When a hurricane hits, livestock farmers don’t have the luxury of being able to hunker down like everyone else. Farm animals need to be checked and fed, and if dairy cows aren’t milked, they can develop oedema and mastitis.
“Even if you skip one milking, it can get really bad,” explained McLaren Smith, 35.
Mr Smith is one of the owners of Westover Farm in Sandys, the family farm where he grew up, and, in addition to their dairy herd, they also have sheep, goats, and a wide variety of vegetables and grains.
On the day we meet, his 40 sheep are all pregnant, and he is expecting about 60 to 70 lambs within the next two months. His dairy herd consists of 17 cows – 16 Holstein Friesians and one Jersey cow. He is hoping to increase this herd to about 60 or 70 milking cows.
Like everyone else, when a major storm threatens the island, it’s all hands on deck securing the farm infrastructure.
“We make sure all the roofs are fixed, properly tied down. We’ve got to cut the trees away from the wires,” he said.
The livestock not be under these roofs. With the exception of the very young calves, he lets the animals out into the open fields where they take care of themselves and each other.
“They all huddle. They’ll move around the field as a herd,” he explained.
For the sheep, he added: “If there’s any young stock, they’ll put young stock in the centre and all of them will surround them, and they’ll take turns going in the middle. The cows tend to do the same thing, but they’re big animals, so they’ll just find a spot in the field and hunker down for the night and they’ll move around as the wind changes.”
Any calf of three months old or younger cannot remain outside in these conditions because their bodies haven’t developed enough to handle it, and the constant wind could make them sick, or worse. Instead they will be brought into the milking area, where they can be shut in securely.
While hurricanes are far from ideal conditions for dairy cows, they only have a minor impact on milk production, and this isn’t caused by stress, but by the fact that they are moving around a lot.
“They’re not able to lay down so we will see a slight decrease in milk, the next milking. But, once the storm’s passed, then you’re back up. So, we’re only looking at one milking where the milk will actually decrease,” Mr Smith said.
Nervy times
The process of getting them milked during the hurricane can be quite stressful for the farmer, especially as cows do not like being in the holding pen during a storm, while waiting to be milked. They will run around in circles and kick, so he said he just has to get it done as quickly as possible.
Once the power goes, a generator fuels all the equipment and gets the milk cold.
In addition to bringing his dairy herd in to be milked, Mr Smith also needs to bring the sheep in to be fed and has to walk the fields, checking the animals and making sure the fences are still up.
“We don’t want to put them in barns because if anything happens to the structural integrity of the barn, then they could injure the cows,” he explained.
Does he ever feel nervous about being out in a hurricane? “Yeah, I had a piece of roofing fly across my head a few years ago and I didn’t see it until it went past me.”
Taking a dip
Mr Smith has witnessed his fair share of storms and, without wanting to tempt fate, his animals have been kept safe so far. This doesn’t mean he hasn’t had worries or surprises, such as after one hurricane, when they woke up to find almost all their sheep had jumped into the ocean.
“I was probably about 16 years old when that happened,” he recalled. “It wasn’t hurricane force winds, but it was still pretty strong, and we went to check the sheep and they weren’t there. When we looked in the water, we could just see little white heads in the water.”
Amazingly, and in spite of the weather, none of them drowned, thanks to Mr Smith and his Uncle, Richard Bascome Sr.
“I had to jump in the water and swim them in, one by one. That was fun,” he laughed.
His uncle was on the rocks, hoisting them up. Back then they had around 60 sheep, with all but 10 going for a swim.
He can’t be sure exactly why the sheep did that, but something likely scared them. Either that or, he joked, “maybe they were hot and went for a dip”.
On another occasion, both their hay barn and main barn blew away. The main barn landed in a field, but the hay barn was never found and had to be completely rebuilt.
While he has been able to keep his livestock safe during all these hurricanes, unfortunately the same can’t be said for the vegetable side of the farm, which is managed by his cousins, and for which the timing of Bermuda’s hurricane season is particularly cruel.
“Hurricane season is prime planting season, not prime harvesting season,” he said. “That’s when everything’s in the ground so when storms hit, they normally hit when plants are young and you just have to refit and refix.”
In advance of the storm, they will harvest whatever they can and then prepare the crops as much as possible.
For cassava, for example, this means cutting the leaves so there’s nothing for the wind to catch. For everything else, he explained: “You just have to mole them up, which is bringing soil closer to the plant to hopefully keep them steady. It’s a gamble, but that’s all you can do.”
