Illinois Farm Families Blog

Spring is right around the corner!  There are so many things to get excited about in the springtime.  The grass growing, flowers blooming, and a new crop of sweet little calves running around.  It won’t be very long before we we’ll be planting corn.  It will be time for meals in the fields, tractor rides, and fixing the guys supper at 10:00pm.  The kids will be daydreaming at school about being outside in the beautiful weather and enjoy being in it when they get home.  We’ve moved the clocks ahead and the longer days will begin.

To start off the busy spring season we have hogs that are ready to ship. This week we weighed the hogs to allow us to know which ones are ready to go.  We got these pigs in as 15 pounders last October.  My daughters spent a great deal of time playing with them when they were little. It’s a little more difficult to roll around with 200 pound pigs, so the girls don’t hop in with them now.  They enjoyed us having wean to finish hogs this time.  For the last 14 years we have raised feeder to finish hogs, which arrive at 50 pounds.  Although it was a little more work, it was fun to have the babies to raise.  

The most exciting part of spring on the farm from my point of view is new calves.  One group of our cows calved this fall, but our heifers should start calving around April 1st.  The heifers are the cows that are having babies for the first or second time.  Even though they are new moms, they know just what to do.  Watching those little calves run around the pasture is one of the best views.  They are so darn cute.  The warm weather and the sunny days make for a great time for calving.  Our daughters are great helpers when it comes to tagging the new calves and keeping track of their births.

We are about three weeks away from planting corn.  A load of seed corn was delivered this week and is in the shed awaiting going in the ground.  The guys are working on the planter to make sure that it is fully ready to go, that all parts and systems are set.  There are many, many decisions that go into each planting season, so we are always trying to stay educated on the latest technologies to make each crop the best it can be.

Right now it is cold, windy and snow, but hopefully in a few weeks the weather will have made a turn for the better and we’ll be hot and heavy in the spring farming season.

Stacy Schutz is is a farmer, wife, and mother of two daughters located in central Illinois. She farms with her family; raising corn, cattle and hogs. She loves her animals, food and is happy that they go hand in hand!  You can find out more about her at her blog, From Our Farm to You.

I was debating what blog topic to write for the Illinois Farm Families website this week.  While I was out helping Chad feed the cattle on one of the unusually warm days we’ve had, I thought about how much easier it is to care for all the critters when the weather is warm.  But, then I got to thinking about the terrible heat of the past summer and decided that each season has it pros and cons.  My preferences are spring and fall!  For winter things would go a little smoother when if we didn’t have to worry about frozen waters, cold calves, heaters not working, etc.  In the summer things would go smoother if we didn’t have to haul water, worry about overheated animals, or storms that cause power outages.

Our hogs are raised in climate controlled buildings.  There are sensors that we set to control the temperature, air flow, fans, and ventilation.  We make adjustments as the hogs grow. We are raising a group of wean to finish pigs right now.  They require a little bit more TLC at the beginning.  They were started with special feed mats and heat lamps to get them growing well.  As they have matured, the mats and lamps have been removed and they are eating out of the regular feeder in each pen.  This winter we have not had to worry about frozen pigs, bedding them down, slopping through the mud to feed them or trying to keep them cool in the summer.  Hogs can’t sweat and can get overheated easily. It has been 15 years since we switched to feeding out all our hogs inside.  It was an excellent choice for us and the hogs are all the more comfortable for it.

Our cattle are pretty easy to care for, but there are challenges in the winter and the summer.  In the winter we deal with frozen automatic waters and hydrants, the cattle require extra bedding in their shelters and extra feed to keep them warm and full.  Newborn calves can have a harder time keeping warm and when the weather yo-yo’s it is harder to keep everyone healthy – cattle and people included.  We are still hauling water to the wells in the winter and we have to keep our water trucks unfrozen to do that.  The summer months we need to keep the cattle cool.  The bulls don’t always breed as well when it is hot – just too hot to do their business.  The summer drought kept the grass from growing much.  We started feeding hay a lot earlier, feed prices went up, and we hauled water to the wells.

We love what we do, even with all the challenges that are faced.  Raising livestock is rewarding.  There is nothing like seeing a newborn spring calf running and bucking through the pasture, or sitting in pen with little piglets chewing on your boots.  The pros definitely outweigh the cons in raising livestock.

Stacy Schutz is a farmer, wife, and mother of two daughters located in central Illinois. She farms with her family; raising corn, cattle and hogs. She loves her animals, food and is happy that they go hand in hand!  You can find out more about her at her blog, From Our Farm to You.

For the first time in my history on Schutz Farms (over 18 years) we are considering chopping silage to feed our cattle this winter. During non-drought conditions we utilize wet DDG’s as a part of our cattle feed.  It is a by-product of the ethanol making process, it is a nutritional feed and it mixes well with straw.  We have purchased the wet DDG’s for as low as $15 a ton with is usually running around $50 a ton.  Yesterday we purchased two loads for $120 a ton and it is getting harder to get any loads at all.  The dried version, which we use in our hog feed, prices are rising as well.

This summer, before the rain stopped, we baled a few hundred round straw bales to use with our DDG’s as feed for the winter.  The cattle won’t really eat the straw without a wet feed to mix it with.  That brings me back to the point about silage.  We haven’t used any silage, only because we didn’t need to.  Hopefully in the next couple of weeks we will be chopping and bagging some to have a good quality wet feed for the winter.

This year has been unlike any in the recent past.  There are a many farmers and ranchers that are selling large parts of their cattle herds because they just don’t have any feed.  Their fields won’t have any crops produced, their pastures have no grass, and it is too expensive to purchase enough to feed through the winter.  We are lucky that we have corn that is able to be used as wet feed as well as shell corn this fall.  Many farmers don’t have that luxury this year.  We are trying out different feeding methods to feed our cattle.

In January I wrote a post about too much rain… http://schutzfarms.wordpress.com/2012/01/26/rain-a-blessing-and-a-curse/.  I had no idea that we would be so short on rain this summer.

Please keep farmers and ranchers in your prayers.  We are trying our best to feed our families and yours.  The prices of groceries will go up slightly over the next year, but remember even with the drought affecting our food supply, the prices will only go up 3-4%.  In the grand scheme of things, it’s not that much.  It’s also really important to remember that even with the drought we have enough corn in the US to produce food and fuel.  We can feed everyone and make ethanol.  The by-products from the ethanol are a great feed source!  In time the rains will return and a new crop year will begin.  Everything will even back out and we will continue to produce the most economical and healthy food supply any country has!

Stacy Schutz
Farmer
White Hall, IL

It's days like today that make me dread the rain.  It is about 33 degrees rainy, misty and windy.  Days like these make it hard on our outdoor livestock.  It is easy to get wet and chilled and like humans, that makes your immune system work harder.  It is muddy and sloppy, one degree colder and at least things would be frozen.  Now on the other hand, our wells are really low from lack of rain throughout the summer and fall.  That means any moisture we get is a blessing, so I shouldn’t complain!  Easier said than done.

The hoop!

Today I am thankful that a few years back we built a large hoop building to feed cattle in.

 We have cows and calve them in one pasture and then when the babies are weaned they get moved into the hoop. They have the hoop and the pasture next to it, but today they are penned up in the hoop with fresh bedding, fresh water, and plenty of feed.

The cattle playing with their straw bedding.

If we would open the gate, they wouldn’t go out.  They like the hoop!

The calves are dry and content, just the way we like them.  If they were out in the pasture with no shelter, there’s a pretty good chance that some of them would not feed good in a few days and that is never fun.

Our hogs are pretty well off, too!  They live in a temperature controlled environment with the same amenities the cattle have; they are dry, fed, watered, and safe from predators.

Happy pigs.

I forgot to mention predators with the cattle.  We have a lot of coyotes around here and they are hungry. We lost two baby calves this fall to coyotes, but I digress.  The hogs also have fans and sprinklers for the really hot days during the summer.

The horses tend to be out in the weather the most, but this seems to be by choice.  They have a couple of barns they can go in and there is hay inside for them, but they stand outside and eat anyway.  I’m sure they know what they need to be comfortable, smart critters.  At least all of our animals have the shelter they need to stay safe and healthy, so there is another blessing!

Chad and Lana draining a field.

Farmers deal with precipitation and lack of all year long.  That is nothing new, but it doesn’t mean it can’t be frustrating at times.  Growing our crops is extremely dependent on the weather.  Too much rain and you can’t plant because of the mud and too little and the corn won’t grow.   We have had times when we have to dig drenches to help drain the fields.

The past few weeks we are having some field tile put in to help with the wet spots.  There is always work to be done!

In need of tile!

Getting the tile!

So, back to work for me on this rainy nasty, blessing of a day!  There are always jobs to do inside.  I hope you and your animals stay warm and dry.

Stacy Schutz
White Hall, Illinois

 Stacy's blog, From Our Farm To You,  gives a little insight into farm life in Central Illinois.