billonthefarm
Member
- Location
- Farmington IL
Since you dropped in you might as well tag along for the day.
The suns coming up so we better get moving.
This is where my day starts, right outside my back door. Its 6:40am and 6 degrees F with a nice breeze.
12 calves here at home. They know its morning and they are waiting for me. They get ground ear corn mixed with oats, molasses and supplement. We feed them square bales in the shed and they can have all the corn stalk bales they want outside. With the chores done I start the tractors and let them warm up and off we go to continue chores.
Now to do chores at the Higgs farm.
Cow 249 is waiting outside the door for me every morning. We call her nosey, cause she is.
In the first lot there are 4 heifers that are due to have their first calves this spring, 12 cows and a angus bull I named bob. They get a slightly differnt mix of ground corn, oats, supplement and molasses. They have round bales of hay in the lot all the time.
In the next lot are 11 spring calves. They heard me in the shed and are anxiously awaiting my arrival. So chores are finshed and we head back home to where we left the tractors warming up.
The calves at home need some corn stalks to chew on. I take the loader and clean out the inverted tire feeders and get ready to give them fresh stalks. Of course I need to unhook the manure spreader and put the bale processor on the 4230 first.
This is the finished product. We used to just feed them bales in rings but they wasted so much it was unbelievable. Its even worse now as the net wrap is frozen on and the outer several inches of the bale are frozen also. After the bale has been processed it is much easier for them to eat and they wast much much less. So with that taken care of we take the tractor and processor to the Higgs farm.
The bale processor. Not only will it take a frozen bale the calves wont or cant eat and turn it into something they will eat but also it is the fastest and best way I know to put bedding in a shed.
It will fill a shed full of bedding faster than I could get the net wrap off a bale much less put it in there and spread it out. These are corn stalks so the cows will eat some and then lay in the rest. The cows taken care of its back home to get the loader tractor.
Travis arrives and we wanted to dig into a pile and see how froze it was. Not bad so we stirred it up a little to break up the big chunks and it will be ok. A brief chat with landowner that stopped in and a neighbor and we are off to mert up with Cliff in town at a small cafe for lunch.
After a sandwich and a bowl of chili in town we stop at home and get the 4230 which is back on the spreader now and away we go.
It is amazing, it seems to take forever to make any headway. I dont think we will ever get caught up!
It was a nice looking day but I dont think it got over 15 degrees F. I know I heard the windchill was 3 above at one point on the radio. We hauled manure till about 3:30. Travis went and picked Logan up and I headed for home on the loader so we could do one last job for the day.
We need to grind feed for the cows at the Higgs farm so we head for home and get the mill out. While we are there we do chores for the calves and then on over to where the corn crib is at. With the mill full I notice a low tire. Logan gets us some air for the tire so we can head back to the farm and unload the mill. We unload the mill, do chores at the Higgs farm and then take every thing home and put away for the night.
Right back where we started. We put our toys away, do a little checking things over, plan the day tomorrow, close the doors and turn the light off and I walk in the house at 6:15pm. Another succesfull day complete.
Wrigley tagged along the entire day. He gets restless sometimes but he sure does enjoy being out with us and getting to be part of our daily activities.
Well I hope you enjoyed the day. No two days are the same here so it is never boring. Tomorrow, along with our normal activities, we hope to go to the elevator and pick up some supplement for the next time we grind feed, pickup a new bale spear at the local deere dealer if it came in, haul more manure, fix some hot wire, put the bale processor back on to feed calves and hope to be done and back home in time to go to a pancake supper tomorrow night. Lofty goals but we can try!
bill
The suns coming up so we better get moving.
This is where my day starts, right outside my back door. Its 6:40am and 6 degrees F with a nice breeze.
12 calves here at home. They know its morning and they are waiting for me. They get ground ear corn mixed with oats, molasses and supplement. We feed them square bales in the shed and they can have all the corn stalk bales they want outside. With the chores done I start the tractors and let them warm up and off we go to continue chores.
Now to do chores at the Higgs farm.
Cow 249 is waiting outside the door for me every morning. We call her nosey, cause she is.
In the first lot there are 4 heifers that are due to have their first calves this spring, 12 cows and a angus bull I named bob. They get a slightly differnt mix of ground corn, oats, supplement and molasses. They have round bales of hay in the lot all the time.
In the next lot are 11 spring calves. They heard me in the shed and are anxiously awaiting my arrival. So chores are finshed and we head back home to where we left the tractors warming up.
The calves at home need some corn stalks to chew on. I take the loader and clean out the inverted tire feeders and get ready to give them fresh stalks. Of course I need to unhook the manure spreader and put the bale processor on the 4230 first.
This is the finished product. We used to just feed them bales in rings but they wasted so much it was unbelievable. Its even worse now as the net wrap is frozen on and the outer several inches of the bale are frozen also. After the bale has been processed it is much easier for them to eat and they wast much much less. So with that taken care of we take the tractor and processor to the Higgs farm.
The bale processor. Not only will it take a frozen bale the calves wont or cant eat and turn it into something they will eat but also it is the fastest and best way I know to put bedding in a shed.
It will fill a shed full of bedding faster than I could get the net wrap off a bale much less put it in there and spread it out. These are corn stalks so the cows will eat some and then lay in the rest. The cows taken care of its back home to get the loader tractor.
Travis arrives and we wanted to dig into a pile and see how froze it was. Not bad so we stirred it up a little to break up the big chunks and it will be ok. A brief chat with landowner that stopped in and a neighbor and we are off to mert up with Cliff in town at a small cafe for lunch.
After a sandwich and a bowl of chili in town we stop at home and get the 4230 which is back on the spreader now and away we go.
It is amazing, it seems to take forever to make any headway. I dont think we will ever get caught up!
It was a nice looking day but I dont think it got over 15 degrees F. I know I heard the windchill was 3 above at one point on the radio. We hauled manure till about 3:30. Travis went and picked Logan up and I headed for home on the loader so we could do one last job for the day.
We need to grind feed for the cows at the Higgs farm so we head for home and get the mill out. While we are there we do chores for the calves and then on over to where the corn crib is at. With the mill full I notice a low tire. Logan gets us some air for the tire so we can head back to the farm and unload the mill. We unload the mill, do chores at the Higgs farm and then take every thing home and put away for the night.
Right back where we started. We put our toys away, do a little checking things over, plan the day tomorrow, close the doors and turn the light off and I walk in the house at 6:15pm. Another succesfull day complete.
Wrigley tagged along the entire day. He gets restless sometimes but he sure does enjoy being out with us and getting to be part of our daily activities.
Well I hope you enjoyed the day. No two days are the same here so it is never boring. Tomorrow, along with our normal activities, we hope to go to the elevator and pick up some supplement for the next time we grind feed, pickup a new bale spear at the local deere dealer if it came in, haul more manure, fix some hot wire, put the bale processor back on to feed calves and hope to be done and back home in time to go to a pancake supper tomorrow night. Lofty goals but we can try!
bill
I would likely have frozen waterers, vehicles that don't start, slip and fall on the ice, etc, etc...
