Resurrecting the Farm and Ranch

[DMH]

A collective "Awwww" from us baby picture people!

[Tex]

Southernmom, it isn't that big of a deal, but it may be a little better to move your feed dish a little away from the water. This will teach them early on that they need to hunt a little to find their feed and water. When doing broilers, you never want to have the feed and water right next to each other, lest they sit in one spot and not move.



Tex

[VINCENT]

bought a cage from the store!!!! this is against ever idea of reduse reuse and recycle. how could you??? im hurt.
peep peep peep. they are sure cute though. i have 18 right now being sat on by this seasons broody hen of choice. i'm going to try and do one brood after another this summer season. hoping for lots of natural chick nopw that i an defying the predators by caging everyone in runs.

[southernmom]

Thanks DMH They are adorable and I do love listening to them!
Tex, I had no idea about spacing feed and water-thank you for that info. My goal is within 2 yrs having enough to put 75 or so chickens in the freezer, with plenty of layers left over.
Vincent-trust me it hurt to spend the money! And I do have some materials laying around but hey, we had a little extra and I am easily influenced, haha! Put some pics up of your chicken runs, I'm interested in seeing them. (or did I miss the pics or somehow comment and don't remember?) anyway-we have a big coop but we let the chickens out around the barnyard and a couple of the dogs guard them. I wouldn't leave them out at night, though. There are armies of raccoons out here, just ask my brother-they come up to his house at night and eat the cat food.

[VINCENT]

I post the pics a few weeks ago.

[southernmom]

Well. peas and okra are poking up through the ground, potatoes and state runners are getting big, tomato forest is planted, blueberries are coming on and calves are being born and it's getting hot outside.
My big issue now is watering, We have a well in the yard that hasn't been used in years because the water is a bit on the irony side-so we run house water off the big well on the hill next to my brother's place. The goal when dh gets back from Texas in a week or so is to put in a 1/2 hp pump and devote that to ag use, as it's literally 100 ft from the big garden area. For now I'm limping along using half-ass sprinklers and praying for rain. I wish it had gotten done before he left but we had some car and fence repairs he had to take care of last minute before he headed out.

The little calf I doctored up is doing just fine, big and happy. We have 3 little bulls now and I have to come to a decision soon about whether or not we will cut them and raise them as steers and put them in the freezer or leave them and sell them later. I lean towards having some beef when the time comes, personally.

My next big goal (much to my mother's dismay) is to get a few pigs and raise them. The only thing that's stopping me from going to the critter sale down the road and buying a few this saturday is that I don't know the particulars of making ham and bacon-I know that's jumping ahead a bit but I like to have most all my ducks in a row before I start on a big venture.

[Tex]

Southernmom, I am not sure exactly what you are getting at on the bull calves. If you are going to sell the through the salebarn, you will get more money out of them if they are steers. Unless you have a buyer lined up to buy them as intact bulls, I would castrate them.

Take their mind off ass and out it on grass.

Cattle buyers dock the price when they buy bull calves. There are several reasons for this, but the main one is because bulls are a pain in the ass to deal with. They will spend more time chasing girl than they will eating and they don't finish out as well. They are also alot more dangerous to deal with too.

You said the little calf is doing well. Is that the one you called me about? I hope so.'

How deep are the wells that you guys have there?


Tex

[southernmom]

Thanks for the reinforcement on the bull/steer question, it's what I needed to hear.
Yep, that's the calf we talked about-thank you and The Hostile Native so much for all your help!!! I will never be without some colostrum and abx on hand for the resident critters that are born around here...and I am not a fan of medicating but it really saved us this time. You might mention the importance of having such things on hand in your book.

Wells in our county are typically 60'-80', now up the road half an hour the wells need to be a bit deeper, over 120'-180'.

[Tex]

Southernmom, as ranchers, we have to have bulls, but unless a person is raising registered stock for the specific purpose of producing herdsires, I do not recommend keeping the nuts on anything. We wouldn't keep a bull or a stud horse if we didn't have to. They are big, destructive and a pain in the butt to have around. You and I talked a while back about improving your herd by investing in some good bull power. If it were me, I would go ahead and band these calves right now while you can handle them easily. Doing it will alleviate any indecision you may have down the road and you will be glad you did it come sale day.

Occasionally we will keep a steer back for the purpose of going into the freezer, but we usually will feed out heifers from our replacement bunch who did not get bred. They are young and put on weight real well. We do have a huge steer out in the pasture though that will probably get butchered next year. The last one we did like that ended up putting 1192 punds of beef IN the freezer. He weighed way over a ton before we put him down. That rascal was huge.

I am glad the calf made it. You are right about the meds. We don't like medicating our livestock either, but sometimes you have to do it in order to save their life. A dead calf aint worth squat.

I am planning on talking about medications in my book and also how to administer them. That lttle deal I told you about the LA 200 is a big deal in the cattle industry and it ruins alot of beef.

I'm happy to hear the calf made it. Cut or band the damn bull calves and save yourself some headaches.


Tex

[southernmom]

Well it's a rainy day-so I'm taking a minute to peruse the boards.

I got done mulching parts of the garden yesterday-a lot of work, but I like to toss some chicken-scratched-sheep manured hay on the rows when I can, keeps the soil from just washing away in the rain and it fertilizes. I didn't get too many rows done, but enough to wear me out, haha! Everything is coming up nice and I went ahead and planted a bit of corn (5 rows) cause we all do like to watch it grow. Well, and eat it, too.

A bunch more chicks hatched-10 total yesterday. My husband is back in Texas taking out the final four, he'll be back on saturday, thankfully.
Hope everyone is well. I may post some pics later.

[Tex]

Southernmom, we went to buy a bunch of feed the other day and I picked up a bunch of pallets to make a couple of compost bins. Did you put any chicken wire on the inside of your to make containment a little easier, or did you just leave them as is? Not knowing how big we were going to need the actual bins, I picked up 10 pallets. I know I got too many, but I can use the extras for other things or just cut them up and make firewood. My thoughts were though to make two bins side by side. We have alot of manure to use, as I'm sure you do too and I wanted to be able to have room for everything. I was planning on making each bin one pallet wide and two pallets long. Then I was going to set them up right next to each other so it would be easier to keep everything turned.

If you get a chance, I would like to see some pics of your bins and compare. I see that some of the farm and ranch stores sell some compost bins that are set up to turn the actual compost, but they are nowhere near big enough for our needs. Have you ever had your soil tested to see what it is lacking, or what it may need?

How is your grandmother doing?

Are you guys still planning on coming up in June? I hope so.


Tex

[southernmom]

Hey there Tex

We used bailing wire to kind of 'tie' the pallets together. They stood just fine on their own, but I preferred using the wire. If you look closely you can see the wrapped wire. Like so:

20140310_141624.jpg

No, we didn't use any chicken wire or anything, just as is and it seems to be fine-when we put vegetable scraps out there we kind of bury it in the compost so no critters tear into it. I plan on expanding ours double, too.
Another picture:
20140310_141636.jpg

I haven't had the soil tested, it is more on the sandy side, though which is great for peas, okra, etc-esp. swet potatoes. It does ok growing other southern veggies but I do a lot of mulching/composting/manure from cows/horses/sheep/chickens for my smaller beds and even a bit on the larger garden, which realllllllly kicks growing in gear, but without it I've grown pretty good veggies. I know a lot of folks use lime to sweeten the soil in this area.

[Tex]

With the underground caverns all made of limestone and all of the calcified shells everywhere you look, I would think you guys have plenty of lime in the soil.

We are in bad need of more sand in our soil, but I am also going to have the soil tested.

I like the pallet compost bins.


Tex

[southernmom]

Oh! My grandmother is doing ok, just her memory is really off-esp her short term memory. She also has been resorting to childish behavior (stomping her feet when she doesn't get her way, etc.) I just take it in stride.
Still not sure about June. Our van finally bit the dust and we found a pretty good high mileage expedition we are going to start making payments on. We are super fortunate to know a local guy who is trustworthy and he found it for us...so after it gets its once over it's ours. We really need a vehicle that will fit all of us! Since we will have a reliable vehicle, as long as we can get things covered here we will be able to come out. Will keep you posted.

[DMH]

Tex, with you extra pallets you can make shelves. Saw a pic the other day, try to find it for you.