Ringing the Dinner Bell

We don't really have a bell that we ring when it is time for supper.  We'll normally just holler, "C'mon, Daisy! C'mon Rosie!  Come eat!"  In a perfect world they would come a runnin'.  When there is no grass in the pasture in winter time, that's exactly what they do.  Better yet, they'll be waiting for us when we come outside because they are hungry.

Right now, the days have been slightly cooler because of the overcast skies and rain and the grass is green and high as a chicken's head in spots.  The cows have their heads down eating when we come out and they barely notice our walk to the barn. We'll holler, bang on the feed buckets, clap our hands - all in an effort to call them in to eat and to be milked.

Those hard-headed girls willfully ignore us and go right on eating.  I'll slog through the mud and walk way out into the pasture to get them.  Inevitably, when I get out there, they'll lift their heads up, look at me with this expressionless face and begin walking to the barn.  It is like a game to them to see if they can make me walk out there and get them.  Rosie is by far the worst, too.

Daisy, being the matriarch and lead cow, takes the lead position as she saunters toward the barn. I've learned that I need to stay behind Rosie because she gets easily distracted and will stop and begin to eat grass again.  Or she'll decide that now is a good time to poop or pee or do both.  It is a long ordeal sometimes to get them into the barn.  I'll confess that sometimes I would like to pop Rosie with a 'hot shot' to give her a little pep in her step.

In the photo below, Tricia has just fed the chickens a bucket full of fermented rice. It stinks so very bad, but the chickens love it.  The cows will eat it, too, and find that it is great fun to walk right through the flock of chickens eating the sprouted grain and scattering the hens in a loud cacophony of clucks and feathers flying.  At any given time we have at least one or two hens limping due to their collision with the feet of an animal that is 300 times their weight.

At long last, we get them in the barn, cleaned up and milked.  As much as a rush that we were in to get them into the barn, we're trying to get them out of the barn. For some reason, the relief of being milked coupled with a satisfying meal, goes to work on their digestive system and we'll see their tails rising.

They aren't particular or shy about it either.  Needless to say, they will flat out fill the barn with poop and pee if we don't usher them out with the quickness as soon as we're finished milking, so they can take care of business outside.  In the event of a mess inside the barn, we have a poop scooper that we'll scoop the poop up with and fill up a bucket.  When the bucket is full, I'll toss the contents over the fence onto the compost pile.

I am noticing a change in the quality of the grass, with more production of the stems and seed heads and less production of the foliage of the grass.  That is not as appetizing to the cows and they'll pick around trying to find tasty grass underneath the taller grass gone to seed.  We'll have to start supplementing with hay at some point in the next month or two.  At least that will mean that we won't have to walk out to get them at feeding/milking time.  They'll have to wait on us versus us waiting on them!

Suppertime!

When I go out to milk the cows I always get a kick out of all the attention I get.  Tricia and I joke around and ask each other, "Do you think the cows, chickens and goats like us, or do they just like the fact that we feed them?"  The answer, of course, is that they view us as objects that give them food.  I like this picture below as it shows the many animals depending on us everyday.  It is a responsibility and one we take seriously, but we enjoy the animals as well.  It's not just a job.

As you can see, there is lots of diversity in our barnyard with Barred Rock, Rhode Island Red, Aracauna, Black Star and Cornish Cross chickens roaming around anticipating the rice that I'm going to throw to them. Can you spot the different breeds in the photo?  They get right underneath the feet of the cows sometimes. A three or four pound chicken is no match for an 800 - 950 pound cow.  From time to time we'll have a hen that limps around for a week or so because they didn't move out of the way quick enough.  I'll hear some squawking and I'll have to go push the cow off of the poor bird.  They aren't even aware that they are standing on a hen.

Bosses of the Barnyard

Rosie and Daisy are waiting for me to open the gate, but if you look in the background, you can spot Magnolia back there by her glowing eyes.  We milk Daisy and Rosie twice a day - at 5 am and again at 6 pm.  Maggie is in milk, but she's serving as our nurse cow and she's providing milk to Lily and Amy.  Tricia thought of that idea to keep us from milking all three cows and it has worked out nicely.

Hurry up and open the gate!

We feed them very little in the Spring and Summer as they are grass-fed milk cows, but in the winter when there is no grass, we feed them a little Dairy ration with a square bale of Bermuda hay broken up over it and then we also have round bales of hay out that they always have access to.

Speaking of hay, it was time to climb up in the loft and take inventory of our remaining stock of square bales. In the summer, the boys and I will hoist 100 square bales up into the loft and stack it for use in the winter months.  As I climbed up into the loft last night, I counted 9 bales left - 3 rows of 3 bales.  We had anticipated the hay lasting us into March and our estimates were accurate.  The 70 degree weather hopefully will get the green grass growing again for the girls.

Dwindling stores of hay

Looking back in the other direction, you can see the emptiness of the hay loft.  You can also see the 2 x 4s that I repeatedly bang my head into as I'm walking to the trap door with a bale to throw down.  I probably need to paint them bright red or wear a hard hat when I'm up there! 

The empty loft

The loft will stay empty until this summer when we'll fill it back up again.  An empty loft is a good thing for a couple of reasons.  When it is full of hay, the hens like to make nests and lay eggs that we never find until they are rotten and stinking.  All the hay up there also makes a perfect habitat for rats, although we've waged war on them pretty good this Fall/Winter and have put a serious dent in the rat population.