Calves

Good thing we sorted and moved the cows.  They started calving as soon as they were moved and the calves are coming one right after the other.  All of them look great so far, although one cow who has had issues nursing calves in the past is still having her issues. I'm about to go down and stand in the rain/snow and watch to see if her calf is latching on enough. The calf was on yesterday, but today that calf looks mighty tired so we'll keep an eye no him.  Her calf last year was given goats milk because she wasn't nursing it well enough, and then the calf stayed with the goats as she grew.  We call her goat-calf because she hung with the goats so long she probably thinks she's a goat, and lets you walk right up to her and pet her just like a goat too.  We don't want another goat calf though. Bottle feeding isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Sorted Cattle Today

I cut the bull from the cows this morning, then cut the steers from the heifers and sent them in with the bull.  We'll feed the bull and the steers together until the bull goes out with the cows and heifers.  Except for having to move through the mud, everything went easy and gentile... for a change.

Snow on High Tunnel Sides - What to do

I sure would like to know what others are doing when snow piles up on their auto-roll-up sides. I think for us the snow has been a much bigger issue than wind. We've had 2 issues with snow on the sides.  First is that the snow lays on the sides and when the sides open the snow makes the circumference of the pipe much larger.  This causes the opener to make fewer revolutions to open which then causes the sides to opens to the ribbon board which jams the motor until the fuse is blown.  The other is that the snow holds the sides closed until the motor blows the fuse.  Neither of these situations is good since they can damage the inserts that connect to the pipe and attach to the motor, and/or break other parts which we've had to fix.  Hard lessons to learn, but nothing catastrophic yet thank goodness.

Snow Storm Calf

We had our first calf of the season, born in the snow storm last night.  She (the calf) and the cow both look like they're doing fine.  We'll try to tag her today before she gets too much run in her.

High Tunnel's Warm

Trellis

We finished setting up the trellis and wires to support the berry plants inside of the high tunnel. We used old steel fence posts and welded on some square stock that was left from some other projects.  We're hoping that the plants don't put too great a load on the wires because the steel posts are spring steel and can actually flex under load.  We'll see as the season goes along.

Trellis work completed

We finished planting the high tunnel, laying the water lines and getting most everything finished.  We decided on raspberries. It was a snap to plant, and with a little extra help we had everything done in no time.