BALGONIE, Sask. – Jennifer and Harley Strudwick feel more comfortable producing feed for their dairy herd themselves.
“The only thing we buy is the protein supplement. Everything else is home grown,” says Jennifer. “What makes our feeding program interesting is we have a quarter section irrigation pivot, with our source of water the town of Balgonie’s lagoon. It’s been like that for years. We used to only water about 90 acres off there with a wheel move, but we’re on our fourth year with the pivot now.”
The Strudwicks grow barley silage on half the irrigated area. The other half is an orchard grass-alfalfa blend. The first alfalfa cut is for silage, while the second and third cuts are for hay.
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“We have a little bit of dryland hay, but that’s mostly for outside cattle and calves. Pretty much all the hay for the milking herd is off that half of the pivot,” Jennifer says.
“We try not to let things get too mature. The barley is just in the really soft dough stage and it’s still quite green. We don’t want to cut it when it gets too ripe. The alfalfa will just be into bloom.”
The Strudwicks have a feed company or their veterinarian do a feed analysis once they have their feed harvested. They’ll take samples, have it analyzed, then have a ration made.
“We work with the feed that we’ve grown. Our variable is what we put in our protein pellets.”
Water for the herd comes from an 80 foot well.
“We soften only for our wash up water. We have green sand filters it goes through, plus we add potassium permanganate for treatment, but that’s about it,” says Jennifer.
While it may seem unusual to use waste water from a town to irrigate crops, Jennifer says it’s not a big issue.
“It’s already into the third treatment pond before we use it. The town has to have somewhere to use it. Every year we have to pump as much as we can, so they have supply room through the winter.
“Sask Water does have test holes there. They do soil samples, testing for nitrates or things that might not be good for the land. They keep a watch on that. But it’s a guaranteed water source for our hay operation.”
