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Some Days Nothing Goes Right

2/21/2015

My son Andrew was with me this week. He had a Friday off from school for some reason. We planned out what needed to be done. We would go pickup two round bales and put them out with the 115 HP John Deere tractor. The rest of the day we could shoot the guns and goof off. We got the round bales ok from the farmer who sold them to us, but when we got back to the farm there was no way we were going to get the trailer up the hill to the pasture to unload it in the deep snow. No problem, we would take the tractor down to where the trailer was stuck and unload it there. It was minus 5 degrees F and the tractor would not start. Guess what, diesel fuel really does gel up in cold weather. When you have cattle you can't just say to bad, maybe next week. They have to be fed or they will crash the fence to find food. Andrew and I spent several hours shoveling the driveway and we finally got the trailer up to where I could just back the whole thing into the pasture and use it as a round bale feeder. Round bales of haylige way over 2000 pounds each. There is no way to move them without the tractor which would not move due to the diesel gelling up issue. So the round bales stayed on the trailer. The cows got fed. Andrew and I had no time to shoot the guns but he learned the motto of the Marines: Improvise, Adapt, Overcome. I learned the importance of adding an anti-gelling agent to all of the diesel fuel during the winter months.

Unhappy livestock wants food.

Happy now!

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Inexperience Can be Stressful and Hay vs. Haylige

2/14/2015

The winter is long and cold in West Virginia. This year we had multiple days below 0 degrees F. I underestimated how many round bales I would need. I had to get a trailer, as I did not have one that would carry more than 2 round bales of hay at a time. I spent February and March hauling in enough round bales to get through the rest of the winter. I underestimated because I was thinking cows eat only a little more than goats. Cows eat a lot more than goats.

I started with round bales of hay but now I am using haylige. Haylige is less dried out then hay when it is baled and it is immediately wrapped in plastic so no oxygen gets to it. Haylige is fermented grass. It smells like a Clemson South Carolina bar on a Sunday morning. When you feed haylige to the Longhorns you do not have to feed grain, or at least you can feed a lot less grain.

New trailer loaded with 4 round bales of haylige.

New Longhorns Procured from G&G Longhorns, Catlett, VA

2/7/2015

http://www.gandgtexaslonghorns.com/

I purchased my first bull and also 2 more heifers.

Rockefeller my first Longhorn bull on the right inside the fence. He will be ready to breed in 2 years. Two new heifers on the left inside of the fence.

Some Days Nothing Goes Right

Inexperience Can be Stressful and Hay vs. Haylige

New Longhorns Procured from G&G Longhorns, Catlett, VA

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