Clawsons Concentrate (Continued from Pago At) Clawsons will then buy com from Auen at the silo on a tonnage bas- “So far we’ve used it all,” George said, adding he purchased 786 tons of com last year that Auen grew chi about 80 acres of the Clawson farm. “Whatever is over and above that, he (Auen) harvests it and takes it home.” The result is that the Clawsons have better quality forage than be fore, more time to comfort their cows, and fewer expenses. In the past it has taken the Clawsons two weeks to pick all their com. Auen’s harvesting equipment will probably take it off the fields in a couple of days, George said. The time saved by not having to work in the fields has let the Claw sons pamper their cows with more clean bedding, more fresh air and fresh water, and a more comfort able bam. “Cow comfort that’s the main thing they stress to us,” George said. The result has been increased milk production. Back in December 1996, the Clawsons’ herd was averaging about 55 pounds of milk per cow per day. Then the Clawsons stop ped crop farming and started spending more time with the Hol steins. “We had nothing un der 70 pounds per cow per day by the summer of 1997,” George said. And by this spring milk production from Claw sons’ S 3 cows had edged up to about 75 pounds per cow per day. The Clawsons pre viously milked three times per day, but this spring they cut back to twice a day. Milk pro duction dropped only by about four pounds per cow per day not sig nificant enough to justi fy the extra work, in George’s opinion. In the old days es pecially during the sum mer the Clawsons easily spent more time in the field than in the bam with the cows. “We just fed, bedded, and milked them,” George said. “The rest of the time was field work.” The Clawsons have found that their in creased presence in the bam during the day en courages the cows to get up and move around more often. And when they do get up, they of ten eat a little more. Eliminating crop fanning also cut some major expenses. “Basically I need only one trac tor now. Before I had four,” George said. “Repair bills just ate us up.” Their equipment maintenance costs now are “next to nothing” because they’re not running ma chinery nearly as much. Dennis noted farm fuel costs have dropped significantly, too, from approximately 4,000 gallons a year as crop farmers to about 1,500 gallons last year while con centrating on the cows. One of the first things the Claw sons did with their extra time was stait a major remodeling of their bam. They began by pulling off pan of the sides. “We opened the bam up to get a better air flow,” George said. “Be fore, we didn’t have an open bam at all. The more we open it up, the better results we see.” He added that even the people caring for the cows feel better with the added light and ventilation. The bam is cleaner now, also. “We scrape the bam every day, and they’re telling us to scrape It twice a day," George said. The Clawsons prefer sand for bedding in the stalls. “Sand is non-organic. It helps curtail the mastitis problem and it keeps the cows cleaner,” George said. Fresh sand is added as often as needed to keep a clean, comfort able pad under the cows. That FREE HEAT - FREE HEAT ■ FREE HEAT - FREE HEAT - FREE HEA' ! 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For example, in the stalls along the bam walls the Clawsons removed one board from the wall at the cows’ eye-level when theyre lying down. The gap allows the cow to gaze out across the pasture while they’re resting and have a breeze in their face. The Clawsons have a few more improvements they want to make. Still to come are curtains for the open sides of the bam and a sprinkler over the feed bunk to keep the cows cooler and encour age them to eat more. In the stalls they want to raise the neck rail about 14 inches so the cows won’t bump their heads when they stand up, and they plan to install brisket boards to position the cows better in the stalls when they lie down. The concentration on cow care at the Clawson farm has made life better not only for the Holsteins but for the Clawsons, too. “The stress factor is tremend ously different.” George said. “When you don’t have the crop end of it, the stress is much less,” especially the tension of coping with the weather at planting and harvesting time. So why aren’t more fanners concentrating on just crop farming NEF4B Belt driven 48 fan with 230 volt I HP energy efficient motor in wood crate with guards $ 335 0 OR MORE! - The Clawsons spend extra time pampering their Hol stelns. From left, George, Dennis, and Glnny Clawson. or milking cows, but not both? “Just tradition,” is George’s ex planation. ‘Traditions are hard to break. It took a lot of years and a lot of people saying to me, ‘You need to specialize’.” Ginny suggests the change may just be natural evolution. 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