Frigid weather provides challenge for livestock producers, farmers
HANOVER, KS - In the life of a farmer, early mornings and challenging days are commonplace, but that becomes more true when dealing with winter weather.
Trevor Klipp is a fourth generation dairy farmer in northeast Kansas and discussed how those like himself, deal with the challenging conditions.
“I guess you could say it’s always the prototypical saying ‘be prepared for Old Man Winter,’” Kill said. “The way us farmers look at it, you spend your entire spring, summer, and fall getting ready for winter. Whether that’s putting up hay, planting feed, getting everything ready just to survive the winter.”
Four Streams Dairy, located near Hanover, KS., has been in the Klipp family since 1883 - they’ve seen their fair share of winter storms in their 140 year history! Klipp says one of the keys to keeping his lactation cows healthy during winter storms and frigid weather, is upping their amounts of feed. This past storm, Klipp said he increased it by about 10%.
Another important element is limiting wind impact. While Four Streams' location sits somewhat shielded, in the middle of a valley, Klipp still takes additional measures.
“Natural wind breaks is what we’ve tried to establish over the years,” Klipp said. “Simple cedar tree lines. And if we can’t have that, we set up square bales. That’s a true partial wind break we can do to keep things warm.”
This past storm brought anywhere from eight to fourteen inches of snow to southeast Nebraska and northeast Kansas. Then came the record cold, with wind chills reaching 40 below zero, accompanied by wind gusts of 40 Miles Per Hour. This caused a number of drifts and road closures on rural road ways - making for one collective headache for area livestock farmers.
Klipp says Four Streams had their challenges, but overall made out pretty well.
“We can take care of the cold, but when we have drifting snow, closing of roads, that’s what makes it interesting,” Klipp said. “The good thing is, we truly didn’t lose power… That’s the real gut punch when we lose power, bitter cold, and drifting snow.”
Being dairy farmers, Four Streams’ Holstein Cows have specific needs in the cold. For one, they calve year round… Including two born over the weekend, in the frigid weather.
“Once that cow is calved, we have about 30-45 minutes to get it somewhere warm to dry it off,” Klipp said.
Klipp has a specific shed with rooms equipped to do just that, but also to keep calves warm during the cold weather. But it’s not just Holstein calves that need specific attention, but adults too.
“Since these are milk cows, they are lactating, so we need to make sure we keep their teet ends protected. ” Klipp said. “Because they’re always going into the milk barn, having the milker applied. Basically what we do, before they exit the milk barn, the teet end is dried again, and we put a special post it on, to keep that test end from getting frostbite or damaged.”
With a couple months of winter still ahead, Klipp says farmers, like himself, keep the thought of spring in their minds as they navigate the harsh conditions.
“It’s a cliche saying, but that’s truly what we live for, to get through winter, knowing spring is right around the corner.”