spring is in the air

but all I can smell is burnt rubber, as the soles of our shoes (boots) melt from the constant running around.

Farmer Jon here and boy have we been busy. Which has become our new normal since we moved out here but lately we've been even busier than usual. Here are a few examples:

Our dark cornish chicks are a few weeks old and growing a little every day

 Our Pekin ducklings arrived on Saturday and some of them are already HUGE!

The Khaki Campbell ducklings are doing well and can be moved to their permanent home soon.


The broiler chicks are doing really well. We were expecting more issues since they are a commercial breed but they have actually done really well so far.

  And of course, we're still moving the sheep around.

And the bulls...

  And the yearling steers and heifers...

And the cows and calves...

And don't forget ol' 14. She's still hanging in there.

I've had two equipment failures while trying to lift her up twice a day but I hope she will make some good progress this weekend. 

 Jamie's been working hard on the garden.


Here are her strawberries!

Did I mention the turbine was hit by lightning AGAIN! My renewable energy dealer/repairman thought I was joking. He said that has never happened. Luckily, I know how to take it down now. So I lowered it last night but I still have to wait for the part, now that the wind is blowing like crazy today...

See that little white thing. That's what needs replaced...

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#14

Farmer Jon here - After the first cow calved, I came out the next morning to find #14 on the ground with a live calf and a dead calf nearby. She had twins! But only the one was still alive by the time I got there. To make matters worse, #14 couldn't stand up. So we called the vet and he gave her various things to help but nothing worked. He left us with a hip clamp to help get her on her feet. We don't have a loader(front scoop) for our tractor so our wonderful neighbors were kind enough to come over to help. 

We got her up but she couldn't support herself. Something was wrong with that right rear leg. Probably a pinched nerve or something. We stayed out there for a couple hours but she still wasn't any better. So they left the tractor for me to use the next day. 

 The next day I got her up again but still no luck. This went on for a couple more days before I finally got her on a trailer and brought her back to the farmyard.

  A certain someone wouldn't stay out of the way of the tractor so I put her somewhere safe.

I put #14in the granary so that I could hoist her up multiple times a day without needing a tractor.

And then...


A couple days later...


She can walk!

 Of course, that meant she walked away from my hoist.

 So I tried to lift her up with the closest things I could find.
Attempt #1

Attempt #2. I actually had her up but then the hip clamp slipped off and she fell down.

I eventually realized that I could put the bale spear on the back of my tractor and it would lift her just high enough that she could stand up.

I'm glad she's doing better but I sure hope she can stand on her own soon. This is going to get old in a hurry!

We sold the calf to a nice family down the road because we didn't have time to bottle feed a calf and the momma needs to conserve all her energy for getting better rather than producing milk. It was fun to have a pet calf for those few days but selling her was the right decision for us.

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spring has sprung

Farmer Jon here - For a while there mother nature appeared to be skipping straight to summer but, thankfully, we are back to feeling like a spring. And just in time for all the spring happenings!

We just received our baby chicks yesterday.

 All three sows farrowed a total of 19 piglets!

Jamie is working hard to get the garden ready.

 


The asparagus has been growing like crazy for over a week.

We even officially started the grazing season today by putting the cattle out on a new paddock.

 
I have the day off and Jamie decided to pick up a shift at work, so Clara and I moved the cattle.

Clara had a lot of fun but she's not much help. She was asleep before I even got down to the cattle!

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Look very closely at this picture...

It looks like a nice young heifer in a corral, right?

Look closely, see that large black lump in the back....

Let me zoom in for you a little bit.

Why yes, that is a large black boar sunning himself!

We've been having issues with this heifer for a little bit.  Jon noticed one day that she was dreadfully skinny.  He moved her into the corral and she drank and drank and drank.  Later that day, she looked much better and was getting plump.  Turns out she was probably very dehydrated.  Jon put her back in with the other cows and observed her for awhile.  She may have gotten shocked by the electric fence that we have near the waterer and now refuses to drink out of it.  That is the only source of water in the that pasture, so she has gotten dehydrated again.  We are debating on what to do with her now, she's a nice friendly heifer and we would like to milk a cow this year.  This would be her first year calving, but we are a little doubtful she was actually able to sustain a pregnancy with her issues.  We shall see.

Oh, I should probably explain about the boar.  He has been separated for awhile now, because when we tried to put everyone together after mating it got a little hairy.  The boars were fine and dandy together since they grew up together, but once they mate, they become very territorial over their sows.  We were crossing our fingers that we would be able to put them together because that is much less work for us.  Didn't work!

She's looking a little bit plumper since this morning all ready.  When we first pulled her out, she was like a stick.

On a side note:  Hallelujah for spring!  I've got grass growing all ready, anybody else?

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The hurdler turned hamburger turned escapee...

So, as a follow up post to Jon's about the livestock-go-round, I thought I would talk about the other night.  As you may or may not know, I'm nine months pregnant.  And yesterday was my due date.  We really thought that I might actually go into labor yesterday due to the events that took place the night before...

The escapee/hurdler cow, who I neglected to take a picture of, had been penned up for a couple days in our corral.  And let me tell you, my heart hurt for the poor old gal.  She bawled and bawled for her calf, which we had tried to get to come to her.  Neither Jon nor I cared if they were together, but we just couldn't get him to come to her.  He is just too skittish.  So, we had to listen to her bawl for about a day and a half, in which time I hadn't been sleeping the best.  Not only did I have to listen to her bawl during the day, I had to listen to her bawl during the night.  And as someone who's about to give birth to her first child, it was all I could do not to go out there and let her out so she could find her baby.  She just wanted her baby!

But life on a farm requires some tough decisions and we were both confident that the best decision was to get rid of her and turn her into hamburger.  She was not only hurdling four foot high barb wire fences, but she was starting to take the herd with her.  Not cool...  So, she stayed penned up in our corral and I tried not to listen to her bawling.

We came home around five two days ago and Jon started to do chores.  Max was starting to bark as if something was in the farmyard.  And it was...the whole darn herd!  Somehow the calf had found his mother, taking ALL the calves and some cows with him.  And darned if they weren't just hanging out in the farmyard and around the house.  Thankfully Jon had taken the Low-Stress Animal Handling class and they were pretty well trained to go where Jon wanted them to go.  Except for that dang calf!  He wanted in with his mother, she wanted out with him and we COULD NOT get them in together.  Keep in mind, it's also getting dark and very cold.  There is nothing more infuriating than working with an animal who is skittish.  They are just very unpredictable.  I also vowed right then and there that I am going to learn how to rope if it kills me.  Never mind how the heck I thought I would be able to drag a 5 month old bull calf into a corral...

Jon sent me into the house to warm up, while he chased the cows that had now wandered over to the east side of our property that doesn't have fencing.  We tried one more time to get them together and said screw it.  It was dark, cold and I was one day away from my due date...not exactly the best helper in the world!  Now mama and baby were reunited, but we still had to get them back into a fenced area.  Again, so glad Jon took that class, because he was able to get them through a gate they had never been through before and it was dark.  I was pretty impressed.  My job was to bring up the rear and keep the strays from getting too far.  Did I mention I was carrying a sledgehammer the whole time and two flashlights?  We needed to break water for the cattle and I apparently didn't think to drop the sledgehammer and at least one of the flashlights.

Finally Jon got them were they needed to go and I breathed a huge sigh of relief.  There is nothing more stressful than having animals out, especially at night and in the winter.  Remember what happened when we first got the cattle?  We have learned so much since then and I credit Jon's working with the cattle and the techniques he learned in the Low-Stress Animal handling class to making this night go a little smoother.  And we were able to make it into town for our "Last Supper".  I had been craving steak and one last nice supper before the baby got here was just what I wanted.  Thanks for the delicious steak Mistys!

How I haven't had this baby yet is beyond me...  One would have thought that being nine months pregnant, chasing cows in the dark, while carrying a sledgehammer would have put me into labor.  I'm still patiently waiting!

Oh and by the way, the hurdler cow will still be turned into hamburger.  Now we just need to catch her again....

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livestock-go-round

or Musical Livestock, if you prefer. No matter how you say it, there has been a lot of moving of animals in the past week. The first of which was to separate the sows from the piglets. I managed to separate and move them fairly easily. Then came the hair sheep and combining the rams and ewes. That was easy, all I did was open up the fence panel between their pens. Next came the cattle, I setup poly-wire around some of the alfalfa and moved the cowherd onto that. I even managed to get a boar moved from the garden into the sow pen and a sow into the garden with the other boar. A few delays but nothing unexpected. So far, so good right?

Well, then that sow got out and I chased her around the farm and got her back in. While I was looking for tools to repair the fence, she proceeded to run right back out the other side (this pen just has one electric fence wire). By that time it was dark and I had no idea where she was. So I fixed the  fence and called it a night. Later that night, Jamie was concerned that something would happen to her so I went back out with the spotlight and found her. I proceeded to chase her around the farm yard again and I almost had her but I ended up losing her and decided to wait until morning. The next morning Jamie and I chased her around again (ok so I chased her around but Jamie helped stage blockades) and eventually got her in the pen with the piglets. We decided that was good enough and would bring the boar to her. After some coaxing with the feed bucket, we managed to get the boar in too.

Then came the cow. Cow #27 is the "Escapee cow". I have seen her go under, over, through most fences on our farm. And I'm tired of it! This weekend was the last straw when I found her and a bunch of heifers out and some of my poly-wire down. We decided then and there that she was not going back with the herd; although she did not get the memo. I've been working with the cattle using the animal handling techniques I learned but there's not much you can do in that particular situation. So I ended up chasing her around the farm on a four wheeler. Throughout the course of the day she jumped over (and temporarily got stuck in) a barbed wire fence and three electric fences. I did get her into the corral up towards the house though and that's where she'll have to stay since she'll get out of any other sort of fencing that I have on the farm. Of course, she has a four month old calf too but he was with the herd at the time so I was only able to move her. They are both bauling but I can't get the calf to leave the herd so I'm not sure what to do. He's definitely old enough to wean but I prefer to keep him on through the winter to help him gain weight faster. I'm thinking that he will make his way to her but we'll see.

I thought I would draw it up on the board for you to help clear things up...

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Farm Report

First off, WE HAVE EGGS! Not exactly sure who's laying them but we've had about one every morning for the last four days. Of course, they are in the yard in front of the chicken coop rather than the nest boxes but we'll work on that...

Here's the view from our front porch. It was time to move the cattle off of the warm season grasses and back onto the cool season. So I moved them across the farm to start the next round of grazing. Of course, moving them across the farm turned into a five hour event - I had to trim and/or cut down cedar trees, pull up old barbwire and other junk, create a gate in my existing electric fence, put up posts and polywire to create an alley and then set up a water tank. All I need to do now is put up posts and hi-tensile wire and I will have a new permanent alley to move cattle around the farm.

I had to snap a pic to show our critters living together so well, with the ducks in the cow pen and the chickens in the pig pen.

I aspire to take pictures as great as Jamie's but, for now, they are a work in progress... I hope you can still enjoy them.

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from around the farm

Spunky little things aren't they. I wish I would have had a camera with me when one of them was laying with a chicken yesterday.

Here's an older one the morning after a heavy rain (the stuff is still set up from the Pekin ducks). First are the runner ducks and then I find the other four ducks...

Here's a shot of Jamie's brief time on the mower. She's always been more of an artistic/abstract type and apparently that carries over into her mowing...

She never made the upcoming turn but she did manage to stop before running into the tree. 

POOLS FOR EVERYONE (wait where's our pool!?)

Here's Max chillin' in his own personal pool. I've had to move his to the east side of the house so the ducks/geese quit getting into it and making it all muddy. They have their own pool too.

 They boars have really mangled their plastic pool but it's still holding water. It'll work for this summer. I have grand plans for next year though.

Even the cattle get to swim. They're still skinny and we can't figure out why so we moved them to a big area with shade trees and a pond to see if that would help.

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Farm Update

Well that was fun. I sat down to start working on a blog post and the power went out. It's not a big deal to go turn the generator on (other than the cost) but it's definitely not good for our appliances. Even when the power doesn't go off, I'm fairly certain our energy situation is not helping our appliances. It seems like the generator's power is not steady enough and is causing certain things to act funny. For example, we've had to switch to battery powered alarm clocks because our plugin clocks weren't keeping proper time. They could be off as much as an hour in a day's time. And a lot of times something like a fan will speed up or slow down in sync with the sound of the generator.

I'm confident we will get solar, I just don't know when. Hoping for this year still but we shall see. I look forward to the day when I can hope for sunshine instead of just wind.

I told you that our cows are getting skinny. The main reason is more than likely because they (half of them anyway) have calved and are nursing. But we're not 100% sure what's normal body condition. Part of the problem, though, is the flies. We haven't done anything for fly control on the cattle because most methods involve chemicals. We knew of a walk through fly trap you could make but I was having trouble finding plans to build it and I would have even more trouble finding the time. Jamie found a different kind of fly trap that simulates a large animal and traps the flies that way. It sounds great and we can order it, which will save me the time of figuring out how to build it. It should be hear next week.

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Never enough

hours in the day! We are SOOO SORRY for neglecting our blog duties. We have been very busy around the farm but I promise we will do better.

In case you haven't heard, it's hot! And in case I forgot, I have text message weather alerts that come to my phone that love to remind me. As if reporting the upcoming temperatures wasn't enough, they add fun descriptors too - "Thu: Hot and Humid 102/78; Fri: Hot and Humid 98/68". My phone may end up somewhere in the pasture, depending on how far it flies when I throw it.

We are keeping a closer eye on our critters with the heat. The ones we need to watch the closest are the boars. Right now we are pasturing them and there is no natural shade around. I have some shade structures set up which may or may not be sufficient but since they can't really sweat they probably need something more. Mud wallows are ideal but I don't really want a bunch of mud holes all over the farm, since we move them fairly often. So, I'm trying a Pig Pool:


This was Max's pool but I gave him a bigger one. I put this out yesterday afternoon but I've already swapped the pools again this morning. The bigger pool has taller sides so we'll see if they can get in/out but at least all three would be able to fit.

Here is a random pic of a cow. She hasn't calved yet, hopefully soon though. Our cows are looking skinny so I was out taking pictures of them and testing the Brix levels of the grass. I need to calibrate our refractometer since this is the first time I've used it but I was getting readings of 4-9 Brix readings. Which I thought was low but Jamie thinks that is not bad. She's probably right.

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Farm Update

Good Morning All,
The two day Greg Judy conference was GREAT! We learned a ton and are even more inspired to move forward with our farming operation. Most importantly, we are starting to get a better idea of the direction we're headed. Our "direction" will continue to evolve but we definitely have a clearer view of it, then we did before the conference.

We accomplished quite a bit over the weekend, thanks to help from our family. I won't give it all away because I think Jamie is working on a post to show you some of it. But I will say that we were able to put a door back on the machine shed and repair a couple others. It has made a vast improvement to the function and aesthetics of the farmyard. Hopefully, I can get the rest of the doors fixed in the near future.

I was checking on the cattle this morning and noticed that one of our cows has a HUGE udder. I mean two-three times the size of a large udder. I would almost think that she had some sort of hernia that caused the calf to drop. She doesn't seem distressed so I'm not sure.

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Two Down ELEVEN TO GO!

Baby Calf Dos was born this morning. I saw him as I was headed down the driveway. It's cold, windy and rainy just like it was for Baby Calf Uno (aka Marty aka White Chocolate aka MWC). Of course, it's another bull. Sure hope we can have a few heifers thrown in there... We've decided to hold off on any banding. It's our intent to not castrate at all but if we do, it will be later after we see how the bulls develop.

Let's see if I can correctly post the pictures this time. Keep in mind that I am NOT the photographer in this operation. Which will become evident shortly.

I kept my eye on momma but she let me be. So grabbed a few close ups.

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