The current drought & Creambrook
Sunrise over the crispy field by our home and milk house
It hasn’t been the year we expected.
The Spring began with dry weather — at least, much drier in May than typical, but we were hopeful. By June, it was dusty-dry and then a miracle rain came in late June.
As of today, we have had a couple of sprinkles of rain since June but no moisture of significance.
What this means for the cows
Our farm relies heavily on rain, sunshine, and forage growth. Our cows eat fresh pasture in the spring, summer, and into late fall. Through the winter, the cows eat wrapped, fermented hay called baleage and dry stored hay.
Even in a drought, the cows are well-fed and are rotated daily to new fields, but they feel the stress from the drought, too. This means we have started feeding our winter feed early to the cows, and they don’t have the lush, fresh pastures that they usually do in September.
Heat stress is harder on cows than cold temps so the cows are feeling it between the lack of new pasture and the heat.
Our farm doesn’t have irrigation so we are reliant on steady rainfall to sustain the fields.
The benefit of feeding winter hay
We are intentionally feeding our hay stockpile to the cows on our poorer-quality fields and as they eat, they are building up the soil from the leftover hay and manure. This means that our soil fertility is increasing, even in a drought, and will make our farm more resistant to dry seasons in the future.
One of our main goals with the farm is to grow soil health and this is a great way to built that resilience for future seasons.
What this means for raw milk
Due to the excessive drought, we do not have extra raw milk to put towards add-on services like our heavy cream, raw kefir and raw chocolate milk.
Unfortunately we are not able to add new members or increase shares for current members at this time. You can join the waitlist by contacting us on our Contact page and we will let you know when we have extra space & a herd share for you!
We are actively looking to buy more Jersey cows in the very near future to help increase the milk supply until the next calving season in November or we receive a good amount of rain. Get ready to meet some new cows of Creambrook!
We will keep you posted! Thank you to each of you for your support and encouragement.