Author: Steve Hardin

Cow hay now on the farm

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It never fails, when I need to do anything with the hay it always rains. Labor Day was no different, just as I was finishing up transporting the last load to the farm it started to rain! This is great timing as it is going to sit out for a week until it can be loaded into the machine shed.

I have been trying to get last years big bale discards from a source all summer long. It was going to be discounted and I wanted enough that I was hoping to have it delivered. This did not work out at all. Annmarie has been “reminding” me all summer that the cows need hay for the winter and I am being a cheapskate. There is nothing wrong with being a cheapskate when possible but she was right it was getting late in the season to be buying hay. The real problem with buying hay is I only have a 7500# 16’ bumper pull trailer. So I can only fit four large bales at a time on it which causes problems when you want to pickup 60 bales of hay.

Normally, I purchase all of my hay from Bluview Farms. I always wait until September to purchase it. So I went with this option again as it fits the bill nicely. They are only four miles from where we live so I can take an entire day and just run back and forth with four large bales at a time. Unfortunately, they are selling their farm and moving which is going to cause me issues next year. I really need two semi truck loads delivered. The second problem is that I do not have a tractor large enough to unload the hay and restack it. I am not buying a third tractor to use once a year. The third problem is our old pickup may not be able to haul a large gooseneck trailer if I have to pickup the hay myself.

So that being said Mr Gingerman is coming over today to stack all of the large bales into the machine shed. I think we can get 50 bales, stacked four high in the hay storage area. I can toss a chain around them and pull them down with the little tractor. Once they are down my new Kubota 3301 can lift a bale about 4-6” off the ground and I can drive it anywhere on the property fairly easily. This is much better than pushing it along the ground which is only what the little John Deere 2520 can accomplish. Mind you, I have fed the cows large bales almost exclusively but I keep hoping to make it easier.

What does this mean? I need to find a source of hay that can deliver it by the semi load and unload and stack it into the machine shed or I need to purchase a larger pickup and trailer so that I can haul 10-14 bales at a time. Fortunately, I was able to pickup a F350 Diesel this week for a steal. Again, the Dodge 10 cylinder is a beast but it is starting to show its years and it has 180k miles on it. I just purchased tires for it at the beginning of summer but they are the same size as the new Ford so I will get them swapped out. The Dodge is rough on the exterior and rough on the interior, a true farm vehicle. Once I get the tires swapped I will be offering it up for sale, cheap!

I have the new truck, now I may need a new trailer, gooseneck. I do not want anything fancy. I want it very functional and capable of hauling a lot of weight. I can even rewire the lights and brakes if necessary. So if you know of anything “cheap” let me know I would appreciate it.

Summer 2024 Lamb Productivity

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Well summer lambing started on August 15 2024. In the last 18 days we have had 12 ewes give birth. It has not gone smoothly, as it is summer. Surprisingly, having lambs in the dead of winter is easier. The sheep are all in the barn and tend to deliver in the middle of the night almost without fail. We can then catch them, put them in jugs and leave them to bond for 2-3 days. This is not possible in the summer. For one, they don’t always give birth at night, about 30% of the lambs have been born during the day. The lambs are pretty dang spry by the time we get out there to put everyone in for the night. Which means you cannot always catch them. The space we put them in is very large compared to the amount of space they have in the barn. They are just dumber in the summer.

The stats are not very good but they are the facts so here they are:

  • Date of update- Sept 3 2024
  • # of Lambs born – 16
  • # of ewes who have delivered babies – 12
  • # of ewes still pregnant – No clue, I think between 23-33 but I am guessing
  • # of single lamb births – 8
  • # of twin lamb births – 4
  • # of triplet lamb births – 0
  • # tagged male (weathers-neutered) lambs-none yet
  • # tagged female lambs- none yet
  • # of bummer lambs – 1
  • # of lambs who died in first two weeks – 3
  • Total # of lambs on farm -12
  • % birthing rate- 133%
  • % production rate -100%
  • % survival rate at birth – 100%
  • % survival rate at 2 weeks (bummers count as death as they need help and leave the farm) – 75%

Mr Rainman finished digging out the barn today. I put straw in the momma/baby area and opened it up so the sheep could go into that little area of the barn. They can shelter in the barn or over in the lamb shed. For the most part they sneak in with the horse, help her eat her hay and let her watch their babies. She likes the lambs and is very careful with them.

We went to take a couple of dead lambs up to the boneyard Monday morning and they were gone! Annmarie had us out at bedtime looking for coyotes as she could hear them. They were up in field one at the far end of the property. They came all the way down to the barn lot but did not get into the actual barn lot. The corpses were outside the barn lot. We, of course, have not seen a coyote in weeks. We have not lost a sheep that we know of yet this year. There is a skeleton in the orchard but it’s down in a hole and it was all bones. Mr Rainman swears it is new. We had so many deaths last year I am not sure we found them all. So I am not counting it as a loss for this year. We only kept the rams in with the ewes for 8 weeks so we should only have six weeks of lambing left!

Gazebo moving along

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The grain bin gazebo is starting to come together. I as usual did not watch any videos, ask anyone and spent 10 minutes looking at pictures on the internet as a precursor to building said gazebo. The guy I purchased the parts from told me it was the bottom 10 feet of a 20 foot grain bin, he gave me two tubs of bolts and nuts, four floor anchors, a pile of roof anchors, a door, the roof parts and central roof ring. Supposedly the only thing missing was the vent cap for the roof. This was promptly unloaded and ignored for two years.

Well, let me say that it is definitely the bottom half due to how heavy the pieces are. We did not get enough pieces to go to ten feet, only eight feet and if we put up a full ring for the roof then you would have hit your head every time you went in and out of the gazebo. We could have cut one of the upper panels but then I was afraid it would weaken the roof. The bottom line was after talking with the boss, wife, we opened up enough of the gazebo to have a full six pieces to go around the entire top and to get the gazebo sides over ten feet into the air. It’s actually about ten feet six inches high now at the walls with the roof I think it will be another 4-5 feet higher.

This morning I decided to do a little research on how to put the roof together. Yeah, I was better off not knowing. They used a crane, built the roof and then stood on the ground and proceeded to add a row of panels and lift up the entire grain bin as they built it. No ladders needed! The only drawback for me is that I don’t own a crane. Instead we used the trusty Kubota with the forks on it, a chain and some Vice-grips to hold the chain at the far end of the forks. This worked to get the third and fourth row in place. The fourth row was the worst. We ended up having to drill out three holes that we just could not get lined up, they were off by about 1/8” and the entire rest of the panel was already bolted together.

Mr Rainman came over Friday morning and we got the three panels up on the high back wall. It was a battle to get them bent into shape, another problem with not putting them back on in the exact order they were removed. I put up the last three rings myself with the Kubota being my trusty partner. At no point did I fall. I did tear my finger away from one of my fingernails enough to make it bleed and discovered a metal sliver in my finger this morning. The bolts had to be put on between the panel and the wooden support posts and this was an incredibly tight fit. Putting the posts 1/2” from the metal and then adding bolts meant some of the bolts are touching the posts. This is a good thing when I screwed in the lag bolt anchors.

The trusty Kubota is not going to be able to lift the center ring for the roof. It will only lift something about eight feet into the air. I am going to bolt two ten foot 6×6 posts to the upright frame of the forks resting each one on a fork. But first I am going to get a stout wooden pallet. This will let me put a diagonal support out to the front of the forks. I will then build a small open box with 45 degree supports at the top for the posts. This is where the roof ring will sit. I can then lift it up and get it centered with the tractor and then assemble the roof. I think this will work. No, I am confident this will work!

I just have to figure out how the roof support pieces go onto the sides…

Gazebo posts almost in

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When they asked me at the lumber store if I wanted grade #1 or #2 6×6” posts I opted for grade #2 as they were going to be outside and I was being cheap. After having spent almost an hour per post sanding to get the knots flattened out and the paint off of the board I should have gone with grade #1! I managed to get four of the six posts installed today. They are anchored at the bottom in the Simpson steel ties buried in concrete. We have about 250# of concrete in each of the six holes. Between the concrete and the weight of the grain bin panels I don’t expect the gazebo to leave the ground. Once we get the gazebo together we will toss six inch plus rocks all around the base of the gravel pad to hold the pad in place. This will add to the stability of the entire structure. For that to happen I need Little Dumper (one ton dump bed pickup) functional. It has been at the brake shop for two weeks and they have not contacted me yet. I will need to call them next week. When I dropped it off I asked them to not take as long as it did to fix the tires. I was assured it would not take that long.

The grain bin panels are also attached to the wooden posts by 4” structural screw in anchors. Each panel is held with 8 anchors. This will keep the post and metal sides from shifting.

I spent about an hour trying to figure out how to lift one of the panels with the tractor. I cut a couple of pieces of chain then looked at all my different connectors. I found one that I could put through a hole on the panel. I slid the two forks on the tractor together and then wrapped a chain around them with the lifting part of the chain between both forks. I took four vise grips and clamped them on either side of the chain to keep it from sliding. This will let me angle the forks and get another three feet of lift I am thinking. It will just take some manipulation of the forks to get it in the correct spot so one person can bolt it in place. That is the theory at least, a real world test will be necessary to see if that is correct.

Annmarie went out to work the bees today and they are no more. She was right a few weeks ago when she thought the queen had died. It took the drones a while to catch on to reality. The surprising thing is we saw honey bees flying around so there must be a wild hive somewhere else on the property, we are just not sure where. The honeybees have been drinking the milk my mother-in-law is leaving out for her kittens. We can officially now say that they are not our bees! We were able to salvage some of the comb. I will be melting down the last of our wax and pelletizing it so we can have wax if we need it for anything.

The alpaca are really getting used to coming in the front yard. Snoop, our oldest black alpaca, always goes off by himself. Every single one of the other alpaca is on the right side of the walkway and he is the only one on the left side. They are finally starting to make an enough of a dent in the green material that you can see the difference.

We are getting a contractor out next weekend to see about installing solar panels on the barn roof for our house. We are tired of the power going out all of the time.

There were no new lambs today.

Gazebo is Going to Happen

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Mr Rainman came out two days this week and filled the six holes with concrete and a steel 6×6 post anchor. We spent a couple of hours on Friday getting the next three panels up on the gazebo. Annmarie and I have had ten plus discussions on how the gazebo should be assembled. Every time I think I have the design down I am learning that that is incorrect. We “discussed” it again yesterday and I have seen the vision. So this weekend I will be working on getting the posts installed so that the next row can be installed. I am sure I understand now, I will let you know in a couple of weeks. I need to swing by the scrap metal yard next week to have them keep an eye out for a new roof cap. I am missing the vent cap for the gazebo.

We were supposed to work on the gazebo all morning but I needed to empty out part of the old lamb shed so that panels could be installed so the mommas/babies had a place to get out of the weather/sun. We had to move a bunch of round and square bales out of the way first. The square bales kept trying to fall apart. Once we had the area cleaned out we installed some temporary horse panels. I was able to get one of the old wooden jugs cleaned out and ready in case we need it. There is a metal gate in front of the entrance because I had hit the overhead rail with the tractor roll bar a couple of years ago denting it so that the gate could not be closed. In a moment of brilliance I thought we could just get the gate working in a fifteen minutes. Two hours later we had managed to take down the entire rail system and door in pieces. It did not want to come down easily. Once we had it down it amounts to a lot more work to get it back up and operational. The header board needs replaced outside, and a second board installed inside so that real bolts can be used instead of large wood lag bolts. I need to buy two different sizes of bolts as they used two different hole sized holders. Plus, I need new rollers, these are so shot that they are bouncing around the inside of each wheel and can move around an inch. Which is why it’s so hard to shut the door. This is going to have to be a later project.

We have been watching “Baa Baa” the ewe we took back as her family is moving away. We left her collar on so she is easy to spot in the herd. She is still overweight but is looking better after a few months grazing on sparse feed and running all over the farm. She is still very friendly.

We have had four ewes give birth, two sets of twins and two singles. We had to bummer off one of the white twins two nights ago. It refused to get up and was limp. We brought it inside, warmed it up and fed it and then gave it to Tisha to raise. If it’s going to make it she is the reason. Unfortunately, when we went out to bring the sheep in last night and look for babies that same mother was standing by the spring hollering. The other baby had jumped into the water and got stuck in the mud and drowned. We are not going to ding her for this loss. We have closed off this alleyway so the sheep cannot get to this area. The main barn lot has 2-3” gravel in the base of the ditch so that it can be driven through. This makes the water only about 1-2” deep and the lambs are safe. Those other twins have been over there more than ten days without any complications. Lambs always find a way to die. I have some leftover large gravel and will be hardening the edge of the water line with it. The lambs won’t go out into the deep water. Every year something comes up. The ditch is lined with concrete blocks behind the barn so there is no mud to contend with for the lambs. The mud build up comes and goes in certain areas and not always the same areas of the ditch.