Category: Cows

I’m reposting this original post because of course the website is broken and now I’m spending my time trying to fix it instead of doing actual work. Sigh.

I received a call from WRAL last week asking if they could come out and interview me about the heat and how our animals were doing. While I was willing to be on TV (I don’t like it, but Jeanette yells at me I don’t blog anymore so maybe being interviewed would be easier? Nah, never mind. TV people take forever to do anything.)

So decision made, I was able to pawn the opportunity off on another farmer friend who did an excellent job in her interview. But rats, now I have to blog about it or Jeanette will get me….

Despite my avoiding the limelight again, we actually were doing something about the heat for our cows. We have a small pasture at the back corner of our farm. It has a small barn. A small pond. A bit of grass. And a lot of woods. Back in the day (when I was a kid), it was connected to the main pasture through a narrow fenced section and was part of our grazing rotation. But now with our huge chip pile, downed fences, trees in the way, etc it is isolated from the rest of the grazing areas. We use it as a storage area, a shooting range, and various other small things.

I knew when we had such a cool spring that when summer arrived, it would come with a vengeance so I had Vicente start fixing the back pasture fencing so we could rotate the cows through there for a week or so. Our main pastures have the wooded areas fenced out whereas the back pasture is old school, it still has the woods as part of the pasture. Plus these woods had grown a lot over the years and had a lot of leaves down at cow level, something the cows love (I’ll show you that in a second).

Vicente spent about a week working on repairing or replacing fencing, cutting fallen limbs, stringing hot wire, putting a hot box in so we could energize the wire, and basically sleeping in a Calamine lotion bath each night for about a week. On the day of the move, he strung temporary fencing right down the driveway from our main pasture to the back pasture entrance, making a corral so the cows could walk down the paved driveway like each of you do when you leave the store. The entrance is right at the bottom of the chip pile, you may have noticed it has been smoothed over recently.

The cows were anxious to move to their next pasture for grazing, but they weren’t expecting a chance to walk through dad’s front yard, down a driveway, and into a new place. This is where keeping a few moms around pays off. The young cows, nervous that something is different don’t want to have anything to do with this move. #160, a flighty, jumpy cow on a good day, hopped the temporary wire and ran off almost immediately. I watched him go, grumbling about how he was getting on the trailer next.

The moms, who’ve literally lived here their entire lives, followed the corral we had made and moseyed along till they entered the new pasture. #160, realizing the was leading a revolt of one, jumped the fence again and reentered the herd to the new area. Even the two young calves followed along, shepherded by our old and experienced moms. All in all, it took a week to setup, an hour to put the temporary corral together, and 10 minutes to actually move the cows.

The cows LOVE being in new woods. I wish I could do it for them all the time. There are trees to scratch against, leaves to eat, adventures to get into. Often I’ll see them running around acting like kids on the last day of school. This time they were pretty chill. Mainly in this video you’ll see a small cedar crashing around as one of our moms (almost completely hidden) goes to town on it, scratching everything she can think of against it.

The cows made it about a week in the back pasture enjoying their time in the woods, with a pond to bath in, and enough grass to keep it interesting. But by Saturday, they were out of grass and couldn’t eat any more leaves. We ended up feeding a bale of hay to tide them over till the first of the week.

Monday was time to move them back and we washed, rinsed, repeated the process. The moms lead the way, knowing what they were doing. #160, being the %@#$# that he is, held back, got pissed, and ran back into the woods, taking the two young calves with him who were now wound up from his agitation. Vicente and I spent 15 minutes running around the woods trying to convince these two young calves (read: young and stupid) that they wanted to go where everyone else had gone. #160, after stirring up trouble, had gone along on his own to the new pasture, leaving us with the young calves who on a good day can’t walk through a gate. I was wondering just how we were going to get these calves out of the woods when I heard a familiar cow bellow. “Oh thank goodness!” I thought. One of the moms had realized Jr hadn’t shown up. She’d turned around, walked all the way back through the pasture, through the barn yard, down the drive way and to the gate. She called to her calf, in no uncertain terms, to “Hurry up and get up here!” With mom scolding him, both of the calves ran to mom who walked them back to where they were supposed to be, in the pasture with everyone else. I don’t think I’d want a herd of cattle without at least one experienced mom.

All in all, it was a lot of work for a little bit of grazing. But it gave the cows a chance to be out of the heat for a week, to graze somewhere different, and to clean up the underbrush in our back pasture.

Speaking of underbrush. I’ve had this conversation with several farmers and extension agents. People tend to want to mow, spray, chainsaw, etc when they have an area they want cleared. Growing up on a farm where the cattle spent time in the woods, and it was like a park in there, I’ve always cautioned against doing any mechanical or chemical work. Its been years since we had the cattle clean up anything but they certainly still know how. The area I’ve been discussing was about 6 acres of gnarly growth. A week with a handful of cattle, and you can walk through the worst areas and barely touch a leaf. Cleaning up the bigger stuff with a chainsaw would be quite a bit easier now, and the cows are a little fatter to boot. A win/win.

Here are some before and after shots to show what I’m talking about.

Of course, the trees didn’t disappears and the thing hasn’t been mowed down smooth, but if you wanted to get in there and cut out some trees now you could without a machete.

In the video you couldn’t even tell there was water back there. Now I can walk down to the water.

Now if my child labor hadn’t grown up, I could send them in to start clearing.

 

We’ve actually had a little lull in calves being born. You’d think all these moms who have babies in the winter would look towards the spring instead (yes I know they don’t choose).

It is a treat to have a little calf on the farm, all fresh and cute. This little boy will be staying here his entire life, Lord willing.

Continuing my trend of posting these things weeks later for some reason, here is our “latest” calf, number 130. The birth date was actually November 2nd, but I’m just now getting it posted.

When I was feeding this Sunday, it was a gorgeous winter day. Plenty of sun (FINALLY) and the weather was mild and pleasant. This little guy was having what I can only describe as a nutty. He was just running all over the pasture, circling around obstacles, doing spins, just happy to be here. Basically like a puppy, but 75 lbs on the way to 1200. It was super cute and set the tone for the entire day.

#129 was born back on 10-23. I’ve been trying to get to a computer to post the note, and to post the cute picture. There was a delay because of a few reasons:

1. I’ve been doing a lot of stuff for the Civil Air Patrol lately
2. We moved all the cows back to the main farm the day after this photo was taken
3. I’ve been slack and just haven’t done it
4. When I finally did sit down and write this post, I got interrupted and then forgot to come back and hit publish

Moving all the cows back is kind of a big deal. In the spring we move our momma cows and the babies over to a farm that we lease. Come fall, we move all those cows, plus any new calves that were born during the summer, back to our farm. This allows us to have all the cows in one place for the winter since we have to take them hay daily. It is easier to keep up with feeding when everyone is together.

Plus this gives us a chance to check over all the cows, ear tag anyone that we missed, and generally do farmer stuff at least twice a year.

Because #129 was just born, we had to split a load so that this little girl could ride in the last load with very few friends along for the ride. She is too small to get jumbled in with all the other cows so she rode in the last trailer load. The downside of this arrangement is that her mom was one of the first to go. While #129 was quite content to hang out without mom’s nagging, mom was quite upset that the calf didn’t ride with her to the new farm. She came up to the trailer at each drop off and checked the trailer for her baby. Since we had to wait till the last load to get the baby, it was wash, rinse, repeat for each load. It was nice to see them rejoined on the last load and then scamper off to go graze on the fresh pasture.

As promised, I’m letting everyone know that we have cow milk coming back to the store starting next week. Calves are on the ground, milk is flowing, and we’ll be bottling starting next week in preparation for putting milk in the store.

Currently I’m planning on making our first pickup next Thursday which means we’ll have it in the store on Friday. 

Of course, all of this is Lord willing. We have some excitement headed our way in the name of Florence. It is hard to take some of the weather forecasts seriously because everything is so overhyped but when I look at the current spaghetti models map (my favorite) I see that there is a good chance we are going to get a good smack from this one. Since Spork and I both work with the Civil Air Patrol, and we have a farm to keep running and multiple families to keep safe, we may be too busy to get milk in the store next week. But sooner or later we’ll have cows milk in the store for purchase. Of course, we’ll keep our goats milk on hand as we transition over so you fine folks have something for the fridge.

Friday I spent the day hauling cows, specifically milk cows, off the farm. Milking on this farm has ended and all of our milking will be happening at our other farm going forward. Unfortunately that means we will be without cow milk from now till August/September of this year when the cows at the other farm have their calves. We are working on a way to have limited goats milk as early as next week.

Our now former milk cows have moved onto other farms, Hedy specifically moving onto a nice family farm in Oxford along with all of our milking equipment. This family had just moved back onto their family farm and they were making a go of turning it into their own style of farm. They were excited and nervous to get into milking. I gave them as good of an explanation as I could, and dropped off an excellent cow. The biggest thing I told them was to not expect to have success for the first week. It takes about a week for a cow to get into a routine and with milking, routine is what you want.

When I checked in with them they of course had the usual problems in their first milkings. Equipment problems, accidentally contaminated milk, etc. Hopefully my setting expectations prepared them so they weren’t too disappointed. Yesterday I received this picture.

Milking had gone well and they’d finally gotten some usable, clean, fresh milk. They are a nice family and I couldn’t be happier that Hedy has gone to such a nice farm.

So we will only have Simply Natural Dairy cows milk in the store for the next few months. Once we start getting raw milk in the store again, we will post and let everyone know.

Wednesday of this week cow #72 had a new little bull calf, #128.

The calf had weak tendons in his back legs, something we’ve seen before on our farm. It isn’t very common and something we don’t normally want to see. It usually goes away after a couple of days, as the calf gets his feet under him and gains some strength. If #72 has another calf with weak tendons, then that will end her career as a mom here. Since #128 is a bull, he will not be used for breeding anyway so he can stay and be part of our program.

Update from Lucy. #72 is a cow that she had to bottle feed because when she was born she had, wait for it, weak tendons in her legs. #72 definitely has to go. She is passing bad genetics down to her offspring at this point and that cannot be allowed. Once this calf is 6 months old, which will be this fall, #72 will be heading to either the market or the processor.

This past week we have been back to milking around here. No, not we as a farm, we as in Spork and myself, and Lucy. Erin and Mark have about 1.5 weeks off from milking so everyone else has jumped in to cover their job.

I milked every day when we first started milking cows. It is fun and it turns into a routine after a week or so, so that you don’t even mind it. It actually is a nice start to the day. We only milk once per day anyway so it really is just an adjustment to your morning. Erin and Mark have taken over milking so 99% of the time they take care of it now, which is awesome. But then Lucy moved onto the farm and she was eager to learn how to milk. Good. That takes care of the other 1%

So when Erin wasn’t available, Lucy would tag in and milk. But that usually meant Lucy and her husband Jason. Either way, it didn’t mean that I had to get back into it, for which I was thankful.

I usually wake up bright and early, and I’m already well behind. There are always posts to write, bills to pay, accounting to do, etc, etc. Basically, I can never leave the office all day, and still never be truly caught up. If I do leave the office, there is no shortage of things to do on the farm. Not needing to go milk too is a blessing and lets me start my day doing something that I really need to get done.

But then Jason hurt his shoulder, as in you’re having surgery tomorrow hurt. So he was out of commission. Everyone else was already doing all they could, so Spork and I had to tag back in on milking. No worries, I’ve done this before. I let Lucy take lead since she was doing the actual milking and more importantly managing Jason, and all the milking gear.

“What time do you want to milk?”

“5:00am. I’m up anyway with Jason.”

I’m going to let you in on a little secret. You see, I usually get up between 4-5am anyway. 3am isn’t uncommon. I really enjoy getting up early, having that alone time first thing in the morning to get writing done, office work knocked out, etc. It is the way my dad was (3:30am every day) and it really works for me. However SWMBO HATES mornings. As in, there is nothing more important in the world than her getting to stay in bed till the last minute. If she is forced to get up, she gets up, grumps around till she does whatever she has been forced to do, then goes back to bed. No matter if it is daytime, no matter if everyone else is already up. It is a matter of principle that she stays in bed till her self determined time to get up.

SWMBO has expressed that maybe, just maybe, I could not get up so God awful early and start stomping around the house. And on the flip side,  I could therefore actually stay awake through the movie/dinner/board game/whatever that only lasts till 8:30 but I fall asleep through it anyway. And I, through great personal effort, had accomplished this goal. I was staying awake till 9-10pm, and getting up at, gasp! 6:30 or so, sometimes even 7! I felt dirty and lazy, but I was actually seeing  my family a bit which is nice.

“Did you say milk at 5 am? Um, ok, yeah, we’ll meet you then.”

The first morning, Lucy was ragged having been up with Jason. Spork was his normal stoic self. I was putting on airs of being normally functional but I was a combination of exceedingly, head achingly tired, and a wee bit hungover. Which is a lot like day 2 at a Deere meeting so really nothing new for me. We carried on a few days like that, nobody complaining, until Lucy announced that maybe 6:30 was a better time to milk.

Characteristically. Spork and I just nodded and said ok. No big deal either way, Lucy. Inside we both sighed with relief. At 6:30 it is light instead of doing this in the dark. It also went from “God I hate winter, why is it still cold in late March!” weather to shorts and flip-flops weather. So milking has become much more pleasant for everyone this later part of the week.

I think that we’ll have this down to a science just about the time that Erin takes back over. Unfortunately, I’m getting up at 4-5am again with no effort. Looks like I’m going to have to work on being lazy again.

Last night just as I was cooking dinner I received a phone call.

“One of your cows is out.”

Ugh, Sunday night during dinner? What a time to get out. I finished up dinner quickly, ate like someone who’d been starving to death for the last month, and then raced out the door to get our errant cow. The fact that it was nearly dark, and that the bottle of wine was nearly empty didn’t add to my excitement over this situation.

Luckily Spork eats faster than I do, and Dustin was up having dinner with us. So the boys all headed over in the increasing darkness. We saw the calf out, walking along the fence line trying to figure out how to get back in. I’d planned ahead and had brought the tools I needed to disassemble the fence. I’d also thought to unplug the fence charger, saving that bit of excitement.

With help from both boys, plus all of the cows who came over to watch the excitement, I took the fence apart. There are four wires that need to be disassembled. I started at the top, because I am old and bending over hurts. May as well warm up on my way to the bottom wire.

I quickly decided that the bottom wire was going to stay attached because if his butt managed to get out through four wires, he could very well hop over one to get back in. Plus that last wire was way down there and I didn’t feel like getting it.

As I was unhooking the third wire, it suddenly snapped out of my hands. I looked over to see that our calf had nearly jumped the third wire coming back into the pasture. Nearly as in not really. Luckily I had it apart already so it just flopped onto the ground. With now ALL of all of the cows looking at us, we went about putting the fence back together. Luckily Miguel and Vicente have been doing fencing the past week and all the fence tooling is in the Gator, including the fence puller which is required for putting this type of fencing back together. Otherwise we’d really have been in a pickle keeping the cows in for the night.

While cursing, laughing, and generally getting things done by cell phone light (thanks Dustin) I managed to get the fence back together and ready to contain cows. While working, I looked over at the cows and noted a calf that looked new. Kinda hard to tell which black cow is which in the dark, but I didn’t think this one was here before. I wasn’t chasing him down in the dark, so I texted Miguel to let him know so he could look in the morning.

Sure enough I got a text this morning, #94 was born Sunday to Sprinkles, #50.

Sprinkles is one of our great moms. A girl calf from her, with Boyd as the dad, should make for a good momma. Hopefully this little girl will be a keeper.

I have no idea how the cow got out. He was young, so probably doing something stupid. There is nothing wrong with the fence.