The First Three Days

If you all will permit me another long post, I will catch everyone up on the goings-on over the last three days. In case you are new to reading a Margaret Spiegel blog, I will warn you from the very beginning, my posts tend to reach astronomical length about the very basic activities of my day.  Don't say I didn't warn you.

Day 1:
Wednesday was an absolutely gorgeous day.  There was a slight chill in the air, but there was lots of sunshine and a light breeze.  Because we are livestock producers, the obvious day-to-day activities include chores.  The morning was spent grinding and mixing feed for the cattle.  We have five different lots of cattle.  Three of these lots are on the farm's hub (where my house is and where all of our grain storage is).  The south yard has, oh, 50-80 head (I will have to ask about the current capacity) of 700-800 pound feeder heifers and steers.  The west yard has probably 20-30 head of 400-500 pound feeders, mostly consisting of Holstein steers.  In a smaller pen immediately north of the south yard, there are about 10 replacement heifers for our breeding herd.  The breeding herd is on another building site about 1/2 mile up the road from my house.  We probably have another 30 left to calve.  Thirteen have already had their calves and are separated from the herd.  There are also cattle at the home place (where my parents live along the highway).  This lot has the first-time bred heifers, so they are close at hand in case dad needs to assist with a birth.  Obviously we need to feed all of these animals on a daily or bi-daily basis (bi-daily based on how much you feed per feeding).  Our feed consists of a particular ratio of corn silage, ground corn, haylage (a.k.a. chopped dry hay), gluten, protein supplement, minerals, and baking soda.  There are slight variations depending on which pen we are feeding, but that's to be expected considering the size of the animals vary.

My task Wednesday morning was to grind several loads of shell corn and unload it into the loft of the feed house.  To many, this many seem like a labor-intensive task.  However, I will remind everyone that we live in a world of machinery and as a conventional farm, we use it!  No mortal and pestle for me!  When I say I had to grind the corn, what I mean is I was responsible for supervising the machines and operating them in the correct sequence to get the task accomplished.  Let me trace the path of the corn in this process.  The shell corn (whole corn kernels removed from the cob) is stored in a silo.  There is an opening at the bottom of the silo with a temporary door rigged up so the flow of the grain is easy to control.  Directly below this door is an old plastic water tank that has been modified to have an auger in it.  The auger takes the corn from this water tank to the grinder/mixer, a machine with drum-grinders controlled by the tractors power take-off (PTO) shaft.  There is an extension that takes the corn up another auger into the grinder itself.  The auger from the silo drops the corn into this extension.  Once the corn travels up the auger in the extension, it is in the grinder and, naturally, getting ground.  The grinder/mixer can hold about 5,000 pounds in a full load.  My task was to engage the grinder, turn the PTO of the tractor on and give it enough power to run the grinder (about 3,500 RPM), engage the auger in the grinder's extension, plug in the auger leading from the silo, and keeping the corn flowing out of the silo.  If any problems occur, I am there to unplug whichever part of the sequence.  There were no problems.  I sometimes had to unplug the silo auger to let the extension auger keep up with the load, but things went smoothly.

After I filled the grinder/mixer, I unloaded it.  After disengaging the grinding component, I engaged a different auger coming from the grinder/mixer that dumped the ground corn into an old oil barrel.  In that old barrel was another auger (powered by the PTO of a different tractor) that dumped the feed into the loft of the feed house.  I put four loads of ground corn into the feed house and filled the grinder a fifth time to unload directly into the feed wagon dad was using.  I ground 10 ton of corn!  Isn't it amazing to think of how much weight it takes to feed animals?  Of course, the 8 ton in the feed house loft will last a little while, since we only put ground corn in the feed mixture of four pens and it is 40 shovel-fulls per load.  Still, though, it won't last nearly as long as you think it will.

Because the weather was glorious, and because it nearly to be completed, dad spent the afternoon tilling our property in Stark County.  You see, our farm is called Scattered Acres because we have property in two counties, Stark and Henry.  This name was coined by my grandmother, and though we don't officially do business as Scattered Acres, the family understands it as our name.  While he was gone, I filled four skidloader buckets full of oats and dumped them into the large tub in the feed house.  I also worked on the never-ending "farm beautification project" (a.k.a picking up junk) in an area between our corn crib and the west yard.  The great thing about farm beautification, it's so satisfying to make an area look nice and get paid the scrap-metal price at the junkyard.  It's a win-win.  I then began the normal routine of walking up the cow herd, walking through the herd to keep for calves, water the cow/calf pairs, and the two sheep that reside on that building site (our ram and one cull ewe who lost her lamb).  Overall, it was a pretty light workday, and it was wonderful to be outside and start learning the routine.

Day 2:
Thursday morning promised another beautiful day, though slightly cooler than Wednesday had been.  After walking up and filling the water tank, dad and I began mixing feed for the west yard.  The corn silage is stored in the silo next to the silo with the whole shell corn.  Dad operates that silo, though I'm sure I'll learn it soon (or I'll ask to).  We also have an area in the feed house that stores the protein supplement.  This supplement does contain hormones that promote healthy digestion, but dad explained how we do not feed the full amount.  Especially after my experience at Tillers, I have heard the concerns people have about hormones in their meat.  I understand those arguments and don't disagree with them.  However, I want to reassure everyone that while my family does use growth hormones, because we do want our cattle to gain weight for the market, we do NOT pump them full of hormones.  We probably use less than half of the "recommended" amount of those hormones (recommended from the industry standards).  Dad uses enough to gain digestive efficiency, but that's it.  He said that one year he feed closer to that recommended amount and was not at all pleased with the results.  Growth hormones are testosterone, and increasing those hormone levels led the heifers (and steers, but heifers to a greater extent) to riding each other and become more aggressive.  My dad is a cattleman.  He knows what qualities he is looking for in an animal and one thing he always looks for in a pleasant disposition.  Sure, we get the occasional spooky cow, but the majority of our animals are calm and friendly.  There is the natural flight-zone around humans, but we can typically walk among our cows without fear.  Feeding more of that hormone changed the equation, and dad doesn't care to repeat that feeding pattern.  Dad also shoveled out the 40 scoops of ground corn, then we went to the other side of the farm to put the gluten and haylage in the feed wagon.  Our feed wagon had two augers in the bottom that mixes the feed components together.  Those augers are powered by the tractor PTO.  After the feed was mixed, dad let me drive the wagon to feed the west yard.  Considering I really haven't been on a tractor in six months, I did pretty well.  I only missed two bunks (because I drove the wagon away from the bunk, not because I hit anything).  I shoveled what I missed into the bunks by hand, so the cattle still got their appropriate amount of feed.  Also, correcting mistakes by physical labor will probably encourage me to ensure I not make that same mistake again. :)  Then we mixed a load of feed for the cow herd.  Unlike the younger animals in the feed lots, we don't feed corn silage or ground corn to the mature cows.  Dad explained how the mature cows don't need the extra energy those corn products provide for the younger animals.  Dad fed those cows because the mixture was a different consistency, which changes how the wagon expels it.  I need to be more familiar with the wagon before I understand the nuances changing the mixture causes.

After we got everyone fed, we castrated and docked the lambs' tails.  The second group of lambs had 21 lambs, most of which were bucks.  We use the rubber band method of castration for our lambs and calves.  Because we process them when they are young, there isn't much of a need to cut.  This is just the way we have always done it, and it seems to work well.  I'll not arguefor which method is better necessarily; each suits a purpose, but I prefer the banding method.  We also gave all the lambs a tetanus shot because we docked their tails.  Docking sheep tails are for health reasons.  In wool breeds of sheep, fecal matter can build up on a longer tail and can cause very serious health issues.  Docking the tail prevents these complications.  It is essential to give a tetanus shot when doing this, though.  We also moved two pairs of cow/calves to the other group, castrated the one bull, ear-tagged three calves, and moved the cow/calf pairs to pasture.  Dad and I also sowed oat and grass seed over the area I had cleared all the junk from on Wednesday.  My day on the farm ended at 3 p.m. (except for the usual chores of walking to and checking the cows, watering the cow/calves, and feeding the replacement heifers [3 buckets of oats in the morning and 2 buckets of shell corn in the evening]) because I had some errands in town.

Day 3:
It was a very windy and overcast day today.  And quite cool.  There promises to be rain, which we desperately need, so hopefully we get some tonight and tomorrow.  Dad is hoping for two inches of gently falling rain.  We'll see.  After feeding the south yard and cow herd, dad and I ran errands the rest of the day.  This morning, we went to Menard's and picked up 20 sheets of CDX plywood that we will use to rebuild the A-buildings for our annual batch of Holstein bucket calves.  The timing worked out perfectly; we returned home and unloaded them in the lean-to just in time for dinner.  This afternoon, we went and had our truck inspected to get certification to haul a livestock trailer, picked up supplies at Farm and Fleet, and dropped off a map of our Stark County farm to the guys at the elevator so they can spray fertilizer on our corn ground next week.  Dad also wanted me to meet the guys in case he sent me to the elevator at any point to pick up spray, fertilizer, seed, or anything else.  It was pretty amusing because the guys (whom I have heard...interesting stories about) were "respectfully subdued" in the presence of a girl.  I say "girl" rather than "young woman" because I suspect these middle-aged and older men see me as a girl.  And some were probably surprised when my dad said I was his helper for the summer.  I had been to the facilities before, but it has been a few years, so it was useful to go on this trip.  I am pretty tired today, so I wish I could have been more attentive, but between staying up later than I should and the dreary weather, I shouldn't be surprised (or complain) that I'm tired.  I also succeeded in hurting my shoulder today while I fed the replacement heifers, but I'm hoping that it sorts itself out quickly.  I did have to take ibuprofen right after I did it because it smarted, but that's what you get for lifting a full 5-gallon bucket from thigh-height to about head-height with one arm that may not actually have the strength to do that yet.  I was stupid and I'm suffering the consequences.  At least I am young, my body ought to heal quickly, right?