It's been a while. These past few months have been pretty busy... between my co-worker at Gomers Inc. and her family re-locating with her husband's job in Nebraska, to finishing up calving season just a couple of weeks ago, to a few possible job interviews here and there, I have barely been able to catch my breath. And, therefore, I haven't had time to sit down and put together this post that I had been envisioning since my last post in July. WOW, time flies!
Anyway, I have been collecting these photos around my farm S.B. Feedlots to share with you all. You will find descriptions of each beauty I caught below the photo block. Enjoy!
1. This first one is a shot of my dad, sister, and I. My family runs about 200 beef cattle pairs. I help my dad out and split my time between the farm and Gomers Inc. We also have two hired hands, one being my show pig raising boyfriend, and we also rely on neighbor and farm friend help during the busy seasons.
2. As we are out with our animals a lot, and I mean a lot, they are a pretty curious bunch of critters. Calm animals are happy, healthy, and fast gaining animals. They aren't afraid of us at all.
3. Cows aren't always able to get the nutrients they need out of the pasture and silage that we feed them, so we supplement them with salt blocks and mineral tubs. This first year heifer is picking her nose after a few licks off the salt block. (A heifer is a female cow that hasn't had her first calf yet.)
4. Cows eat a lot. Every day. Vacation is slim around here, but if you're doing what do love, it doesn't feel like work all of the time.
5. We cut our own alfalfa for hay bales and chop some of our field corn to last through the winter to feed to our cows as silage.
6. With this summer's drought, feed is somewhat scarce. So, we get "waste" loads from canning factories of sweet corn silage and carrots. The cows go absolutely crazy over the carrots, they're like candy to them. Who would have thought?
7. This year, the DNR offered up grasslands to farmers to bale for their cattle. We got over 100 bales from this field for free. Such a blessing.
8 & 9. Bulls trying to stay cool in this summer's dry heat by laying in the mud and playing in the dirt. We had to be careful with our animals this summer to make sure they stayed hydrated and didn't overheat. It was pretty rough on them for a while there.
10. There's always something to do on the farm. One of this summer's projects was replacing a couple of fence lines.
11. This is our chute made by Morand Industries out of Canada. It is amazing and so easy to use and truly a God send. A lot safer than the ancient chute we used to have to deal with. We use a chute when we vaccinate our herd and when we need to re-tag cows and process our bull calves at weaning time.
12. A new cow calf pair.
13. It takes between 18 months and 2 years for our calves to grow this big. This is our fat lot of full grown steers and some heifers that will go to market for butcher and find their way to your plate. Yum!
14. The replacement heifer lot. We keep back between 20 and 30 heifers each year to replace old cows that we have culled from the herd.
15. Constantly bringing in new genetics with our bulls from the WBIA Bull Sale in Platteville, WI every spring. These bulls are calm, beefy, and help to get our herd better every year.
16. Our beautiful woods on the farm... makes for some good hunting!
Well, that's it for the farm tour and this blog. Feel free to comment with any questions. And in the mean time until my next blog, be sure to enjoy some yummy BEEF. And if you ever need any farm fresh meat, I'd be happy to get you lined up.
Thanks for reading! And until next time, stay curious about agriculture and help me bridge the gap between the city and the farm. Have a good one, everybody!
