Next

The cows spent the summer at our neighbors munching down his 8 acres of weeds.  We brought them home last weekend and so instead of giving 9 cattle 3 flakes a day, just so they know who their parents are, we went up to 1 bale of hay a day.  

The sheep had to get used to sharing space with the cattle and figure out how to get around the electric fence now that it's charged.  One of the steers is a real dummy I have decided to name  him Next!  He wandered under the fence the same place the sheep go under and then wandered the property mooing the other cattle would answer him and he wouldn't go to them he just kept mooing like he was lost and no one answered him.  Normally I just open the gate and the cattle that are out just walk right in.  Not Next, he charges the fence on both sides of the gate.  I end up letting out a cow to show Next how to walk through the gate.

Next isn't in this picture.

Next has decided he will not share hay with the sheep so he gets food protective and pushes the lambs away. 

Not here either.

 He isn't a fan of sharing with the other cattle either he wanders from flake of hay to flake of hay any time another cow joins him at his flake.  

Today we moved the cattle to another neighbor's flower field.  Stick Boy and I set up the temporary

electric fencing in the space the neighbor wants cleared.  We made a narrow ally for the cattle to walk from our property to the neighbor's field without eating of the flowers that are currently growing.  I was so confident that this would work I didn't even wait for Darling Husband or College Boy to come home.  Instead Stick Boy and I got the help of 4 neighbor boys 6-10 years old only 2 speak any English.  What can go wrong?  

I get some hay and convince the cattle to follow me from one end of our pasture to the other and part way to the gate to the neighbors.  About half way to the gate the older cows that have been on this trip the last 3 years saw where we wanted them to go and took off running.  The snapping of the electric fence and those brave boys kept the wonderful girls in the ally I exactly how I wanted them to go.  The bull wasn't as sure of this adventure so was a little slower.

The gate all the cattle needed to go through.

  Just as Mooney, the bull, starts to go through the gate Next freaks out and pushes Mooney so he goes to the left of the gate and around the corner.  Next careens along the fence line not even looking at the tree he almost crashes into.  Mooney runs frantically at the fence crashing into it then he joins Next.  They start running up and down the lower fence but never going as far as the gate.  I work my way around the foolish animals and convince them to go toward the gate.

 Just as Mooney starts to look at the gate and start waking that way calmly, Next decides to chase Luca, who until this point had been a good dog and watched the craziness without adding to it.  Now Luca starts barking at the completely confused cattle and they all run the whole length of the bottom of our fence two times before I convince Luca he isn't helping.  I get the boys to stand along one side of the gate and Teen Daughter comes to help me calmly walk Mooney and Next toward the gate. 

 The boys worked perfectly moving just enough to convince the steer and bull to look at the gate where the rest of their herd was happily eating. 

 

Mooney 

Rolo

Growing Turkeys

The turkeys are growing so fast sometimes I think they look bigger every morning. 

We started with getting Luca used to the turkeys.  

Every morning and evening they go out so they can stretch their wings, run, and forage for food. 

When we got Oakley we started working with her right away to train her to not chase the turkeys. 

Unfortunately we had two wild chickens that I didn’t train Oakley with.  I thought I had trained her to turkeys she would accept the chickens…. 

1) Livestock Guardian Dogs are not supposed to be considered trustworthy until they are 2 years old 

2) I didn’t think about how Oakley would respond when the chicken started stealing the turkey’s food 

3) Livestock Guardian’s are supposed to be introduced to animals that are accepted on the property.  

We no longer have wild chickens.  Totally my fault! 

 Oakley is amazing with the turkeys. 

She will watch the turkeys run, flap wings, even chase her and she has not acted aggressive at all.

Teen Son will be selling 5 of the turkeys for Thanksgiving.  That will be a whole new adventure.

Thanksgiving Break

Shrew on her last day.

Shrew picking a fight.

We bought a turkey The Shrew to replace our female turkeys that had been eaten by the coyotes.  The Shrew was a nasty mean bird who killed a baby turkey and would pluck the feathers off of any bird she could get near.  We decided to butcher her for Thanksgiving.  In the weeks leading up to butchering time I watched a lot of Youtube videos on how to butcher a turkey.  Finally the day arrived and Teen Son, his friend, and I got to work.  We hung the shrew upside down slit her throat and let her bleed out.  Plucked her and then cleaned out her insides.  It was not as bad as I worried it would be.  2 days later we cooked her for Thanksgiving – she was tough but delicious. 

The Shrew was a nasty bird and she was only 6 lbs it's a lot of work but not horrible.

Part of the Thanksgiving gathering.

 We went to a friends for Thanksgiving.  We had a wonderful time and stayed after dark and the sheep were still out.  When we got home we all went in different directions to find the sheep, feed the cattle, take care of the dogs, put the cats away, take care of the fodder.  We found the sheep near the top of the property and they were feeling full of piss and vinager jumping, skipping, and running.  The sheep ran down to the sheep pen then turned and charged the fence to the cow pasture.  The cows didn’t like the sheep running towards them so they charged the fence.  Our young heifer, April, didn’t stop in time.  

April eating happily after she recovered.

The spot where April got stuck.  The new silver is an old gate we "fixed" the hole in the fence with.

We have a telephone pole laying against the fence and she slipped over the pole and against the fence and ended up trapped on her side between the pole and the fence.  It was 9: and very dark, the wire cutters were not where we thought they were the other cattle were mooing and stomping around us.  I turned the flashlight on my phone and held it in my mouth and got the hay and fodder to the rest of the fodder while Darling Husband took the good flashlight to find some wire cutters, and Teen Son tried to keep April calm.  Finally we got the fence cut and April free.  She refused to eat and walked with a limp but she didn’t seem hurt otherwise. 

Getting the sheep used to Tessa.

Every day of Thanksgiving Break we worked with the dogs and sheep.  Our sheep love to run and dogs even Livestock Guardian Dogs love to chase.  Luca is a really young dog to be trusted with the sheep.  Tessa a young Anatolian Sheppard is intense.  She likes to follow them at a distance of 30 to 50 feet and they like to run so she kept them running.  Every day we would put Blackwell, Hotrod, and sometimes another sheep on leads and the Guardian Dogs on leashes and walk first one dog then the other.  After a couple hours we walked the sheep without the dog on a lead.  That worked great until we added 2 dogs.  When Thanksgiving Break ended we were able to allow both dogs and all the sheep to free range.  It is so nice when things work.

A silly Pielbuey

The sheep have anywhere on the property to go so why are they stealing the cattle's food?

April Fools Day

I have a friend who’s family does April Fool’s Day right.  In my family we may say a few jokes but that is is.  My friend has 2 adult sons.  One of her son’s has his yard and home that everything is perfect in.  She and her other son bought 3 rabbits and painted their backs with 1, 2, and 4.   Her son called his mom in a panic he had caught 3 rabbits but couldn’t find #3. 

She bought 2 turkey babies and put them in her boyfriends office.  Her boyfriend is willing to keep either the rabbits or the turkeys not both.  She called me to see if we would take her turkeys.  Hmm will I?....

Of Course!

Sadly one of the turkeys died before we got it.  She brought over the turkey, a huge dog crate to keep it in, lots of baby turkey food.  We named it Butterball.  We think it is a Broad Breasted White.  It spent it’s first few days here in a large dog crate.  Then we started letting it out for short periods of time with our birds thinking it would be happy to hang out with our chickens that are about it’s size.  Butterball has no interest in the chickens but he/she is in LOVE with Tomas.  

The first time we let it out Tomas spent 30 minutes trying to herd Butterball back into it’s crate when Tomas realized it wouldn’t go in the crate he just started protecting it from the other birds. 

We have been letting Butterball out whenever we are out with the animals so we can hear if there is a problem.  He likes the turkey hens and when they are taking dirt baths he will go up and run his beak through their feathers.  Yesterday Teen Son forgot to put Butterball away when he was tired of watching him.  We were busy and left home for several hours and Butterball was healthy and happy when we got home to put the animals away.  Butterball will now be a free range bird with the rest of them and only spend nights in the dog crate.