Farm Happenings

There is lots going on at our farm in the past couple of weeks!  Last Thursday evening our heifer "Red" looked kinda funny in the pasture.  She is the one that had an enormous bag but the hind end wasn't really puffy yet.  My hubby went out to check on her(I would have but I was getting supper ready) and I got a call a few minutes later telling me that he could see hooves.  Of course, I dropped everything and rushed out hoping to see the birth.  I did see it and my daughter got to too!  It was the first birth she has been home for and she was so excited!

I did get photos on my phone (which I will post later this week) of the entire birth and, believe me, Red was an all-star. I should have taken my camera out there, but I was hurrying so I didn't miss it altogether.  She had a beautiful heifer calf that is, of course, solid black.  Glad it isn't the kinda icky brown that she is.  We love her anyway.

The very next morning I went out to do chores and our heifer "Tiny" had a little membrane hanging out.  After a bit she didn't seem to be progressing.  I was all over the pasture that morning looking at her and the others.  I left her alone for a while and when I returned an hour later to check on her all the cows were in the barn lot, including her.  I walked around the corner of the barn and nearly stepped on a new black calf.  A little confused at first, I finally came to the conclusion that since the calf was cleaned off and I saw him stand and drink for awhile, she had already had him when I first saw her!  What I was seeing was the afterbirth, but there was so little of it I couldn't tell.  I felt like such an idiot that the calf was probably bedded down in the pasture I had just been in a little while before.  He was a healthy black bull calf that wasn't as small as I thought he might be considering she was our smallest pregnant heifer.  

All the calves, we have 4 now, are doing really well and were jumping around the barn lot tonight.  They all seem very happy and healthy.  It is extremely exciting having so many!!  We have 1 cow left to calve and my son has one to calve also.  Each one is just as exciting as the last and I feel blessed to have witnessed 2 out of 4 births this year so far.  

In non-animal related happenings I was able to, with my daughter's help, get our garden all planted this evening.  Actually we have 2 gardens!  I always feel so good about getting that done in between the weather!  It was extremely windy here but that didn't stop us!!  We have some new crops this year and I planted some more herbs, too.  The asparagus has begun and I need to get out in the pastures to check it again soon.  The rhubarb is growing well and all the fruit trees are beginning to bud.  

I love spring and all the new life it brings!

Udderly Enormous!

All the girls were up in the barn lot tonight so my daughter and I decided to go out and check on them.  We have a heifer, Red, that is due in a couple weeks with her first calf, but she has really been bagging up recently. I am so excited to see what her babies will look like since she is built like a brick, well, you know the rest.  When we looked at her tonight all I could do is feel sorry for her as it must be so uncomfortable, but this is what we saw:

This photo taken with my phone doesn't quite do it justice but believe me she is gigantic!  I think if she doesn't calve tomorrow I will start taking bets on when it will be or if it will be before she has an udder explosion!!

On a cute note, I got some decent photos of my little girl (she might become my favorite) in the barn lot. I love to look out in the pasture to see her playing in the field by momma.  She is just the meaning of adorable!

Love this girl!

Hope everyone has a wonderful day and I will post as soon as our next little beauty is born!

More Pics of the Babies!

I cannot resist these cutie pies! I had to post some more pics of them as I have taken a ton of them already!  They are doing great and seem to be healthy.  They both drink from mommas well.  The little girl runs and jumps around the pasture but the little boy still lays around a lot.

 Little Mr. (no name yet)

Little Miss April

Such cuteness at the farm here now!  It was definitely worth the wait to see these two.  I am so excited for the others to arrive.  

Happy Easter!!

Our Cow's Labor Stages

Yesterday as I was driving past the pasture I noticed our cow, Mabel, standing with her tail straight out and looking like she was straining with nothing coming out (or so I thought from that far away).  Also, she was in the corner of the pasture away from the herd.  This was about 2:30pm.  I rushed right down with her in time to catch all of this:

 This is what she looked like when I first saw her.

When she turned I could see this discharge from her vaginal area.

After a few pushes like above it seemed she was pushing harder and her tail would curl.  This went on for a few pushes. 

Finally I was able to see just a little of the bag starting to appear.

More and more bag appeared with each push.  She seemed to be progressing just fine.

Finally she laid down to push.  Even more bag was visible.

A few more hard pushes and it is hard to see with the weeds, but the baby is being delivered in this photo. (Unluckily she moved behind these weeds just before this) This was around 3:30pm.  This all was right at or just over an hour after I noticed labor had begun. (Not exact on times due to watching cow not my watch!)

It took momma a minute or so to get up after delivery and I was starting to get a little nervous because I couldn't see the baby moving.  A couple licks from mom and I could see movement!

Baby is all black and is still being cleaned off just minutes after birth.  Already seems very alert.

And baby calf stands!  This was the first full stand after a few failed attempts.  This was roughly 10 minutes after birth.

Later that evening we went to check on the calf and found out he is a boy!  He is 7/8 angus and 1/8 maine anjou.  

Today we were able to check out the black white-faced calf born earlier yesterday and she is a girl!  I am so excited about that because she will be retained for breeding.  Both calves are great looking babies and we are so happy with them.  I feel privileged to have witnessed such an event.  I did stay back a ways so that momma could have her room to do her thing, but she is a wonderful gentle and tolerant cow so she lets us touch and pet the calf anytime.  She is also very protective and rarely leaves his side.

We feel so blessed this year already and have a few more to go!  

Long Awaited Arrival

It is days like today that make all the hard work and money spent all worthwhile.  It seems like I have been waiting forever to see our first new arrivals of the year (pretty much since the bull was here) and we are calving much earlier this year than any previous year.  

I have been keeping a close eye on the cows out in the pasture with binoculars from the house when busy doing housework and everything else.  Today after lunch I noticed the cows were within sight so I whipped out the binoculars to check on them.  To my shock and amazement there it was, a little black white faced calf running about near it's mother, Maria.  Yep, Maria was the first to calve and a first time mom who did it all by herself without a hitch.  What a tremendous calf she has(as I believe they all are).

Of course, I headed out to check it out and snap some pics of it.  We still cannot tell for sure if it is a heifer or bull calf, although my husband thinks she's a girl and I sure hope so.  If so, she will definitely be a keeper!

I then had to go into town to get our weekly ration of feed for the goats and chickens.  Driving by the field on my way home I noticed Mabel was in the corner of the pasture again as she was when I was out earlier.  I had checked on her then with no signs of labor.  She was now standing kinda funny with her tail straight out, but she wasn't eliminating anything.  I just had a feeling she was maybe in labor.  I ran in the house, grabbed the camera and my phone and headed back out determined to see the whole thing.  I did get to see it and it was an amazing hour.  I got lots of pics of the whole thing, some of which I will be posting maybe tomorrow in a "step by step of labor post".  The end product is a beautiful little boy that is as black as night and also oh so wonderful.  

Mabel is a wonderful momma and let us pet him this evening.  What an experience that was.  She is an amazingly gentle cow who is one of my favorites if not the favorite as far as temperament.

We still have 3 to go and each is sure to be as amazing as the others! My son also has a heifer to calve.  With all the events of today, one never knows what tomorrow might hold!

The Waiting is Killing Me!

I wait and wait as patiently as possible every year for our cows to calve.  This for me is not easy as I am not a very patient person.  It is now officially driving me CRAZY! 

This week marks the third week that Mabel has been oozing mucous from her behind.  It is getting thicker day by day.  Each day I get excited when I see this and check on her often -usually 2-3 times per day.  So far, no additional progress except that her milk bag is enormous.  In my past experience, which is not vast by any means, once they start this process it doesn't only take a couple days to deliver the calf.  

Maria is also getting close as she has a behind that is so swollen it looks like it will explode.  No other indications that it is impending, except that her bag is also getting full. They both have difficulty getting up from laying down and look so uncomfortable.  According to the vet's calculations last October, these 2 are both due around today!  We always try to guess who will be first and this year it is truly a tossup.  I won't even venture to guess at this point, but I do think that Red will be the third to calve.

This year is extra exciting due to our horrendously cold winter months we had.  Spring, hopefully, is definitely here!

Also, if you haven't noticed yet please check out my new page: Our Girls.  It is a tribute to our breeding girls!

Time to get outside and enjoy this wonderful weather! 

(forecast 74 degrees here today!)

Bulls and Sex of Calves

As we await the arrival of our first calves, this is the time of year we begin thinking about breeding this year and coming up with our plan.

Last year we decided to purchase a bull, use him for a few months and resell him at the local cattle sale.  This did work out for us, but being an older bull with worsening feet, I was very worried something would happen to him before we could get him sold.  Everything worked out fine and he was sold in October and it ended up costing us roughly $300 to breed 5 cows.

Thanks to a very nice woman who raises some of the nicest polled hereford cattle I have ever seen, we will be purchasing our own 2 year old bull. He will not come to our farm until we are done calving this year. His name is Apollo and he is a magnificent looking creature that will add some color to our herd, which is important to us(mainly me).  Everyone in Iowa has black cows and we prefer each cow have it's own look, because they all do have their own personality!

Apollo

I have learned a great deal from this nice older woman whose family has been raising polled herefords since before she was born.  One of the most interesting things I have learned is that the bull "picks" the sex of the calf.  She said that in her experience if the bull lunges to mount the cow, it will almost always produce a male.  If the bull gently atops her, it will produce a female.  So, if the bull is young  and has to kind of jump up there it should produce more males. It has something to do with the difference in speed, agility and longevity of the sperm.  I remember reading this sort of information about people when I was in my baby-making days.

I will be keeping track this year of the sex of our calves born to kind of test this hypothesis.  Our bull last year was a massive 4 year old that I would say did not lunge, so by her rule I predict we should have mostly bull calves.  We shall see!

I hope everyone has an amazing day today! 

Happy April Fools Day!!  

Photos of Babies and Big Girls

I took these photos the other day out in the barn.  I love taking pics of them and the big girls. They are such characters! Finally the weather is bearable enough for me to get out and do this.

 One of triplets -whether

 Mistletoe peaking

 Twin buck - I love his color!  We will probably whether him so that one of our kids can show him at the fair.

 Triplets that are being bottle-fed.

 Twin doe -little sister to the buck with all that color!

 Our big billy and the producer of all that color.

 Heifer named "Big Red". She is built like a tank and will be calving in a few weeks!

 "Mabel" was our first baby cow born here and will be one of the first cows to calve in early April. This will be her second calf.

"Snowflake" likes to rub on everything!  She is not bred this year, but will be for next year.

This is "Maria". She is a first timer at calving this year also. She is a polled hereford that is a little standoffish still, but she is getting better.

There you have it, our first photo shoot for 2014! There will be lots more photos to enjoy throughout the year.  Hopefully we will have calves to take photos of soon!

Oh yeah and all photos ARE copywrited! If you chose to use one, anyway please include a link back to this page!  Thanks!

Love Baby Goat Kids!

I have always loved the babies of our farm and the calves were the first we ever had.  I am still a little bit partial to calving season and look forward to it all winter long.

These days, however, the baby goat kids are stealing my heart.  They are amazingly cute and have so much personality from day one.  We have had 6 babies so far this year and they are such characters.  I thought some of you may enjoy some of the photos I have of them:

Boer billy kid - one of the twins 

Triplets peaking while waiting for their bottles!

Big goats exploring the barnyard after winter.

I love each of these goats and each has a different personality just as people do.   It makes each day very interesting and unpredictable.  Cannot wait until we have more babies to show off and adore.

Spring Has Finally Arrived

Just two short weeks ago we experienced yet another night of -25 degrees with windchill.  Two weeks later we hit 65 degrees today!  I have said time and time again how much I detest winter, snow and cold.  It makes chores an unpleasant job that I hurry through as quickly as I can and that I enjoy so much in nicer weather.  I love to spend time with my animals and I believe they like it too.

Today I let some of the larger goats out of the barn for the first time in what seems like forever.  They loved the warm sunshine and so did I! I spent a couple hours outside with them.

We have had 6 baby goat kids survive being born in our worst winter in years and only 1 didn't make it.  Pretty good record considering that it has felt like the arctic tundra.  All but the new twins are eating hay and grain. We are still bottle feeding the triplets but they are growing like weeds!  I am finally working on names for both girls.  

Baby cows are due to begin arriving April 9th.  This is an event I anticipate all year long.  The most we have had in a season is 2 and this year we are expecting 5 possibly 6!!  Wow! Hopefully everything will go well for all of them as we have lots of first time mommas.  The cows are also starting to spend time in the pasture.  

We are beginning a new chapter in the meat goat raising saga.  Our first two wethers are ready to butcher.  While it is a little bit saddening, it is the reason we started this adventure.  Our meat sales license is ready to send, the locker is lined up and all we have left is to purchase a new freezer exclusive to the business.  We are then ready to start selling goat meat, or chevon.  I will post more detail to the process later for those interested.

We are continuously brainstorming ideas to make money with our acreage.  I have a few more ideas on the table and we will see where they lead.  My ultimate goal would be to sustain our family life with farm income!

As always have a great day!!

"Don't forget to pray today. God didn't forget to wake you up this morning." 

(unknown)

Arrival of Triplets!

Saturday morning as my husband was finishing chores he heard a strange sound from the barn.  He, thankfully, went to investigate and found one baby goat kid on the ground.  He rushed in to tell me and the kids and we all rushed out to see.  Momma was cleaning baby off and a few minutes later she laid down for another!  

This momma had twins last summer and she has proved to be a very good mother.  We waited and watched as it is very cold here and we don't have a heated area for them.  Momma gave birth to baby #3 roughtly 45 minutes after baby #1.  We set up the heat lamp for them and helped momma get them dried off.  They were all doing well.  She had 2 girls and a boy.

We came in to warm up a bit, ourselves.  An hour later we went to check on them and thankfully.  They had moved away from the heat lamp and were freezing, literally.  Two of them had frozen ears and one of the little girls I was sure would die. All of their mouths were freezing cold inside, which is a very good sign they are just way too cold. We felt terrible for this wonderful momma, but we were going to have to bring them in the house to warm up.

We bundled them up in an old towel and hurried them inside.  We ran a shallow bath of warm water and soaked them for about 20 minutes.  The smallest little girl was doing the worst.  She couldn't even hold her head up.  After their bath came the blow dryer and towel drying.  After we dried them we attempted to get them to drink.  After a few minutes, they all did drink a little bit.  At this point they were doing better, but I was not convinced we were out of the woods yet.  We left them in the bathroom (small room that doesn't take long to warm up) with a space heater for a little while.  

Eventually they were all running around the bathroom and drank a good amount of the colostrum we had on hand for this kind of situation.  As of now, 4 days later, they are doing great!  We have them in a pen in the house with wood shavings for bedding.  Four times per day we let them run around the kitchen to play while feeding.  My kids and I love to watch these kids run around and play.  They are adorable as ever!  As soon as the weather warms up, they will go to the barn, but for now they are entertaining us in the house.  After a couple days old, goats are pretty hardy animals in cold weather.

One lesson I have learned is that if you keep animals on your farm, you have to be willing to do whatever it takes to save them.  Some of our "non-farm" friends think we are crazy to keep animals in the house if needed in winter, but anyone that ever grew up on a farm without a heated barn has either done this or know people that did.

I am so happy we caught them in time.  Love my goat kids!!

Anxiously Awaiting More Kids

As we barrel through this winter one subzero day after another and one snowstorm after another, one thing that keeps my spirits up is looking forward to more baby goats! 

We have 2 more does, well 1 belongs to my son, that are due soon.  Our older doe, who had twin boys last year, is as big around as a barrel!  She looks like she is going to pop so I am hoping for twins again.

We do have a few more goats that are starting to look pregnant, but won't be due until spring.  That will be a fun time as there are about 10 of them.

One of the babies we had in December passed away on Dec 24th.  We had brought him inside due to he wasn't searching for something to drink.  He just laid there looking content and couldn't walk very well at 6 hrs old.  He never acted quite right so we brought him inside and he did drink a few times, but still did not act right.  

The other twin is doing amazing and she is growing like a weed!  She jumps around all the time and drinks like there is no tomorrow.  She is very playful and momma gets annoyed when we play with her.  Her mom is an old doe that had miscarried just before we bought her.  We weren't sure if she would be able to have kids or not, but I guess we got lucky!  She is, however, the crankiest goat we have.  

I have not been out to take pictures of the kid lately because it is all I can handle to be outside for chores in this cold.  I will take pictures to post soon, though, as soon as it warms up a bit!

Boer Goat Kids in December!

Just in time for Christmas this year we have had our first set of Boer twins!  Actually due on Dec. 27th, but with the big winter storm on our doorstep, it's not a surprise she would have them now.  The twins were found in the kidding stall in the barn having just been born this morning.  The little girl is solid red and the little boy is a bit smaller and traditional colored with a few paint spots.  

We moved her to the kidding stall only a few days ago and so glad we did!  She is doing well with them, cleaning them right away and now at least the solid one is nursing.  The little boy was a little colder, so we set up the heat lamp on him, hoping that would get him goin.  We just came in from checking him and he was still lying in the same spot.  We got him up again and fed him a little colostrum (go-go juice as my husband calls it) which did get him standing at least and wagging his tail!  He hopefully just needed that little "pick-me-up" and will be off and running in no time.  Usually, they don't drink much the first time, but he drank over 1/2 cup.  

We will keep a watchful eye for the next few hours to see if he drinks from her or if he is destined to be bottle fed.  We are hoping to keep him on her as they always do so much better with health and growth that way.  

These little ones are the highlight of the dreaded winter so far and they are just adorable!  Goat kids are truely the meaning of cuteness and just so sweet.  Soon, we will be thinking of names for them so any good ideas would be welcome!!

I cannot resist including a few more photos of them: