Tag: cattle

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Got the Blues

Part of the beauty of our farm property is a building that was a milking parlor for a dairy operation. We’ve converted it into a feed storage, workshop and child development facility.

Last year our livestock really wanted the feed inside. They broke the door from this building into the pole barn pasture. The quick and dirty farm fix was : board it up with Craigslist pallets. Then I walked away until more time was available.

This past week time was available. We’re always looking to improve it process, and waste time is often walking the long way around because this door doesn’t work.

New door becomes blue door

A friend of mine was unhappily required to run an estate sale for a family member. I was happy to find a new home for this door. The color choice is driven by the best outdoor grade paint on the ‘Oops’ rack at Lowe’s. I spray the first coat with the sprayer and walk away.

Rock the goat would not let this process go without protest. He left his marks all over the door. So the second coat needed some prep work.

The curiosity may kill the cat, but here, it gloms to the goat.

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Got that One Wrong

Sometimes you take a leap and it works out. Other times you miss the ledge and go tumbling down…like this time.

Craigslist ad has a 5ft rotary cutter for a good price. Looks good , runs great, has ac, ect.

Go pick it up and it’s too wide for my 5.5ft trailer. The good ol boy with the monster tractor tells me it’s called a 5ft cutter because it cuts 5ft, not because the deck is foot.

Nodding agreeably I give him the cash and strap it on the trailer, a bit janky but chipper about the deal and confident it’ll work.

She ain’t going nowhere

Turns out, she’s too big and too heavy by far. It took the wife and I 30 minutes to even unload it from the trailer.

The tractor hydraulics won’t lift her. I asked a friend helped me troubleshoot. “these two spark plugs wires are severed!” So we fix those and it doesn’t help. Check the dipstick “you need more fluid!” So we add more fluid…and no go. Check for hydraulic leaks and there are none.

Ladies and gentlemen, I messed up and bought a heavy piece of equipment. Now I can’t load on anyone else’s trailer. It’s on Craigslist now waiting for someone looking for a deal who can bring their own tractor to pick it up.

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You Do Lose Some

A good friend in the mini farming trade gave my wife and I some good council. “Sometimes you fight to save these animals, and you do. Sometimes you try and you do lose some. Sometimes they just die and you never know why.

Symptomatic Position

We pulled this lady goat out of the herd. Her FMCHA scores indicated a storm of parasites running riot in her system. After some treatments, we found her unable to stand and consistently holding her head backwards. This was new and needed more research.

Jenny drilled down and discovered Listeriosis. It’s a bacteria in a goat system that takes advantage when the body is weak, and it attacks the brain stem. You can try to treat this condition with penicillin injections, and we tried that every six hours for the next 3 days and nights, along with hand feeding and watering. It didn’t work.

Sometimes you do lose some.

Piles of dirt from new holes, that’s what playgrounds are made of.

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Protect the Hay!

Previously we talked about Hay bales representing a great store of value over the winter and bragged about how much hay was in the barn. Since that time all the goats have decided the green spring grass is no good and they want to tear up all the unauthorized Hay bales. It’s great fun.

Imagine if this was a marshmallow, where would you start eating it?

Wood is pricey right now and we have stacks of pallets bought cheap on Craigslist last year. Time to put them to work.

Nothing like a lovely lady working to spice up the foggy morning

This was one of the good days in life. Kids played, all the materials were on hand, clear objectives and smooth work flow. Finished the whole side of the barn by lunch.

Come on goats! Beat this!

After that we hung gates on the two ends of the barn to finish isolating it.

We’ve never had so many compliments for the quality hayfork before this morning

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Nursing Success!

Momma Marbles has successfully accepted our bottle buckling and has turned out to be the most nurturing momma we’ve worked with. After putting them together in their bonding pen, we held her still for a bit and helped little guy get busy. It worked and then kept working, and now they’re just free ranging the back yard and nursing freely.

Turned loose in the yard.

Those pallets behind them will turn out to be useful for the next project… fencing in the pole barn from nefarious and untimely hay consumption. Pallets are cheap and lumber is really expensive right now!

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Hay Savings

Joel Salatin talks about having hay on hand as a high yield savings account. He’s right. We had our pastures baled over the summer before any livestock set foot and came away with 16 bales at $22 each. Our friends from BA Agriculture helped line the bales up in the pole barn with their tractor.

Mostly through winter

This last week of feeding unlimited hay has used up 3 bales, at current winter rates that’s $65 per bale. We should make it through the whole winter using about 5 bales and have hay for the next two winters as well.

Hay guys

Going into 2021, working to figure out a square bale solution. For our plans human sized solutions are needed. The round bales look rolly, but they aren’t. It’s a huge labor to move one around, and we have no way to sell them as we can’t load up someone’s trailer with it. Square bales may cost more but will fit our purposes, and agricultural antifragility, much better.

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Keeping Up With the Freezes

The fog this morning is bio-based

It’s been holding steady well below freezing for 3 days now. I’m a Texas boy, this is new and strange. One of the problems we noticed quickly is the animals water freezes over, so you have to go break it open.

A different kind of Golden Corral

It doesn’t sound daunting or tedious until you have to suit up for the cold. I freezer burned an earlobe on day one without enough head coverings.

Better then the ax. Better then the sledge. It’s the mattock.

The best tool so far is the mattock from EasyDigging. Normally a good hand tool for people of all ages in the garden, it’s become my go to for opening water portals. Then there’s steers like this that don’t want the easy water, they’ll get some on their own.

It’s a seldom seen steer-marine in the wild

Through it all, I’ve been impressed by the Anatolian Shepherd, Sullivan, having the least amount of concern about the cold.

Sullivan ponders why the food keeps appearing
Tell me again, how does this keep us warm when we climb on it?
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The Cold

The Cold is not something we spend much time preparing for. It seldom freezes in north texas, and never for long. Until this week, a week looking to be solid below freezing and with many inches of… What’s this? Real snow??

The birds are pleased to feast in the shade

We don’t have much infrastructure for winter, so we are learning what our livestock need by watching closely and adjusting, and beating the ice off the water tubs many times today.