Nurse cows and tall grazing help make the system work smoothly for the Bairs
By Martha Hoffman Kerestes
Troy, Ohio — Two dozen years after first turning their conventional herd out to pasture, David and Annette Bair are bringing on the next generation, milking 48 cows for one of the largest herdshare programs in Ohio, and eyeing more growth as demand continues to expand.
It’s a long way down the road from where things were at when David got fed up harvesting feed for the confinement dairy around the turn of the century. He was moving from 3rd and 4th cut hay straight into corn silage and then directly into high moisture ear corn, and it was a lot of time to spend on the tractor.
“I was spending every day for 90 days that the weather was fit in the tractor chopping, and it was costing a lot of money to do that,” David says. “I just thought we could do better if we could just send the cows out and harvest their own feed.”
When he pitched the idea of letting the cows out to graze, his dad was hesitant but willing to try.
“My dad’s biggest fear was ‘what if it turns dry?’,” David explains. “He was worried pasture wouldn’t be able to keep supplying forage if it turned dry.”
David seeded 25 acres and grazed the herd in 2001 for part of their ration. And one part of his father’s fear came true as the season turned dry, but the pasture didn’t fail them.
To see this article in full, order the specific back issue you are interested in. This article appeared in the Aug-Sept 2025 issue of Graze.