Severe weather here in MI

[lakeportfarms]

Last evening we got hit quite hard with severe thunderstorms and several tornadoes.  One of the tornadoes hit a large dairy farm nearby, killing many cows, and necessitating the relocation of nearly 2500 cows to other farms nearby that were not damaged.  About 2000 cows were able to remain in structures that were not leveled by the storm.  Many of the cows were loose all over the farm and hundreds of volunteers were there to help get them rounded up and moved.

First, can you imagine catching and relocating 2500 Holsteins?  Second, those cows were in milk!   Imagine not only relocating them but also getting them milked in a timely manner!

We were relatively unscathed, although a lot of rain fell and many of our pastures are 5" deep in water. Counting our blessings!

[genebo]

I'm glad you were lucky! It sounds dreadful to be one of the owners that were struck by the storm.

[lakeportfarms]

The last information I heard was that 40 cows had been killed. It's great how the local community pitched in to help with relocating the cows and starting to clean things up.

www.wnem.com/story/29387356/large-dairy-farm-destroyed-by-severe-weather

We have some rain again for tomorrow, but they're not predicting strong storms, those will be to our South. It's hard to get strong storms when your temperatures are in the 60's for highs! For the forseeable future, we aren't predicted to get out of the lower 70's for high temperatures! My kind of weather for sure, and the grass and cows are loving it too. The downside, everybody is having a hard time finding a window of opportunity to get the first cutting of hay. It looks like we'll have three clear days Friday through Sunday. Our first cutting is usually the end of June, and the second cutting is late in August. And that's about it around here for hay. We're just starting the cows on the second rotation around the pastures, about 5 weeks from when we first put them on the pastures in mid to late May. We'll hopefully get two more rotations until late fall when our grass is done for the year.

[lonecowhand]

Oh, thats sad news. Good that you are unhurt and undamaged! Thats a pretty low toll for the potential damage.

[Deleted]

We had one touch down about an hour south east of us. As far as I know no one died just a lot of building damage. I seen a few houses were totally leveled. 
we have only been able to get a small amount of hay done so far and I am just not seeing more than a 2 day window in the forecast. But I will take this over drought. Cant make hay or feed the cows if the grass doesn't grow. 

[Blessings Farms]

Glad to here your farm is ok . We had 4 get loose last saturday and they
had me on edge cant imagiane that many . Good to here area helped our area is so
negative with mega farms i wonder how many would help. We have had 17" of rain
in last two weeks. My hay supply bailed 700 bail and shoud have over 2000 bailed.
Makes me wounder about price. Most of our hay goes south and north east for horse
use. Good luck every one.

[lakeportfarms]

Our weather up until a few days ago has been quite nice. Timely rains, not too much, cool temperatures very good for growing pasture. Many sunny days. There have been a few hay fields cut, but few bales have made it off unscathed by rain. This is the time most first cut their fields, so rain every other day is going to make it hard.

However, I can't fathom the amount of rain those of you further South have been getting! However as Mike says it's a lot better than drought. The hay prices should be lower than normal for the lower quality hay. It can't be fed to horses, and so it becomes "cow hay". Just make sure it's not moldy and have it tested , supplement with something if necessary over the winter. The dairy farmers around here don't even feed hay, they put straw and grain in a mixing tub and chop it all up together.

[Deleted]

severe weather again last night here. We missed the worst of it. We got over 3"