Farmer's Market

Last week was our first time as vendors at the local farmer's market.  I was not sure how much to take so I didn't over do it, but in the end I could have sold lots more.  I sold spinach, radishes, kohlrabi and cherries as well as fresh eggs and the beautiful garden art my husband handcrafts. 

Within an hour or so we were out of eggs and not long after we were sold out of produce.  I was a little surprised the garden art didn't sell better, but that's okay.  I was pleasantly surprised that the produce did sell so well! 

The hardest part was pricing everything.  I didn't want to be too low so that I sold everything quickly but didn't make any profit on it and I didn't want to be so high nothing would sell.  After our first market we have decided that the price on the eggs was too low but the veggies, I think, were just about right.  I was so excited to go and very glad we did, finally!  This is something I have thought about for a couple years now and finally just made the commitment.  Our market is on Thursday afternoons, which works great for me with a funky work schedule.  

We are debating applying for a market license for meat products, which is required in our state, but will wait until we have a few more markets under our belt.  Next week we will return if we have enough produce, which we should.  We have started picking zucchini and the tomatoes may start  by then and possibly the cabbages could be ready.  Oh and green beans and sugar snap peas should be ready.  Next time I will also try to take dried egg noodles (great grandma's recipe) and maybe some bakery goods (everyone loves cupcakes!).  This is such an exciting next step for us and our hobby farm.  It's also a great place to meet more people who also farm on both large and small scale.

I would call it a success and I look forward to more markets.  We do have more to learn and it is a decent amount of work to get everything ready, packaged and hauled there, set up and to be there for 3 hours selling.  It is quite a time commitment, but well worth the rewards if I can keep up enough produce to continue!

Goats Need Exercise

My kids love to show goats at the county fair.  The biggest problem they have in getting them in shape for the fair is exercising them.  The goats don't want to run like they need to.  All they want to do is eat grass and wander.  Today we had an ingenious (maybe) idea.  We had an old set of stairs lying around and decided the goats could use that as exercise equipment!  After all, I have been told that exercising them wins the show!

As soon as we put the stairs in and made sure they would be sturdy enough the goats had a ball running, jumping, climbing and playing on them.  It was a constant game of "king of the mountain" and climb-n-slide!  

We have about a month before the fair so I guess we will see if they make a difference or not, but it can't hurt.  (Except for the small cut one received in all the commotion that we had to wrap with coban).  We also upped their feed ration today hoping for better results by fair time.  The feed we have been using is Kent Goat Kid Developer. It is an 18% protein complete feed, so nothing else is required.  They also have Kent goat mineral available at all times. I am hoping that the increased feed and increased exercise will make for muscle packed goats!  

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Love This Quote

"Country to me is living life at it's simplest: Learning to appreciate a sliced vine-ripe tomato with a dash of salt, served between two slices of good bread and eaten over the kitchen sink".

-Chef Art Smith, Countryliving Magazine

Budgets Made Easy

There is an important lesson that took me into adulthood to learn: making and sticking to a budget.  I have been using this easy budget method for years.  It takes very little time each week to pay bills and I know weeks in advance what our financial standing is.  This is not something they teach kids in school, but I believe it should be.  It is also the first step in learning to save.

1.  Make a list of recurring monthly bills and their due dates.

2.  Make a list of each payday for a month (for us and most people this would be every Friday) and how much your paychecks are for each.

3.  Decide how much can be spent each payday on bills and how much money "living" for the week requires (including gas, food, entertainment and misc items)

4.  Begin adding to each week the bills that are due then and how much they are until you reach your maximum "bill" money for that week.  Do this for each week.  Any bills left without specific due dates can be added to a week that has bill funds available.

5.  There may be weeks with extra funds available after all the bills have a place in the budget.  In this case, I put those funds in our savings.  I also put extra monies including bonuses into the savings even if it is $25 or $50.  Before you know it this adds up quick!  It is much easier for me to keep an index card in the back of my checkbook marked "savings" that I keep track of that money and don't actually have to transfer it to a savings account.  If I actually had to transfer it, I probably wouldn't do it half of the time.  Our savings would be much smaller than it is. 

At the beginning of each month I make my list of bills and income and decide where they all go.  This way I know ahead of time if we will have extra money at a certain time of the month or not.  For the most part it stays the same from month to month with variations only for sporadic things like budgeting for property taxes or vacations or similar other things that don't occur every month.

This makes it very easy each week to sit down and reconcile the checkbook online and quickly pay the week's bills without having to decide each week what to pay!  It also makes it easier to have a budget that we can stick to.  Even when an unexpected expense comes up I can usually rearrange our budget a little or use some of the "savings" money from the index card I keep in the back (money that is actually in our checking account but separate so it is not spent!)

Budgeting can be easy!

Difficult Calf Birth

Video is ©2014 iowafarmingirl.blogspot.com All Rights Reserved

So, this is my first attempt at a video for this site! Yay!  It's not the best video I have ever seen, but hopefully it will be useful in identifying a difficult birth and what to do about it in a timely manner.  On the video, which was filmed over about 2.5 hours and sped up a bit, first you can see her up and down, some runny goo coming out when she pushes, her laying down to push, hooves showing and finally the chains being applied.

Friday night our cow that has had the trouble with bloat went into labor -finally.  She was progressing kind of slowly and got to the point we could see hooves sticking out and a tongue when she pushed.  She didn't progress past this point for 30 minutes when we decided it should be pulled.  When we got up close, the hooves were huge and so was the nose we could see when we opened it up a bit.  He put the hand puller chains on it and gave a couple good pulls.  Nothing.  We made a quick call to a farmer friend who quickly brought the ob puller over.  Within minutes and a couple strong men's pulls, we had a calf!

At first it wasn't breathing well and we were pretty worried about it.  We rubbed and rubbed to stimulate him and after a few minutes momma came over to start her momma duties on him.  Finally he started to perk up and breath without the scary gurgle noise.  He didn't get up that night, but we weren't too worried due to the difficult birth for both them.

The next morning he was up at times and has eaten.  Both he and momma are doing very well.  He is red with a white face and yes he is huge! He is 1/2 hereford and 1/2 south devon.  He's adorable and very mild mannered at least for now!!

More Cattle Bloat Info

Since having a cow that had bloat earlier this week I have done quite a bit more research on the topic and thought I would share the information.  That said, I am NOT a vet and you can decide to use this information or not.  If in doubt, I ALWAYS opt for calling the vet.

Cattle bloat is basically just indigestion that leads to excessive gas being built up.  When this happens, burping is unable to relieve all the gas.  There are certain feeds which are more prone to causing bloat such as: legumes, alfalfa, too much grain or finely chopped hay.

As the cow bloats, the left side (where the rumen is located) of the belly gets larger than the right side making the cow appear lop-sided.  As it worsens, both sides will get larger.  When this happens, there is more and more pressure being put on the lungs and heart.  This makes it very hard for the cow to breath and can quickly cause death if not relieved.

While there are feed supplements to help prevent bloat there are some things that can be done other than that.  Don't put cows on wet legume pasture as this ferments easily and don't rush them when moving them in or out of pasture.  Movement irritates the rumen and can make bloat worse. Also, the time they spend in lush spring pastures may have to be limited.  Also, there are cows who are just more prone to getting bloat than others.  In this case, the question arises whether or not to sell them or not.  The risk with keeping them is that if they bloated and you didn't notice,  they could die.

Treatment for mild to moderate bloat includes a tube passed through the left side of the mouth or nose, through the esophagus and into the rumen.  This can require a tube many feet long depending on the size of the cow.  Through this tube mineral oil can be given to break up the foam.  Also, using a bite block works well to prevent the cow from biting the tube.  

If the cow is having difficulty breathing, this may require more immediate emergency actions involving a needle or trocar inserted through the belly into the rumen to immediately relieve the gas.  If the cow is in dire need and taking it's last gasping breaths, a pocket knife can be used to make a hole which can be stitched by the vet after the emergency is over.  One may need to use their fingers in order to spread the opening larger if the foam is too thick to allow the gas to escape.  I also read that the vet can insert a permanent valve for cows that bloat often. I don't know any details on that, but it is something we will keep in mind for our heifer.

All of the information I found has been helpful to us in dealing with our young lady.  We tried her out on grass this morning and it appeared that her belly was growing again so I put her in the barn again where I believe she will remain until the calf is born.  I am not sure what the problem is, but suspect it may be either the positioning of her calf or the size of it.  Either way, I will be keeping a close eye on her in the barn due to my suspicion of problems with labor and delivery!

I hope this information is helpful, but please also remember that I AM NOT A VET! I am publishing this information as just that- information period.  It is not meant as medical advice or as a replacement for contacting a professional!

Cattle Bloat

With our small herd of cows we have been extremely lucky so far and never experienced any of them bloat.  That being said, I have yet to "see" bloat and am naive in recognizing it --until now, that is.  I have read enough, though, that I thought I would be able to at least suspect it.  

A couple days ago one of our pregnant heifers looked bigger to me.  This happened over a couple days and she is very pregnant -due any time.  I debated that day what was going on and bloat did cross my mind, but she was acting fine so I thought I was just overreacting.  When I checked on her since then she looked the same and still acted normal.  

Tonight, I had my son and husband take a look at her and, yep, sure enough they diagnosed bloat.  She had a slight hump to her mid-back and her left side was much larger than the right.  This happened to her once before when she unknowingly stole another cows alfalfa hay at the county fair.  I wasn't there, so I didn't see it.  The boys said it was much worse last time with her belly hard as a rock.  Tonight the top of her belly was slightly firm and tight, but not rock hard.  

She is such a great tempered tame cow that she allowed my son to put in an orogastric tube while haltered and tied in the barn.  She definitely did not like it, but tolerated it.  Some of the gas did escape through the tube before she expelled the tube.  She also got a dose of mineral oil, which she found less than tasty.  She is now stalled in the barn and feed is on hold until her belly goes down a little more.  She is belching some nasty smelling gas which makes us very happy!  Hopefully she will be feeling better soon and have a beautiful calf for us in the next few days.   

My lesson is learned -if I suspect something isn't right, I should follow my instincts.  Now I also know what to look for to recognize bloat.  We will be keeping her on less lush pasture from now on. I am so thankful we didn't lose her due to my lack of knowledge!