Welcome

As you can see we've been pretty busy around here lately.
Tammy dug a bunch of the potatoes yesterday and I have to pull those kidney beans today, been finding other things to do for too long.
We got a bunch of the fence remade around the perimeter of the place. Took down the old mesh and put up 3 strands of electrified barbed wire. Haven't had a heifer get out yet! I was going to pasture the new seeding but learned that you should let the stand alone from about Sep 1 to Oct 1 as that's the time the plants send energy down to the roots so they will be able to grow next year. So the cows will have to wait a month.
Finally got that hay baled. Only 140 bales but with it being just grass and rained on twice I didn't expect too much.
On the last trip home with the rake I popped one of the rear tires on the tractor so I will have to get that replaced before I get any fall plowing done. Boy are those things expensive!


sammyd on 09.04.06 @ 09:19 AM CST [link]

These two are the latest additions to our menagerie.
My buddy Andy talked me into looking at his dads milking goats. I though maybe I'd get a doeling or two to browse on some of the weeds and stuff around the edges of the property. But once Tammy tried the goats milk we bought a milking doe and a doeling. We bought the pair so they wouldn't get lonely.
The wood box behind the goats serves as the milking stand. The big goat knows what it's for and every day at 7 and 7 she hops up there and we milk her out. Tammy still has to perfect her milking technique but I can get her milked out in short order of course I have a bit more practice at milking.
The milk is pretty close to cows milk. But we feed them some nice hay and grain to go with the weeds they browse. We only get a half gallon a day but it's a nice little filler while we wait for the heifers to get big enough to breed.
sammyd on 09.04.06 @ 09:09 AM CST [link]

Our CornishxRocks are ready to go into the freezer. We started with 51 and they all made it. I changed the feeding program from last year and haven't had any leg problems or unexplained deaths that may have been heart atacks. I only feed them their crumbles twice a day, morning and afternoon. Along with a big scoop of scratch grain outside. And I didn't switch from the chick grower to the high powered meat maker ration. They also get any stuff from processing the garden produce.
We have 18 in the freezer and I sold 5 to a buddy at work. So we still have some work ahead of us but we do 10 or so at a time and it's not as hectic as trying to get them all done in a day.
I kill them and then skin them. Tammy cuts them up and bags them for the freezer. A pretty fast system.
Their breasts are so big Tammy has started cutting them in half.
sammyd on 09.04.06 @ 09:00 AM CST [link]