Calculators and Cattle Feed

[Mark Reynolds]

I will give you an EQUIP story. One farm i bought already had an EQUIP plan approved. In order to get 1 water tank and 1 cross fence i had to fence a sky pond. This means a pond with no water running in or out. The NRCS district conservationists that has written the plan hadn't even addressed a spring that ran into a cave on the property. About 5 years later after adding an adjoining farm i used excluding the spring to get a project including a well, several water troughs, lots of cross fencing, brush control, seeding, and more.
I actually don't think the guy writing the first plan ever was on the farm.

The NRCS at its finest. <sigh> More like run amok. The scenario you present is all too common. "plans" get written for single issues/requests from producers all the time, and NRCS personnel don't 'have' the time to go out and address the farms resource concerns properly. To a large degree, the employee won't 'make' time to properly address the issue. I do understand this too. There is A LOT of administrative and pretty much 'pointless' "stuff" (and I'm using nice words) that 'has' to be attended to. A great deal of it comes down to time management skills of the employee. (They don't exist.) What should have been done, and it sounds like you followed up with it @kenny thomas, is that the employee should have come to the farm, did a complete inventory, completed the '9 step planning process', which would have resulted in a RMS (Resource Management System) level plan that identified ideally all, but at least multiple, resource concerns. I don't know how the first plan was originally developed, and it's possible (i have my doubts) that the planning process was followed but the owner (prior to kenny) only wanted the one tank and cross fence and didn't want the other stuff kenny later added with another EQIP contract. I just don't know.

As for the employee writing the plan, which involved construction, never stepping foot on the farm. That should never happen except in the most extreme circumstances, which shouldn't arise to begin with, but the agency sets itself up for this. I do not recommend ANY employee ever do this, including myself. That said. I have done this. I wrote a plan (RMS level) from 250 miles away when a fellow employee contacted me two weeks before the deadline to have the plan written. The employee had never written a grazing plan. Within that plan, with all the obstacles it involved, I included, and got approved, the first (and as so far as I know) the only silvopasture practice that Ohio has ever completed. The state office, up to that point, was dead set against silvopasture (and they may still be) and an employee needed to be just about crazy to even suggest to them (state office) be used in a plan. A plan can be written and written effectively without ever stepping foot on the farm. I don't recommend it.

 

[Mark Reynolds]

No such thing as free money, the government took it from our pockets in the form of taxes. While we have taken emergency assistance for drought and fires, I won't participate in funding for infrastructure etc. I like to make my own decisions how a project is done.

I respect that. I have worked with a couple producers planning only, which the government will (should), do and there are no strings attached to practices that the producer decides to implement on their own without cost share. I have also completely prepared a contract to the point that all the producer needs to do is sign to get the assistance (and the attached strings) and they decide not to.

 

[Lucky_P]

Thanks @Lucky_P! Now I know. Well, we don't want the cows eating it then. I also have a better idea why it wasn't cared for and was called a weed, despite being a legume. I know/ was exposed to it being called coffeweed while down there. I figured (but might be wrong) that you had it where you are @Warren Allison.

Growing up in south Alabama, I used to see sicklepod - and its cousin, Senna (formerly Cassia) occidentalis - often called coffeeweed - growing in crop fields, pastures, roadsides, etc.
Both were included in the list of poisonous plants we had to learn, collect, and make a notebook containing herbarium specimens during 3rd year of veterinary school.

I can't recall having seen either one up here in the frigid northland of Kentucky, but I do have one volunteer plant of the perennial 'wild senna' (S. hebecarpa) growing in my orchard.

 

[simme]

Plenty of sicklepod in SC. Mainly in cropland and around the edges of fields and pastures made from former cropland. Not so much in improved pastures. Very tough stems/branches. Deep taproot. May be as tall as 4+ feet. Here are pictures taken today around the edge of my neighbor's cotton field.

This one was knocked back by a recent herbicide application, but coming back strong from lower branches.



This is one I pulled up yesterday that missed getting sprayed at border between his property and mine.

 

[kenny thomas]

The NRCS at its finest. <sigh> More like run amok. The scenario you present is all too common. "plans" get written for single issues/requests from producers all the time, and NRCS personnel don't 'have' the time to go out and address the farms resource concerns properly. To a large degree, the employee won't 'make' time to properly address the issue. I do understand this too. There is A LOT of administrative and pretty much 'pointless' "stuff" (and I'm using nice words) that 'has' to be attended to. A great deal of it comes down to time management skills of the employee. (They don't exist.) What should have been done, and it sounds like you followed up with it @kenny thomas, is that the employee should have come to the farm, did a complete inventory, completed the '9 step planning process', which would have resulted in a RMS (Resource Management System) level plan that identified ideally all, but at least multiple, resource concerns. I don't know how the first plan was originally developed, and it's possible (i have my doubts) that the planning process was followed but the owner (prior to kenny) only wanted the one tank and cross fence and didn't want the other stuff kenny later added with another EQIP contract. I just don't know.

As for the employee writing the plan, which involved construction, never stepping foot on the farm. That should never happen except in the most extreme circumstances, which shouldn't arise to begin with, but the agency sets itself up for this. I do not recommend ANY employee ever do this, including myself. That said. I have done this. I wrote a plan (RMS level) from 250 miles away when a fellow employee contacted me two weeks before the deadline to have the plan written. The employee had never written a grazing plan. Within that plan, with all the obstacles it involved, I included, and got approved, the first (and as so far as I know) the only silvopasture practice that Ohio has ever completed. The state office, up to that point, was dead set against silvopasture (and they may still be) and an employee needed to be just about crazy to even suggest to them (state office) be used in a plan. A plan can be written and written effectively without ever stepping foot on the farm. I don't recommend it.

The previous owner was only interested in a well for his house. The project allowed him to drill a well in his yard when the actual EQIP project was several hundred yards away and on the opposite side a road that the waterline had to be put underneath the road. Im pretty sure that since the NRCS pays for each part of the project as it is finished the original landowner intended on getting his well, getting it paid for and defaulting on the rest of the project.

 

[Warren Allison]

Plenty of sicklepod in SC. Mainly in cropland and around the edges of fields and pastures made from former cropland. Not so much in improved pastures. Very tough stems/branches. Deep taproot. May be as tall as 4+ feet. Here are pictures taken today around the edge of my neighbor's cotton field.

This one was knocked back by a recent herbicide application, but coming back strong from lower branches.
View attachment 47334


This is one I pulled up yesterday that missed getting sprayed at border between his property and mine.
View attachment 47335

Seems like I do remember seeing this along the cotton fields growing up. I guess it disappeared, like May Pops did, when everyone went to soybeans in the late 70's.

 

[Warren Allison]

The fescue again. @Warren Allison, I think I might have scarred you for life with that picture of 'fescue foot' All of us learn every day of our lives here on earth. The day we think we have finally learned it all, we might as well dig our own grave and jump in. Sycle pod/coffee weed I think may be more of a weed in crop fields in pasture, I just don't know enough. I would say it is likely somewhere close to where you are though as it is in SC and AR, and you are almost exactly in between. If you can, find a picture of a dead one with the pods still attached to it. The dead plant is very persistent and the 'skeletons' were very easily identifiable to me.

Yeah. I Just now realized that we used to have it around here in the cotton fields, but once cotton was replaced by beans in the 1970'[, I haven't seen any. Haven't seen any May Pops anymore either, that we used to find in the cotton fields.

 

[simme]

Lots of chicken farmers here. Most all of them have multiple litter stacking/storage sheds. Concrete floor, 8x8 posts, trusses, 2x8 boarded partial walls, metal roofs. I think the owner pays 25% of the cost. But the builders inflate the "cost" on the paperwork and give the owner a "discount" when he pays. Goal is to drive the basis up for the future. (Or so I have "heard".) MANY of these NEVER have any litter in them. They make very nice hay barns or equipment sheds. Latest one I saw finished early this year is already full of square bales of straw.

Latest thing for chicken houses here is money for "energy savings". Money for new doors, fans, heaters, controllers, insulation, cool cell systems, etc. I have personal knowledge of a couple of these. No one comes to look at what you have or what you need. A third party "energy expert" (that seems to be unqualified and never seen a chicken house) prepares a list of requested equipment (they get paid about $5700 for their "audit" even though they don't make a visit). They send their report to the chicken farmer for review. It makes no sense to him so he asks them questions and explains that the quantity of fans listed will not fit in his house. They tell him that "the more you ask for, the more you get". Eventually money is approved. After installation, someone will check to see if the work has been done. Here is the "big deal" - The amounts being approved are in the range of $300,000 per chicken farm. The farmers that are the worst managers and have not done any maintenance get more money than the farmers who have maintained their houses - due to the larger need!

USDA yearly budget is around $200 Billion. NRCS budget about $5 billion. Eqip budget around $2 billion. But the Biden "Inflation Reduction act" provides the NRCS an additional $4 billion per year (for five years).

Secret service budget is $3 billion, FBI budget is $11 billion. Yet the budget for the US Marine Corps is only $53 billion. Do those budgets make sense? Which of those are more important? Should the US government pay for household wells, equipment sheds and hay barns, and maintenance on chicken houses? Just glad they have plenty of money at their disposal to provide all these services.

I think all my info is reasonably accurate, but I am not a chicken farmer. But I know many of them, some very well.

I suspect that the original founders of this nation did not have this in mind for a limited small government.

 

[Warren Allison]

Day 12 of raining every day. Needed to cut the Bermuda over a week ago. Bermuda does best when cut every 21 to at most, 28 days. This cutting is 2 weeks past due. When it finally quits and I get to cut, this cutting will NOT be sold as premium horse hay. The stems are bigger, leaves won't be as tender, it is starting to seed, and the protein content will be less, maybe down 5% or more. It will still be 100% weed free, pure Bermuda, with a protein content ( I am guessing) of around 12-15%. Won't be any $12 sq bales or $180 round bales out of this cutting. Gonna roll it all , 4 x5, for my friend Dan to feed his broodmares. at $70 a bale. Whatever he doesn;t get will be sold easily at that price. It will be touch and go as to whether I get to cut it gain. I needed to have fertilized it again last week to make sure we get that 5th cutting. Probably get to cut 5 times about every other year on average, but 4 a year is still a very good yield.

 

[simme]

Seems like I do remember seeing this along the cotton fields growing up. I guess it disappeared, like May Pops did, when everyone went to soybeans in the late 70's.

My state is so far behind that we still have may pops. Yet I read recently that our little state has the highest rate of people moving in. We don't need them. They need to continue to go to Florida or Texas where there are no state income taxes, scenery is better, people are nicer and have higher incomes. May be the maypops they are coming for.

 

[kenny thomas]

Are maypops poison

 

[Twisted]

Are maypops poison

When I was a kid, they would grow in our pea patch, we grew lots of peas. We would eat the seeds out of them. I don't remember them being overly delicious but do remember the really green ones being extremely sour, but being a kid, sour wasn't a bad thing.

I have no idea about maypops and livestock.

 

[Dave]

We use to say an elephant is a mouse built to NRCS standards. I witnessed a number of people building things to NRCS standard to get their 75% cost share. And the landowners 25% ended up costing more than if they had just done it themselves from the start.

 

[Mark Reynolds]

We use to say an elephant is a mouse built to NRCS standards. I witnessed a number of people building things to NRCS standard to get their 75% cost share. And the landowners 25% ended up costing more than if they had just done it themselves from the start.

It's been awhile since I've seen that play out, but yes. And there very well could still be practices that play out that way. I mostly plan, not a lot of contracting for me, and virtually no applied engineering. Historically I've seen it, especially with structural buildings.

 

[Travlr]

That's where your pulling numbers and facts from mid air.

You don't know what my daily gain is on calves, weaning weights, birth weights, or breed back percentages.

So comparing your "good" hay to anything else is make believe until you put up some actual numbers. IE: daily rate of gain on calves? Bred %? Bred which cycle? Etc.

Why on earth would I want to come there Warren? All the thing you describe about where you live some horrible. Interstates, subdivisions, warehouses, shopping malls those all some like everything I hate and chose to live away from.

But just think... you might be able to buy some black Corriente calves for CAB prices after visiting the kudzu place. What an opportunity...

 

[GoWyo]

We use to say an elephant is a mouse built to NRCS standards. I witnessed a number of people building things to NRCS standard to get their 75% cost share. And the landowners 25% ended up costing more than if they had just done it themselves from the start.

The specs for tire tanks (and plumbing), pipelines and fences are pretty fair and not overbuilt. I did do a 20' steel bottomless tank years ago that cost way too much by the time we met specs for the pad, rebar, etc. and then the dang side walls were too tall for calves to get a drink unless it was full. That was the only project I wouldn't do it that way again.

 

[Warren Allison]

Are maypops poison

No. Least not to people or farm animals. They were our grenades when we'd play Army as a kid.