Come Calving with Us at Parsons Creek

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April 1, 2024

It's dark, I turn on no lights, slow motions prevail. I walk the worn creaky steps to the old kitchen door, dawn my coveralls like generations before me and make my way to the truck; time for 0300 am calf checks. Nature is incredible and often calves are birthed without our assistance. However, we do have to intervene sometimes - if it's rainy, windy, or cold, if it's twins, if it's a first time mama who's not quite sure what to do with her calf yet. We bring them inside and care for them: towel them off, put them in a warming hut and give them a bottle. Very much an interpersonal experience. Our cow calf operation allows us to be with the animal from the day of its birth.

If you like gator rides at 0300 am, you might be a cattle farmer. Admittedly not all parts of the job are glamorous, but if the reward is seeing a new baby calf nurse its Mama for the first time, I'm in. We're in. Here at Parsons Creek our family has been sharing calf-checking duties for five generations!

The first generation of Parsons Creek farmers- my great great grandparents, Greenfield and Ruth.

My daughter Austin just turned one, and she loves her "boo-cows" (we are working on M's). Driving her around on cow checks pointing out all the signs of a laboring mama; circling, looking for a protected area, bedding down in tree patches or heavy brush, the look of a lady who is o-v-e-r-it! We'll be back to check on her. Captains log, 0700 hours, we have a bouncing baby. This one will be hers to name; all of the grandkids get to name their own calf.

Two of this, and twelve of that, six twins on Parsons Creek map! We saw six sets of twins in 2024— compared to the two sets in 2023, this was a big year for babies! According to my interweb research, anywhere from 1-2% of the herd in beef cattle births are twins. So it's not as crazy as you might think to have 6 look-alike babies.

Spotlights aren't for everyone, especially not freshly born twin calves!

Approximately 100 calves are expected to join us on the farm this year. Like humans, cows have a nine month gestation period. Unlike humans, calves come out and immediately try to stand and run— could you imagine? Here at Parsons Creek we calf twice a year, once in the late winter and again in the fall. Mamas and babies stay together allowing the babies to nurse for up to 8 months. After 8 months calves are sorted and given a pasture of their own to graze freely.

Thus begins their life as a cow, one of the herd.

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All hands-on deck: no doctor notes during silage week. Sweater weather is here! September means back to school and silage season at Parsons Creek. Silage brings to life the rumble of tractors, corn debris in the air, everyone works sun up to sun down. And I do mean everyone! Sixth generation farmer over-seeing the silage process What is silage? The technical definition of silage is “preserved forage-like pasture (grass), alfalfa, grains, or corn.” The beauty of silage is it takes minimal acres to feed a lot of cows. At Parsons Creek, we plant a bunch of corn on just a few acres, and that yields enough for our herd through the winter. Plus, we find it to be the best feed for our purebred Angus herd— they absolutely LOVE it! Why do we make it? What do we do with silage? Like all plants, our pasture grass goes dormit in the winter with the snow and wet. But our cows still need to be fed! That's where silage comes into play. Each morning throughout the winter, we put hay and silage in a big blender to supplement our herd’s feed. Our herd nutritionist tests our hay (protein and nutrient levels) and tells us how much silage we need to mix in for optimal nutrition. Big blender hard at work But we use silage throughout the rest of the year, too. We feed our calves silage as an intermediary when they’re learning how to graze on their own. And when we’re finishing cows, we dump silage in lines on the ground and the cows follow along, eating the hay and silage mixed together. They love it. Cows come running when the silage bucket comes out What’s the process like for making it? Long story short, we harvest the corn, grind it up into chunks and ferment it in a pit. Although the process seems minimalistic, that doesn’t mean its quick or easy. There’s a good two weeks in early September where all we do is chop silage. Kids to grandparents, it’s all hands on deck. I asked Christian (my brother, the farmer) for a little bit more of an explanation: “We plant corn in the spring - let it grow - get it over ripe - then we chop the entire plant stalk. The only thing not harvested is the roots. Inspecting over-ripe corn Tractor and wagon chopping and collecting silage Then we pile ours in a pit to ensile, and pack it tight-tight-tight. Sixth generation farmer standing on packed silage pit Once you cut off the oxygen it will ferment. It’s the natural process of preserving something - equivalent to Nanny canning tomatoes,” he told me. Why corn silage? We make and feed corn silage here at Parsons Creek. Corn naturally has a high sugar and starch content which helps our cows survive and thrive through the winter months. We find finishing cows with corn silage, makes the end product taste that much better. What are the benefits of silage? Another reason we grow corn is that it acts as a cover crop. It fixes nitrogen in the soil, and keeps the ground covered. Once we finish chopping the corn, we go in right away with our no-till drill (remember our last blog?) and start planting the next cover crop before the weeds get a chance to take hold. And these next cover crops are especially important because these will be the ones that stay in the ground till Spring. No-till drill hard at work Is the hard work worth it? When you're surrounded by family on days of work or rest, it's easy to say: yes, it’s absolutely worth it. Austin and Papa giving the girls a tasty corn snack.

Come Calving with Us at Parsons Creek

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