The Rural Voice, 1991-12, Page 31The Fishers usually buy good, grade Holsteins for
replacements, and breed them to a good beef bull.
because she may break down on us."
When their Limousin bull, which had sired good off-
spring for many years, was shipped last year, they decided
to try a Murray Grey bull instead. Aaron felt the breed's
shorter legs would counter the Holstein height. And while
he doesn't intend to stick with the breed indefinitely, he
likes the ease of calving and look of this year's calves. "If
this keeps up, we might keep him for another year," he says.
The Fishers have experimented with several beef breeds
over the years, with varying degrees of success. In the early
1970s, when exotic breeds were becoming popular, they
imported three Charolais cows from France at a cost of
$4,500 per cow, and Charolais heifers from South Dakota,
which they bred to artificial insemin-
ation. They found that the French cattle
were hard calvers, and hard to get in
calf. Bulls were sold to Guatemala,
North Dakota, and locally.
They decided to switch to a Limou-
sin bull, and were pleased with the re-
sults. "We still have some of the older
stock Charolais with Limousin cross,
and we like the calves and the finished
cattle," Aaron says. Fisher has tried a
Simmental bull, but wasn't happy with the results, and has
also used a Limousin/Chianina cross bull, but found it to be
too high strung and hard to manage.
He says he will undoubtedly use a Limousin bull again
in the future, but "unless you experiment, you're not sure
what anything else will do for you," Aaron says.
For the hog operation, the Fishers buy 45 to 60 pound
weaner pigs from local farmers and finish them at between
220 and 230 pounds with a backfat index of 107.
Aaron trucks all the finished cattle to the Brussels
Stockyards with his 4X4 pickup and livestock trailer. A
well groomed beast with no high hair can bring extra cents
per pound, and the Fishers curry comb and trim hair before
taking cattle to market. They have built a low cost wooden
The Fishers have been able to combat droughty soil by adding
plenty of humus to their land.
rack system at the cattle mangers which gives simple control
of cattle for grooming, vaccination, medical treatment, or
pregnancy checks. This system of tapered 2X4 boards
enables them to lock all livestock up as a group or individ-
ually.
They have their cattle roughage tested each year, and it
is blended with grain and concentrates through an
automated roller mill, and fed to the dairy cattle and young
stock in the feedlot. Beef cows are fed only hay to keep
from getting too fat. Corn, grain, and concentrate are
prepared for the pigs with an automated hammer mill.
With the exception of 35 tonne of purchased grain com,
the Fishers grow all their own feed, including 50 acres of
barley, 85 acres of mixed grain, 40 acres
of corn silage, and eight acres of grain
corn. The balance of land supports hay,
haylage, and pasture. Spring grain
yields averaged 3,000 pounds to the acre
this year.
Corn is usually planted in fields
broken up from sod, but some fields are
too steep to pull forage equipment over,
particularly if it is a wet fall, so those
fields are planted directly into spring
grain. Aaron tries to keep erosion to a minimum on the
sloping fields by decreasing the usual four year crop rotation
to two to three years. As part of the Land Stewardship II
program, a 20 per cent cover crop is kept on a steep grain
field over winter for erosion control. Cultivating the grain
fields disturbs twitch roots while spreading grain that is left
in the field after swathing and combining. It isn't long
before the grain sprouts to form a good cover crop, although
Aaron has noticed a difference in the growth potential of
different grain varieties late in the season. Seeded down
fields are kept in hay for three years before working again.
The loamy soil on the Fisher farms gives them a head
start on spring planting, and while this soil type is usually
prone to drought in dry weather, the Fishers have been able
"We don't like to carry
our eggs always in one
basket. If pig prices fall,
then there's milk to pull
us through."
DECEMBER 1991 27