Eager for Dairy

We kicked off Dairy Month a day early yesterday with a whole lot of dairy. Beginning the day with our own local 4H club's annual 4H Project Workshop and Chicken BBQ.

The workshops are held to help instruct 4H members how to show or just to practice showing different animal breeds at the local fair.  Non 4H members are also encouraged to come out and learn and try handling the animals as well.  Fun for all.

In the photo above, Paige is practicing her Showmanship techniques in the ring with her cousin's Jersey dairy cow, Ruby.

Many of the kids attending, eagerly awaited their turn to participate. 

(Thanks Jenny for the cute photo below)

We also had a beef cow workshop, which is completely different than showing a dairy cow.

A rabbit, cavy and poultry workshop....

(Two additional photos by Jenny, thank you!)

Much was learned about showing swine as well.  The beach balls doubled for the actual live animal in the swine workshop.  So much fun!

Appetites were on fire after the workshops concluded, so after washing up we enjoyed a fabulous chicken BBQ paired with plenty of Clover Stornetta milk and Three Twins Ice Cream..

June kicks off Dairy Month and we have an entire month+ of dairy related excitement to come!  My kids are eager to show their dairy heifers at our local fair in a few weeks, hope to see many of you there!

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Where the Beef Cows Live~Sneak Peek

Spring is the time of year where we move our small herd of natural beef from the flat acreage they've been grazing upon since September, back up to the hill tops behind Stafford Lake.  

The date this year didn't coincide with school spring break so my kids missed out but I make sure not to miss this two hour event.

Before moving the cattle, they are brought in to a corral to be vaccinated and wormed and given a visual health check.  {all beef cattle; organic, natural and conventional are vaccinated}

Once they're finished, they walk through the shoot into another corral where they wait until the entire herd is ready to be moved up the hill together.

We move them with four-wheelers and trucks by following close behind and to their side to make sure they all stay together and moving in the right direction through gates.

They are now in what I call 'Cow Paradise', 800 acres of beautiful hillside where grazing will ensue until early July.  Once July arrives, they're all moved back down the hill and they usually calve in September.

Happy Trails.

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WW: Clever Girls

Last week, while the kids were in school, I found myself with a little bit of spare time.  My laundry was caught up, the house was half-way picked up, it was a sunny and beautiful autumn day.  I called Dominic to find out his location on the farm and to ask him if there was anything interesting going on at the moment to snap a few photos of.

He had a job for me. 

I was to drive around the farm to all the locations where the manure spreading had taken place.  This is something that needs to be documented annually.  We need to show, through photos and a written report, how and where we spread the manure that's generated from dairy cows on the farm.

Okay, poop pics are not my favorite, but the drive was fantastic because I was able to see so many of the baby beef calves that had just been born within the last month.

One thing I've learned about beef cows, they see an opportunity and they take it.  An open gate is an open invitation to see if the grass really is greener on the other side.
 
Between me moving them along with the truck and horn and Dominic on foot, we had them all back where they were supposed to be.  We had to be quick though because as soon as I drove through the gate, the mamas tried to sneak back through again. 

Quite clever and sneaky, those beef cows are.

Here's just a handful of pairs.  Always so curious....or maybe hoping hay is in the back of the truck.....they see a truck and they immediately think food is coming.

I just love this time of year.  The grass is just beginning to turn green, especially where the manure was spread and the temperature reached 85 degrees on this day.

And my favorite part of the morning was watching all the baby calves kicking up their heels, running circles around their mamas.

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Thank you for taking time out of your busy day to leave a comment. I love to hear from you! Have a fantastic day!

For more farm life posts, visit http://www.TheWifeOfADairyman.blogspot.com

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New Born Beef Twins

Well, I warned you I would be back with additional baby and mama beef photos.  It didn't take long!

Here's a sweet pair of twins born to this mama.  They were no more than a few hours old and still getting their walking legs underneath them.  SO cute!

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WW: Mamas and brand new baby beef

With the entrance of September comes many things; back to school, autumn weather, harvesting and for us, newborn baby beef calves.  Mid September is about the time when our mama beef cows begin to have their babies. 

We took a drive out the other day to check up on how progress was coming along.

All of our beef cows have been moved down the hill to the flat area to have their babies.  We have only spotted a few babies thus far. 

Here's one.  She was so very curious of the big camera pointed in her direction.

And if you look close, you can see this mama decided to stick her tongue out at the camera.

After the mamas calve, they'll breed with the bulls from October - April (who have been patiently waiting for the return of their mamas), graze, nurse their new born calves, and wait to be moved again in April.

Driving out to check the beef cows and newborn calves is one of my favorite things to do on the ranch, stay tuned for more photos.

Linking Wordless Wednesday to:

Pinke Post
Project Alicia
Live and Love Out Loud

Thank you for taking time out of your busy day to leave a comment, I love to hear from you!. Have a fantastic day!

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Cruisin' the Cattle~Chloe's Story

Chloe, the wanna-be cattle dog.....well, in her world she IS the biggest, smartest, quickest cattle dog around.

After all, when she barks, the cows listen and sometimes even back away, just to humor her, I'm sure.

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Cruisin' the Beef

Now that Paige doesn't have soccer on Thurday mornings, we have some free time.  Dominic was heading over to check on the progress at the 'Hidden Pond' so we went along for the drive. 

Along the way we came across a few of the beef cows; the two bulls and a couple of older mamas that don't make the trek up to the top of the hill {that you can see in the background} for the summer.

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Beefers

It's that time of year again....time to move our natural beef cows to the 800 acres up the hill, behind Stafford Lake, where they will graze until September.  They've been down on the flat pasture land since September, which  is where they calve and now that all of the mamas have calved, they're moved to lush green grass that has been untouched {except by maybe some deer} and growing for them all winter long and part of spring. 

The walk takes all of about 10 minutes. 

They know right where to go with just a little coaxing.

Here they have reached the base of the hill......happy eating!

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The Grass is Always Greener

Every now and again, we receive a phone call from either the Park Rangers working at Stafford Lake or the good folks at Indian Valley Golf Course telling us there's a cow out near hole 9.  Imagine a golfer's surprise when he encounters a bovine, face to face, in the middle of his/her game.  We know it's most likely not one of our well behaved dairy cows or heifers, but one of these buggers that have once again found some way to gain access to the lovely, trimmed green grass at the park or at the golf course. 

Now, it's not that they don't have acres and acres of green grass of their own to graze upon, as you can see in the photos below.  These mama beef cows just never seem satisfied with what they have.

They are also fed a nice hearty breakfast of hay every day, but nooo, they want more, better, greener, lusher {is that a word?} grass.

So how do these beef cows get through the fence?  Sometimes a fence goes down due to winter weather.  Sometimes the other side of the fence is too much of a temptation and mama beef cow jumps it. Or sometimes the fence is cut  by an unknown party.  What ever the case, we always find the mama beef cow.

So if you're ever golfing at Indian Valley and come across a cow patty, you'll know why.



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Weaning Baby Beef

Today's the day we separated our natural beef pairs.  We have 45 pairs (Mama and Calf) to bring down off the hills, to the corral to separate Mama from calf.  I drove out  with the kids and Chloe and along the way we spotted quite a few turkeys.

Adjacent to the turkeys were two does and two fawns who were not at all startled by our drive by.

It's 8:15 a.m., you can see the fog sitting at the top of the hills.  We hadn't even made it over to the first gate, where the pairs come through when we spotted the herd already being driven in our direction.  We don't use horses, only an ATV and trucks.

We're missing two pairs.  They're still somewhere up the hill which will require another ride back up to search for them.  The kids and I just followed behind the herd along with Dominic who was riding the ATV to make sure no one strayed off from the herd.

It was a bumpy ride.  I'm normally in the passenger seat of my father in law's vehicle for ease of photo taking, but I was on my own today.......well, with two kids and very excited Chloe who becomes VERY vocal upon seeing cows.  She really thinks she's a cow dog.....Anyway, difficult for me to snap photos, drive and keep Chloe from jumping out the window.  As you can see, many of my photos are a wee bit off.

Chloe barked her head off out the window,  until Dominic had me quite her down.  Mama cows were starting to become very protective of their calves with a dog barking at their rear. Chloe's barking caused a few of them to turn around and come towards us.  Chloe just thought she was helping {and actually, so did I.  Shows how much I know!}

Okay, they're moving along nicely now.

We're almost over to the third gate they'll be walking through.

And here is the fourth and final gate before entering the corral.  A dusty trail and what you see at the top of the photo is the fog cover still hovering at 9:30 a.m.

By now, most of you know my fear of bulls.  Holstein bulls.  But for some reason these beef bulls don't scare me {as much}.  I walked up to this guy {same side of the fence, this is not a zoomed photo} and took a photo.  Beef bulls are just more docile than those crazy Holstein bulls.

He was all about playing in the loose dirt pile and sniffing out his new surroundings.

Here are the babies.  Most of them are around 10 months old with some being a bit younger.  They are taken over to the dairy by trailer, where they will be picked up Monday by a driver and driven to the valley to auction. 

After the separation process, the mamas and bulls are walked back over through a couple of gates to their pasture land, where they will stay through the winter.

The entire process begins again. 

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