Chute Season

Life as a farm animal vet has a rhythm.  Although the dairy farm calendar has become pretty consistent since dairy farmers need calves and new milking cows year round, the seasons still dictate activities.  Winter is often the time to make lots of milk since the previous season's forages are stable and cows love the colder weather.  Spring is planting season and calving season on farms that depend on pasture.  Summer is the time to make hay and fall is corn harvest.  Somehow, when the fieldwork is demanding demands on veterinarians lessen.


If Mamma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.

What's going on out there?

Work with our other species definitely has a lot more seasonality. Spring is lambing season and calving season for beef herds. Summer brings parasites and flies carrying pinkeye. Fall is breeding season for our shepherds. In beef herds, fall is the time for weaning spring calves and confirming pregnancies for next springs calving season. This past week was chute week as we spent time neutering calves and checking mom's for next year's calf.  Mom wasn't happy to be separated from junior and I know how she feels - I was reminded of the day we left our oldest son at his dorm. 


 

This week I worked with a herd of Scottish Highlanders in Hinesburg and a herd of mixed beef cows in Westport, NY in the foothills of the Adirondacks.  The highlanders are interesting to walk through a chute - a real exercise in patience.  Fortunately the owners have a lot of experience and so do the cows.  The chute has to be extra wide to allow hose horns to pass which causes problems when we run calves through.  Wide enough for Momma's horns means wide enough for junior to turn around.  Still, with the owner's experience working with these animals the day went pretty well.  The moms had already been separated so they watched from the pasture and occasionally added commentary and criticism.

 

The New York farm took over an hour traveling on twisty country roads to reach.  It was a beautiful fall day so the drive seemed more like sightseeing.  The farm itself had tons of personality; old dilapidated barns and scenic pastures looking out on the Adirondack high peaks in the distance.  We walked the herd through a curved chute based on a design from Temple Grandin and it worked like a charm.  Cows were calm and moved through the facility like they had read the script.  Good news for the farmer as well as our pregnancy check was as successful as he hoped it would be.

 

I think our beautiful fall is at an end.  Today is raw with rain pouring down.  Fortunately I didn't have any outdoor chute calls scheduled during this deluge.  Fortunately I was able to get a spot worked up in my garden yesterday and plant garlic for next year's crop before the rain hit.  I like to think that this is the beginning of next year's garden and the cold winter to come is but a brief hiatus. 

Over the Mountain and other fall adventures in Vermont

Although most of our patients are cows, we do occasionally get to see some other creatures.  Among the most interesting are alpacas.

Alpacas are South American camelids, relatives of llamas and developed from their wild cousin the vicuna.  They have been domesticated in South America for thousands of years, but the first alpacas didn't arrive in North America until around 30 years ago.  My first experience with these unusual animals was in the early 90's on the farm of Pyllis and Alex Kroll.  Alex had a distinguished career on Madison Avenue, and while working at Young and Rubicam was the man who joined Jello and Bill Cosby.  When I worked with him he was head of the ad council - the guys who bring all those public service announcements.  Phyllis bred and showed champion English Pointer dogs.  Our beloved dog Max was a puppy from her kennel.  The Krolls live in a beautiful estate on the shores of Lake Champlain in Charlotte.

The Krolls were ahead of the alpaca curve and we learned a lot about these animals while they maintained a herd.  Ever the forward thinking businessman, Alex Kroll sold his herd of alpacas at the height of their popularity and value.  Alpacas hit their peak about 10 - 12 years ago with many gentleman farmers entering  the industry.  In the past few years, though, the market for animals and breeding services has been pretty flat, almost collapsing during the recession.  Lately, however, there seems to be a bit of renewed life.



These alpacas have the best view in Vermont

Many of our alpaca clients have sold their animals during this downturn, though some have remained in the business.  Camelid associations still have annual shows and it was this for reason, vaccinating the herd and examining them for their show papers, that I made a trip over the Appalachian Gap to Fayston to see Craig's herd.  Craig is a Ph.D marine biologist who has traveled around the world and has worked in oceans from Indonesia to the Caribbean.  Craig's sister is a reporter for NBC who often appears on the Today show.  Now that's a high achieving family.  I once met her in the barn but I didn't recognize her even wearing her network parka.  So much  for my celebrity acumen.  On the other hand, that's probably why she vacations in Vermont.  Lately, Craig has been assessing the biology of the waters around private islands owned by the 1% in the Caribbean.  Hey, it's a living.

Top of the Gap

Approaching the Appalacian Gap

Craig recently married a ski instructor who teaches budding Olympians at the Green Mountain Valley School in Warren.  He moved his animals from a barn in Shoreham to the top of a mountain at the end of the road with a sweeping view of the Mad River Valley.  In order to get to his farm I have to cross the Green Mountains at the Appalachian Gap, the same route I take in the wintertime on my way to the slopes.  Craig's farm is one of the very few farms we see on the other side of the mountain.  It was a grey fall day but the foliage was beautiful and made the trip worthwhile.  The trip took me by a couple of ski areas, whetting my appetite for snow.

 

Top of Bragg Hill with Sugarbush resort behind

 





Speaking of mountains, last week I was able to hitch a ride on a packing tractor as it compressed corn silage in a bunker silo at the Vorsteveld farm.  This pile of corn on one of my largest dairies is often called Mount Vorsteveld by the locals.  This year's corn crop is exceptional and the pile is as high as I've ever seen it.  When it's complete it should hold between 10 - 12,000 tons of corn silage.  Watching the corn fill the bunker silos is as much a signature of fall for me as the falling leaves.  The corn must be carefully spread and compressed so that it ferments completely making for a stable, nutritious feed for dairy cows.  The Vorstevelds are renown for their forage quality and that quality is reflected in the excellent health and high production of their 

herd. Watching the pile grow is like looking at a river of milk.  It's a beautiful thing.

Roots

 

 

I've just returned from visiting my family in Indiana and celebrating my Dad's 80th birthday with my brothers and sister.  Nancy and I picked up my brother Dave in Albany at the Amtrak station after a ride from his home in Brooklyn and headed west.  As the landscape became flatter and flatter we all reminisced about our upbringing in the great Midwest.

 

It was pretty much a given that while we were in the area we would make a pilgrimage to Grabill, a town of just over 1000 people in northeast Indiana.  Grabill stands on land that was my Great Grandfather's farm.  He sold half of the land to Clifford Grabill, then when the railroad came through just after the turn of the (20th) century the town was born and the population took the name easier to spell.

   

Squash at Smucker's market

Dairy Case

 

After a visit to Smucker's Amish farmer's market for some supplies for Dad's birthday dinner, we headed across country to Grabill, passing Yaggy cemetery on the way.  This small plot is home to the earliest generations of American Klopfensteins - including our patriarch John born in Balfort, France in 1813.  The Klopfensteins were Swiss Anabaptists and had been expelled from their native Switzerland for religious purposes.  They had settled in the Alsace-Lorraine region in the early 1700's before emigrating to the new world, settling in the fertile farmland of the Midwest.  Northeast Indiana and Northwest Ohio have a large population of Swiss, including many Klopfensteins. The name means "pounding stone" in German and my ancestors were probably quarry workers or stone masons.  When they came to the Midwest they established small family farms and lived much as the Amish do today.  I have Amish blood and am only a couple of generations removed from these hard working people.

 

The Grabill area certainly feels like home. We made sure and stopped by the Steury farm - home of a young Amish nanny that my father hired to care for us after the death of my mother. I was seven at the time, and the oldest of four, so my Dad needed the help. It was at the Steury farm I was first exposed to farm life as we often visited the homestead and sometimes stayed the night. Looking across the small pasture brought back memories of sleeping under layers of quilts and stepping onto a cold hardwood floor (with a decision to make - brave the walk to the outhouse or use the chamberpot). Family dinners around a simple hardwood table with the soft, flickering light of a kerosene lamp. Heartfelt prayers followed by meals of beef and noodles with pillowy, thick homemade noodles, warm just-baked bread and fresh vegetables simply prepared. I like to think that the Amish aesthetic of hard work, simplicity, honesty and generosity somehow found a purchase in my childhood self that has lasted the years since. I do know their love of animals and farming found its way into my blood.

 



The Menno Steury Farm near Grabill, Indiana



P.S.  While driving through Indiana farm country I couldn't help but notice the effects of this year's drought.  Cornfields were stunted with misshapen ears full of mold.  This year, at least, we have the advantage in the rainy Northeast. 

Indiana Corn

Vermont Corn