Beef farmers Lori and Darryl Chalmers (centre), along with sons Nolan, Evan and (far right) Owen; and daughter Michaela, won an Ontario Mapleseed Pasture Award.
FLEXIBLE FARMING
Parents and adult children pasture beef animals on marginal land; creative ideas make it work
Nelson Zandbergen
Farmers Forum
SIMCOE COUNTY — It takes exceptional pasture management to efficiently raise beef on the dry, sandy soil at the Chalmers family beef farm in Oro-Medonte Township, northeast of Barrie.
Lori Chalmers says the land is so marginal at the main farmstead on 4th Line Road, the property was zoned aggregate when she and her husband, Darryl, acquired it in 2008. They had to drill a well 280 feet deep in order to hit water, she said, and the farm’s light soil naturally drains very quickly. “You can have a lake in one minute from a flooding rain, but it’ll be gone in no time.”
A neighbour once marvelled that the property used to be seen as unsuitable for livestock and, 40 years ago, was the only farm on their road without cattle. “He grew up (on this road) and this was the only ‘dry’ farm — meaning no well, no house, no nothing,” Chalmers said.
Today, the situation has reversed, and the farm, known as JPD Angus, is the only one raising cattle on their road. That’s a testament to the farm’s management and environmental acumen, which was recently recognized with an Ontario Mapleseed Pasture Award. The honour includes a $500 cash prize and bag of forage seed.
The Angus operation includes 60 cow-calf pairs plus another 40 animals raised to yearling age — 20 heifers and 20 bulls. The farm comprises 120 rotationally grazed acres on three properties located within a short drive of each other in the same township. The land base, which includes an additional 30 acres of cropped forages and hay for the animals, supports the entire herd. Only once in 15 years, during a drought, have they needed to buy hay from off-farm.
On the original main farm, Lori and her husband Darryl, manage the maternity pens, a handling barn and 50 of the total pastured acres.
Their sons — all in their 20s — Evan, Owen and Nolan all reside at home and work the farm. Evan manages day-to-day operations. Owen is the lead mechanic and repair specialist, and Nolan helps with whatever needs to get done. Lori and Darryl’s daughter, Michaela, and her husband, Chris,manage a larger group of cattle on 70 acres of better pastureland nearby.
The fragility of the farm’s pastures has meant shifting the cattle onto a hay diet as needed. “I think that’s our biggest innovation,” Lori Chalmers said. “We have to be completely flexible because we have a lot of snow, but if it’s dry (in the spring, summer and fall), we also have to be able to pull the cows off the land and put them back on hay to not disturb the pasture roots. It’s one of those things where you’re walking those pastures daily, making sure there’s sufficient forage out there, moving them around, and when there isn’t, getting the cattle off and giving it a rest.”
Grazing begins around June 1 and the cattle are rotated onto different paddocks every 7 or 8 days, she said. “Rotational grazing has allowed us to maximize the number of cow-calf pairs that can go out on the land,” she said.
They also protect their fragile land from erosion by conscientiously applying manure and not plowing down and reseeding. Instead, they overseed and also use a slit seeder “to keep the soil where it is,” she said.
They use a 10-foot-wide slit seeder imported from the Netherlands to add lines of seed directly into the soil in existing pasture, a technique she says is more often seen in parks and recreational areas.
She conceded there’s been no money in producing beef cattle up until last year and that shift “has been fairly lovely to be honest.”
Chalmers was raised on a Simcoe County beef farm, and the vocation is simply a passion for her family regardless of the economics. They take pride in showing their cattle locally and at the Royal Winter Fair in Toronto. She and her daughter are local 4-H leaders.
JPD Angus survives because everyone involved has an off-farm job. Chalmers and her husband run a concrete forming company and crane service mechanic shop, which also employs their sons. Their daughter is a dairy nutritionist at Jones Feed Mills, while her husband works for Enbridge.
