Just another Day on the Farm

Sending out my best wishes to my cousin’s Nadine and Joy, along with their familes on the loss of their dad, Frank was my Dad’s only brother-in-law married to his sister frank, they had two lovely daughters and one wee son that passed as a babe.

Uncle Frank came from Ontario and was raised as a farmers son but he was involved in pipeline, working many hours along side both my dad and my uncle Scotty over the years all across the province of Alberta.

Frank had a good head for business and perhaps a bit to fond of liking for a good drink or two or ??

Frank and Mary have not been together for years but after she had a stroke, Frank along with the rest of her family all stepped in to give a helping hand.

My dad has remained a close friend to Frank for more years then I have been alive, so well over forty at the time of his passing from Cancer.. I had the pleasure of getting to have a good visit with him on the phone last christmas when I was home.

May the Angels have taken you home.. Blessings be..

Well, I am the first to admit that my drawings are bad but they do show what I want them to, the first picture shows what we had for pens/box stalls when used.

The second one shows what we are planning on doing today in regards to making adjustments, this will ideally put the space to the best use, and will allow pretty much everyone bigger pens overall. The sheep jug will be used as Girls Calf’s pen for when we are milk sharing with her and or depending on what I am going to do, will be the calf pen if I decide to milk full time and raise a extra calf up with her’s

Its something that I don’t hear many other folks talk about on the farming blogs, the need to move the animals from area to area as they are raised up, I wonder if they all start them in the area’s they will finish them in? or if they just don’t have as many choices an so what they have is what they have? or they think its a boring subject LOL

Regardless, I seem to spend a good amount of the time per year adjust pen sizes, moving critters from jugs to growout pens with creep feeders to big raising loafing in and out access area’s and depending back to expecting pens etc etc..

If you are in the rockland to cornwall area, and need a good livestock hauler, write me privately and I will recommend my gentleman.

He is so good about the fact that we like to take our time and go slow, we are given time to set it up and given time to lead the animals with feed, and to slowly use push boards, no canes, no whips, no prods allowed!

We take the time that is needed to safely handle, set up and load the animals in such a way that they don’t feel the pressure or panic that I have seen so many other times at sale barns or even other places that move animals.

Its a sad day on the farm in the sense of what has changed, but I have pride in the way my animals looked and how they loaded says alot in how they have lived their lives with us here on the farm.

As a few of you might remember, I wrote that while “I” really like the name Houdini, that Pony himself did not respond to to it, and while you can work on changing a critters name, it helps if the animal appears to like the sound combo..

Needless to say he responded better to Pony then to Houdini.. so the name needed to be looked at and considered..and I asked for help, it came in from a number of readers and they all had some very good idea’s, thoughts on ways to name him based on his size, his temperment/looks..

And so I spent three days going out and using names on him looking for any kind of response, and I finally got one, when it happened, I just stopped and started to laugh.. I had called him a pipsqeak.. and his little head popped up and ears came forward.. this really got me thinking about the fact that he would “answer to pony”

I don’t know what his old name was but I will lay down a dollar bet tht it started with a P..

So given that information and some of the idea’s in the different commentors, his new name is Pippen, aka, Pip, Pippy, and of course Pipsqeak!

To make it even more suiting,  meaning of the name Pippin is ‘Foreigner, stranger’.

Throw in the wonderful Pippen from Lord of the Rings and his unkept little wild mane and coat, along with his adventure spirit and willingness to be a tough guy despite being so tiny, and then there is the fact that he is Brandy’s little shadow, aka, the sidekick, just as pippen was to start with.. just as he grew in the movie, I hope that my Pippen will show me hidden depths.

So hope you will enjoy reading how and why he got his full new name..  Sir Pippen Littlehooves.

While I won’t say that I am not reading and marking out the different things in the seed catalogs, I have spent just as much time if not more working on this years planned chick/duckling, turkey pullet list..

I am trying to look at what my own birds have produced in terms of offspring for the past three years combined with what I need to bring in for fresh genes, combined with our own needs considering whe are going to have a number! of large amounts of Lamb, Beef and Pork this year..

I think I have it pretty close to figured out..

• 12 new laying hens to be, I am unsure as of yet what breed but it will be a dual purpose brown laying hen.
• 6 Bronze mixed run Turkey pullets
• A dozen Pheasents
• 4 to 6 geese-A mate or two for honk* and the rest for the freezer..

*Honk has attached himself to Apple Duck and he is just way to rough with her, he needs his own mate and I am unwilling to pay the prices at the bird sales to buy him a single full grown mate, so we will get a mixed run and hope that we get one or two nice girls for him to bond with and I am looking forward to a chistmas goose for 2013!

I also need to track down and add in two new female does to my rabbit breeding program, my girls are getting old and I have done a inbreeding, now, I need to outcross, and or replace the buck with fresh bloodlines. I am hoping to be able to pick them up at my good local bird sale, normally, there is one to five breeders there with rabbits and prices are higher but the qaulity makes it worth it, but last year, there was only one seller and it was angora, and the prices were crazy high..

Kijji is great but being able to get everyone on one sale day and for only one driving cost, it is so worth it if possable.

That’s it, plus one large Bard Rock Rooster from my favorite breeder at the spring bird sale

New energy requirements increase  14 to 15 percent and protein requirements increase 26 to 27 percent from  mid-gestation to late gestation. This  increase in nutrient requirements during this stage of gestation is due to the rapidly  increasing growth of the fetus.  The  fetus accomplishes only 25 percent of its growth during the first two-thirds of  gestation.  The remaining 75 percent of fetal  growth is attained during the last 90 days of gestation.  In fact, the developing conceptus (fetus plus  membranes and fluids) requires 100 to 150 pounds of weight gain during the last  third of gestation!

As hard as it to believe, Girl is now entering in her 3rd part of her pregancy, and suddenly last week, she has baby bump, I have decided that trying to get a photo of baby bump in a brown cow is very hard but I swear if you could see her in really life, you would be like.. WOW, look at that baby bump, even cooler is that for the first time, I felt the baby move, it didn’t kick so much as appear to do the move/wave.

On the feed end, Girl is really getting almost pushy about getting her grain rations on top of all the hay she can eat and her molassies/fat/protein, vit/mineral lick, she also seems to be using her baking soda a bit more then normal.. Amazing that she will need to gain around another hundred to hundred an fifty pds yet before she calf’s out.

It’s now law that you must tag your sheep before they leave for the butcher, this is part of a tracking system for both canada and also to keep us on par with global record keeping etc.

I have the most basic and cheapest tags available, you look at your ear and split it into three, you want to take in the middle of the middle..  but slightly on the downside so that there is still room for the ear to grow..

Hard to believe that when we got this boy, we hauled him home in a large dog crate with room to space and sledded him down to the barn, he was about the size of his daughters at this point in time..

Needless to say that is not the case now.. He is well over six feet in length and according to my measurements and tape, pushing 400 pds.. and I have to agree with Hubby that when a boar gettings that big, might be time to move him out and get a smaller boy to deal with, not that Angelo has a bad temperment, he doesn’t, I can’t say that we ever had any issues with him the whole time we had him.. its just time..

Here he is in photos, the one with the coming three year old milk cow is telling, that is Girl he is going head to head with and winning! I will be very interested in seeing how much meat we get back on him.