Conser Run Report: Registration papers finally arrived!!

I came home from work Thursday to a pleasant surprise in the mail. The registration papers for Erica finally arrived! This paper carries quite a bit more information than I thought it would and I was very impressed.

Amongst the information contained is the Artificial Insemination (AI) records for her current pregnancy. I noticed in the sale book that the bull info they gave was incorrect so I was very anxious to see what the actual sire was for the calf. I was ecstatic to see that the bull was Complete 4u75!! Awesome bull and pulls in genetics from what a lot of people feel is the #1 bull in the black angus system.

I can't wait for the calves to be born this year. The calving season kicks off early this year with our new girl Erica on February 10th. Then we have one in March, two in April and one in each of May, June and July! The only one that isn't bred yet is my little red angus girl Candy Apple. We are hoping she settled in November but I won't know till I have her pregnancy checked again later this winter.

Next we have another new arrival. Her name is Kwanzan, named after the most popular Japanese cherry tree. I decided since we already have a family that will be named after crab apple trees I wanted to name our new girl after Cherry trees. You will notice that she is red, except a little white on her belly. My daughter helped pick her out at my dad's farm. I still needed to pick out one more heifer in trade for the hay work I did this summer and told my daughter that this would be her calf to raise. She originally wanted the white one in the group, and it was a beautiful calf. However it was quite dairy looking and wouldn't really fit well into our operation. So we settled onto the all red one. In my daughters honest words she told me on the way home that she picked this one because she new I liked it!!

I promise I will get her an all white calf down the road! I am hoping that with our current bull we are using we will get some white calves as he is a Charolais x Angus cross. Charolais are all white or creme colored beef cattle and are quite beautiful.

A little more info in case you are wondering. There are two ways I could go with the cattle, I can either go all pure bred and go heavy into genetics and bloodlines and get really picky or I can go with a cross breed. I am planning on keeping our new Black Angus girl Erica bred to high end Black Angus bulls as that will make her calves very marketable and keep the line going. The rest of my herd I am planning on cross breeding. This will give me two things. One, it allows me to take advantage of Heterosis, or as others know it Hybrid Vigor! When you make a two way cross the offspring see a 15%-20% increase genetically in growth, vigor, and many other traits. With a three way cross you will see a 30%-40% increase. So if you take a good cow and a good bull and cross them you normally get a really good calf.

Some other updates for the farm. We are getting ready to sell our little piglets from Mallory. The buyers are supposed to be coming this week to get them. Mallory also came into heat right on time on the fifth day after weaning the piglets! She is bred and if she took should be having another litter May 5th! I can't wait.
We are anxiously awaiting our first litter from Daisy Pig who is due February 12th. We will be marketing the piglets from her for show pigs for our county fair. The two Yorkshire litters will be sold as feeder pigs. We will also be keeping a few piglets for ourselves for feeding out for meat sales.

I also put in a new parking area between the barn and the driveway. I got really tired of all the mud so I tried scraping some of it off to get to some drier soil just to make a walking path for this very mild winter. To my surprise I found that about five inches down there was already gravel and upon consulting the neighbor who is about 15 years older than me found that the entire area used to be gravel and simply got let go and grew into lawn over the last 25-30 years. So I simply scraped off all the good topsoil to use for changing the grade along the driveway and repairing the area where I put in the new water line and had some gravel/slag delivered and coated the entire area.

In case you are wondering, slag is a by product of steel production. We have many steel plants in the area and it is usually cheaper than stone gravel and locks together better. When coated with the really fine form, 8x, it will set up like concrete. It has, at least around here, been called the poor mans concrete for this reason.

We also had our first real snow of the winter season. Normally this would occur in November or early December, but this winter has been odd to say the least and we are just now getting it. I don't have to worry about dealing with it too long either as it is supposed to be 40 degrees tomorrow and raining so it will go away quickly.

The only troubling thing about this winter, other than the almost constant rain, is the swinging temps. Cold weather is slightly tough on the animals but if consistent they are accustomed to it and handle it well by simply eating more. However, when you have 30 degree temperature swings on an almost daily basis they do not have time to adjust and it can cause sicknesses, mainly pneumonia. So far everyone here is handling the weather fine and I haven't had any problems. I feel this is related to the way they have been raised and their natural diet keeping their health at its peak!