# 2017. Making changes or staying the course?



## OhioHay (Jun 4, 2008)

We had the thread on how 2016 went, now I am wondering what 2017 has in store for everyone's operation. Are you expanding, cutting back, adding a new enterprise, changing crop mix, adding equipment, changing bale size or market? The list could go on and on.

We are staying similar with some minor changes. On the livestock side, we have the two cage free layer barns. Beef cattle numbers staying the same. We culled heavy in the sheep, going from 30 down to 22.

On the crop side, we seriously considered cutting back on hay and planting more corn and beans due to labor issues, but after running the numbers, hay looks better for us. Hay acres will go up slightly to 425. Beans will be up due to not planting any wheat and corn will be the same.

As for equipment, looking at adding a second rake and a bigger manure spreader.


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## Lewis Ranch (Jul 15, 2013)

Gonna slow down on custom round baling even more and try to pick up on my square baling another 5-10k bales. Would like to double up on custom spraying acres. We'll see how it really goes.


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## CowboyRam (Dec 13, 2015)

This year we are going to rotate 20 acres from Oats to RR Alfalfa, 20 acres from Alfalfa to either Teff, or Green Sprite Rye Grass. Not really sure what grass we are going with. We went from no cows to 22 head; now I just need to find some summer grass.


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

Figure about the same here... see how it goes, play it by ear when the time comes... LOL

Later! OL J R


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## notmydaytoday (Sep 16, 2016)

Going to learn to bale small squares this spring.

If goes well going to add small number of cows.


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## stack em up (Mar 7, 2013)

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## Grateful11 (Apr 5, 2009)

Wife bought her Silage cutter back, a whole nother story, so they plan on adding on a little more corn and sorghum and put some green chops and maybe some silage into the cattle feed program. She wants to try some Triticale this Fall.

She's in the market for a grass head for a NH 718 chopper.


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## haybaler101 (Nov 30, 2008)

Terminating my hay enterprise completely. Going to sell all hay equipment and inventory reduction on the whole farm on April 12th with BigIron.com. Baled about 800 big squares in custom work last year, but my biggest client lost 100 acres of hay ground also. I lost 250 acres of coal mine ground last spring which is where the hay production was centered. Always looking to add to row crop ground, this year 300 acres of corn and 330 of beans. Wanting to increase custom combining acres this year, did 500 acres of beans last year. And I will market another 75,000 turkeys this year and probably sell some manure.


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## deadmoose (Oct 30, 2011)

Hmmm. Not gonna count chickens before they hatch. After they do, we need to sharpen the pencil and decide what is gonna lose me less money.


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## TJH (Mar 23, 2014)

On the livestock side 12 cow are coming on 14 years old so we are going sell them and replace with some Red Angus heifers. My Angus bull had a bad case of foot rot last summer and he is done as a sire, so we will replace him with a Red Angus bull this spring.

On the hay side I am in the process of plowing a 30 acre fescue patch and am going to plant it to Quick N Big crabgrass. I will start applying litter next weekend on the pasture land. I really do like litter for fertilizer it may not be a perfect fertilizer however its about as close as you can get.


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

haybaler101 said:


> Terminating my hay enterprise completely. Going to sell all hay equipment and inventory reduction on the whole farm on April 12th with BigIron.com. Baled about 800 big squares in custom work last year, but my biggest client lost 100 acres of hay ground also. I lost 250 acres of coal mine ground last spring which is where the hay production was centered. Always looking to add to row crop ground, this year 300 acres of corn and 330 of beans. Wanting to increase custom combining acres this year, did 500 acres of beans last year. And I will market another 75,000 turkeys this year and probably sell some manure.


Sorry to see you go Joe....but we all do what we must.

Regards, Mike


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## Swv.farmer (Jan 2, 2016)

I'm going to add 10 more heffiers this spring I just added a new kioti nx70 cab tractor back the last of December but other than that about the same plan.


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## hillside hay (Feb 4, 2013)

Have to buy a merger. Going to a 4-5 cut system. Looking at new markets


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## hog987 (Apr 5, 2011)

Swv.farmer said:


> I'm going to add 10 more heffiers this spring I just added a new kioti nx70 cab tractor back the last of December but other than that about the same plan.


How do you like the tractor so far?


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

I think I'll do more fishing.It pays about as well as hay does right now.

Well seriously not many changes this yr.Pretty big changes a few yrs ago,more corn sold as silage.Switched to more conventional corn yet this yr.No high priced smart stax this yr.75 acres of double stack the rest will be conventional.

Probably the last yr on 25 acres of hay ground the landlady is putting up for sale.


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## TJH (Mar 23, 2014)

What's land bringing up in your neck of the woods swmnhay? Around here is 3-3.5k/acre.


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

Once I found that the region I live now has over a million in population I feel I need to relocate. But probably not in 2017


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

TJH said:


> What's land bringing up in your neck of the woods swmnhay? Around here is 3-3.5k/acre.


6-10,000.Down a couple thousand off the high.

300 acres comeing up at auction next month 4 miles down the road that a friend has farmed for 35 yrs.He had no warning until he got the sale bill.Poorer farm 1/3 of it pasture.This will be on the low end of the price range.Or lower.


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## TJH (Mar 23, 2014)

swmnhay said:


> 6-10,000.Down a couple thousand off the high.
> 
> 300 acres comeing up at auction next month 4 miles down the road that a friend has farmed for 35 yrs.He had no warning until he got the sale bill.Poorer farm 1/3 of it pasture.This will be on the low end of the price range.Or lower.


I feel sorry for your friend, know how that feels. We had 120 acres that grandpa started farming in 1935 one day the heirs of the owner showed up and told us to get off that they had sold it. We didn't even know it was for sale.


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## VA Haymaker (Jul 1, 2014)

We are an itsy operation, but here is what we have on the plate for 2017

Begin haying two new, but small fields. Finish clearing the brush from a larger field - it will get an early spring cut/bale for goat hay (read revenue) and then killed off for Teff and fall planted with Timothy.

Refurbing some of the shelters we have, adding a few new ones.

More wagons. We stack wagons off the square baler and want enough wagons to do 1,000 bales in a day. Also want to have enough shelter space that we can pull the wagons under and unstack another day.

Might add a disk mower conditioner.


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## IH 1586 (Oct 16, 2014)

Adding about 35 more hay acres. That will bring the total to about 180 acres. Clearing brush and taking out old fence lines that will turn several fields into one field. Will save a lot of time opening fields up. Going to slow down on acquiring fields and focus on bringing them up to full productivity. Have 2 steers and looking to add several more to keep the pastures in shape.


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## JD3430 (Jan 1, 2012)

workload:

Increasing acreage now up to about 200 Acres in hay. Hoping to come pretty close to 1600 RB in 2017. 1400 in 2016.

Marked increase in using batwing mowers to cut land that cannot be hayed. Getting more calls for mowing open space. Just had large landscape company ask me to bid a lot of the land they cant cut with their zero turns.

Gained 2 new RB customers that are very close by and pay well.

equipment:

Traded 95HP Kubota for a larger/heavier McCormick CX-110. Only time will tell if a wise choice.

Paid off 3 lingering equipment loans. Own about 75% of my equipment now. 

Purchasing a Ferri 2500 8' hydraulic swing flail mower for field edges and flail mowing contracts.

livestock:

Still raising only 4-5 head at a time. My wife and I continue to search for the right size farm to fit out needs. May happen tomorrow or in 2 years.

Its in the Lords hands.


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## Swv.farmer (Jan 2, 2016)

hog987 said:


> How do you like the tractor so far?


So far I love it I've only put about 10 hours on it so far for the money it was a good buy.


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

Teslan said:


> Once I found that the region I live now has over a million in population I feel I need to relocate. But probably not in 2017


What direction might you look toward Marc if you did so?

Regards, Mike


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

Vol said:


> What direction might you look toward Marc if you did so?
> 
> Regards, Mike


i really don't know. I was kidding, kinda, I think.... I would have to decide if farming was to be done in the new location or not. But really I've only been in one place for a long enough time to think about what it would be like to farm there. That is eastern Nebraska. Though I've kinda toyed with the idea of around steamboat springs in Colorado. I have some friends that moved to Tennessee and seem to like it a lot. But then they are attempting to go off grid there on 30 acres. So really who knows.


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## Northeast PA hay and beef (Jan 29, 2017)

So I'm new on haytalk this week. We're in NE PA. Have about 500 acres. It was a dairy, milking 130 head when i was growing up. Around 250 acres in fields, 200 in pasture and the rest woods. About 10 years ago dad had health issues and milkers went, started raising dairy heifers and handful of beef. 5 years ago dad passed and i moved back to help mom with animals. Siblings wanted nothing to do with farm and kinda forced her hand in selling heifers and it was get loans to buy farm from family or let it go. So a bunch of debt and convincing of my to move there full time we're still farming.

So now i do beef and small sqaures for horse hay. In 2016 made about 9000 1st and 6000 2nd and 3rd small sqaures. Have a large customer that has taken all of those since i took over. We also had about 35 cow/calf pairs and finished 20 slaughter beef. 18 acres sorghum/sudan for beefers. Did about 250 4x5 dry hay round bales and 250 wrapped 4x5 sorghum/sudan rounds to feed animals over winter.

Changes for 2017. Hoping 2017 or 2018 will be what i consider it to be about what i would like it to be.

Getting back a barn and 25acres pasture and 80 acres grass field, that we had rented to neighbor when dad passed. We didn't renew the lease.

Bred 9 of our red angus heifers to freshen for 2017. Hope to aquire another 18 beef cows to get our total around 60 freshening. Will be finishing 40 for slaughter, first 5 going in 3 weeks.

Increasing sorghum to 30 acres for the extra animals and some of the 80 acres.
Hoping to increase small sqaure by 3000.

With extra acreage coming, in dec i traded some equipment. My brother joked the farm looks like a nh dealer now. Went from 9 ft discbine to new nh 7330 10'4". Wanted to go with 13ft but have a lot of rolling/wavy fields. Traded 4 basket tedder to new 6 star nh3625. And with more sorghum got new nh 450 cropcutter round baler. To replace an old 648. Cant wait to see the sorghum chopped some and not unwinding 7 foot long sorghum. Hoping the debt will be made up for some in better hay and time saved.


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## JD3430 (Jan 1, 2012)

Northeast PA hay and beef,

Welcome to HT. There's some helpful people here. I'm down in SE PA, near Wilmington, DE. You should post some pictures of your farm. Beautiful country up there in your area. Are you in Scranton? Berwick?


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## paoutdoorsman (Apr 23, 2016)

Welcome to HayTalk Northeast PA hay and beef! Hope your upgraded equipment serves you as you anticipate. Good on you keeping the family farm in the family, even though it requires some major leaps of faith.

For 2017, I seeded an additional 5 acres of alfalfa, other hay ground remains unchanged. After trying my hand with soybeans 2 years, and taking it on the chin, I have all the bean ground in wheat. Probably not going to attempt to double crop it, but rather let the ground idle, or cover crop after the wheat comes off. Considering turning more of that dirt into hay ground if the equipment I added eases the time and manual labor requirements of small squares, and I can come up additional hay storage.

Added a few pieces of equipment to attempt to streamline small square handling. A Hesston 4590 baler, Kuhn rotary rake, Parrish 10 bale accumulator, and a 10 bale grapple. I am going to build two 18' flatbed wagons on a pair of old running gears my FIL has after I get the portable sawmill onsite to cut up a few ash trees... since every ash tree in PA has died. Also have 2 gooseneck trailers I can use that should get me 650 bales on wheels. I'd eventually like to get that closer to 1000, but I have see how it goes. Complete change from the kick baler and kick wagons. I'll still have access to that baler and the kick wagons as well if I need the extra capacity.


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

paoutdoorsman said:


> Welcome to HayTalk Northeast PA hay and beef! Hope your upgraded equipment serves you as you anticipate. Good on you keeping the family farm in the family, even though it requires some major leaps of faith.
> 
> For 2017, I seeded an additional 5 acres of alfalfa, other hay ground remains unchanged. After trying my hand with soybeans 2 years, and taking it on the chin, I have all the bean ground in wheat. Probably not going to attempt to double crop it, but rather let the ground idle, or cover crop after the wheat comes off. Considering turning more of that dirt into hay ground if the equipment I added eases the time and manual labor requirements of small squares, and I can come up additional hay storage.
> 
> Added a few pieces of equipment to attempt to streamline small square handling. A Hesston 4590 baler, Kuhn rotary rake, Parrish 10 bale accumulator, and a 10 bale grapple. I am going to build two 18' flatbed wagons on a pair of old running gears my FIL has after I get the portable sawmill onsite to cut up a few ash trees... since every ash tree in PA has died. Also have 2 gooseneck trailers I can use that should get me 650 bales on wheels. I'd eventually like to get that closer to 1000, but I have see how it goes. Complete change from the kick baler and kick wagons. I'll still have access to that baler and the kick wagons as well if I need the extra capacity.


Dana, I might suggest that you make your wagons 20 feet long and I am sure that you will find that they will work much better than 18 feet. I make my bales right at 36" so theoretically you should be able to get 3 stacks of 6 feet wide grabs of hay on them but it really doesn't work that way.

I made my first two wagons 18 feet long and saw the error of my ways and thereafter I made them 20 feet and it was so much better about stacking in the field....especially when you are tired or in a hurry as in rain. The grabs will tend to spread a little bit and you also will have a bale every now and then that will of a little over the 36" mark. The wagon loaded hay will also ride much better when they are not right to the edge or hanging over it 3-4" like what happens on a 18 foot wagon frequently. You will thank me later.

Regards, Mike


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## Northeast PA hay and beef (Jan 29, 2017)

Thanks for the welcome. We are north of Scranton near elk mountain. I'll get some pics of the farm when we get a day with some sun. Don't think we've seen it here in a month. I retrofitted the tie-stall barn into freestall for the beef, that i wouldn't mind getting some feedback on.


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## PaMike (Dec 7, 2013)

Just a ways south of you down in Lancaster County. About 3 miles from Binkley & Hurst...Like outdoorsman said, my ash trees are dead/dying too. Gotta drop them before them come down on the fence..


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## paoutdoorsman (Apr 23, 2016)

@Vol, Thanks for the tip Mike! So with the extra space, do you start your stacks wide using the full 20 foot of bed space with gaps between the stacks, and taper them towards center? I guess you're telling me I won't get 4 stacks on the 24 foot gooseneck. I was figuring 4 on it and 3 on the 20 footer.

@NEPA Hay & Beef, Looks like we're about 3 hours apart. I'm in Orrstown, PA.


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

paoutdoorsman said:


> @Vol, Thanks for the tip Mike! So with the extra space, do you start your stacks wide using the full 20 foot of bed space with gaps between the stacks, and taper them towards center? I guess you're telling me I won't get 4 stacks on the 24 foot gooseneck. I was figuring 4 on it and 3 on the 20 footer.
> 
> @NEPA Hay & Beef, Looks like we're about 3 hours apart. I'm in Orrstown, PA.


I usually start my stacks at the front of the trailer about 4-6" from the very front edge. I keep them tight together.

On your trailer, the type of ramps really determine what can be done......of course try to pack them tight and then when you get to the back depending on what kind of ramps you have you can usually work something out with a full sheet of 3/4" plywood. If your ramps are the flip up kind that lie level you can just lay the sheet down on the ramps and let it extend out the amount that you need.

You can also take a FEL and push on the rear stack and tighten up some. I do this with my grapple and skid steer.

Regards, Mike


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## RuttedField (Apr 24, 2016)

We are in talks with our bank to try and really expand. We have considerable acreage (for Maine), but its mostly forest. Slowly the wood is coming out, but its a long process from forest to tillable soil.

Somehow I have got into the land clearing business and a neighbor wants me to clear 18 acres. I got another 25 already on the books, plus my own 30 acres I would like to do, but I am leery of investing time and money on another persons land. Land clearing is expensive.

If things go as planned, we are looking at 42 x 76 addition on our sheep barn, and 84 sheep to 350 breeding stock, well over 600 with lambs. Somewhere in there we need to get some silage equipment.

We need bigger manure storage and a bigger silage bunker, but you can't do it all in a year.


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## glasswrongsize (Sep 15, 2015)

I've been saving my egg money to build a another hay barn, buy a 100hp tractor and a skid steer (my wish list's order). I had MOST of the jingle saved for the barn as of this past Saturday morning; then, midmorning, I received a text message letting me know a piece of ground was now for-sale. Well dang!!! My wish list just got rearranged. Within 3 hours or so, we had a handshake agreement for price. If the feller's handshake is any good (and I assume it is because he called me tonight to let me know he got the title work started), I own a couple of more acres. I had to pay too much for it, but it joined me.

I ain't greedy and don't want to own ALL of the ground...just what joins me. 

So, I reckon this year I will be working with the same ol crap with the same ol goals that I had this year with the exception of my owning of two new (to me) fertilizer spreaders. That will make fertilizing easier on my schedule.

I did expand my sheep herd by another 20 (or so) ewes.


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

glasswrongsize said:


> I've been saving my egg money to build a another hay barn, buy a 100hp tractor and a skid steer (my wish list's order). I had MOST of the jingle saved for the barn as of this past Saturday morning; then, midmorning, I received a text message letting me know a piece of ground was now for-sale. Well dang!!! My wish list just got rearranged. Within 3 hours or so, we had a handshake agreement for price. If the feller's handshake is any good (and I assume it is because he called me tonight to let me know he got the title work started), I own a couple of more acres. I had to pay too much for it, but it joined me.
> 
> I ain't greedy and don't want to own ALL of the ground...just what joins me.
> 
> ...


Congrats... always nice when you can pick up adjoining ground...

The other stuff will still be there...

Later! OL J R


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## Widairy (Jan 1, 2016)

For 2017 I'm thinking about closing up shop and moving south if things don't go better than 2016. 2016 we had great hay and forage production, 6 9x200 bags of haylage and 2 9x200 bags of sorghum. Roughly 600 rounds wrapped. In 2016 we planted no grain crops thinking we would need all the forage we could get. We are milking around 50 cows, we had a bunch, 40 heifers to freshen in this spring so growing the herd was the plan. The ugly part for us was on the dairy side. The majority of our dairy problems seemed to be caused by stray voltage. Can never seem to nail the source down, the working theory is it's coming off of the utility on their neutral. The utility comes out and tests denying there's anything there. We've had all kinds of experts out and after the thousands of dollars in consulting fees you have no answers. We lost over 30 cows this summer to the mastitis along with production problems and low prices. No fun at all.

Going to put in grain crops on the old stands or wherever the hay freezes out. Plan on mainly round baling most of the hay crop. The baleage we did last year has worked well and in the extreme event of moving/transitioning away from dairy bales should be easier to sell than bags of haylage.

The only equipment I'm thinking about doing anything towards may be looking at getting a bale wrapper. Not sure how serious to get. We haven't been doing much in the way of custom work. I debate trying to do more with our dairy difficulties but there doesn't seem to be much margin in my area.

Hopefully things change for the better, and 2017 is great year for us.


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## CowboyRam (Dec 13, 2015)

Widairy said:


> For 2017 I'm thinking about closing up shop and moving south if things don't go better than 2016. 2016 we had great hay and forage production, 6 9x200 bags of haylage and 2 9x200 bags of sorghum. Roughly 600 rounds wrapped. In 2016 we planted no grain crops thinking we would need all the forage we could get. We are milking around 50 cows, we had a bunch, 40 heifers to freshen in this spring so growing the herd was the plan. The ugly part for us was on the dairy side. The majority of our dairy problems seemed to be caused by stray voltage. Can never seem to nail the source down, the working theory is it's coming off of the utility on their neutral. The utility comes out and tests denying there's anything there. We've had all kinds of experts out and after the thousands of dollars in consulting fees you have no answers. We lost over 30 cows this summer to the mastitis along with production problems and low prices. No fun at all.
> 
> Going to put in grain crops on the old stands or wherever the hay freezes out. Plan on mainly round baling most of the hay crop. The baleage we did last year has worked well and in the extreme event of moving/transitioning away from dairy bales should be easier to sell than bags of haylage.
> 
> ...


Is your floor grounded. Several years ago I built a Veterinarian Hospital and the electrical inspector was concerned about static electric as the animals walked across the concrete floor; he wanted the floor grounded. For our purpose we felt we did not need to. I think that part of the electrical code was written for dairies. If you have rebar or wire mesh in your floor you could chop up a small part of the floor to ground it. It might be something worth looking into.


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## r82230 (Mar 1, 2016)

Widairy said:


> The ugly part for us was on the dairy side. The majority of our dairy problems seemed to be caused by stray voltage. Can never seem to nail the source down, the working theory is it's coming off of the utility on their neutral. The utility comes out and tests denying there's anything there. We've had all kinds of experts out and after the thousands of dollars in consulting fees you have no answers. We lost over 30 cows this summer to the mastitis along with production problems and low prices. No fun at all.


We had a problem a few years ago in Michigan with stray voltage on dairy farms. If I recall correctly MSU and U of Wisconsin had a program for educating/training farmers on how to find/measure/fix stray voltage. You might want to start looking there to see if any resources are still available.

Attached is a piece from MSU that show how to isolate the neutrals at the transformer, (the utility neutral and farm neutral, were isolated, page 16). If my memory is correct, sometimes utilities do a 'poor' job of putting neutral/ground stakes at every electric pole (and they haven't been checked since installation). However, there also could be the same failure of the neutral on the farm side of the transformer also.

It also seems that there was a 'mixed' opinion on whether stray voltage caused mastitis, BUT there was a lot of consensus about drop in production (cows were not drinking enough). This can be fixed short term, by isolating a water trough for the cows to drink from (no direct or indirect contact with any source of stray voltage, think of a free standing tank on rubber/dry wood, that you dump a bucket of water into).

Good luck, I am pretty sure the utility will never find that the problem could be theirs. 

Larry


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## Widairy (Jan 1, 2016)

Thanks for the input guys. We've tried a lot of things. We actually had the utility put an isolator on the pole to separate the neural for the farm from the utility 3 years ago. Everything was great for the 3 months following and then then cow troubles started coming back. I've been told that the way the utility grounds the isolator is usually suspect. I plan on digging into that here when the ground thaws.


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## Orchard6 (Apr 30, 2014)

On the hay side of things not much will be changing this year, other than I'll be round baling with my own round baler (NH 847 chain baler I picked up late last season) instead of a borrowed or rented unit.
On the fruit side there are tons of changes this year! We're adding 4, 900 bin (16,200 bushel) controlled atmosphere rooms and a large cold storage room, a $1,000,000 project! Replanting 15 acres of apples and fencing in those 15 acres to keep the deer out. 
There was also a change in the way things are managed on the farm as my uncle (50% partner with dad) passed away last fall and now my cousins (2) and myself have a lot more say as to what goes on on the farm as my dad has health issues himself and and cannot manage the farm alone. It's not necessarily the way any of us wanted to brought into the partnership but it has been a very smooth and positive transition and has greatly opened up lines of communication between all of us.


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## Uphayman (Oct 31, 2014)

Will be planting 100 acres of new seeding , alfalfa/ brome mix. Corn acreage roughly 125. Oats on 75 +~. Just confirmed that we'll be getting an additional 200 heifers to custom raise. This will max out the facilities. 
Our mission statement includes "To produce crops , livestock, and provide livestock related services for the agriculture community." That pretty much sums up what we do.........
Changes ahead........more time doing this.......


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