now have more time for family and community activi ties with their daughters, from left, Erin, Nicole, and Trisha. Helfers are right behind and eagerly waiting for fresh grass when the Marks’ daughters walk out to move the fence ahead in the narrow grazing strips of timothy clover used for young stock. From left are Nicole, Trisha, and Erin. avoid harsh chemicals fend fertiliz ers as much as possible, even before grazing. You can hardly walk through the pastures in the morning without stepping on earthworms, plus the various bugs and birds also help with break 5 * » V t ' i down,” said Marks. Manure consistency is a gauge Marks uses to regulate his feeding of other components. Both dry hay of good quality and a rougher, higher-fiber type are available to cows daily, along with the grass. High-moisture com and a soybean meal round out the milking herd diet. In-barn feed consumption drops to less than half when grass becomes the diet mainstay. “The cows generally get grain JOYCE BUPP York Co. Correspondent Bupp has been a correspon dent and columnist for Lancaster Farming since the late ’7os. Her weekly column is published in the York Dispatch. Bupp’s work has also published in Hoard’s Dairyman, Holstein World, Farm Journal, and the Dairy men News. She is chairman of the Souvenir Booklet committee for the June 1995 National Hols tein Convention, hosted in Pittsburgh. In 1993, Bupp was named World Dairy Expo’s Dairy Woman of the Year. She serves on the corporate and coastal divi sion boards of Mid-America Dairyman and is secretary of the board of Baltimore-area Dairy Council. The Bupps also have a daught er, Patricia Bacha, a business and computer professor at Portland Community College. Portland, Oregon. 1 ; and hay around lunchtime and they’ll come in from the pastures, if they want it, and then go right back out again. It almost seems that as soon as they consume some fiber, they’ll want more grass,” Barb said. “We haven’t force fed any min erals in two years,” Marks said about the feeding program. Sever al free choice minerals are offered, and the cows seem to naturally (Turn to Pag* B 5) jpplynn . Valleys, York County, Is the home of Joyce Bupp, hus band Leroy and their son Rich, a 1995 Penn State ag buslness/technology major who has returned home to farm with the family. The Bupp family milks 200 head of registered Holstelns and farms 800 acres of corn, hay, and soybeans.
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