Colonel’s Blog, Earthdate 30 April 2024…
Hey Y’all!
Good evening and happy Tuesday from Air2Ground Farms! The weather is sunny and beautiful, quite the contrast from the severe thunderstorms and flooding 2 days ago. Our rain gauge froze and cracked so I’m not sure how much rain we got, but about 10 miles from us, they captured 8 inches in a 24 hour period. As I gathered 5 dead beef chickens the only thing I could picture was the images of the destruction from the tornadoes associated with those storms and I was simply thankful that our loss was insignificant compared to many others. The water was so deep as it flowed through the pasture that for some reason those 5 birds drowned. I guess they ended up on the bottom of the dog-pile and couldn’t get up. We were very glad that we held batch 2 in the barn past their scheduled date to move to pasture. They are small enough that we would have lost a bunch of them. We were also concerned with the lambs but they all made it through the storms without incident. The top pic is the first batch of beef chickens. They are 5 1/2 weeks old and will be ready to process at 8 weeks old. Today, we moved batch 2 onto the pasture and batch 3 into the big brooder. Batch 4 arrives this week and they will move into the small brooder. The next set of pics are the sheep. The first is the rams who are back to being best buddies, now that they are separated from the ewes. The next two pics are the ewes and lambs in a new paddock of tall grass. The bottom 3 pics are the hogs. I’d like to introduce you to Tex, our new registered pure Berkshire boar. He’s the big one. The first two pics are as we were introducing Tex to the 3 guilts from our farm. The last pic shows the entire heard. One of the sows in the background will go to be whole-hog sausage in a few weeks, all of the others make up our Berkshire breeders.
We often discuss the amazing benefits of rotational grazing when it comes to regenerating pastures. Today I want to mention one downside to frequent rotation. The beef herd was on the top of the hill Friday and Saturday, until we moved them to a lower pasture on Saturday evening. There were 3 calves when they went into that pasture and 3 calves left that pasture with the herd. Sunday afternoon, we hooked to the trailer and took off to pick up the hogs. As we drove past the hill, we noticed something lying in the pasture. I’m sure you guessed, it was a calf. We stopped the truck and ran, not even closing the doors in the rain. We assumed it was dead. As we got to it, it jumped up and ran. It tried to get into the woods but kept getting caught in the barbed wire fence, so it just kept running. I ended up sprinting after this calf, running across about half of our 160 acres, through fences and woods, until I finally caught her after the deep water of the creek slowed her down and she got wedged under a downed log. Both of us soaked and panting, I carried her out of the creek and across the fence. We both panted for a moment until I lifted her onto my shoulders. Even though she was tired, she let me know that she didn’t enjoy that. I carried her about half way back up the hill to the herd. I put her over the fence and her mom (a first calf heifer—meaning this is her first calf) came right over and she started nursing. She was obviously hiding in the woods when we moved the herd. At 2-3 days old, she didn’t know she was supposed to go with the herd. Her first-calf-heifer mom left with the herd instead of staying with her new calf. At some point, the calf came out into the open and was patiently waiting for the herd to return. They won’t be back in that pasture for a couple of weeks. Had we not noticed her, things may not have turned out well. Frequent moves are an amazing tool to improve pastures and get the most out of the grass. They do, however, come with the risk of being Left Behind!
Our YouTube video Saturday was a look at how we make a keto meal out of a salad using plenty of oil and fried eggs!
On Monday’s Dust’er Mud podcast, we discussed viewer testimonials of how a low-carb lifestyle has changed their lives and how those testimonies inspire us.
Cheers!
Psycho & Shelley
When we moved here 7 years ago from Colorado, the rain produced 14 inches in 3 days. There was a ten-year flood that destroyed many homes. We were lucky had no damage. It can sure rain here.
SuperFarmer to the rescue!
Good work! If you weighed 220 pounds you never would have been able to catch that calf, I am guessing!