4
CapitalPress.com
June 3, 2016
Growing dairy heifers on pasture a plus
By HEATHER SMITH THOMAS
For the Capital Press
Ernst Irrigation
Helping dairies with their
manure handling needs
for over six years,
Central California to
Southern Washington
and the Oregon Coast.
“Our Ernst Irrigation team looks
forward to helping you with all phases
of manure handling for your dairy.”
- Corey Dorst
• Planning
• Installation
• Troubleshooting
• Diagnosis and repair of equipment
• Pumps of various makes
• Scraper Systems
• Separation
• Manure system plumbing
• Electrical controls
• Manure irrigation application systems
You can reach Corey on his cell at
503-437-7018, or in the office at 503-633-1111
CHECK OUT
OUR NEW WEBSITE!
www.ErnstIrrigation.com
20179 Main St., St. Paul, OR 97137 • (503) 633-1111
STACK RETRIEVERS
• Full Warranty
• Large or Small Bales
Also handles 2-string bales
in a 3-wide configuration
www.hauserbuilt.com
HAUSER BUILT
Farm & Machine, LLC
Camp Verde, AZ
928-567-6230
928-300-0570
D16-1/#4x
Courtesy of UW-Madison
Dairy heifers graze on pasture as part of a University of Wisconsin project study.
Studies are showing that
dairy heifers raised on pas-
ture are healthier, cost less to
raise and ultimately give more
milk.
Jennifer Blazek, a Univer-
sity of Wisconsin Dane Coun-
ty dairy and livestock educa-
tor, began a project last year
to encourage more dairies to
raise their heifers on pasture.
“We have a lot of large
farms that raise heifers in con-
finement,” she said.
Grazing heifers is a cultur-
al adjustment for many dairy
farmers.
“They have invested in
facilities for heifers and feel
they would be going back-
ward to raise them on pasture,
because that’s what small
farms do,” she said. “The
big dairies feel they can do it
better and more efficiently in
modern facilities.”
She first did a survey of
every dairy in the watershed.
The idea was to reduce phos-
phorus and runoff from the
barnyards and confinement
facilities. The survey sought
to see who might be interested
in cost-sharing to help cover
taking some land out of crop
production and putting it into
pasture, and to assess percep-
tions about grazing heifers.
“In September we had a
field day and pasture walk on
An Investment In Quality Never
Stops Paying You Back.
Courtesy of UW-Madison
Jennifer Blazek has been working on a project to encourage more
dairies to raise their heifers on pasture.
a farm with a custom heifer
grower. He has been cus-
tom-raising heifers on grass
for many years,” she said. “It
was a great opportunity for
people to see how it works,
and for other farmers to hear
why the owner decided to do
this.”
He addressed issues they
were concerned about.
“Some thought the heifers
would be more skittish and
harder to handle when they
come into the milk parlor for
the first time,” she said.
The heifers were actually
much calmer and friendlier.
They also had much better
muscle tone and calved eas-
ier, for their first calf, than
heifers raised in confinement,
she said.
“They had more exercise,
were healthier and outper-
formed confinement heifers,”
Blazek said.
The heifers were on pas-
ture in the morning and af-
ternoon, and at mid-day were
brought into a shed and fed a
little grain to encourage them
to come in for breeding and
health checks.
“They were handled a lot
and were not wild. When we
did the pasture walk they all
came over to check us out,”
she said.
One of the farmers who
decided to try pasturing heif-
ers has a 250-cow dairy and is
interested in heifer health.
“We want to follow up
on these projects to find out
how long these heifers last in
the herd compared with their
confinement-raised counter-
parts,” Blazek said.
Many dairymen are hes-
itant to try it, thinking they
don’t have enough land and
don’t want to take any crop
land out of production.
“They don’t realize there
is equal feed value in pasture,
and less labor. Heifers feed
themselves; you only have to
move the temporary fence,”
she said.
“I recently gave a presen-
tation with Adam Able, an
Turn to PASTURE, Page 5