Farming is Hard Work

As we prepare ourselves and our farm for the umpteen millionth snow storm and frigid cold weather spell this winter, I have been thinking about how much work running this little farm is.  It is hard work on a “normal” day and sometimes downright horrendous on these terrible winter days.  Trudging through snow while carrying heavy loads, at least for me, is hard labor. 

I do the chores by myself during the week and my husband does them on the weekend due to our work schedules.  This works out very well for all of us. This hard work does take it’s toll on a body, especially a 5’2’’ small framed body.  For most of the winter, hay must be carried to the cows and goats, buckets of feed carried to all and the heaviest part of all -the buckets of water to all the animals housed in the barn in the winter.  This is hard heavy work that must be accomplished each morning and afternoon.  We are just a small farm, but without any automation that many of the larger farms have.

In the summer the animals are out on pasture, so there is no hay to haul and most of them drink from the “big” water tank, so there is little to no water to haul.  Chores usually take me about 20 minutes.  Winter is a totally different chore beast.  Chores usually take an hour and maybe longer if there are baby goats to bottle feed, such as now.  We have triplets that had to be brought in the house for a few days at birth due to the cold.  They are now back with momma, but we still have to bottle feed them.

I do chores as fast as I can on the coldest days so I can warm up.  In nicer weather I enjoy staying out with them for a while and watching them interact.  This is how most of our animals became as tame as they are.  I love all of our animals.  I enjoy this daily interaction and I like to think they do too.  In the wintertime this usually doesn’t happen for long if at all.  I really miss this until it warms up in the spring.

My conclusion is that farming on any scale is very hard work, but worth it if you love having animals as I do and the best thing about winter is that eventually spring will come!!  Hopefully sooner rather than later in this especially horrible cold and snowy season.

Spring is on it's way! Have a wonderful day!

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:

Artificial Insemination vs. Bull Breeding

As you may have read, we have a small herd of cows here at our farm.  Most of them are previous 4H projects that we have kept on and bred and kept most of our baby girls.  When we had a couple of them we would send them to another farmer to be bred for a couple months and retrieved them before winter snow hit.  We now, however, had more than a handful to breed.  My son's 4H heifer went to a neighbor for special breeding this year, so that left me with 6 of my own.  

Artificial insemination, as we tried last year, is very time consuming requiring lots of watching and scheduling from me and multiple trips by the vet.  It was very reasonably priced for 3 cows last year, but when we only had 1 calf this year he became one pricey calf!  This year we happened on a bull that was on his way to the salebarn that would cost me a pretty penny, but we could take him to the salebarn and get most of our money back by fall.  That was the whole plan, anyway.  

This black bull was a purebred Angus that had a descent temperament.  I have always been a little nervous to have a bull around!   But, he did well at staying away from us for the most part and we steered clear of him.  

The vet came to preg-check cows after the bull had been here almost 3 months and we no longer saw him breeding any of them for few weeks.  We had 4 confirmed pregnant, 1 probably that jumped the gate before she was checked and 1 possibly that we did not check.  We also had one negative heifer that had been with him for just over 2 months that we took to the sale barn with him.  That was a lot better breeding ratio that the AI last year!  

We sold the bull and only lost $300 on him, which is a small overall cost of breeding possibly 6 cows.  I was hoping for a little more, but one never knows what the salebarn may bring.  

Next year, we are planning to get a bull again as it is overall much easier and much greater breeding ratio.  The only downfall is the huge expense to get one and renting one around here is over twice as much as he actually ended up costing us. 

Artificial Insemination vs. Natural Breeding in Cows

My debate continues between artificial insemination and natural breeding our cows with a bull.  There are many pros and cons to both sides as I will list, but it really is a matter of preference for each farm hobbyist or full time farmer.  I know some farmers who AI all the cows and never have had a bull and some farmers who swear by keeping a bull.

By artificially inseminating cows there is no other mouth to feed, it is relatively low cost and no aggressive bull to worry about while out in the field checking or working with cows.  The downside is that it is very time consuming for the owner scheduling the vet, watching for heat and rescheduling the vet, watching for re -heat and watching for miscarriages down the road and heat again. 

Keeping a bull is a huge investment to begin with.  They are pricey, but if you can find a decent deal, when finished with him you may make your money back at the sale barn.  There is another mouth to feed and another animal to worry about getting hurt or worse.  Which would also mean loss of a huge investment and not having cows bred --HUGE RISK!  The benefits of having a bull are that cows are getting bred -hopefully- without any real work on your part.  Also, if he misses one or one doesn't stick he will get her next time around.  The overall successful breeding rate of bulls vs. AI is much greater.

 

With all of this in mind and our AI trial last year,and only having 1 calf, we decided to purchase a bull.  We bought a 4 yr old from a local farmer who rotates the 4 yr olds out to the sale barn.  Since we only wanted him for a couple months --I do not want to worry about having a bull who is not as tame as our cows in the pasture any longer than I have to!-- this would work great.  He is a full blood angus and looks amazing.  He has a couple curved front toes that don't affect his breeding capability at all and is the reason he will be going to the sale barn in a couple weeks.  Our hope is to make back most of our investment and come out no worse than we were financially and have pregnant cows to boot!

That is the plan and hopefully all works out well for us.  I pray every day that he doesn't get hurt.  We haven't had any issues with aggression or attitude.  He simply would just as soon be away from us and us from him.  He seems pretty gentle, but as I told the kids a thousand times "you just don't know for sure and cannot trust him".  Soon I am going to schedule the vet to come out and preg check the cows so we know where we stand and how soon we can sell him.  I haven't seen him on anyone this cycle so I am hoping they are all bred with some cute little ones that I can enjoy next spring.  It gives me something to look forward to all long gloomy winter!

Make sure to make today a great day!!!

Feeding Meat Goats



We decided to start raising some boer goats last year and have had a great time doing it.  There has been a ton of learning that has gone into it and thank heavens for internet for research.  There is, however, an abundance of information out there and depending on what type of goats you are raising some may or may not apply.

We had decided to keep pasture fed goats as our cows are because we believe this is the healthier way to go for us.  Since getting our first three goats last year and many more this year all have done well on pasture with supplemental corn based feed.  We also keep a mineral block with them that they eat on as needed. 

We did get a bit of a shock when taking our goats to the county fair this year (our first time).  All the goats there were bigger and more muscular than ours.  In talking with everyone there it seems that no one pasture feeds -they all grain their goats from birth to sale and mostly with show feed.  Since returning from fair we have changed our feeding program a little.  They are still out on pasture, but they also get a daily ration of goat feed.  This supplements them in protein and nutrients.  

After doing my own research on the different feeds on the market and available locally, we decided to go with Kent goat feeds.  We have been using the 18% kid developer since the fair and wow!  What a difference it has made in only 6 weeks.  I highly recommend their feeds.  It is costing a little more than pasture with the corn based feed, but well worth it!  The goats look more muscular, have more energy and just act healthier overall.  Next year a couple months before the fair the goats that will be shown will switch to Kent Show Goat feed.  

We don't raise "show" goats and have every intention of someday having enough goats to sell goat meat.  We firmly believe in having happy, healthy goats no matter what their purpose.  We believe the Kent goat feed is assisting us in our endeavor to produce quality goats whether showing or butchering them. 

    Each day is what you make it out to be. . .Have a great one!!