Mares at the big pond on a beautiful fall day.

Things have been a bit busy around here this fall.  Between everything going on & experiencing some writer’s block…well, you can see I took a little break from the blogging.  So now I have so many pictures I want to share that I hope this doesn’t get toooo long!  Here’s what things are looking like around the farm this fall.

The ditch along the driveway, fixed & with new culvert put in.

Drainage Work

We were finally able to get everything arranged with our friend Steve to do our drainage work in the cow barn pasture.  Dry weather, a week off & a rented backhoe and we were in business.  He put in a couple new drainage swales across the paddock, regraded it all, and fixed the ditch along the driveway, as well as some other things.  The first big rain after he was done, he showed up to inspect it all & see how it was working.  It appears to be working great…I think the swamp days are over! 

Isaac, Friday & Marker supervise Steve's work on the big swale behind the barn.

Now Jeff has started work on re-fencing the cow barn paddock with permanent “baby-proof” fence (remember Trixie?!).  In the meantime, we’ve been feeding the cows their hay in there to get some organic matter back on top of the clay.  In my opinion, there’s no such thing as the cows “wasting” hay.  What gets left behind & trampled with the manure will help build the soil.  It also acts as a mulch for the seeds that fall out…hay seeds…that will grow come spring & help reestablish the pasture. 

Sterling watches from his perch atop the hay stacked in the cow barn.

Once the fence is done though, we’ll have to keep them out of the paddock through winter’s mud so they don’t destroy Steve’s hard work.

Dates & Names

Jeff had a little "oops" while clearing some trees for the soon-to-be turkey pen.

Mace was home for a short visit, then off to see another girlfriend.  Once this cow is bred, then he’s got another date lined up for late winter…busy guy!  Three of the turkeys had a date they probably didn’t like too much.  We decided to go ahead and butcher the Narragansett boys a little early…they seemed the largest of the bunch.  All told, it went fairly well…just like doing chickens, but on a larger…and more challenging…scale.  The rest will wait until closer to Thanksgiving.  And most importantly, we had a date with the vet.  Sterling, the kitten we kept from Sierra’s litter this spring, got neutered and Isaac was gelded.  The heifers, Ebony & Trixie, got their first shots & another tattoo for their brucellosis vaccine…poor girls!  Then all the mommas got preg-checked to confirm their breeding dates.

The Bourbon Red tom, named after...Elijah Craig bourbon, what else?

BoPeep bred back in May, due for a February calf again.  I had kept her separated from Rousseau before that, because I’d rather have her calve in spring than fall or winter.  Keira, Eavie & Ladybell all bred back in June, Eavie due the beginning of April, the others earlier in March.  From what I had marked on the calendar & what the vet felt, it looks like Ladybell “took” a mere 4 weeks after calving…good ol’ cow!  Now I just have a few months to hope & pray for heifers.

Tommy, the White Holland, looking handsome.

Not all the turkeys have a date with a kill cone.  We’re keeping 2 males, Elijah Craig the Bourbon Red and Tommy the White Holland, and 3 hens, Martha, Polly & Pansy, for breeding.  So we soon need to make a date with a fencing company to put in 6′ chain link for a permanent turkey pen.  Right now they’re in the larger part of the orchard & the laying hens are restricted to the smaller section attached to their coop entrance…the turkeys weren’t sharing space very well anymore…poor henny-pennies.

The older hen on the left is molting fast & looks nearly bald compared to the pullet on the right.

Day to Day

Speaking of turkeys & chickens, they make up the majority of our daily chores right now.  The amount of poultry feed we’ve gone through this fall is mind boggling.  Turkeys sure eat  A LOT!  Plus I’ve got 37 hens in the laying flock and 75 “all heavy males” we ordered from the hatchery to raise for the freezer…and they eat a lot, too!  So feeders & waterers need filled up every morning.  13 of the layers are pullets who just started laying this fall…which is good because the older hens are taking breaks for molting.  I get nearly 2 dozen eggs each day, so that means an evening trip to the coop to collect each day.  Of course it takes the young girls a while to figure out that they’re just supposed to lay eggs in the nest boxes & NOT use the nests for roosting overnight…which also means that every morning I need to clean the poop out of the nests…UGH!

Occupied nest boxes in the chicken coop.

The meat birds are now living in the shelter & electric netting.  Jeff finally got wheels for the shelter & it is officially the chicken wagon!  He added a wire floor & doors so the birds can be “locked up” after they all go to bed, for moving first thing the next morning.  Their 3 feeders and 2 waterers need filled up twice a day, and they still come running expectantly anytime you get close to the pen, hoping for some treats from the kitchen.  They’re such a funny bunch & rather friendly for chickens.  There are a few accidental pullets in the group, so I’ll keep them…and probably a couple favorite roo’s, too.

The completed chicken wagon & an eager mob to greet me.

Fall also means we’ve come to the end of our pasture grass.  So we are feeding hay twice daily to the cows & horses.  Of course that hay had to first be picked up out of our neighbor David’s field & stacked in the barn.  My dear cows are in the habit of coming into the parlor every morning for a bit of grain for breakfast, and that’s when BoPeep gets milked as well.  Sadly, it’s time to dry her off so she has some time to put some weight back on before calving, so I just cut back to milking every other day. 

Mignon has breakfast with dad Rousseau.

Eavie’s little guy, Mignon, has not only decided he wants to be my friend, but that he REALLY likes his breakfast, too.  He makes sure he either gets in the parlor with his momma or in the stall, with or without his daddy, for his bucket of feed every day.  Well, OK, he’d do all three if I let him, little piggy!  He’s such a sweet little guy, it makes me feel bad…but his name is his destiny.

Bandit in her spot beside the woodstove.

And of course there are the farm cats & dogs to feed & love on every day.  Sterling often leaves me a surprise in the parlor…a grasshopper, frog, or mouse…to dispose of.  Bandit has recently decided the nights were cold enough to warrant becoming a house dog again, so we’re back to her daily ins & outs.  Firewood is stacked on the back porch again, the pantry shelves are full, the animals are getting woolly…yep, it’s fall on the farm.

BoPeep gave me a bit of a scare a couple weeks ago.  Her milk production dropped drastically one day, and I was worried that maybe she had just decided to dry herself off since Hershey left.  But after doing some investigating, I came to a different conclusion.  Here’s what happened.

Our "weed" growing along the orchard lane between paddocks.

We had previously moved the cows to the brand new paddock over on the “horse side” of the farm.  They had grazed the nice, tall grass in that paddock for a week, then I moved them through the other 2 paddocks next to it over the following 2 weeks.  At that point there was still a good bit of grazing left in the new paddock, so I decided to give them another week in there before moving them the whole way back over to the “cow side”.  Bo was with the herd & I was going out with the halter every morning to lead her in to the cow barn to milk, and then returning her when we were done.  About half-way through that second week on the new paddock, she gave me only 3 quarts at milking instead of her usual gallon and a half…and, yes, I was sure she let down nicely & gave me all of it.  I left her out in the corral behind the barn for a few minutes until I was ready to take her back to the pasture, puzzling whether she could really just be drying herself off suddenly.  Then I saw her poop….an unusually runny, squirty mess.  “Hmmm, what is going on?”  But she didn’t seem to be feeling sick or acting “off”, so I took her back to the herd. (more…)

A Bourbon Red: Growing up & looking more like adult turkeys.

Wednesday was moving day.  The turkeys have been living in a movable pen along with the first batch of broilers we hatched this spring.  Those chickens got butchered last week, and now it was time to move the turkeys to some fresh grazing.

The shelter at it's previous location behind the old barn.

Their Home

The “house” is a very simple structure we built just for raising meat birds during nice weather from spring through fall.  It’s a bottomless box with two large openings, one on each long side.  There is a floor in the center section between the “doors” and perches in both ends.  The center provides a protected place where we hang a feeder.  The plan is to put 4 wheels on it so it can simply be pulled to a new location, but that part hasn’t happened yet, so we just set it up on cinder blocks & use the tractor to move it. (more…)

The Li'l Man lookin' good.

It’s been a crazy busy couple of weeks!  Brenton graduated from high school, as valedictorian, Friday June 17.  We made a road trip to west KY to trade non-breeding Noel back to her original owner in exchange for a half-sister of hers.  I had a fun “horse show” day with a small group at a friend’s farm.  Sierra went to the vet for a little surgery, because 5 kittens is quite enough.  And to top it all off, Mace’s shenanigans have required quite a bit of attention also.

So proud of my boy! I can't believe he'll be off to college already.

We had leased Mace to some folks nearby for breeding their 2 Dexter cows.  The wife had contacted me, saying the cows were bred & we could come get Mace, so we were planning to pick him up sometime the week after the AGM.  We got home Sunday night, and early Monday morning she called, rather troubled, asking if we could come for him that day.  Their neighbor had put a small herd of Angus cows in the field adjoining theirs, a few of which apparently weren’t bred & were calling to Mace through the fence.  He had jumped the 4′ fence & proceeded to chase the Angus cows around, trying his best.  Fortunately for Mace, the Angus BULL didn’t care who was fooling with the girls that he was supposed to have bred!  And fortunately for the rest of us, neither did the neighbor.  They were able to get a halter on him & lead…or maybe drag…him down the road & up their driveway to get him back in the pasture where he belonged.  Needless to say, we left as soon as we could, to prevent a repeat! (more…)

Ladybell & new heifer, Trixie, by the electric rope & vinyl perimeter fence.

Jeff has been working on fencing the last couple weeks.  We’re finally getting the front yard enclosed for more pasture….yeeaaa!  Then there’s also some existing fence that needs redone, as we’ve found it to be inadequate…hence the calf tricks.  Tricks that I’m tired of!  So, if you’re wondering what kind of fencing you need for Dexters, here are some things we’ve learned.

The ”Old” Fence

When we started fencing on this property, we decided to fence with braided electric rope, in combination with a vinyl product called Equiline.  Jeff didn’t want to have to worry so much about grass & weeds gettting on the electric, and the Equiline was cheaper.  We put up a 5-strand fence, two of those being electric.  The lower electric is at nose-height for Dexter calves, the upper around nose-height for adults.  Then there are 3 strands of Equiline, bottom, middle & top.  This gives us a strand below the lower electric to keep bitty calves in, and the top strand is high enough for the horses.  But there’s enough space under the electric that the animals will graze under it, as they can push the Equiline out of the way.  (more…)