Cows Archives - Page 25 of 29 - Ninja Cow Farm LLC

November 26, 2013

Cow update

The winter grazing plan is in full effect. We are putting out one bail of hay for every two days of munching. We are also rolling out the hay into long strips (see above) vs having the cows eat from a round ring or even a pile. As promised by the experts the cows are still eating just fine and each place where we unroll is left with a long swath of hay mulch, tramped in by the cows. Peed and pooped on and ready for life next spring.

Since we are only moving every two days, the paddocks are narrow, and we aren’t back fencing, it seems like we are moving in slow motion across the pasture. It also is easier than I thought it would be since there is no need to move the water or the minerals. It kind of feels like we are cheating somehow. Oh well, it’s still harder than some ways but at least it’s easier than a feared. The hard work the interns are putting in setting everything up sure makes a difference. They can set up a week it two ahead now in this system so it looks like now we will have some more time for shop projects on Saturdays which is a good thing because it is time.

November 20, 2013November 20, 2013

Trouble maker

People ask me sometimes how it is that I am able to spend so much time around my animals and then kill them and eat them. I could do another 3000 words on why its not only doable but important for you to know your animal before you eat it. However sometimes all that doesn’t matter. Sometimes you look forward to putting one of these critters in the freezer. Some animals just cause a lot of trouble for no apparent reason. Samuel is one of them. He isn’t a bad cow. He has a decent temperament. He just has this annoying habit of getting tangled up in anything that you are trying to keep untangled. Then to make matter worse he seems to merrily go about his way with no regard to you or your equipment. He will drag wire reels across the pasture, break stakes, and even mess up the waterer. In this video, I have just moved the paddocks and am standing not 10 feet from him watching everybody graze. I turn around and find what you see here. There was a small gap where he could even get into the water hose and 3/4 acre of lush never grazed grass that was completely open without obstacles.

I reminded Sam he wasn’t far from the freezer before we parted ways.

November 15, 2013November 15, 2013

And so it begins

This is the first bail of hay fed this winter. The cows didn’t even know what it was at first but I quickly showed them and they fell into the hay like hyenas.

Looks like we are back to hay till spring. As previously discussed, we will place the hay on our worst areas to try and recover them. I have seen this done before and it worked well. Hopefully it will work for is.

November 12, 2013

Better get that vitamin C

Its funny the things that different animals will and will not eat. You would think the pigs would love oranges however you would be wrong. The pigs won’t touch them, even if you cut them open so they get straight to the citrusy goodness. Maybe if I squeezed all the juice and added a bit of vodka and a paper umbrella, maybe. I’m not convinced.

So what to do when you have 75 pounds of oranges? Why give them to the cows of course. Cows LOVE oranges and eat them rind and all. I’ve yet to get orange milk from Spunky but there is always tomorrow.

Speaking of Spunky, it looks like she is in heat and Benjamin was already putting the moves on her this morning. I was wondering where the Barry a White music was coming from. Now I know. May as well start the countdown till the next calf because I have no doubt that Benjamin will be shooting straight. This will cost us some milk production of course but that’s ok. We aren’t in the production business when it comes to milk.

November 11, 2013November 10, 2013

Bringing Spunky to the barn

http://youtu.be/hLTrMpwBBt8

This is the last few feet of 300 yards of walking. Spunky is following the yellow bucket and the food therein. At this point she’s just following as she’s not really eating that much on the walk. There are two ways to move a cow. The exciting way and the easy way. Having the cow willingly follow you is definitely the easy way. The first few days weren’t like this so it sure its nice when things work the easy way.

November 6, 2013November 6, 2013

Spunky

If you look closely you can make out Bar-B-Jew leading Spunky to the barn for her second morning of milking. This was just before everything went South. There aren’t any more pictures because we spent the rest of the morning chasing Spunky around the pasture. We eventually managed to get her into the milking parlor but she was none too pleased. It takes about a week to get a cow into the habit so we are going to keep at it till we get her settled down. We did manage to get a halter on her today so maybe we will get her halter broke soon as well.

November 2, 2013

Minerals!

We FINALLY received some minerals this week, only 3 weeks after they were supposed to be here. I immediately put some phosphorous out for the cows since they had been out for so long. Today I checked back and they had already been through about 35 pounds of the 50 I had put out. I am a believer in the free choice minerals. I just wish my vendor was more reliable.

Today, I restocked the phosphorus with another 25 pounds plus trace mineral A and C and Vitamin V4.

Spunky took an extra interest in the minerals this morning. The rest of the cows followed suit. The cows were all rambunctious this morning, running up and down the paddocks and kicking and bucking. They were pretty funny.

November 1, 2013October 29, 2013

Solution to late babies found

So I had this video of Spunky taken just before her calf was born. She is eating a pumpkin in case you can’t tell.

For those ladies out there that have reached the stage of pregnancy known as, “I don’t care what you do, just get this thing OUT of me!” It seems like we may have a cure. If pumpkin doesn’t work, we have given high speed gator rides across the pasture in the past and those have always had good results.

October 30, 2013October 30, 2013

A new well

Well drilling number 1
Yesterday we had an old well redrilled as part of our pasture recovery plan. I already mentioned the needs of cows and their drinking requirements. This is a lot of water to produce each day, combined with the water needs of four families all drinking off of one well that supplies the entire farm. So with all that in mind we hired NW Poole Well Company to come onsite and recommission an old well that was abandoned before We moved here in 1980. In looking at the well it looked like the last pump installed was in 1975 but who knows how old the well itself was.

well drilling – 2

Ryan with NW Poole thought it would be no big deal to drill out some obstructions and get this old well up to the 10 gallons per minute that we wanted. Turns out that wasn’t quite the way it went. The old well had some sort of flexible plastic pipe that was still intact from about 15 feet down to the bottom of the 150 foot well. It was seriously tough stuff and took FOREVER.
well drilling – 3

This is about 6 hours late, still drilling out the pipe. The well itself was wide open. At 30 gallons per hour for diesel burn that’s a lot of diesel just to remove plastic.

Well drilling – 4

And the end result. At 150 feet, the well was producing about 2 gallons per minute. Ahh yes, now I see why they abandoned it. Duh! Nothing to do but to keep drilling. We went to 205 feet and still only had 7 gallons per minute. But 7 gallons per minute gives us 3900 gallons in a 10 hour solar day which is plenty for winter and we get much more sun in the summer when we might need more water. Plus I am going to install a 1500 gallon cistern inline so that will give us reserve capacity. That’s not part of the engineered plan but it works for the system and is an enhancement to the overall project so I think it should be ok.

October 29, 2013October 29, 2013

Grazing update and a new well being drilled

The grass continues to look great. Here you can see today’s paddock on the left, yesterday’s on the right. Its obvious where the cows have grazed as it’s very brown vs todays paddock which is as green as spring grass. In fact the poop from the cows is getting somewhat runny like it does in the spring which is interesting since there is a fall flush of grass much like there is a spring flush. I read about the fall flush but with our old grazing methods you never saw it. One more thing that is working just like the grazing experts said it would. The brown would be bad in your suburban yard (homeowners associations would be unhappy) but for our pastures its gold. This is dried organic matter which is matting down and decomposing. This brown grass will be next years healthy soil.

Today we are meeting Ryan with NW Poole Well company to redrill an old well that was out of service when we moved on the farm. We are going to hopefully hit good water and then combine this well with a solar based pump that will now water all of our cows from solar pumped water from a separate well than our main farm well. As we grow our herd they are going to drink more and more water so we are planning ahead for that growth. An adult cow can drink as much as 30 gallons of water per day and lactating cows can double that need. Since we have a lot of lactating cows we have pretty sizeable water needs that will only grow. Thank goodness the cows don’t take showers. 🙂

This project is in partnership again with Wake County Soil and Water and Teresa Hice from that office who continues to help us on the farm. I met Teresa at a Keeping the Farm” workshop some years ago and she has been working with us ever since helping with our erosion issues, land retention, etc. The next keeping the farm workshop is January 29th and if you farm or want to farm I highly recommend you attending. It’s well worth the day.