At the Troy and Lori Ferrari farm near Dayton, there’s more than a hundred ways to say spring as calving season brings abundant new life to the neighborhood.

Growing up in the Stratford and Pilot Mound area, Troy Ferrari says working with a cow/calf operation became second nature to him.

“It gets in your blood,” Ferrari said. “I was born into it. My dad had cows. I was raised with them.”

Located upland from the confluence of the Boone and Des Moines rivers, the Ferrari farm is an ideal area to blend traditional crop rotation with a cow/calf operation.

-Messenger photo by Lori Berglund
A calf finds its way to momma for dinner at the Ferrari farm near Dayton. The Ferrari farm blends traditional crop rotation with a cow/calf operation.

“We live in an area where there is good pasture, and to utilize those pastures, cows work the best,” Ferrari said.

The cow/calf area of the farm sprawls through open pasture, timber, trees and creeks. Corn and soybeans dominate the rest of the farm, along with suitable areas for hay to keep the cows fed.

Long before he turns a wheel in the field each new year, Ferrari is busy in the barns with calving season starting in earnest in February. Heifers — the most time-consuming — go first, while the cows — more independent when it comes to calving — usually calve in the pasture once spring arrives.

“This year we will have 65 first-calf heifers and 70 cows,” Ferrari said. “We try to keep about the same number over the years, but we’ve been doing more heifers in the last few years because I had sold some cows and it was time.”

While in the past he has kept bulls, and has done his own artificial insemination (AI), he has more recently been purchasing a number of bred heifers.

“We used to AI all of our own heifers, sometimes 50 to 150, but I’ve kind of given that up because of the time and space it takes,” he said. “For genetic consistency, it’s easier for me to buy them.”

Ferrari has been very pleased with the bred heifers he has been purchasing from a ranch in Nebraska the last few years.

“They were bred to a bull called Patriarch,” Ferrari said. “I think he’s one of the best calving bulls I’ve seen. He’s a registered Angus.”

Taking a walk through the barn at the Ferrari farm demonstrates the quiet and easy nature that Ferrari describes in these heifers turned new moms. It’s remarkably quiet. The animals are at ease and seem undisturbed by a new visitor in their home. Two-day-old calves relax in beds of dry cornstalks, while others get up on their feet to nurse.

For a cow/calf producer, there’s nothing better than seeing those young calves standing strong at their mother’s side, and knowing where to find its dinner. That’s not always the case, but Ferrari had a very strong success rate with his first group of calves this season, losing only a set of twins out of 40 newborns.

“It went very well,” Ferrari said. “We had 40 heifers bred for one day, Feb. 23, and those 40 started on Feb. 10 and were done by Feb. 21. We had 40 calves in 10 days.”

That makes for a very busy schedule, especially in the depths of winter. Over the years, most of the family has helped in one way or another. Daughter Torrie is now a student at the College of Veterinary Medicine at Iowa State University in Ames. Jossie works as a lab tech for McFarland Clinic in Webster City. Jaynie is a radiology student at Iowa Central Community College. Son Rylie is also a student at Iowa Central and plans to transfer to Iowa State to major in finance.

Rylie Ferrari helps out when he can, but for calving season Troy Ferrari is on-call nearly non-stop.

“When we’re calving heifers, we have to look at them every two hours around the clock, and it’s just the two of us. We had 40 calves in 10 days, and it was very cold during that time, single digits.”

The hard work does not discourage Rylie Ferrari, who plans to come back and farm with his father. He chose a major in finance as a way to broaden the knowledge base already in place at the family farm.

“He’s been educated in the operations side of it,” Troy Ferrari said. “He wants to learn more about the finance side of things.”

Rylie Ferrari agrees with the need to get all the bases covered, from cleaning a calf to working a spreadsheet.

“Farming is more of a business,” the younger Ferrari said. “It goes really well together.”

Over the years, this diversified farm of corn, soybeans and hay, has been active in most areas of the cattle market.

“In the past, we’ve fed fat calves and done a little bit of everything,” Ferrari said. “We’ve done some backgrounding, fed cull cows, and now we’re just calving.”

The specialization works well, especially considering the labor-intensive nature of heifers, in particular.

“Heifers are 10 times more work,” Ferrari said.

The 40 new calves that arrived in February each started their life with about 30 minutes of blow-drying before they were returned to their mothers, warm and dry to help them on their way,

The bred heifers out of Nebraska have been a welcome addition to the farm, according to Ferrari.

“They are usually very quiet, very good mothers,” he said. “They’ve got good udders, very uniform, and a lot of consistency in them.”

Another group of heifers was busy calving in early March, and the cows will come due later.. While moisture may be needed for cropland, Ferrari likes to see dry lots and dry pasture as the cows begin to calve outside.

“The cows are tough,” Ferrari said. “A mature cow, if it’s in the 20s but it’s dry, those calves will be fine. Ideally, I’d like to see it in the 50s.”

The cows will calve primarily in the pasture, with Ferrari checking on them with the four-wheeler at least four times a day, and more if needed.

“The cows and heifers are a lot of work, but they’ve always been good to me,” Ferrari said. “You have to be determined, work for nothing, and go through the bad times.”