Feeding Plan for the Winter

With the bull back at his home, our hay inventory might last a bit longer.  That dude was big and could put down some hay.  Our three cows and herd of goats could go through a round bale in about a week.  With Nick, the bull, added to the animal family, the bale was gone in about 4 days!  In the past month, we've had some light frosts that effectively ended any new growth of grass in the pasture.  The cows and goats have methodically gone over the pasture, cleaning up little tufts of grass still remaining along the fence lines.  There's really not much left.

We rolled out the last of our round bales that were left over from last year and the cows knocked that out in no time.  I called for some more bales and the Monday after Thanksgiving, the gentleman who sells us hay showed up at the house with 10 round bales on the back of his trailer for $40 per bale, delivered.  I think that is very reasonable.  It is clean hay, stored in a barn.  We rolled it off of his trailer and then I covered it up with a tarp to keep it out of the rain.  The cows saw this process unfolding and ran, bellowing, to the gate.

The best I can figure, we have about 10 weeks of hay inventory on hand before we re-order.  Warm weather extends things a bit.  Cows can handle the cold and they can handle rain, but both cold and rain together is not a good combination.  They need the calories to keep them warm.  We've had weather approaching the 80's for the past couple of days.  The cows aren't even around the hay much.  They are sitting out in the pasture chewing their cud.

We do have the 75 bales of good Jiggs bermuda square bales up in the loft.  We haven't even touched that yet.  We generally ration that and feed a half a bale a day of this in addition to the round bale as it gets colder.  We also feed them some sweet feed and salt.

For the goats (and cows to a smaller extent), I jumped over the south fence two days ago with a machete and went to work on the privet and other weeds, tossing it over the fence for them to eat.  They absolutely love eating on this browse and the chickens gather around as bugs and worms are always on the stuff I throw over.  I'll do that from time to time throughout the winter and it serves a double purpose.  It gives them something to eat AND it cleans up a buffer zone between our property and the woods.  I'm guessing that may discourage some varmints from visiting as they have to pass through a cleaned out area to get to our pasture and that exposes them to hawks and other predators.

We keep a close eye on the animals' conditioning during the winter months.  Sometimes I'll get the lead rope and get them out of the pasture to eat on winter grasses in the surrounding ditches and fence rows.  Which reminds me, I need to quickly plant a big plot of turnips.  The cows LOVE to eat big, fat turnips and turnip greens in February and March.

Random Thoughts on a Thursday

"The preacher man says it's the end of time

And the Mississippi River, she's a-goin' dry

The interest is up and the stock market's down

And you only get mugged if you go downtown"

That's the opening lyrics to "Country Boy Can Survive" by Hank Williams Jr.  I've been thinking about that song a lot while driving, trying to digest bad economic news, rising consumer pricing, and a severe erosion in the purchasing power of the monopoly money in our wallets.  Somehow we've gotten ourselves beholden to Big Politicians, Big Bankers, and Global Puppetmasters that pull all the strings.  I'd like to just ignore it, but it greatly affects everyone, especially if you find yourself on a fixed income.

But, you know, the Lord's in control.  There's an old hymn that has lyrics that are much more optimistic than 'Ol Hank's song.  It goes like this:

Many things about tomorrow,

I don't seem to understand;

But I know who holds tomorrow,

And I know who holds my hand.

God's given us sound minds and I believe we're to use them.  They're saying that food shortages, or at least even more increases in food prices, are on the horizon.  Might be a good idea to put a few things in the pantry.  We've got eggs!  We eat a LOT of eggs in our house.  But we're in the dog days of summer and the egg production has plummeted like the value of 401-k's.  This was all we collected from the hen house (and all their other hiding places) yesterday.  Slim pickin's, indeed!

Tricia has been dry canning rice and also beans in the oven at 200 degrees for an hour.  If you do it right, it'll be good for 20 - 25 years stored like that.  It kills any bugs and/or eggs in the rice and beans.

One thing we WON'T have in a food shortage is milk.  Yep, we dried off both of our milk cows.  We have been milking for a year and four months straight.  It is time for a break - for both us AND the cows.  Our plan is to bring both milk cows to be re-bred and then in late fall, we'll bring both of our heifers to be bred for the first time.  So we'll be without milk for almost a year!

The milking stalls are lonely and it is quiet in the barn now in the mornings!  It gets so hot in the summer milking in there, even with the fans blowing.

One thing that we'll save money on is dairy cow feed!  When the cows aren't producing milk, we let them just eat the grass in the pasture.  The sweet feed in our feed room is gonna really last now.  The local feed store is going to miss us!

We'll just have to remind ourselves that God is in control.  We should pray and we should take action by preparing and planning and planting.

It Worked!!

Well, in THIS PREVIOUS POST on September 14th, I mentioned that we have an appointment at a processor in Morse, Louisiana to bring our Jersey bull to get processed.  The appointment is in early October.  Trouble is, he's an aggressive bull and thrashes with his head and comes running at you.  It is high time to get him off the property and into the freezer.

I figured that I would back the cattle trailer into the pasture and each afternoon, I would bring a bucket of feed to the bull.  We've never fed the bull anything - just grass in the pasture and free choice hay.  The plan was to feed him in a bucket and each day move the bucket closer and closer to the trailer.  Then I'd put the bucket at the edge of the trailer and then the next day put it where he'd have to put his front legs in the trailer to eat and then the next day, I'd push the bucket of feed all the way in so that he'd have to get fully in the trailer.  Then, I could shut the door.

I started working on the plan two days ago.  I quickly learned that the gluttonous bull was going to like the feed and the plan could be shortened.  By day two of the plan his front feet were in the trailer. And today...  Well, I'll let you see for yourself. Why do you think the trailer is tilted up in the air?

Well, it is because ol' boy jumped right on up in the trailer to eat!  Tomorrow I'll push the feed bucket all the way to the front.  Shutting the door should be pretty easy.  The only problem is that the second weekend in October is a long way away!  I asked Tricia if we might be able to get the appointment changed to an earlier Saturday, but all of the Saturdays coming are already booked with activities.

Before I started working with the bull to try to get him in the trailer, I figured I would make a ramp to make it easy for him.  You can see it below.  I used some old 2x4 lumber that I salvaged from when we demo'd the chicken tractors.  Some of it was rotten and we burned it.  But others were in good shape and I made a nice ramp.

After talking to a friend about my plan, he suggested that the ramp may scare him off and that he didn't think I'd need it.  He said the bull would jump right on up once he got used to the feed.  You know what?  He was right!

Although it only took less than 10 minutes to make the ramp, I hated to waste the lumber and time making it.  Looking at the unused ramp gave me an idea.  Have you ever seen those mats that cranes use on a construction site?  Or a board-run at an oil drilling site?  That reminded me that I could use my ramp as a mat or a board run around the barn when it rains and gets so muddy that sometimes you step right out of your boots.

Back to the bull, I think we won't have to have a rodeo to get him in the trailer to get him to the processor.  The plan worked, even faster than I thought.  On second thought, perhaps I should wait until early October when I have him in the trailer and on the way before I celebrate.