We’ve been in crisis mode since December just barely keeping our head above water. Now, things are settling down and we can be a little more normal.
I’ve updated the scheduler on our website to make it easier to use. No longer will you have to pick your provider. Just pick the type of appointment you want, and then click on the date on the calendar. The scheduler will show you what is available, and book the correct person for you.
Speaking of the correct person. We have some changes in personnel.
For shopping only:
The girls will still be working all day on Saturdays as normal
Lucy is working Wednesday’s and Friday’s in the afternoon.
For tours:
Spork will be working all day on Saturday.
On Monday and Tuesday, Dan will be handling tours and in store appointments.
We are closed on Sundays, and we are closed on Thursdays.
As always, if you need something special, just contact Dan and set it up directly. We have flexibility, but the above is our normal schedule.
#72, having an early morning breakfast right in front of the house
This was what greeted me when I was walking over to the barn this morning. Sorry for the bad exposure, it wasn’t exactly day time yet. Here you see #72, having breakfast. Just out of the picture was Betsy and Bernice, and Bernice was going to town as well having her breakfast. It looks like little #72 is going to be ok.
This morning, Miguel and I moved Sprinkles and #72 out to the front pasture. They were happy to be outside, especially the calf. Betsy and Bernice came over and made friends immediately and everyone is out enjoying the beautiful day we have today. 83, sunny, and a nice breeze.
This was all possible because of the picture above. Lucy, who runs our store on Wednesdays and Fridays, and who works our garden every day of the week, got stuck with calf duty Thursday and Friday. I had to go to Virginia and had to leave the calf in somebody’s care. Who better than a mom? Did she have any experience with cows. Well no. How about calves? Um, once. Did I give her much instruction. Well no, not really. But she’s a mom, she’ll figure it out.
The results? Well, they speak for themselves. This calf would have died without help. She couldn’t stand without pain and she would have gotten weaker and weaker having not nursed. By the time she could stand, she would have been unable due to lack of nutrition and that would be that. So kuddos to Miguel for noticing her in the beginning. Kuddos to Lucy for keeping her fed.
I’m going to be taking a look at what is going on, but we lost a calf already recently, probably from the same problem, and we would have lost this calf. I think we have a genetic problem (from outside, of course) we’ll have to deal with shortly. But one thing at a time.
We have some time in the schedule today, and fresh baked cookies coming out of the oven. The girls have the store ready for you and our little bottle calf, #72 is out of the barn this morning and in the front pasture with mom enjoying being alive and outside. You can see her if you stop by today.
I picked up ground pork and ribs yesterday at the processor, the only two things we were out of so we are fully stocked on pork and chicken. We also have plenty of beef cuts left from our last cow so you can get ready for hamburgers on the grill this beautiful weekend. We’ll be here from now till about 4pm today (except lunch), based on who is booked so far, so if you are in the area stop on by and see the girls.
This morning the little calf didn’t look any better. She may have even been a little worse. She still has the weird thing where her ankles are weak and she wasn’t nursing. Miguel, Vicente and Michael went down this morning while I was off farm and brought the calf and momma back to the barn where we could work on them easier. We gave the calf about 20 minutes to see if she would nurse now that both mom and calf were in an enclosed stall with no distractions. Alas, no luck there so it was time for plan B.
Plan B started with a quick trip to the feed store to buy this.
Basically it’s vitamin B12 for a boost for the calf
I also needed a rope halter, which was actually why I went. But it couldn’t hurt to get some vitamins in the little girl. I shot this stuff in her mouth. Most of it went right back out and onto the ground but I’m sure some of it went in. I was supposed to wait 30 minutes to see if this stuff worked so while I waited I put fresh shavings in the stall for the cows and then put a fan in their stall to help with the heat and flies. I also sprayed them both down with fly spray. The more I could keep Sprinkles standing still, the more apt she would be to hang out and let the calf nurse.
After waiting 30 minutes to see if the calf would perk up from the magic elixir (she didn’t), I grabbed a rope halter and asked Adam to come and help. After a few false attempts, I finally got the rope halter on Sprinkles. Prior to this point I’d been feeding Sprinkles bananas one by one so she was looking at me like maybe I wasn’t so bad. When the halter went on, her opinion of me darkened considerably. But eventually we were able to get her head tied to a post in the stall and we were able to pin her against the wall. I then tied one of her back legs back so she couldn’t kick us (on purpose) or the calf (by accident) and then dragged the calf over to try and nurse.
The little calf was less than enthusiastic but after fighting her a bit I finally got her on the teet and she drank a bit of milk. Not much. After realizing that she’s done all she’s going to do, I put the calf back in the corner and proceeded to hand milk Sprinkles to get some colostrum in her via bottle feeding.
#71, resting after nursing a little bit
Since Sprinkles was conveniently tied bow and stern, I grabbed the pail I’d brought for just this purpose and proceeded to hand milk her to get some milk for the calf. She wasn’t too happy with me but she did her best to let me get away with it. We finally released Sprinkles and I filtered the milk, bottled it, and put it right into the calf. In total she’s probably had about a cup of colostrum. In addition she’s had about 1/2 gallon of Betsy milk.
This was before she hated me, back when I was the banana guy
I’ve talked to the vet and she has some ideas of what is going on. For now the best we can do is to get milk in her and give her some time. We’ll see how the rest of the feedings go today and tomorrow.
Yesterday we had a new calf born on the farm. Sprinkles had her little girl calf, #72. Miguel came and got me and said the calf looked weak and asked if I wanted to go look. I was neck deep in trying to talk to new farmers but critters come first. Fortunately I had a few minutes and Lucy was working the store so I didn’t have to worry about that. We went out to see the calf and she was laying down, and laying kinda oddly. After getting her up I noted that she was pretty wobbly and walking oddly on her hind legs. She also didn’t seem to be paying mom any mind. Nor was mom paying her any attention. We got the calf up and took her over to mom. Unfortunately she tried to nurse another mom beside Sprinkles and got kicked for her efforts and knocked to the ground. We separated Sprinkles and this calf to give them a chance to get some nursing going and neither had much interest in the other.
Sigh.
Ok, back to the barn to grab a gallon of pet milk out of the fridge. Miguel dug out the nursing bottle and Lucy and Ru jumped into action as well. I boiled some water, Lucy cleaned the bottle up and microwaved the milk to get it sorta warm. I grabbed the stainless bucket, took the now clean bottle and nipple from Lucy, added the warm milk, then filled the stainless bucket with hot water, and dropped the bottle of milk in the hot water. This takes the milk from sorta warm to momma cow hot without cooking the milk. (Thanks dad for teaching me this).
Lucy, Ru, and I went back out to the pasture to find #72 and spent the next 15 minutes looking for a calf that was laying right in front of us in a small patch of tall grass. Once we found the calf, I got her up, popped her head between my legs, and started trying to get her to figure out that drinking was a good idea. Sometimes this takes hours, sometimes days. All the calf knows is some monster has her head in a vice and is shoving things in her mouth. All she wants to do is get away, not take a drink. With this little girl, it took about three minutes.
#72, getting a homemade breakfast
After a bit of wrangling and fighting, she finally took a drink. After the first pull, she had the idea and went to town. After about 5 minutes of drinking, she’d unfortunately only gotten a little bit of the milk. That was when Lucy pointed out this was a new nipple and the hole is pretty small. I quickly cut it bigger and popped the nipple back into the still struggling calf’s mouth. This time she really went to town and got about half of the bottle in her. After this, we let her go to see if she’d go to mom, or go find shade. She trundled off to find shade and we left them both alone for the night.
We have to see #72 nurse from mom today. If that doesn’t happen, we will have to put Sprinkles in the head gate and milk her to get colostrum. Then we’ll bottle feed it to #72. At that point, we’ll probably have a bottle calf hanging around here. They are super cute, and super a pain in the butt so I’m really hoping that she’s nursing on her own when we get out there today. Not to mention hand milking a pissed off beef cow isn’t the easiest thing to do. I’m really not looking forward to that.
Truck and stock trailer, at the loading ramp ready to go.
We are all set to make the ride in the morning to Siler City. #14 has been enjoying her unlimited grass diet and peace and relaxation in the pasture with Betsy. However tomorrow she, and I, will be heading to Siler City to the processor. That’s after we get her loaded in the morning, I hope. We should be getting beef back on the 22nd of this month and we once again will be stocked with all the cuts. As our original Groupon deal ends next week, and we are taking two cows in July, we should also be able to keep beef in stock a lot better going forward so if you’ve been hoping to time your visit right to get some goodies, your wait is over!
The next cow to go is LF33 and then probably #11. We’ll see as time goes on. In the meantime, get on the calendar to come by after the 22nd and pick up some beef. You are going to need steaks for the 4th of July!
We are finally winding the Groupon deal down and now we can concentrate on taking care of all of our nearly 1000 customers. That means that we will have more beef in stock when you stop by, and our inventory should be more stable on all of our products going forward. But before we have the blissful experience of you fine folks showing up, we need to make some room in the freezers for all the goodness we have here and coming. That means we need to move out some of the bulky and slower moving items.
Effective till we run out, the following items are buy one, get one free (BOGO)
Liver (pig and beef)
Bones, both for stock and for dogs (pig and beef)
Feet – for stock making (pig)
Kidneys (pig and beef)
Tails (pig) My instructor at butchery class said this was the best cut on the pig! He kept it for himself.
Fatback/Lard (pig)
Monster dog bones, will keep any dog happy for days
If you have dogs, these are all items the dogs will love, except the fatback. I mean, they’d love it, but it would be messy. These cuts are SO much better than the junk you buy in the pet store. Those are the cast offs of the industrial food system and are literally the worst, cheapest pieces you can get. Doesn’t you pooch deserve better?
Pork neck bones, for flavoring food or making stock
If you make stock. Wait, you are making your own stock aren’t you? It’s so easy, and SO much better! So let me restate that, WHEN you make stock, these are the cuts that you will need. Grass fed, hormone free, no GMO, happy animals bits that make awesome stock. They also keep in the freezer easily so now is the time to stock up on your stock bits. You see what I did there! You’ll never get a deal better than BOGO and your family will thank you for making the stock rather than that watery, salty junk you buy at the store.
Beef heart, an awesome meal in itself, or you can cook or dry it for your dog
But what about the lowly fatback and lard? What do you do with that? Goodness, aren’t you cooking with lard yet? Here are 10 things you should be doing right now. It’s easy, and your grandmother could do it in her sleep. Isn’t it time you found out what she knew?
Yesterday I made my weekly trip to the processor and to some of our other farmers to pick up goodies for the store. It was great to be back on my normal schedule after being gone for three weeks. I also dropped off three pigs at the processor, including Spider Pig who after his initial escapades, has been a good pig the rest of his time here.
What a bulging refrigerator should look like
Being back on my normal schedule means that we are fully stocked on chicken, ice cream, chocolate milk, whole milk, heavy cream, breakfast sausage, and yes bacon. We also will be taking our next cow to the processor next week so we should be back in business on steaks. We do still have most of the cuts of beef in stock, including flat iron steaks, flank steaks, roasts, and hamburger.
We have plenty of availability this afternoon and most of the day tomorrow so schedule a visit to stop by, before it’s 100 degrees on Sunday!
Our new calf, #71 didn’t survive his first few days. Although we found him in the border wire between the cows and the pigs, we don’t know what actually killed him. Maybe he was not nursing correctly. Maybe he got stepped on as everyone piled into the shade to get away from the sun. Maybe he hung himself on the hog wire, as he was determined to get through the wire from the day he was born. We don’t know. We do know that his mom was on the cull list prior to his birth, and now that she’s lost a calf she’s moved up on the schedule. That’s a shame, because she’s been one of our best moms for a long time but this day comes for every cow.
