HOLY COW!!!! CALVING SEASON HAS ARRIVED AND WE SELECTED A PUPPY!!!!

So between work and home there has not been any time to relax as with the early onset of spring we are in full swing at work just as calving season started!   I am very happy that this year we are having perfect weather.  Last year at this time is was extremely wet and cold.  

First up is our sweetheart 50.  She had her calf just today and it is another heifer.  This brings her total to 7 heifers and two bulls.  She lost one bull and one heifer.  We have kept all the rest of her heifer calves and each one of them has had a heifer for their first calf.  Overall her bloodline is averaging around 78% female calves to date.  We will have to see as her daughters start having calves soon whether they will keep the average up or have bulls.  As a farm overall we are averaging around 58-60% heifers for calves.  A dairy farmer would be in heaven with those numbers!  You may also notice that we used all of the original 50 tags that we bought for the cows and switched to Yellow.  50 got the tag that matched her name from the first batch we bought.  Her calf, Pollyanna, gets the first out of the new batch of yellow tags!

Next up is another surprise I found when I got home today.  This is sugar.  I got her off of a fellow I work with who raises show cattle.  He was going to fatten her out and sell her at the auction but I bought her and brought her home instead.  This is her first calf and it is....you guessed it, a heifer!!!!  This is our first Blue Rhone heifer calf born here on the farm.  I am super excited and can't wait to see how many more of these we get and how they grow!

Here we have another first calf heifer.  Her name is hopscotch and I got her mother (butterscotch) at auction several years back and she was nursing a calf and was pregnant with this girl. 

 

This little cutie has a white mustache and two racing stripes, one on each cheek.  Super cute!

Next we have the only calf so far this year out of Thunder.  As most of you know we sold Thunder last summer and he was out with the cows for a week.  The awesome thing is that this is Chilli and this is a heifer as well!  We have sold her other heifers because of her size but I cannot argue with the fact that she is always on time with calving and is very consistent.  So, this little lady will be staying with us for the long haul!

This is Tigerwoods.  She is from the same farm as Sugar and is also a shorthorn.  She had a heifer as well but it is all black.  The total so far this year is 7 heifers and 3 bulls.  We still have 8 confirmed calves on the way and 2 unconfirmed.  It is starting out to be a pretty awesome season and I cannot wait to see how it all turns out in when we are done!

My daughter finally got her second dairy beef feeder.  He is pretty small next to T-Bone but he is growing very quickly!  His name is Milkshake and he is a shorthorn x red Holstein cross bull.  Since she is not able to take two to the fair we will most likely keep him as a bull and use him to breed heifers with for a few years.  

Next up I wanted to share a picture of something I didn't even know existed.  My wife was checking out one of the "Vernal Pools" in the pasture the other day.  A Vernal Pool is an area that fills with water in the spring and remains wet till summer and then dries out.  There are little tiny Fairy shrimp swimming all over in it right now.  I managed to scoop one up with my hand and you can see the little egg pocket on the back of it.  The eggs, once laid, will remain dormant throughout the summer and ensuing winter and will hatch next spring to start the cycle over again.  

Fairy Shrimp from a Vernal Pool in Ohio

I want to finish up with a picture of the puppy we picked out this past weekend.  He is still a little too young to bring home but we should be able to get him before Easter! 

It took us about 40 minutes to finally decide who we wanted to bring home.  He is the only one out of the entire bunch that has longer hair.  He is a fir ball!!  

He is also crazy cute and as you can tell he likes to stick his tongue out for photos!  We have decided to call him Zeus.  We have almost everything we need to be ready for him to come home.  Last thing to do is get a cable puller and install the new dog fence wire to replace the old one I installed by hand shortly after we got Daisy many many years ago.    

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend and I will be sure to post pictures of the calves as they keep arriving and definitely picture of our new little guy.  We are extremely happy to bring home another rescue pup from the humane society just like we did with Daisy.  My only wish is that she would be here to greet him.  I am sure thought that she was meant to leave us so he could have a chance to enjoy the life she started for him.   We have a lot of training to do and I cannot wait to take him for his first tractor ride.  He will be unreasonably spoiled I already know that.  We also plan to train him to help with the cattle as well. 

Goodnight everyone,

Kenny

Updates from the farm!

It has been hard adjusting to not having Daisy around.   Even the cats were upset for a while.  Mistletoe, who joined the farm in December of 2014, has been keeping me company lately. 

She goes to the barn with Lisa and I everyday and has done a great job of keeping the mice and birds out of the barn!  We have had very little activity since she joined us. 

Last weekend was beautiful!!!  It was 65 degrees and sunny, unlike today that is 33 degrees with snow!   We knew it was going to be gorgeous out so the family and I decided to spend the day getting pasture fences ready and taking care of some misc. tasks that have been setting incomplete since fall. 

Lisa was at a friends house for a sleep over so it was just my wife and Alex helping me with chores.  He was very grumpy at first and didn't want to go but after about 20 minutes of pouting on the 4 wheeler he found something fun to play with in the creek and then had a great day the rest of the day outside doing stuff.  

The cows above an the pigs below had their own way of enjoying the warm weather.  The cows headed for the pasture and the pigs laid in the sun in the cow shed!

Lisa joined 4H this year and is taking dairy beef feeders.  She got her first (T-Bone) calf in January and just got her second calf (Milkshake) two nights ago.  T-bone is growing really well and should do well for the fair at the end of August.  I will get a better picture of her with them when the weather warms up next week.  You can see the picture is hazy because of dust in the air from bedding the pen. 

In the afternoon on Saturday I stopped by my cousins house after dropping Lisa off for her sleep over.   They were planing wood planks for a remodeling project and had a massive pile of wood shavings...which my son found very enjoyable!  Needless to say I will now need to clean the truck and he got a double shower that night!  You will also notice my cousin's dog beside my son.   She used to be very tiny but as you can see she gets a few too many snacks and is now a little chubby!

Lastly, I want to share a picture of a litter of puppies we will be getting the chance to view next weekend.  The mother is a husky cross and is very similar in size to what Daisy was.  She is with a shelter here in our area and was rescued after she was found living in a dump.  She was not tagged and had no microchip either.   She was also found to be pregnant.  She had her litter 5 days after she was rescued.   

We are looking to rescue another pup just like we did Daisy.  We did look at some others because most of the shelters have exceptional adoption rates now unlike they did 12 years ago when we got married.  However, we want to stay with a smaller dog since they will be riding in the tractor and in the truck.  Also, if something happens my wife will need to be able to pick the dog up as well so a large breed doesn't work well for us.  

We will let everyone know if we decide to bring one of these little ones home.  From what the shelter can tell there are several different breeds in the litter bu they believe a few of the pups will stay under the 40#-45# size.  We will not know until we get to go see them next Sunday.  It is time for us to have another dog in the house.  While cats are great for mice and naps there is nothing like coming home to a house with a dog who greets you at the door.  Coming home right now is a constant reminder of who is missing.  We are starting to be able to move on but until we find someone to take over Daisy's roll here on the farm we will never be able to completely move on. 

Have a good weekend everyone and enjoy the nice weather coming up this week.   They are calling for weather similar to late spring for the week!!!  Hoping to hear peepers this week.  If we do that means spring has actually arrived!!!!

Kenny