Bullseye and Kaffi

We had the calves in a 'training pen' which is 3 strands of electric fence with little pieces of tin foil on it. They were fence trained in very little time :) Now they stay in, most of the time, with only one wire. Kaffi can tell if the fence is on or off so we keep it on and they stay in :) We put them in with the cows as sort of an experiment. IF they would behave themselves they would be helpful in the cow pen by eating the grass the milk cows won't. The 1st day was fine.. the second day Papa got only a gallon and a tiny bit from Maggie.. and I heard Kaffi sucking when I walked by. Didn't see him do it but the evidence was there!! Bullseye also got all the calves milk that night as Kaffi was not interested! Some one was a thief!! So they got their own calf pen in the back close to the lagoon. Bullseye is 2 months old already and Kaffi is 6 weeks older then him so they could both be weaned but Papa has taught them both to drink out of a bucket so all we do is pour the milk into the bucket and they both stick their noses in and GULP GONE!! LOL. Sometimes there is a little pushing involved :) Kaffi will be going home here as soon as his owner comes to get him. He's old enough to be weaned, his owner is home now, and he's kind of a trouble maker :) He steals milk and gets out when ever the fence is off.

Happy Pigs and a Walking feed bag :)

Papa had 4 days off this weekend and we used it to do 2 things. Catch up on some farm stuff and REST!! I'm happy to report we did both very well. In fact our 'to do' list was finished by day 3 and day 4 was spent doing pretty much whatever we wanted with an evening out at Grandpa and Grandma's to top off the weekend!! Very nice.

One of the 'to do's was to move all the animals. The chicks got moved out, the cow's got the neighbors pasture we rent, Billy the steer got a path to more water as his was out thanks to almost no rain in 6 weeks, the calves got a new piece of their own as Kaffi steals milk!, and the pigs got a new pen farther from the house. We had to keep them close by for selling purposes. The creep feeder and catching area was in the straw bale barn so as long as we had people coming to pick up pigs we needed to have them by the barn. I'm happy to report that we sold 8 little weaner pigs and have decided to keep the remaining 13 ourselves. We will be selling butcher hogs this fall!! We are also planning on keeping our sows to breed again next year :)

Papa, the "Walking Feed Bag" bringing the last of a bag of chop to the pigs. The bucket is a mix of grain and milk. The pigs are also getting several gallons of milk a day.

A happy sow in the new pen.

Some little piglets eating the dumped grain. Several people have commented on the size of these weaners. One man who got weaners from us and from some one else said that ours were much bigger then the others he'd gotten. Maybe even as much as half again as big! He said that they were all roughly the same age as well. Papa thinks these weigh as much as 75lbs.

Chicks are Out!!

These are our broiler chicks this year! They are a month old in the picture and outside at last. We normally put them out at 3 weeks but it's been too crazy, but a week late is not too bad. We found they moved out much easier and wanted to stay out much faster! Bonus!! They spent the 1st four weeks in the barn you see in the back there. The wheel barrow is full of a mixture of ground grains, supplement, and milk. The chicks are getting several gallons of milk a day mixed into their food. We are also doing the Willard's water in their water this year as we had GREAT results with this feeding solution last year. So far out of 208 birds we got from the hatchery we have lost 4. Two were VERY tiny and one was scarred on it's rear.

Can your Cornish Giant Cockerels do this? LOL. Happy healthy birds!! This morning when I went out to feed there was close to 10 of them in the wheel barrow!!

These birds will get moved farther away from the barn, they are already cut off from it, today. From now on they will be moved inside the electric netting every 2 days for the 1st little bit and then every day as they get big enough to use the whole space in one day. Their feeders get moved everyday even if the pen does not so that they graze the whole area. The feeders are old eves troughing which work great as they tip if they stand on them and are really light to move! They will go out on our newly scythed piece in the next few days. In this way they will mow a lot of our grass in the next 4 weeks. They eat bugs, grass, seeds and whatever else they can find and fertilize the ground as they go! In 4 or 5 weeks we'll butcher them and they'll be our chicken for the year. Yes we really do eat that much chicken :) We have a standing trade with one couple, hay for chicken and milk, for 50 of them but the rest will go into our freezer.

Family Campout!!

WELL!!! The annual Fehr Family Camp out was a couple of weekends ago.. Since it was only 30 minutes from our house, or maybe because we wanted to travel back and forth, we decided to travel back and forth to do chores and spend the night at home. Much easier all around. This also meant we could spend MORE time out there, a whole DAY!, and less time packing to go out!! It worked great and we had a great time. Only one of my 5 siblings wasn't able to come so there were 6 couples including my folks, 14 grand kids ages 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 3, 2, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1 and Baby J at 3 weeks :) We always have a lot of fun!! And this time it only rained once and only for a little bit!! MUCH better then most years where all it does is rain!!

Cousin Kacey holding Baby J. Love her curls!!

Cousin Ruger holding Baby J. They were both so TOTALLY in love with him and held him several times. Cousin Courtney was too but I didn't get a picture of her!

Auntie Ria helping set up the tents, or was J the one helping?? Oakley, Rugar, Kacey and R looking on!!

Auntie Ria had freezies!! Left to right, Kiresten, Oakley, R, Ruger, Kacey, Courtney, L, and E!! We had several nice afternoons at the beach. The water is so shallow that we don't have to worry about kids to much and it doesn't get deep fast which is super nice!

Such a girl!! CHOCOLATE!!!

Funny face boys!!

The coolest of the cool!! E with her 'loot' from the long awaited Treasure Hunt!!

COW ATTACK!!! The Garden that is..

Could have been worse.. I could have lost the onions too. LOL. Bindy, the high headed soon to be hamburger, cow walked over a electric netting fence and into my garden and proceeded to eat it. Blasted BEAST!! She ate the beets and radishes the 1st day and some lettuce, which was mostly done anyway. I chased her out that day thinking that the fence was just unplugged and made sure it was on the next day, besides I really didn't think she'd eat the beans and broccoli!! She did. That night she was in there AGAIN eating the lettuce and Papa told me the fence wasn't hooked up so the next morning I had the boys watching her and she wasn't in the garden at all until we were waiting for Papa for a minute and then J yells 'Bindy's in the GARDEN' and I RAN out there (the plan was to move the fence when I had the time.) and she had already eaten the beans and the broccoli!! It couldn't have been more then 20 minutes!! She TOTALLY cleaned out the whole bed! And I needed to pick the 1st batch of beans this week!! ARG!! I LOVE beans and the cow ate them ALL!! Meanie!! LOL.

The radishes and lettuce bed.. eaten.. I never did get 'nice raised bed pictures' but they were BEAUTIFUL!!

Beets and onions. The black thing is the soaker hose!

Beans and broccoli!! I might get some broccoli yet as she did leave a few leaves. The white stuff on the end is my garden fabric that I used to lengthen the season. Works great!!

Bindy would be hamburger already if we didn't need her this fall to keep us in milk while Maggie is dry before she calves. Bindy has stepped on BOTH her front teats and WRECKED them both. So we are now milking her back two teats only and feeding all her milk to the animals, pigs and chicks, until any risk of infection in her front two teats is over. She gives 4 gallons out her her back two teats. Maggie gives 4 gallons from 4 teats. Bindy's bag has also 'blown' and hangs SUPER low. If we were milking by hand, we are using a machine now, we'd have to have her up on a stanchion of some kind so we could get a bucket under her! She is also teaching Maggie some bad habits along with the 'cow' that she's been able to teach her. As Maggie was more machine then 'cow' when we got her. Bindy's calf from this spring, Bullseye, is high headed just like her and so is her calf from two years ago, Billy, and as soon as they are gone that will be the last of 'high headed animals' on the place. We simply do not have the space or fences or WANT TOO to deal with them.