Calves

I’m very behind on posting, so we will just start with Today’s farm activities and I’ll fill in some past stuff later.

Today was a good day. James and Nate came to rake and bale the hay. I did not have my hopes very high because in past years our hay yield was pitiful. We did however seed the former corn field fairly thickly, sow clover in the front field, and put down manure. Still… I did not have my hopes very high. So, I was thrilled with the results.

Here are the nice looking rows of hay in the big field

Hay Rows – Big Field

And the front field

Hay Rows – Front Field

And the nice results in the big field.

Happy Results – Big Field

Good results in the front field as well. Eight rolls (not all pictured). We only got two on the last cutting.

Happy Results – Front Field

Overall I’m thrilled with the yield. Twenty four rolls! Thank the Lord for multiplication.

Tonight was also calf processing night. A neighbor friend came down to help me band and de-horn a couple of calves. Here is a photo of part of the process.

Working the calves

Janet had a couple of the neighbor boys in the audience with her.

The Audience

Gotta hold em some how…

Ride em cowboy

Our helper

Helper

What just happened?

That is all for now. I’ll up on more of the farm “goings on” in later posts.

– Stan.

Phone call this morning. “I have a Jersey bull calf…” Well, that got things started, and it led to this purchase; the first 100 lbs. of milk calf milk replacer.

First milk replacer of the year

This is the first calf that we will be taking this fall. I hope to raise at least five of them through fall and winter. In the spring we will begin selling and processing last years steers. That is how the cycle goes. The cycle is actually longer than a calendar year. We are aiming for 18 months on the steers, so we will be finishing steers and starting calves on the bottle at the same time. Yikes! It’s going to be a busy winter.

After selling off some of the cows in the spring we hope to add heifers into the mix, but that all depends on money, what we can find, etc. Ideally I want some Herefords, but we will see how things go.

I’ll try to post a picture of the calf soon.

– Stan.

Vicktory Farm

Vickers farming adventures

Tag Archives: Calves

Hay Day and Calves

It is that time again