Look who's new on the farm! A curious turkey poult.

Spring has brought many babies with it here on the farm.  So although my human kids are great, I thought for Mother’s Day, I’d show off some of my other new babies.  We decided to add turkeys to our menagerie this year, so along with our “normal” calves & chicks, we now have this interesting new addition.

Hershey is looking quite the fine young man these days.

I am, of course, delighted with this year’s calves so far.  Hershey is growing into an extremely nice-looking bull calf, and is starting to get his grown-up colors shining through his coat.  It’s amazing how fast they grow…he looks huge compared to the newborn Dexter calves, even though he started out close to the same size as they are.  He is friendly & mannerly, and doing well with his halter training….such a nice boy! (more…)

The pretty side of spring - calves & daffodils, but........

I hate mud!  March here in Clay Co. KY is generally a nice, dry month.  The rain stops, the sun comes out, winter’s mud dries up and there’s finally firm ground beneath our feet for a while.  The grass starts growing again and we can start planting early crops in the garden.  Then, in April the spring rains start & we get mud, round 2. 

....don't stand still tooo long, you may lose a boot!

But this year seems a bit different.  Here we are almost half way through March, with Winter & Spring still duking it out, one day the one winning & the next day the other, it’s raining & flooding and we’re in mud up to our gizzards…..and I HATE mud!

The steers come running through the mud for their breakfast.

But, I guess as long as we have winter & spring, we’ll have mud, too.  So we need to deal with it.  And one of the best ways to deal with mud is to try to prevent it from happening in the first place!  Unfortunately, we’re not doing too well with that here.  I know what we need to do, it’s just a matter of getting it done.  So, here are some ideas….and if you have any other good mud-busting strategies, please leave a comment & let us know about it. (more…)

Happy New Year to all and welcome to Hope Refuge Farm in 2011!  If you’re a new visitor to our site, we hope you find what you’re looking for.  We have some good information for getting started with a family milk cow here in the blog.  You can find previous articles at right by category, or just flip through the archive month by month.  If you want to check out our animals, go to the herdbook & get to know everyone.  We’d love for you to drop us a line to let us know you stopped by & what you think.  Enjoy!

Our Christmas snow makes the contour of the hillside stand out better.

The Homestead Land Use Plan

It’s that time of year again when we evaluate the year behind us and make resolutions for the year ahead.  Perhaps for you also, some of these resolutions involve getting things done on your family farmstead.  These cold winter months are a good time to look over your property & evaluate things, then make a “master plan” for how you can best use your land.  Having a good land use plan can help eliminate the headache of undoing, moving or re-doing things in the future.  For instance, when we first started developing our farm, we decided to plant fruit trees on a nice, large, open field at the top of the hill.  Then a couple years later when we added cows to the picture and needed more pasture, we had to move the trees so we could reclaim the prime pasture area.  It was a big setback for the young trees and a lot of work for us that could’ve been prevented if we had thought through things more thoroughly before we started.  So let’s get started & walk through some of the basics of developing a land use plan. (more…)

It’s been a busy month on the farm, but I’d been struggling to come up with a good idea for my blog for the month.  Keira has helped me out with that.  Thursday we learned about hydramnios.

From the outside, this bull calf doesn't look like there's anything wrong with him.

I went out to start my morning chores Thursday and after a visit to the hens, I heard Keira greeting me from behind the barn. I went through the parlor to check on her & was horrified by the sight that met my eyes when I opened the outside door.  There stood a gaunt, forlorn Keira, looking like she had wallowed in the mud all night, cord hanging out and…….”Keira, where’s the baby?!?”  I soon found him – a perfectly normal looking red bull calf, lying dead in the mud on the other side of the fence.  Keira still had not milked up at all.  A few hours later, she finally passed the placenta, along with a river of fluid.

I had put in a call to the vet right away - he had just been out Tuesday evening to AI BoPeep for me, and when he saw Keira he commented on how enormous she was.  We knew by her breeding date that she was very near to calving, but I pointed out to him that she wasn’t milking up yet.  He returned my call shortly after she passed the placenta, and his first question was “Does she look like somebody gutted her?”  A definite yes there.  Then “Does it look like she had tons of fluid where the calf was born?”  Another yes.  He had immediately made the connection between her enormous belly & a dead calf – hydramnios.
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I LOVE SPRING!

The old apple tree in full bloom.

The grass turns green, flowers bloom.  It’s a time of new life…..and new babies on the farm.  It’s so refreshing and exciting after a long, cold winter.  So on Friday, as I made my rounds visiting the animals, I drank in the beauty of it all and enjoyed the new life around me.

Lacey & her newly hatched brood.

We had eggs in the incubator when one of the hens decided to go broody.  So I gave her the eggs for the last week and she did a lovely job of hatching them out….all 14 of them.  Of course none of them are genetically hers because she wasn’t among the hens I put in with that rooster, but as far as she’s concerned they’re all very much hers and she’s being a great momma.  Once they were all hatched & dry, she took them over to the feeder & showed them what to eat.  When she was satisfied with that proceeding, she headed to the waterer to teach the drinking lesson.  The mothering instinct  just amazes me!  And the miracle of birth fills me with wonder no matter the species.  Seeing these straggly chicks hatching out of their eggs is just as wonderful as seeing a foal or calf being born.  And now they’re energetic little fluff-balls, running around exploring their new world….what fun!
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