Some cow/calf picks!

I was out in the pasture over the weekend and had a chance to get some pics of the babies from this summer some of which were with their mommas.  

First I got a picture of Prairie Fire with her daughter Coral Burst.  Coral Burst is looking really good considering how sick she was in the summer.  I am really happy with how she has bounced back!

Dam: Red Angus Sire: Charolais x Angus

Here is a pic of a couple of the boys with White Tail in the middle.

A few of the calves from our 2013 calving season

Here is a pic of White Tail by herself.  She is really really cute, and she is an awesome looking calf to boot!  I am really excited for what her future calves will look like!

Dam: Hereford  Sire:  Maine Anjou x Angus

Here is White Tail's Momma Black Eye.  I got her in the middle of the summer just before we left on vacation.  She is a awesome addition to the herd and is the only girl I have that I can walk right up to and pet her like a puppy!!  She is even making Fifty, our oldest and first cow we bought, jealous to the point where she is starting to let me pet her now as well!

Our Black Hereford cow Black Eye

Next we have the newest baby in the herd.  His momma is Frosty, Sally Shorthorn's daughter.  He was in my last post shortly after he was born.  he is growing really fast and is a looking like he is gonna be a big boy!  I took this picture as he was approaching me to check me out while I was watching him.

Dam: Black Angus x Shorthorn  Sire: Charolais x Angus

Shortly after the picture above, he decided to go eat supper.  I posted a link to the video of this in a previous post.  He is pretty cute as well.

Frosty with her newest little boy eating supper!

As I was headed up to the barn I came back to where I had fed the sows and boar their supper.  The cows were trying to find some leftovers from the pigs.  However, they do not leave leftovers very often, they don't get that big by not cleaning up their food!

I found Sally Shorthorn feeding her boy from this year.  He is huge!  He is only a few months old and I would estimate him to be about 400# already at least, maybe more.  I am so pleased with her calves and I plan on keeping her as long as she can produce.  Her calf from last year is the youngest of the four boys and is the biggest by about 200-300lbs right now!  I believe my best producing cross to date is the shorthorn crossed with my charolais x angus bull.  The calves are very beefy and put on a lot of muscle and the mothers being all or part milking shorthorn produce lots of milk for the calves to grow quickly on!

This was a picture from a different spot showing the cows watching as the pigs were cleaning up the last of their dinner.  Red balls, to the left of the picture, is so big now he is sometimes mistaken for one of the red angus cows when seen at a distance in the pasture.

Lastly, since the temps have cooled down the last week here on the farm I decided to have a fire going for most of the weekend.  It was a great feeling to sit next to the fire and watch the sun set and the moon rise.  It was also a little depressing knowing that snow and cold nasty weather are just around the corner.  So we must enjoy every opportunity we get to enjoy the outdoors before the cold sets in for the long haul!

Kenny

Did somebody say apple??? The pigs enjoying apples in the creek.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtYzIm_h5zM&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Frosty had her calf yesterday!!!!

 Well, I have been thinking every day for two weeks now that Frosty was going to have her that day.  However, yesterday morning I got up and found she was actually in labor.  So I headed out to mow hay and stopped back in between fields to check on her.  I found her finishing cleaning up her new baby boy!  He is HUGE!!!  I am guessing him to be around 100-110#  Definitely bigger than her first calf last year and second only to Black Eye's calf in size this year.  I also love the fact that he has an awesome frame and stance.  He is also built like a linebacker in the fact that he has no neck!  I am excited to see how he grows.

His Momma is one of only two cows that I have that were from Artificial Insemination that we did here on the farm.  His grand father is Bexter.  He is a registered black Angus.

Sire: Charolais x Angus Dam: Shorthorn x Angus 

I weaned all the baby piglets last weekend and turned all the sows out with our boar Red Balls.  The cool thing is that the apple trees in the pasture are all starting to drop apples.  So yesterday as a treat while we were all checking out the new little guy above, I went over to the apple tree and called the pigs over.  I then shook one of the limbs and made it rain down apples for everyone.  Talk about a feeding frenzy!  They spent the next twenty minutes cleaning up the ones I knocked down plus all the others that were already there.

My buddy Willie also brought down a bunch of apples from his lawn at home for the piggies as well.  We dumped them in to the babies in the barn and they cleaned them right up.  So now they are already getting seasoned with apple juice!  They are growing very fast as well.  The smallest ones are around 40 lbs. and haven't taken of growing real fast yet because they are still going through the shock of weaning.  The ones that have been weaned for a couple weeks however are growing really fast with the biggest ones pushing 75 lbs. already.  I will keep them penned up for another week in the barn to be sure they are fully weaned before I turn them back out to the pasture.  Also by keeping them in the barn for another week they will get big enough to not be able to crawl under the fences without getting shocked!  I will keep them in the two hog lots for the first month and then when I pen up the boar I will turn the piglets out to the big pasture with the sows and use a height restriction to limit just them to the feeder.  That way they get the extra food they need to grow but they still get all the goodies from the pasture.  The height restriction also keeps the sows from eating non stop from the feeder.  I will give them the food they need but if left on unlimited food they will skyrocket in weight and get quite unhealthy.

The feeder piglets fighting over a piece of zucchini we threw into them.

To start last week the temps were in the upper 90's and we had our two hottest days of the year.  By Thursday it was 50 degrees and raining.  Today is supposed to be 75 and sunny....we will see!

The upside to the cooler temps is being able to cook on the fire without sweating my butt off.  So, last night my wife thin sliced a pork roast and seasoned it with some of the Hawaiian seasoning salts we got while on vacation.  I cooked it on the cherry wood fire.  It was so delicious.

I will let you all to enjoy your Sunday and the start of a new week.  I have to go bale some hay for dad.  We are winding down as far as hay goes for the year.  However, now the grain harvest is starting and I will be baling corn stubble for bedding now.  Before we know it we will be having sled riding parties!

Kenny

School starts, hay season wrapping up and some other items!

So, school started a few weeks back and things have been going great.  It took a couple of weeks to get back to the school schedule but we are getting better!

Last week my wife came down with the flu and was quite sick and couldn't go to work.  Since she couldn't go to work that meant my son also couldn't go to day care since his day care is about ten minutes from where my wife works in Wooster.  So I stayed home to watch Alex and put Lisa on the bus for school.

While we were waiting for the bus, My dad (Lisa's Grandpa) drives the bus, Lisa and Alex decided to climb the willow tree at the end of the drive.  I thought it made a neat pic so I took one.  If you look closely you will see Alex hiding behind the rose bush just below Lisa.

I recently wrapped up my third, and most likely final, cutting of hay on all my rental fields over the weekend.  I had a decent year and if we have an extremely late fall I may get a fourth cutting but I am not counting on one.  Three will do me just fine for this year. The bale below is from my fourth cutting squares, it is quite similar to the hay in the round bales below.

Orchard Grass Hay

 I attached a couple of pictures of the third cutting hay.  I made it all in rounds as it is a little bit of a drive and it is much easier over all to do it in rounds vs. small squares.  The hay was perfect and dry and looked awesome when I baled it up.  I was hoping for a little better production but it was still a great cutting and really nice hay so I am happy.

Third cutting mixed grass hay

 I am barely able to fit through the tiny railroad bridge between the property and the main road with more than one layer.  If I load it right and strap it down though I can squeeze it through!

Mixed grass hay loaded on gooseneck trailer

 When I got back to the house to wrap the hay for storage I had one bale that I made from the outside row of the fields that was still a little damp.  So instead of putting it in the tube row where it would spoil the bales around it I put it in to the cows to eat it instead.  The pastures have slowed down and need time to recover for winter so I penned them out and this was their first bale for the year.  I know it is a little early but I have plenty of hay to feed and I would rather they be well fed and ready for calving and butchering/sale than make them eat the weeds and be thin or under weight going into winter!

I was lucky enough to get a picture of Thunder and all four of his boys from his first calf crop lined up eating next to the fence.  I was also lucky enough to find them in order of age from left to right.  The first one was born in early may last year, the middle two were born the day of my customer party last year on Sunday of memorial day weekend, and the fourth one was born June 30th the day before we left for vacation.  Not bad for being a couple of months past one year old!! The first one is out of our small Black Angus cow Chilli.  The second is out of Frosty, our Black Angus x Shorthorn cow.  The third is out of another Black Angus cow Koyuki, and the fourth one, next to Thunder, is out of Sally Shorthorn.  Sally is Frosty's momma.  She is mostly shorthorn with a little Ayrshire in her.  Her steer is younger than all the others by over a month and is probably 150-200 # heavier!  I love crossbreeds!

Our Charolais x Angus cross Thunder and his progeny from 2012 

My wife planted Tomatillo tomatoes this year.  She made a fresh salsa with them that she used with a couple of meals this week.....awesome!!!  They are delicious and when you couple that up with her being a well schooled awesome cook it makes it hard for me to lose any weight!!

Tomatillo Tomatoes being cooked for use in salsa

Lastly, I was on craigslist before we went to the football game two weeks ago and found a stainless steel pig feeder for sale.  It was the perfect size for the piglets that I am feeding and was heavy duty as well!  We picked it up on our way home from the football game and I put it in the pen for them to eat out of the next day.  It is working awesome.  The little porkers are growing fast!  I keep them penned up for a couple of weeks till they are completely weaned from the mommas.  After they are completely weaned I will let them back out in the pig lots for a few weeks to be sure they know the fences.  Then, once big enough I will turn them out to the big pasture to feed them out.  

Our new pig feeder

 The feed they get is just a blend of corn, soybean meal, a lot of alfalfa meal, and minerals to balance their diet.  I feed this blend to give them what they may not get off the pasture nutrition wise.  They do well on it and the taste of the meat they produce is so good!!!

Berkshire x Tamworth cross piglets

I hope everyone has a good day and I am really looking forward to the weekend, even though most of it may be spent in the tractor, but that ain't all that bad!!!

Talk to everyone soon!

Kenny

The dog days of summer and the start of the Buckeyes 2013 season!!!!

I finally had a chance to wash the tractor last weekend.  Felt good to get it all clean and shiny again as it has been dirty most of the summer.  I was waiting to ted hay and took advantage of the short break I had before the sun was hot enough to ted.  I also cleaned the interior as well.  It is so clean and shiny, I am sure it won't last long though as there is still a lot of stuff to do before the snow flies!

My Kubota M9540 all cleaned up

 I got a quick pic of Black eye and her Daughter White Tail in the early morning as well.  They were the only two in the far pasture and the calf is looking great!!!  Momma was just walking along taking her time and baby was running around all over the place!

Hereford Cow, Hereford x Maine Anjou/Angus calf

 The barn is officially full of hay.  I finished my fourth cutting of dry hay here at the house last Monday night.  It is a great feeling to have the barn full.  However, it is a greater feeling to have it empty again and money in the bank for paying bills!  Let the marketing and selling begin!

Some information about the hay I make.  I have a mostly pure stand of Orchard grass here on the farm.  I started with a mix of clover and Orchard Grass, however, over time the clover dies off and you are left with just the grass.  I have thought many times about seeding in some more legumes to help with Nitrogen requirements for the grass.  However, most of my customers are looking for pure orchard grass.  The reason for this is they are feeding rabbits, alpacas, and other small animals.  These animals prefer the soft leaves of the orchard grass, especially the alpacas because they only have a few teeth in the front of their mouth to chew with.  Now, this year I do have more weeds than normal, maybe about 10%-15%.  This is due to the bad drought last year weakening the grass and creating voids for the weeds to sprout in and then this year has been a little wetter than normal giving the weeds the water they need to grow.  I also applied a bunch of manure this past winter that I wasn't able to compost completely so there were most likely viable weed seeds applied then as well.

The good news is that with properly timed mowing and giving the grass the nutrients it needs this fall with a heavy application of good manure we can knock the weeds right back out of the field.  I already see that I have less weeds now than I did in the second cutting when they were at their strongest.  The more you cut them the more energy they burn up trying to make it to seed production.  Eventually you weaken them to a point where they cannot keep up with the grass and die off.  You can do the same thing with your yard.  Feed the grass and keep it mowed often enough that the weeds cannot go to seed.  Without chemical sprays you will still have some weeds but very few, and you will not have any chemicals on your lawn either!

Barn Filled with Orchard Grass Hay

 I have also started weaning piglets.  I already sold a few on Friday night and am hoping to sell some five more in a week or two.  I didn't pull everyone at once.  I pulled the seven biggest ones first to reduce the number feeding on the sows.  This allows the smaller piglets to get more milk to catch up with them and allows the mothers to maintain their body weight so they don't get too weak to breed back well.  I like to keep the babies eating right up till when we are ready to re-breed as well.  This keeps the mothers from cycling.  I also do not have the boar in with them for the same reason.  Now, when I pull the rest of the babies off of the sows next weekend and put the boar back in with the sows, the combination of no more nursing piglets and the smell of the hormones from the boar will cause them to go through a heat cycle and be their most fertile!  If I screw it up they will not have as big of a litter and they will not breed when I want them to or maybe not at all.

Berkshire x Tamworth cross piglets

Every year, starting when I was a young child, my sister and I got to go to the Ohio State University Alumni Football Fall Fest with my parents.  My grandfather went to Ohio State, my Father graduated from Ohio State, I graduated from Ohio State, My wife graduated from Ohio State, as well as my Sister.  We truly have Scarlet and Gray in our blood!!!  This was the first time for me to share with my children part of the experience that I had as a child.  It may not have been an alumni fall fest day but it was the Opening game for the 2013 OSU Buckeye football season!

My son and I both got a couple of much needed Ohio State Buckeyes hats.  This was his first Buckeyes game ever.  He was really excited.  It was also very hot so I was surprised that they did as well as they did with the heat.  Next year we will work it out so we can stay the night in town so that we can walk the campus and see what all has changed and what is still the way it was when my Grandfather was there so many years ago.

Alex and I at the Buckeyes Game

 My daughter got some pretty cool Buckeyes tats and she got a Hair Barret just like the cheer leaders have.  She and my son also got to meet a few of the cheerleaders as they were leaving the stadium and they were also able to watch the band enter and leave the stadium at the tunnel so close you could touch them!!

Lisa and I at the Buckeyes Game

My last picture is a picture the The Best Damn Band In The Land dotting the I's on a double Script Ohio at pregame!!!!  The only thing that tops this is the Four Script Ohio's the band does on Alumni day.  That will bring a tear to any true Buckeye's eye!

The Best Damn Band In The Land (TBDBITL) dotting the I's on a double script Ohio 8-31-13

 The most exciting thing for me that we did yesterday was my family and I visited the Buckeye grove next to the stadium before we left town.  We collected a few buckeyes that we found there.  This is a tradition my Father started with me and my brother and sisters and one that I want to pass on to my children!  We did not collect them to make a necklace or other jewelry, we are going to plant them just like I did when I was a kid.  I still have my buckeye tree at my dad's house and I am planning on going up as soon as they drop the seeds and collect one to plant with my kids to start our own Buckeye grove here at home.  This is something that will live on long after we are gone.  This also allows me to teach my children about paying forward.  They are going to plant something now that will allow them to give something to nature as well as their children when they are young!

Now, out to the yard to do some planting!!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Kenny