Tag: food

Mushroom Barley Soup

On By AdminIn farming1 Comment

Traditional Jewish comfort food, with history more ancient and undoubtedly more venerable than the ubiquitous “Jewish penicillin” – chicken soup, …

Mushroom Barley Soup

Telling the Bull goodbye

On By AdminIn farmingLeave a comment

A few weeks ago, we decided to part ways with our bull. We have had him for almost a year now and he just got done breeding all our ladies. I don’t normally sell bulls this fast, but this year it dosent make any sense to hold onto him till next fall breeding cycle.

Ultimately, we decided to sell the bull for several reasons. Our bull has gotten a little more aggressive over the last few months. Aggressive bulls are hard on our fences. In the last two months he has busted the fence a couple different times. One night, we got home to find him close to the house because he had busted loose. It’s scary trying to catch a bull at night when you can’t see what you’re doing, and the bull weighs about 2000 pounds.

Another reason we needed to see the bull go is because he has gotten so big that he runs the risk of hurting our cows during breeding. At this point he actually runs the risk of breaking our cows’ backs, hips, and back legs. He is so heavy and the cows are not big enough to handle his weight. He can actually push the cows down into the ground when breeding that it breaks bones. With his weight, he also runs the risk of hurting himself while breeding. He also can break his penis or rip the sheath when breeding a cow too small.

Since deciding to sell him I have thought about what direction we would like to go next fall with bull choices. I really like the way Brahma bulls crossed over angus cows look and how well they handle the heat and grow. I also have been thinking about going with a Hereford bull to give lots of growth to my calves and also make the more desirable white face black cows.

There is one final option I have thought on: renting one of the above bulls. The cost for me to buy a bull is around $2000-$4000 every 4-6 years as I would want to sell before they get too big to breed. Rent would only cost me around $500-$700 a year and I would only have to feed the bull for 90 days instead of 365 days.

One thing is for sure what ever choice we do decide we will get the best genetics we can afford so we can have the best calves possible.

Winter Weather Has Arrived

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This weekend, we had a bad storm rolling in to our area. All weather reports said that the storm would hit mostly north of us, but we still needed to do some things to prepare here around the farm for the severe cold that we expected. Although we knew it wouldn’t be a bad storm for us, it would still bring colder air and a little snow. One thing that a lot of people don’t realize is that there is different preparations needed for different weather types. For example: rain vs snow. With snow, we can get several inches and it will not soak through the cow’s thick hair. This is great, because they don’t get soaked to the bone. Their thick hair keeps the snow out, and it settles on their backs. Sure it is colder, but the hair and their own body fat keeps them well insulated from the cold. With rain, however, it doesn’t take long for that to soak through to their skin. When the cows get soaked with the rain, they have a harder time retaining heat. They will then develop sickness such as pneumonia due to the cold rain. However, with the rain, there is not much we can do to protect them from the weather save from packing them all in the barn.

We started off our preparation by putting a bale of old hay in with the pigs to give them something to burrow into. I figured with enough food and some warmth from a wind block they would be fine. I also decided the cows needed a wind block. This was harder to do for the cows, as one bale would not cut it.

I put out 4 bales for the cows next to one of the barns. That should have been enough to last two days, but they ate almost all of it over night. I ventured out today to try and put a few more bales out. Unfortunately the pad lock was frozen solid. I tried everything but the obvious. After 30 mins I tried hot water… it worked first try.

After putting more hay out for the cows, and feeding the pigs, I hitailed it back to the house. As the saying goes, even in the winter the farmer has to work.

Mealworms

On By AdminIn Uncategorized1 Comment

A few months back, I decided I wanted to try to grow mealworms for my chickens as a sustainable, money saving source of food. This venture has proven to be a neat experience, as well as not being a super productive way to spend my extra time.

I have them set up in plastic drawers for easy storage, which makes them easier to separate out. I put the beetles in the top drawer worms in the lower drawers. The main issue that I have encountered is that the worms go into hibernation in the winter if their surroundings are not kept warm enough for them.

When I started out with the meal worms, I ordered a starter set on Amazon and let my colony grow from there. I haven’t removed anything but growth has been slow. One thing that I would like to try is keeping the building where I house my worms at a higher temperature. Hopefully this will keep my colony growing. I will post an update in a few weeks, in hopes that I will be updating you on the growth of the colony.

I am including a link to the starter kit I got when I first started. They shipped really fast and they were all alive.

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