With all of the hay that I am doing now and the fact that I think we are going to have a summer filled with short weather windows for making hay I thought it was time to upgrade the tedder. I sold my smaller 9' tedder and found an older 16' tedder to replace it with.
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| 706 farmall with a kuhn 4 basket tedder. |
It is a Kuhn and is a manual fold and has some age to it but does a nice job fluffing and spreading the hay. I can literally cut my time in half or better since this one will do two full rows instead of most of one. I will decide by winter whether I want to keep it and fix the few little worn items or trade this one in and get a new one that is hydraulic fold and a little wider yet. Or, if I can find a second one that is similar in price range I will get a second one. Not sure yet, will know when the time comes what I am going to do. Right now I am just in "get it done" mode!
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| 706 farmall with a kuhn 4 basket tedder |
So I headed out to the pasture to check the cows on Friday night and found this stellar looking dude! Because I have been glued to the tractor seat when I am not at work for the last 4 weeks straight I haven't been able to check the herd as frequently as I was before hay season started. So I am finding them a day or two after they were born.
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| My red angus x shorthorn cow with her new bull calf. |
We are thinking that his daddy is Thunder. Unless we DNA test him thought there is no way to know. I was able to get a great picture of him by himself tonight. I followed him for around the pasture for about 30 minutes trying to tag him.
I was finally successful and after almost getting my butt kicked by him, his mother, and fifty I managed to tag him. Here is a picture of them together after the tagging. Neither of them was in the mood to talk to me afterward.
Now, on to the big news of the week. Steven and I have spent the last week trying to decide what route to take in the absence of our boar Redballs. After many discussions and a lot of looking for new pigs we finally made a decision. Steven found a young woman a little over an hour north of here that raises heritage breed pigs for sale and shows some of the best ones at various shows around the state and country. He was only home for one day this weekend so we headed up to check out the pigs and see what we could find.
My wife has always been partial to the Berkshire breed of pigs. The sows that we currently have are very tame and I like the Berkshires as well. So we decided to switch it up a little bit and get a Berkshire boar and two Berkshire gilts to add to the herd. We are planning on keeping a few of our best gilts out of this summers litters that will be the last from Redballs, to also raise for sows. I want to see how the purebred Berkshires will compare to the Tamworth crossed with the Berkshires. The other cool side benefit to this purchase is that because the girl we got them from uses high end boars for breeding, these pigs have great genetics. So, they will not just be great for the farm herd in general, but, they will also have really nice piglets for fair pigs. Plus, we will now be able to offer purebred Berkshire piglets which, as Steven and I both know, are hard to find!
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| Purebred Berkshire boar and two guilts |
This is one of the two gilts we got. I liked this one, not sure why but she just caught my eye and I said I would take her.
The one looking outside in the photo below is the gilt that Steven picked out. She looks really really nice and should produce some stunner fair pigs in the future.
The pictures above and below were taken after we had unloaded them and they had been in the barn for approximately 2.5 hrs. Steven's gilt was the first one to finally step outside. My wife and I spent 30 minutes trying to get them to explore.
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| The new Berkshire pigs checking out the yard for the first time. |
We were finally successful and the boar followed shortly after. However, this success was to be short lived as right after I took the last photo the new boar touched the electric fence while checking out Lady on the other side. They immediately ran right back into the barn and wouldn't come back out. I guess that is much better than what has happened in the past where the pigs freaked out and ran through the fence and we chased them all over the yard!
The picture below is of our new boar. His name is Doublestuffed. As you all know our previous boar was named Redballs after his most profitable and most prominent assets. Well, anyone who visits will quickly realize that from the back Doublestuffed has a striking similarity to a doublestuffed oreo cookie!
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| Our new Berkshire boar "Doublestuffed" |
Well, with every twist and turn this year we seem to be headed in the right direction. What looks like a setback is usually an opportunity to make a change and get better. I am hoping this change pays off well in the coming years and sets us on the right course for where we want to go.
Now, off to bed.
Kenny
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