Month: February 2017

Spring?

Steve HardinLeave a comment
 
Everything is changing so fast. One minute it is freezing cold, the next it’s warm and rainy then it’s snowy. Mother Nature cannot decide which side of the fence to stay on. 
I found a dead lamb in the barn a couple of days ago. Mouse found it buried in the straw, neither AnnMarie or I ever saw it alive. It was the only lamb we had die out of 50 babies. Not too shabby. 
I am ever grateful we bought an extra 20 ton of hay. We are almost halfway through it. This winter has been long and brutal. Something killed one of our cats in the yard last week. All of our dogs were inside with us. We think it is a raccoon. Unfortunately, we will now have to get a bunch of kittens this spring. We will get an entire litter and create a kennel out of metal wire and raise them in the horse area of the barn for a few weeks. Once they are settled into the barn we will feed them every day and see if they take over. Our goal is to get them attached to the barn. When they get old enough we will get them all fixed. We are not real keen on having more kittens. We are down to three cats now. So we will get 5-7 kittens. 
The cows and sheep in the barn lot are eating the large hay bales very fast. Tonight I managed to push a bale behind the lamb shed and almost into the lean to. I then cut all the strings and jammed it into the building. There is a feeder panel across the front that will let the cows eat but no one can play in the hay and waste it.  I am hoping this forces the sheep to eat some of the barley hay we have been feeding them. I would like to get it all used up this winter. 
Donna called yesterday to let me know that the lower cows needed feed also. One of the new babies had slipped between the smooth wire and was on the road. Someone stopped and put the calf back in the schoolhouse pasture. I will probably have to line the fence with sheep fencing. Those cows actually let me get the bale in place and the feeder around it before rushing in to eat. 

I counted laying hens today. I have 22 hens and am collecting almost 14-15 eggs a day. We have a pile of eggs on top of the fridge. Both annmarie and I need to find another customer. 
 
 
 

Back creek started up

Steve HardinLeave a comment
Yesterday the back creek started running. It is purely fed from mountain snow runoff.  The weather was warm but we had a couple of days of rain and I don’t think the ground can absorb any more water currently. So our creek is now running. The screwy part of this is today we are now under three inches of snow with a predicated total of ten inches coming tonight. Winter is truly unwilling to let her hand off the snow switch.  
It has been busy around here the last week. We had another calf for a total of two in the last ten days. In the next two weeks we will need to run our bull band into the shoots so we can tag and band. 

Our sheep have had two more lambs. We have a few who are obviously off cycle. I have four lambs to tag and band now. That will need to happen in a couple of weeks also. 

Thank goodness we bought extra hay. We will have fed about 40% more than normal this winter. I am super excited about not having to scramble for hay. 
Another great thing has just occurred. We had our tractor place RDO haul in the old 1950’s International gas powered tractor to revive it. It had not been started in over 8 years. They put in a new battery, new starter, spark plugs, distributed cap, oil filter, fuel filter, hydraulic fluid filter, partially rebuilt carburetor, changed oil, cleaned out fuel tank and lines, new ignition switch, added headlights (it had none), pumped up the tires and it is a mean running machine!!!  We only had to pay $2435 to revive it!!  It should be able to lift the big 1300 lb hay bales. I just have to drop off a check from Donna for the tractor and we will be able to load and unload hay ourselves!!  This is great news. As soon as we get it back to the farm I am going to see if it can handle a large bale. 
The chickens are going to town and I am now getting almost a dozen eggs a day. We are going to need a couple more customers.