June 30, 2009

I didn't get to go to Mass on Sunday because Sugar had cold ears that morning. Cold ears are one of the initial signs of milk fever and the 72 hour danger zone wasn't up until about 2:00 pm Sunday. So I stayed home to keep an eye on her and it turned out to be nothing. Since I was home and outside, though, I took the opportunity to build this:
It's a headgate with feed box attached. What a difference this has made! Sugar can no longer dance around the barn in a 180 degree pattern while we're trying to milk. She can still move around some but she's getting better about that. It was hard to get her in there at first but at the last two milkings she's walked right in and put her head through the bars.

Unfortunately, she seems to have freshened with mastitis in one quarter. A well-meaning but ignorant relative squeezed some milk from one quarter about 10 days before she calved, thereby eliminating the natural wax plug. The colostrum from that quarter was slightly chunky. Unfortunately, her edema (swelling) is worst in that quarter so the calf is avoiding it. We gave her an antibiotic infusion Sunday evening and Monday morning. If the milk is still chunky on Wednesday, I will milk her out every two hours from the time I get home in the afternoon through the night along with applying hot compresses and maybe some minty balm or coconut oil laced with cayenne pepper. The heat gets the blood moving and helps with the edema and with getting the infection down and out.

We've been feeding handfuls of raspberry leaves a few times a day and massaging to help with the edema. Her teats are spaced far apart and hanging low because of it so we're only able to get two teat cups on her at a time when we milk. It's no big deal to do two at a time. As of this morning the milk is still pretty yellow from colostrum content.

We've been getting about a gallon per milking since we started in earnest Sunday morning. If she keeps that up after her pure milk comes in, I'll have to assume she's holding out on us and only partially letting down. If that's the case we'll have to get sneaky and bring her calf in to stimulate let down and then take the calf out and get the milker on. I'll be reading up on other tricks today.

If anyone has any suggestions, please comment.

June 27, 2009

Taffy was born a little before 2:00 on Thursday past. She will be going back to Jennifer's uncle to be eventually bred. We'll be buying a bull calf ASAP to let Sugar raise for our own beef and to help consume the milk supply.

We milked for the first time on Friday morning. We were going to hand milk but decided it would be best to get Sugar used to the sound of the vacuum pump and the feel of the machine from the start. We only took about a gallon and it was a chore! Friday evening we were going to milk a bit more to relieve the pressure but it didn't work out. I had the bright idea to tie the calf with a rope halter near Sugar's head. The calf fell back and Sugar jerked her neck and pulled a fence staple out the wall that she was chained to. Oops!

This morning milking went much better. We took about 3 gallons, stopping when the flow slowed down but leaving some to try to avoid encouraging milk fever. We did two things better this time. Firstly, we led Sugar out of her stall onto the concrete floor. This way we avoided getting cow poop from the bedding all over ourselves and the milk bucket. Secondly, we left the calf in the stall out of sight so Sugar could concentrate on her grain. Her udder is still swollen huge but it's not so hard and tight.

Friday, I had a few flakes in the strip cup which can be an early indicator of mastitis. I didn't use the cup today but will tomorrow and find out which quarter the flakes, if any, are in. Mastitis is serious business and needs to be treated sooner rather than later if she has it.

We probably won't milk tonight but will start tomorrow, twice a day, in earnest. The colostrum should clear up soon and we'll have good milk! Also, tomorrow afternoon will mark 72 hours since freshening and the threat of milk fever will have largely passed.

It's A Girl!

It's a girl! 1/2 Texas Longhorn, 1/4 Jersey, 1/4 Guernsey (we think).

June 22, 2009

I went to the dairy and picked up our milk from our herdshares after work (won't have to do that much longer) then mowed the lawn.

Our neighbor come over Saturday and told us to look for Sugar's shape to change from something like this ( ) to something like this | | about 8-12 hours before calving. This is caused by the calf moving into the birthing position. Of course the power of suggestion has me believing that she looks like this tonight, lol. We're ready, whenever the calf decides to make its entrance.

I found a good deal online on this Surge bucket milker and a portable vacuum pump. It's not as romantic as handmilking but with me operating an off-farm business and Jennifer homeschooling three kids, the sheep, the chickens, etc. it will be a huge time-saver.

June 20, 2009

This morning Sugar's udder was hard and tight, with the teats slightly engorged. The calf hasn't dropped into the birth canal yet but I'm hoping for a birth this weekend.

Her udder sticks out so far behind her that she tends to poop on it, as you can see in the photo.

We got 13 eggs today so I'll be able to sell some next week, finally.

Well, I'm headed out to feed the bottle lamb who can't seem to get the hang of eating grain. He's still too young to ruminate much so he needs either milk replacer or grain.

June 17, 2009

Today I was reading on Keeping A Family Cow about the relaxation of the pelvic ligaments being one of the final signs of impending calving. When this happens the tailhead becomes floppy and the tail lays to one side. What do you think I saw when I got home? LOL, probably misinterpretation on my part. What was that I said last week about Thursday calving being ideal? Oh well, we're ready when she is.

We've decided that if we can't get Sugar bred by the end of August, we're going to milk through for another year and attempt breeding in July 2010 for an April 2011 freshening. With the quality of our grass, there's no way I'm going to try to dry up a cow in April for another June freshening. I'm glad she was dry when we got her.

I know I've been blogging almost exclusively about cow stuff here. That's only because she is new to us and is consuming most of our attention. The rest of farm life goes on however. The lambs are growing like weeds. We have one bottle lamb due to rejection by his mother. She was fine for the first few days, Deo gratias, so he got plenty of colostrum but then she suddenly stopped letting him nurse. We suspect that he tried to nurse from another ewe and she peed on his head which made him smell like another lamb to his mother. If the ewe does this again next year, she'll be sausage. 'Nuff said.

Hens are now laying nearly a dozen little eggs a day so we're finally building up a small stockpile to sell. It's been so long, though, that we're eating them almost as fast as they lay them.

The grass is maturing so I'll be doing some mowing this weekend and periodically over the next few weeks. The mature grass is great in the energy department but lower in protein than young grass. The growing lambs need protein now and energy later when they're laying on some fat. They're still getting plenty on milk, though, so that's not an issue. The ewes primarily need energy but they don't like the mature grass so it's king of a balancing act with them. Sugar needs both protein and energy so we give her a smorgasbord and don't limit her too much. I will always err on the side of too much grass rather than not enough. Maximizing production is the way of the factory farm. Here we seek to optimize production.

June 15, 2009

The sheep are shorn! I don't have pics to prove it but here's one of Sugar I took this weekend.

June 11, 2009

I'm trying to write something here every few days if for no other reason than to stay in the habit. The truth is, though, not a whole lot goes on here during the week. Jennifer may disagree with me on that given that she spent the day weeding in the garden yesterday. You're the best, babe! Monday through Thursday I leave home at 4:50 am and get back at 5:10 pm so I don't feel like doing much most evenings.

Sugar still hasn't had her calf. It would be really convenient for us if she had it on Thursday afternoon so we would have the weekend to work on milking, calf care, etc. Of course this means she'll probably freshen on Sunday night.

The pullets that we got on May 23 are slowly beginning to lay. We get 3-4 pullet eggs a day. I full expect 12-15 eggs a day once they reach full production. I've got a waiting list of people who want eggs and regular customers calling every week so I hope they get on the stick.

I finally had to cancel my/our Milwaukee trip for next week. It's the annual retreat of the Society of Saint Polycarp and I'm pretty upset about missing it. Life happens, I guess.

June 8, 2009

Ever have one of those weekends where you feel run ragged but don't get anything done?
We still need to put the finishing touches on the garden and the ewes remain unshorn. Oh well. The ewes won't take long, my arm just wasn't up to the task this weekend. Ditto for the garden. Laying down plastic mulch and burying the edges is hard work. I'm on the mend, though, and shouldn't have any problems finishing these things this week.

On the plus side, I did get all the mowing done, lawn and pasture (inside and out).

No calf yet...

June 4, 2009

Work has picked up a bit and we're back to a 40 hour week (from 36). Getting ready to call it a day soon. We run production four 10-hour days so today also wraps up another week. What a wonderful work schedule for a part-time farmer.

I should finish the pasture mowing and trimming this weekend and put out the last of the garden. I'm glad the celery is still safely in pots indoors. These last few nights in the lower 40s may have sent it bolting. Our corn is up enough that I can weed and mulch it.

Tomorrow I plan to shear the four ewes. My arm is healed enough that I don't think I'll have a problem doing it myself with Jennifer's help to catch the sheep.

No calf yet...

Edible Vaccines and Flying Syringes

How long might it be before mass market "food" becomes totally inedible?

June 1, 2009

Wow, June 1st. Where has the spring gone? I can't believe I don't have the ewes sheared yet but oddly enough I'm not stressing over it. Maybe I'm mellowing with age, like good red wine. Yep, that must be it.

I was observing Sugar pretty closely tonight while mowing and I wouldn't be surprised if she goes another week based solely on her udder development. Now that I've said that, she'll probably go tonight, lol. We're supposed to go to Milwaukee in a couple weeks for 5 days and it's starting to look less and less likely we'll be able to go. I was hoping to have two 4-week old calves nursing before we went. That ain't gonna happen.

We've had our pullets for 9 days now one of them finally laid an egg in the nest box today. We've been getting an egg or two every day, laid on the floor by the water fount. Jennifer marked a couple eggs and put them in the nest box as a training aid and it seems to have worked. We bought a 6-hole roll-out nest box last year because we were tired of poop-covered eggs. It'll be a bummer if the dummies don't use it.

God likes farmers

From my favorite historian and commentator on culture, Aaron D. Wolf,
writing in Chronicles magazine:

God likes farmers. Not gigantic corporate agribusiness, but farmers.
He made man from the dirt and for the dirt, to cultivate His Garden.
Adam means "of the red" or "of the soil."