Feeding My Babies...

Like clockwork every morning, just after milking, the babies need to be fed.

So...I fill up my wagon with water buckets, milk buckets, and a couple of bottles and head for the hutches...

My helper is along for the walk...do you see her leading the way?  She's hoping for some spilled milk, or a broken egg from the chickens for a snack.

The bottle hummies are waiting for me...

I want to show you the difference in the sizes of these calves.  These two were born on the same day, about ten days ago.  The one closest to you was born about a month early.  At first we thought she was the first of a twin, but nope...just early.  (I actually picked her up and carried her out of the meadow, she's that light!) She's quite bouncy and energetic, and can finish her bottle even faster than the bigger one.  The bigger one probably weighs around 100 lbs, which is much more expected of a calf this age...

These two will be moved to the individual hutches soon, where I can more easily wean them to drink out of buckets.  It's much easier to do that when they're in individual pens.  Can you imagine why?  Think...chewing (on me), head butting (me) and stealing each others' milk!

The little one has already been named.  She will be called Rosanne...or more likely Rosie, for short.  Her mother's name is Bethany (my niece's name), so I left my niece choose the name for her!

The calves are enjoying the spring...and so are we!  How about you?

Good Fences #1...

Fences...

Every farm has at least one.

If they're built right, they're great!  If they're not...well, that's fodder for another post.

Here's one that is well built, and that we've never regretted putting up...

Linking up with TexWis Girl for Good Fences #1.

Random Five Friday...Glimpses of Spring...

I can't believe how quickly Friday rolls around each week, but here we are again!  Time for a few random thoughts for the week.

1.  Spring is finally here!  It feels like it should in March...breezy, but with a hint of warmth to the air, and temperatures in the 40's, 50's, and maybe even the 60's this week...

2.  Our mailbox got ruined by all the flying snow as the plows went by this winter.  We had been given a whimsical cow mailbox by some farmer friends who moved from the area, and kept it up in the granary in the barn all these years, just waiting for the right time to put it up here...

3.  This afternoon is the first track meet of the season for our kids.  They both run in the distance events, and we hope to get to see them run in at least one of their events before milking...

4.  Isn't she a cute calf?  This one was born early Monday morning.  She and a buddy are hanging out in the goat pen until Jenna's 4-H goats arrive in a few weeks...

5.   The chickens are taking every opportunity to escape their pen.  They love foraging in the compost bin, the garden, and the flower beds...

The ones that didn't find the crack between the gate and the corner post are jealous...wondering how they can get in on the action...

That's just a quick glimpse of our week here.

I hope you're finding glimpses of spring, wherever you are!

Here's the link to Random Five Friday...

More Twins...

Twins have always fascinated me.

Before I became a Mom ...and knew how much work it would be...I wished for twins.  Thankfully, God knew better than I did, and blessed us with one at a time!

In the barn, we can't find much good about twins.  Here are some reasons...

-twins are hard on a cow...there's a higher likelihood of complications during birth.

-often times, the cow doesn't clean (she retains the placenta) and then she is prone to an infection.

-twins are often born early, so it catches us off guard

-early calves tend to be small, and have a harder time thriving

-when twins are mixed...a bull and a heifer...the heifer is often sterile, which is useless in a dairy herd

-twins heifers can reproduce...however they are prone to having twins themselves, and then the cycle continues!

These two little ones above were just born this morning.  The one on the left was born first, and the second one surprised us awhile later.  

This is our third set of twins in the past three months.  

The first set was a pair of heifers (the 3rd set of twins born to a Mom who is a twin herself!)  Their Mom had a really hard time recovering, but is now doing fine. 

The second set was also a pair of heifers, but like I mentioned above, sometimes twin births are complicated, and one did not survive. 

This morning's twins are both healthy bull calves, and will be sold. 

Cute as they may be, we'll take single calves every time! 

Housecleaning For the Chickens...

Oh happy day!

It's been a long time coming, and today, finally (!!) I was able to get the chicken shed cleaned out.  I last did it in the fall, and then the snow came.  I have to fork or shovel it out by hand into wheel barrows, and just couldn't get to it until the snow melted.  I lost track, but there were at least ten wheel barrow loads full.

It looks so much better...and smells much better too!  They had to scratch around in the fresh straw a little, just in case there were any seeds in the straw, or any goodies hiding underneath it, and then they headed outside again...

The last thing I cleaned out was the nesting boxes.  One chicken was frantically running around, looking for somewhere to lay her egg, I guess! She crawled into a box before I was finished, and was rather restless.  I carefully put some straw underneath her, and this is what she left me in return...

They spent most of the day outside in the warm sunshine.  (It's been a while since we've had weather like this!)  As you can see, the pen is rather barren looking.  I'm really hoping the grass will grow back in time...

To help save the grass in their pen...and to keep them happy...I left the chickens out this afternoon for a while.  They made a beeline for the compost pile to hunt for treasure...

They will scratch to their hearts' content until I feed the calves tonight.  Then, I'll have to find something to lure them back into their pen.  Maybe some spilled calf feed will do the trick.  For now, they're pretty cooperative, but once they get used to being outside, it gets a little tougher to lure them back inside.  That's when I need the kids to help me round them up.

So...this is how I spent my Monday.  How about you?

Randomness...Because It's Friday...

Here we are...Friday already!

It's been a busy week.  Winter is slowly loosening it's hold on us, or so it seems.  Who knows...it's March, and anything can happen...but the snow is slowly melting, and it's getting muddy.  I can't complain about the mud, though, after the looooong, cold winter we've had.  Spring must be coming!

Here are my five random things for this week...

1.  I tried something new today.  After reading about making Wool Dryer Balls ...and looking them up on Pinterest...I tried making my own today.

I bought some wool yarn (the kind that says to wash in cold and dry flat)...rolled it into balls while waiting in line at the car wash...and threw them into the washer and dryer with several loads of laundry this afternoon...

After more washings and dryings, they should become more felted.  I might experiment with using some essential oils in them to add some fragrance to the laundry.  We'll see.

2.  We finally got the yard cleaned up at our rental property, after the ice storm a few weeks ago.  The snow melted enough to allow access to...and to reveal more debris than we realized was there. We hired an Amish man with a chipper/shredder to clean up.  Nothing comes cheap, but it was worth it!

This is what it looked like the day of the storm...

3.  The smell of fresh baked peanut butter cookies is wafting through the house right now...

4.  It's getting easier to feed calves these days!  We're down to five that are on milk...from eleven.  Since the snow is melting, I can pull all my buckets down to the hutches on the wagon, instead of carrying water, milk and feed, two buckets at a time across the icy yard.

5.  Last but not least...today is my Dad's 85th birthday!

This picture is almost two years old, taken on a Sunday afternoon hike at a wildflower preserve.  It is typical of him...the hat...the jacket...the walking stick (not a cane!).  I can almost hear him whistling under his breath!

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Linking up again with Nancy, for Random Five Friday.

Moving the Ag Bag...

Today was the day...

It was time to "move the ag bag"...or in other words...transfer the silage from the ag bag to the silo.

Back in the fall, Jim put out a 150' silage bag on the west side of the barn, with plans to transfer it to the silo mid-winter.  It became a bit of a puzzle, figuring out when it could be done.  The ground needed to be hard (not a problem for most of the winter!) and the snow couldn't be too deep (not usually a problem, but this winter??) to move the bag.  The heavy silage trucks had to be able to maneuver easily or it wouldn't have worked.

Last week we had a major thaw, and a lot of the snow melted.  Then this week, the temps plummeted again, well below freezing and were accompanied by a bitter wind.  Enough said.

First and foremost...the owls were removed from around the bag.  They enjoyed their temporary perches in the tree by the outside pen...

Next, the bag had to be cleared of ice and snow.  Jeff (the guy who transferred the bag) came last evening with his loader tractor and removed a lot of snow from around the bag so the equipment could maneuver. However, there was still a thick coating of ice directly on the outside of the bag that needed to be knocked off before they could remove the plastic. That took lots of elbow grease...knocking it off with shovels.  I helped with that part, and now I know why my arms are tired tonight!

Jim cleared away more snow, and the ice that was knocked off the bag, with the skid loader...

Getting ready to start...

Jeff began cutting a big slit in the bag.  Only when the bag was removed, would we know for sure just how nice the silage was.  Jim had taken samples to be tested...and they were good...but until you see the whole thing, you always wonder just a little what it will really be like!  The tiniest of pinholes can let air into the bag and cause spoilage...

 The silage was very nice!

Jeff began loading trucks.  Some of the silage went to the other farm for the heifers...a couple of loads were sold to another farmer...but the majority of it went into one of the silos here at home for the cows...

Yes, that's a smudge on my camera's lens...and I took the picture in the wrong direction, looking towards the sun...but that's the silage uncovered, being scooped up by the loader...

So...now that the bag has been moved, spring is welcome to come.

Antyime!

Please?!