Winner, winner, chicken dinner

They don't ever tell you about the downside of free-range chickens. For us, it's all about finding that elusive secret stash of eggs. Most chickens are compliant and lay their eggs in the nesting boxes we provide.  But others.... well let's just say they are the rebel chicks.  There's always gotta be that one stray hen. So when we do find a pile like this they all go in the trash because we don't know how old they are or how long they've been here.  And by trash I mean the dogs and cats get to eat them. Food safety is important and we only sell eggs that we can guarantee have been picked up the day they are laid. "Farm fresh" is a real deal around here. Besides, my farmer husband doesn't like sitting down on a pile of scrambled eggs!  As for this chicken...she's has decided laying in the skidloader might not be the best choice so she's back in good standing. For now...

Sunshine and Cows

I have yet to meet someone who doesn't love a beautiful fall day.  Mild temps, warm sun, fall colors, and appreciating one more day in the great outdoors can all add up to a perfect day.  With old man winter knocking on the door, I take these precious fall days very seriously.  Three things can make a fall day even better in my book... 1) a little one-on-one time with my girl, 2) an excuse to get the horses out, and of course 3) anything that involves cows!

Normally in the rush of everyday life we would just jump in the pickup and drive down to check these girls but today, we decided to ride the horses down.  It was about a 2 1/2 mile trip each way just to get to the pasture but we had a nice chat along the way.

One of the highlights was finding this little gem. 

We brought the rest of the fall calving cows home a week or so ago but this momma just couldn't wait on us.  And once she did deliver her healthy little calf, she proceeded to hide it from us.  Really well....  But now he's old enough to hang with the rest of the herd like a big boy.  One of these days we'll haul him and his momma home so they are with the rest of the pairs.  Until then, he's a one of a kind.

It was a nice 3 hour break in our day and a rare moment to slow down and enjoy the beauty that surrounds us!  I highly recommend it to everyone!

I check water.... a lot!

I check water.  A lot.  It may seem like a pretty unimportant job to drive into a pasture every day and look down at your reflection in the water tank.  But I do it anyway.  And you get to know the grazing and drinking habits of your herd pretty quickly.  Did you know cows are creatures of habit just like you and I?  I can generally find this group at the tank for a drink around 5:30 every night.  Tonight, instead of my usual reflection, I saw a nearly empty tank.  The pump was running constantly but no water was coming out.  Dang.  We called the well repair man and he said he would come out tomorrow.  

In the meantime, the cows have no other source of water in this pasture so the kids and I went home and pulled out the portable water tank and started filling it up. [It would've been good entertainment value to watch the three of us trying to carry that big bulky tank.  We may or may not have dropped it on Nate...but no child was hurt in the process.]  It only took about an hour to put in 350 gallons of water.  The slow part came in draining it back out and into the stock tank at the pasture.  It runs by gravity flow so it took a couple of hours to empty it back out but in the end the water tank was nice and full again and I knew it would hold the cows for the night until the well guy could come fix the problem.  Besides, we went for a walk, played some catch with a football, and caught up on some e-mails on my phone.  Always, always, be prepared to entertain.

Turns out it was an easy fix for him and we are up and running again.  Just another example of the hard working people who contribute to agriculture.  And a good reminder of why I am supposed to check the water.  Every.Single.Day.

  

My vet assistant

 Last weekend was the 4-H beef check-in day.  This is when all the young 4-H'ers bring in their new beef animals to be identified and enrolled in the 4-H beef project.  Each animal gets weighed and receives a visual ear tag along with an electronic identification tag (EID).  For animals going on to state fair or other shows, we also need to collect hair follicle samples to have for a DNA test.  The heifers also received a permanent ear tattoo that will help identify them as they enter the herd as breeding animals.

Since I am on the 4-H council, I usually help at the annual weigh in event.  Nate wanted to go along so they put him right to work.  His job was to assist the vet in collecting the DNA samples and matching the envelopes to their ear tags for verification purposes.  He did a great job of getting things organized and I'm pretty sure he learned a lot.  He was also allowed to apply ink to some of the tattoos and learned how to properly tag and tattoo an animal.

I'm proud of him for wanting to learn new things about our beef industry and I'm thankful for awesome volunteers that are so willing to work with our young 4-H'ers to teach them along the way.  Dr. Jamie was super patient and took the time to explain the "whys" of all she was doing. 

4-H is full of teachable moments and it takes a tremendous amount of volunteers to make the most of them.  You'll notice there are no ribbons or shows in this post.  4-H is about so much more than that.  I can only hope the youth, volunteers, and supporters continue to focus on that!!

Party til the cows come home...

Ever hear that saying "Party til the cows come home!!"?  Well... I guess our party's over because we brought the cows home a while back!!  Every rancher has a different set up in terms of locations, pasture availability, winter feeding or grazing programs, calving season, etc...  There is no right or wrong answers but you have to make the best use of what resources you have available.  It might even vary year to year within an operation, so the key is flexibility! 

In our case, we happened to end up with an unused pasture last summer so it made perfect early winter grazing for a set of our cows.  Some of our cows went to cornstalks last fall (you can read all about it here and here) but the balance were able to go to this pasture.  The grass goes dormant so that means it quits growing, but if it hasn't been grazed all summer, there is plenty for them to eat.  As it dries down after the first few freezes, it's sort of like the cows eating dry hay but they do the work so you don't have to cut, bale, store and feed! Plus they get more exercise out walking and grazing pastures instead of waiting for their next meal to be delivered!  It's really a WIN-WIN for all of us!!

Watching the process from my rear view mirror!

But as they say, all good things must come to an end.  When the grass is sufficiently eaten down, the weather has turned colder, calving season is nearing, or any combination of these... it's time to bring the girls home.  This year was the first time we actually let the cattle walk home.  It is about 2 miles from our house to the pasture in question, so it wasn't too far.  The alternative is to gather them and load them onto trailers to haul them home.  Since the kids are getting older, the weather was beautiful, and this particular set of cows is very quiet to work, we decided to bring them home via horseback. 

With Nate on his mare, Tilly, and Ally on her mare, Paige, we let the kids practice their skills and head of the process.  Gail had a 4-wheeler to follow up and prevent strays and I was in the lead with the pickup and some hay to entice the girls to follow me down the road.  Nate was in charge of keeping the cows out of the neighbor's fields, while Ally was bringing them down the road. 


My passengers were VERY helpful in the whole process!!

Everything went smooth and they were settled into their new location in less than two hours.  Good help, good cows, and a good time!!  Even the dogs got in on the action... Just another day in the life on our little Nebraska farm!!

What's in a name? (or number??)

Tags made for all calves born today!!

Ever wonder why cows have ear tags or what all those numbers mean on the tags?  Again, every operation has a different system but here's a quick overview of ours...

We tag every calf within 24-48 hours of birth.  The calf gets a matching number to their mama so it's easy to know who they belong to and to get them paired up quickly if necessary.  We also like to include the date of birth on the tag as a reference, and the middle set of numbers represents the sire or "dad" of the calf. 

Getting a weight on this new baby calf

In our case, we use artificial insemination to breed the bulk of our cows to elite genetics.  This means you can purchase a few units of a particular bull without buying the actual bull that can cost upwards of $50,000 to as much as $200,000.  It's a great way to improve our genetics in a cost effective manner!  Tracking these sire groups is very important from a data collection standpoint so having it on the tag is a great reference.

All of the information is also hand recorded on spreadsheets as each calf is born and later entered in the computer.  We collect individual weights on each calf to also help track performance of the cow, sire, and individual calf.  We use different colors of tags to tell the difference between the different breed groups we have but it can also be used for sire groups, cow groups, ownership groups, pasture groups, or lots of other different options.  There are as many tagging systems as there are producers so the trick is finding one that works for your operation!!

At a glance I know this little dude belongs to cow #3009, he's out of Western Cut (WC) and he was born 2/17

Welcome to the World #046

Timing is everything.  And I just happen to be at the right place at the right time to catch this amazing video.  I had taken my lunch break to run home and check on the cows.  They are calving right now and that means we check them numerous times and day.  That even includes the middle of the night!  I had seen cow #046 during the morning check and she had given me some subtle signs that she might be nearing delivery of her new baby.  Sure enough, she was just getting started when I arrived home at noon.  This video shows just how fast things progress in a normal delivery.  This baby will get a tag that matches his momma so for now he is known as calf #046.  He has made quite an impression so far!


A couple of things to look for in the video...

1. That is the head and front feet you see at the beginning of the video.  Normal position delivery is with the front feet coming first and the head pointed down so the shoulders can slip out easier.
2. The photo bomb is compliments of #227.  Her name is Boo.  She was a former 4-H heifer so she's pretty tame and likes to come say hi.  She would NOT get out of the way.  She likes her picture taken...
3. At 40-42 seconds you will see a good video of the head and body and if you watch closely you will see the calf move during the delivery.
4. Note that the calf is completely delivered at 50 seconds into the video and the cow is up and licking her calf by 1:12.  Yes... that's all of 22 seconds of recovery before she's checking to see if her baby is ok. 
5. And yes... that's old 227 in there assisting.  I told you she likes to be in the picture!

Mother Nature is truly amazing.  I am so blessed to be able to witness these daily miracles.  I hope you are as amazed as I am.  It never gets old! 

A wire winder what??

Ally is getting a workout pulling out fence posts!

Don't you think machines make all chores more fun?  Automated vacuum robots, power tools, 4-wheelers, etc...  I love all these too but I'm pretty sure this is magnified 20 times if you're a boy.  A ten year boy.  Or an 80 year old boy for that matter.  They LOVE their automated machines.  I can appreciate them but I don't need to know how they work or why they work.  I just want them to make my life easier.

Enter the wire winder.  Remember my posts earlier about how we built electric fence after corn harvest?  You can read about it here and here.  Well, as they say....what goes up, must come down.  The same is true for temporary fence.  Sometimes the ground is frozen and you can't get the posts back out until the spring thaw.  Fortunately this year, we had unseasonably warm temps and we were able to pull the posts easily.  The only problem is rolling up the miles of wire that you put out.  Luckily we were able to borrow the farmer's handy dandy wire winder that has a small engine and rolls up the wire for you.

Check out this short video clip of my son watching over the process.  It's important to make sure the wire fills the spool evenly.  If done correctly, you can easily unroll it next year and use it again!  This little invention saves us hours of time and frustration getting fence picked up so quickly and easily.  I highly recommend it!!

Choppy Water?!?!

You might have thought you were going to read about a boat outing on the lake with the title of this post but when we "chop water" around here, we usually mean ice.  It's great that we can keep the cows out on stalks or dry pasture for a few months of winter grazing but along with colder temperatures comes water supply issues.  Most of these areas don't have electricity to keep a tank heater going so we are generally left with one option.... Chopping lots of ice!! 

It's a great workout and we check tanks at least once or twice a day to make sure the cattle can get plenty of fresh water.  Often times they break it themselves but if it is too thick, we have to use an axe.  They are very patient to wait their turn at the tank once we open it up for them!  Just another "life on the farm" that gets us some quality time with our kids!  And there may or may not be some snowball fights involved if time allows!

Have you seen the Gingerbread Man??

Do you remember your favorite book as a kid?  Or maybe a favorite that your own kids loved?  That you read from cover to cover every.single.night??  Well, for our family it was the story of the Gingerbread man that ran away to the farm.  So imagine my excitement when I got word from my bestie in South Dakota that her little girl's class has lost their Gingerbread man.  Apparently he escaped when the kids were out at recess one day and word had it he might be headed in our direction.

I watched for days and sure enough.... one day I caught a glimpse of the little guy.  I tried my best to catch him but he was way too fast.  So this is pretty much how it went down...

Run, Run… as fast as you can!
Can't catch me, I'm the HOWARD ELEMENTARY GINGERBREAD MAN!!

I ran from Ann and I ran from her friends,
So if you think you can catch me, just think again!
I'm happy to say, it's much warmer here,
Perhaps tell those kids I’m full of good cheer.

I didn’t know Nebraska had so much SUN,
It sure makes winter a lot more FUN!

I love all your cows and all the horses too!
But if you add anymore it will look like a zoo.
I've met the chickens, the dogs and the cats,
So far I’m lucky I haven’t seen any rats!

My favorite was Lexi the Golden Retriever.
She was so nice, I could hardly believe her!
She shared her bed and gave me a snack,
And told me to always watch my back.

The other dog Trapper gave me a ride,
And said they have lots of coyotes nearby.
So I took his advice and avoided the trees,
Knowing it was so much safer for me!

They have two kids named Ally and Nate.
Lucky for me they left open a gate.
So I chased all the cows and had lots of fun,
And away that I went, off on a run!
 

So please tell Mrs. B and especially Ann,
Nebraska is great for a Gingerbread man!
I will be home soon, you can count on me,
But for now Southwest Nebraska is where I will be!


So there you have it... the day I ALMOST caught the Gingerbread Man.  Keep an eye out... I hear he might be headed in your direction!! 

Field of Dreams...AFTER



Nate delivering posts around the perimeter of the field

If you're keeping up, you would have read yesterday's post about last fall's harvest in southwest Nebraska.  If you missed it, you can catch it here! 

As I was explaining in that post, the leftover cornstalks, leaves, and bits of corn make an awesome spot for our cows to get some winter forage but there's one little problem... FENCE!



Most of the corn fields are not surrounded by permanent fence as it creates difficulty getting equipment around.  Like lots of other cattlemen in the area, we are responsible for building a temporary fence that's economical, quick to put up and take down, and most importantly, secure enough to keep the cattle in a safe place. 

Ally attaching insulators to hold the wire.

The first step in a successful fencing project is the right supplies and a great crew.  Like most cattle producers, we use a simple, temporary single wire fence that is electrified.  It's amazing how the cattle know to stay away from it.  It doesn't hurt them (or us for that matter) if they touch it but it's enough of a deterrent that you don't do it again anytime soon!   

Nate is adding the wire to the insulators.

We put in temporary metal posts, attach insulators to hold the wire, and then run a metal wire around the outside of the field.  It's a team effort and it goes pretty fast when everyone pitches in.  This year the ground wasn't frozen yet and the weather was awesome so it wasn't too tough.  We've had other years when the ground is so dry or frozen that you can hardly pound a post in and the weather is less than cooperative. 

 

 

 A word of caution when you live in a small town and build fence on the highway... you get a lot of "honks" and visitors who stop to chat!  It's always fun to see who will stop in and offer to lend a hand! (Or just watch us work in most cases!!)

 

At the end of the day, we make sure the fence is electrified all the way around and usually leave it for several days so the deer learn that it's there.  They will knock it down for a few days but eventually they learn to jump over it.  Once this happens, the cows can be turned out to the Field of Dreams.  As long as the weather is kind, this is a great spot for them to do some late fall / early winter grazing until they come home for calving!

Happy cows in their "Field of Dreams"

 

Field of Dreams... BEFORE

It seems like I post about this every year (or at least take a lot of pictures with good intentions) but there's just something about the transformation of a corn field that's ready for harvest turning into a grazing wonderland for cows.  This post is about corn harvest that took place last fall and how it affected our cows!! For my Ag-in-the-Classroom kids, here are a few facts about farmground:

• Nationally, farmers average 160 bushels per acre.  It will be higher in areas of larger rainfall or irrigation and lower in areas with poor soil quality or dry growing conditions.
• An acre is about the size of a football field minus the end-zones.
• A bushel of corn weighs about 56 pounds.
• A semi truck can haul about 55,000 lbs of corn in a load
• Here's a story problem for you kids out there...  The farmer that I rent from has a 100 acre field.  He harvested 160 bu per acre. How many semi loads of corn did he haul out of the field?

The answer is....16 semi loads! (100 acres x 160 bu/acre x 56 lbs per bu) divided by 55,000 lbs per truck = 16.2 semi loads!  That's a lot of corn from one small field!  Some fields are hundreds of acres so you can imagine how much those make!

Check out this video I made while my son was riding with the neighbor in his combine!

So what happens once the corn is harvested??  Well, that's where we come in.  The field is left with lots of stalks & leaves off the corn plant as well as a little corn that might have been missed or left behind.  This makes perfect winter grazing material for our cows!  Think about the timing for a minute... corn harvest is usually in early fall when the grass is starting to go dormant in the pastures.  The cows are ready to move on to other forage sources and it's best for the pastures to move the cattle off and let the grass recover and be ready for next spring.  Mother Nature has perfect timing as this is when the corn fields are ready for grazing. 

There's just one little problem... FENCE.  Come back tomorrow to learn how we tackle this little problem and get our cows out to their Field of Dreams!!

New and Improved

Hi everyone!  Remember me?  It's been a while... a LONG while.  But I'm back to posting and I've changed my site.  I imported my favorite and most popular posts from my old blog so if you'd like to reminisce with me, go right ahead.  My kids have grown, our livestock population has expanded, and in general, we've made all sorts of progress!

One of my big goals with this new site is to post more up-to-date info for the Nebraska Ag-In-The-Classroom project. I have been involved in this for a few years now and I just love sharing our farm stories with the kids.  They come up with the BEST questions for us!!  So if you have questions or have interest in the program, please send me a message or contact the director via the link above.

So Happy 2016 to all of you!!!  Join me on my New Year's Resolution to share my family's story that's all about agriculture and a few surprise posts too!  Consider this your official invitation to follow along!  We have great farm "tails" to tell!!