Recent rainy season means beef, dairy farmers struggle to harvest home-grown cattle feed

The recent rainy weather means some farmers in New Brunswick had a tough season for harvesting feed for their cows.

Tim Livingstone, a farmer at Strawberry Hill Farm near Woodstock, said while some crops that like cool-wet conditions, like cabbage, are doing well, other crops are suffering.

"Some crops like beets and spinach and even the strawberries struggled with the rain. And the other challenge we face is that, as an organic farm, we rely on cultivation for weed control. And so we have to be really, really on the ball," said Livingstone, adding that sometimes he only has a half an hour window to go out and take care of the weeds.

"It's happened two or three times already this spring, you think you got a window, you get out there, you cultivate, and then it rains within the next few hours and replants all the weeds."

Strawberry Hill also raises beef cattle, and one of the big challenges Livingstone faces there is that they rely on growing their own grass to feed the cows. While there is a lot of forage, it takes time to dry in the field before it can be harvested. 

Livingstone said they need around five sessions of harvesting to have enough feed to sustain the cows throughout the winter, since the farm doesn't supplement with grains.

For every session, Livingstone said it takes about two to three good days for the grass to dry.

"We've had one that was barely enough," he said. "We're about two weeks behind. We'd like to be done by mid to late July. But it's not going to happen this year."

But Livingstone said the situation is still better than 2020 when there was no rain, which meant there was no forage to harvest.

John Best, a dairy farmer at Becaguimec Farm near Hartland, said a good window in his region to make the best quality grasses to put into storage for their cattle is between May 20 and June 20.

This year, he started harvesting on May 31 and only finished on July 8, because he couldn't harvest while the grass was wet. 

"It just means that the cattle don't make as much milk. And we have to buy more inputs rather than raise them on our own farm," said Best.

He said it isn't a problem of not having enough feed, but rather a problem with the quality.

Since the perfect window passed, Best said the grass is over mature.

He said the cows will eat the feed, but won't necessarily be "crazy about it," which means the daily amount the cows eat will be down a little bit, meaning they'll make a little less milk.

"And the other side of it is, to offset the low quality grass, we'll buy more corn, we'll buy more soybeans, we'll buy more inputs to improve that diet. And that gets expensive," he said. 

"The best and cheapest seed is the stuff you grow in your backyard."