Illinois Farm Families Blog

You know you’ve had too much rain when your rain gauge can’t measure it.

I cannot remember ever getting this much rain at once. I guesstimated we received a solid 6 inches in less than 24 hours last week. I remember the Flood of ’93, when I wondered if the sun would ever shine again. Yet the river that borders our family’s home farm crested at or near a record high this week. The river in a short time spilled into all the unbelievable places it flooded 20 years ago and more.

In the past week, the stories flowed as much as the excess water. Local schools cancelled. Sump pumps sold out in the nearest city. For a short time, our small town’s railroad viaduct likened a swimming pool. Culverts roared like freight trains.

Meanwhile, our cold, wet fields got colder and wetter. And now some fields need repair before planting.  For many of the region’s farmers, the torrential rain cut soils and moved corn and soybean residue into piles.

The rain gauge and below-normal temperatures are getting a lot more attention than we’d like these days. That’s because “these days” we’re supposed to be planting corn and soon soybeans. As frustrating and mood-dampening as it is, we can’t control the weather. If I could, the highest temperature would be 85 degrees during corn pollination and it would snow on Christmas Day (big flakes, light accumulation).

We’re just anxious, prepped like sprinters in the starting block. And it’s taking a long time for the starting gun to fire. We enter the week of what university experts usually consider prime corn planting time, roughly April 20 to 25 in our area. And we cannot get in the field. We still have time to plant crops into May, and they can be good crops. We keep an eye on the forecast and will feel better when we get through planting season and enter growing season – when timely, gentle rains are always welcome!

In the meantime, we fished in the farm pond on a couple warmer days and completed rainy day jobs. The guys repaired a barn roof. They added windows and doors to a potting shed (rather a remodeled old hog house). Here we care for more than 50 chicks. Most are broilers, intended for meat production and will be shared with family and friends. About a half dozen more will start to lay eggs late this summer.

 

The chicks certainly have been a better sign of spring than the weather.

 Joanie Stiers
Williamsfield, IL

A WatchUsGrow.org reader recently asked us to define "modern farm equipment," so we put the challenge to our bloggers to share what's new on their farms. This is the second part of that series.

This is the controller in our hog nursery. We have 2400 little pigs in there from the time they are 3 weeks old until they reach around 60 pounds. This panel regulates the air temperature, which is very important to pigs since they do not have sweat glands to regulate their own body temperatures. The controller also turns fans on and off to regulate the interior temperature for optimum pig comfort.

The controller also runs the feeder system. Gone are the days of slopping the pigs with kitchen scraps. Today’s pigs are fed several different, carefully-balanced diets as they grow. The ingredients are ground, blended and then distributed through pipes to feeding stations in each pen to make sure the pigs get the nutrients they need.

It also has an alarm that alerts us by phone if the power has failed, the temperature gets too hot or too cold or noise levels get too high (an indication that something is upsetting the animals). This doesn’t replace people checking on the pigs and the equipment. We still walk through the barns every day, but the alarm gives us extra peace of mind knowing that if something goes wrong when we’re not there, we’ll know about it right away. Hopefully, that means we can keep our pigs healthy, comfortable and well-fed.

Jen Sturtevant
Lanark, Illinois

Meet the Sturtevants - a family farm for five generations

Our family has farmed in northwest Illinois for five generations. One part of our land has belonged to the Sturtevants for 150 years! This ground has seen the desperation of the great depression and was once planted with three-horse hitch teams. Now it’s farmed using huge four-wheel drive John Deere tractors and equipment (yes, had to say John Deere, it is a big deal to us farmers what color our tractors are!).

And, our farm continues to be a family affair. Our boys, Bryson and Jaxson, love to ride our gator (a small farm utility vehicle) around in the fields to pick the big rocks and boulders that work their way to the surface in the spring thaw, so the rocks don’t damage machinery later in the season.

When my husband Brian and I first started farming with his family, we had a sow-to-finish hog farm. By 1998, we decided to switch to a wean-to-finish facility, and we moved all of our pigs to indoor facilities. By doing both of these things, we drastically cut down on sickness and death loss on our farm. Controlled-temperature buildings that keep the pigs out of the elements and a good balanced diet have made our animals happy and healthy. 

 

Now, our piglets are born at a sow farm called Elite Pork near DeKalb, Ill. This is a farm that many family farms own together. This type of collaboration is very common among Illinois pork producers. The sow farm has the perfect set-up and expertise for taking care of sows (mother pigs) and baby piglets, while our farm can provide the best care for pigs as they grow. When the pigs “move in” to our farm, they will stay with the same group of animals as they grow. They develop social relationships with the other pigs and enjoy their space to run around together. You can follow a group of pigs on our farm through the Field Moms’ Acre and Pen.

Farming teaches patience. You have to work hard, and it humbles you. But most of all, farming makes us thankful every day for what we have.

Jen Sturtevant
Hog and grain farmer
Lanark, IL

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.

I’ve missed 114 milkings….in a row.  We knew this was coming, but counting them up just now makes me feel incredibly inadequate, and sad.  You see, I miss the cows.  I miss the smells (good and bad).  I miss talking to the cows.  I miss their mannerisms.  I miss knowing who is milking well, who is sick, and who calved.  I miss the schedule of it all.  I miss working with Brent.
Having a baby changes life.  Many people have laughed & giggled at me, when I tried to say, oh, they’ll just come along – I can still work.  This was true all throughout pregnancy.  I milked cows the night we went to the hospital, but now – someone else sets the schedule.  
There are benefits.  The house is fairly clean, I’m caught up on laundry, the farm books are up to date, and I’m able to prepare a real supper nearly every night.  A real supper – a main dish, vegetable, even the occasional dessert.  We still eat in the living room, but this is a good 1st step.  And, yes, I get to spend nearly all my time with our daughter. 
It’s November – the time of being thankful.  So, I’m thankful: 
For Family – those that are spending more hours in a barn, so I can spend more time with the newest member of our family
For Friends – those that come and help with milkings, and those that watch the baby while I go for X-rays
For Weather – that is fairly cooperative so that the harvest can be completed, and all the chores can get done, and allows for some excursions out around the farm
For Inspiration – Join us for 30 days: mycowsandpigs.blogspot.com, My Generation
For the Future – a beautiful, healthy baby girl that we can teach about farming, and will be milking cows with us soon.
This is why we farm!
Carrie Pollard Po-Cop Dairy Rockford, Ill.

 The cows needed a new barn.  (I mean REALLY needed a new barn!)  After nearly 40 years, the existing barn had simply run its course.  And, of course, we couldn’t just rebuild what we had.  You see, we’ve learned a lot about cows in the last 40 years.  The cow of today is not the same cow of 40 years ago.  She produces more milk, she is bigger, she eats more, she gets hot easier.  However, we hope to make life easier for our cows.  Unlike our house (or most other farmhouses I know), the cows’ house has ceramic tile under the feed bunk for easy plate-lickin’.  They also have bigger bed frames (we call them stalls), and more comfortable mattresses in those beds than the old barn.  We also added almost twice as much of everything to keep the cows cool in the heat:  natural air flow (via higher sides and bigger curtains), forced air flow (fans), and water space.  

 I’m sure within a couple years we’ll come up with the next thing that we’ve learned that will make life easier for the cows, and we’ll implement whatever that next thing is as soon as possible, because we always want what is best for our animals.  We are always learning, and we have to change or adapt whenever we learn something new.  We hope the cows will forgive us for temporarily disrupting their lives while we were under construction this summer, and hope that they will appreciate all these improvements, and thank us in the form of more milk.  The old adage holds very true.  If we take care of the cows, they’ll take care of us. 

Check out the process on Carrie's blog, My Cows & Pigs.

Carrie Pollard
Po-Cop Dairy
Rockford, Ill.