[dominiquer60]

He is a handsome devil, much nicer than the red, chromed and pinstriped mid-life crisis purchases that some guys make:)

[dominiquer60]

When I was too little to remember father said,”No body better get in her way, because she knows what she wants.” I grew up with a yard full of food, a few chickens and great disappointment in my parents for not having a “real farm.” Though skipping a couple generations, farming seemed to make sense to me for as long as I can remember. At 7 I was introduced to riding horses, in college I made sure that I took every draft horse course offered. In 2002 I was a veggie apprentice that took part in a tour of David Fisher’s farm and was in awe of the lack of hand weeding his farm required.

In 2006 I met Carl and Lisa at a workshop, in 2007 I attended the first NEAPFD and in 2008 I watched Howie Van Ord explain the basics of starting a pair of calves. That same fall Jim Hawkes let me drive his young team of steers with a scoot at Low Impact Forestry in ME. In 2009 my soon to be father in law let me train a misfit pair of beef, a heifer and a steer. On 10/10/10 I was proposed to with a fine pair of Milking Shorthorns calves instead of a ring. Today I call a “real farm” home and used my shorthorns on a light chain harrow to prep the pea patch.

Great topic,

Erika

[dominiquer60]

To go along with Geoff the sooner the better. We use collars to tie our beef calves in the barn. They are there much of the day but once tame go out for water and back in for grain. I don’t know what your routine is but if you tie them for their two meals a day and let them eat hay and grain they will get used it rather quick. This also works well if they get different amounts of food or one tends to want to hog the others food because you can keep them far enough apart from each other.

For halter training Tim explained it better than I could. I certainly think using a stick to encourage them to move forward takes a lot of frustration out of training a bovine to lead, they really don’t seem to understand why they should follow you if you don’t have a pailful of something for them. If you get into the routine of leading them to their water, they learn quickly that the walk has purpose and they gladly go along.

Even if you are not going to work your boys you’ve got the right idea about being able to handle them and be comfortable around them. I make all my cattle take a step back before I feed them grain/milk, I hate being crowded and pushed. They are quick to learn this and will soon offer this behavior at feeding time.

You’ll be a cowgirl in no time, Yee-haw! 🙂

Erika

[dominiquer60]

We have a Tarm indoor furnace that we love. It is very efficient and for a two family house is takes 10+ cord a year. The better the wood the less it takes, we tend to only use dead/dieing trees or limb wood from two neighbors recent logging jobs on their lands. We fell, buck and put it in a dump cart. We have a trap door on our porch that lifts and we dump into a room in the cellar right next to the boiler/laundry room. We tend to harvest smaller diameter stuff, but if we need to split we have and wedge and a small electric splitter in the room. If we have larger diameter stuff, we generally collect it in one place next to the stacks for winter, when we get to it we split stack and cover. In the winter we can get a cart load or tractor bucket load of wood and dump into the wood room.

It probably doesn’t help you much, but to anyone reading that has an indoor furnace adjacent to a long porch, this works great to be able to back up and dump. Digging out the wood room and making concrete walls took Gramps a bit of work, but it is slick.

Erika

[dominiquer60]

Carl and Geoff,

To put it simply, you both rock!

Thank you for everything,

Erika

[dominiquer60]

Tim,
I don’t know anything about sorghum for molasses, however I did see what seems to be a few good varieties in the Bakers Creek Seed catalog this morning. You can find them at http://www.rareseeds.com
They have small quantities in the catalog but it doesn’t hurt to ask for larger discounted quantities.

Good Luck,
Erika

[dominiquer60]

I was not aware of the +/- options when I first looked at the article, yes blurry still, but a huge help, thanks.

Erika

[dominiquer60]

Yes many catalogs sell Seminis (Monsanto seed). I was aware of many Seminis varieties, but since reviewing the site I discovered 5 varieties that I will have to replace, I thought that Big Beef was the only one that we had left, I was wrong.

I found some of the other companies owned by ASI (American Seeds Inc.) at their site. They list Jung Seed Genetics (corn and bean company clearly labeled as a Monsanto owned business) but I could not find a connection between them and J.W. Jung Seed Company (garden seeds), though I know they sell Seminis seed like many other catalogs.

Still straining to make out data on the chart, I just do better with visual aids, as long as I can read them:)

seriously, thanks for posting it Geoff

Erika

[dominiquer60]

Geoff,
This is such a tease, I can’t make out hardly any of the smaller company names. The only one that I am somewhat sure of is that Jung is owned by ASI which is owned by Monsanto. After hearing rumors that Monsanto owned Jung, I specifically asked them if this was true, the woman taking my order said that they were not and that they are privately owned. She failed to mention that the private part was owned by the big M 🙁

I have 2 open pollinated corn varieties that I like from Shumway which is owned by Jung, at least I can save them. I need to see who else to boycott next year when I spend my hard earned money on seed.

I even downloaded the pdf to see if I could make out any of the other names but no such luck, any suggestions on how to get the small company names.

Erika

[dominiquer60]

Thanks Tim,
They do respect me with their horns, even when they are out with Dick and Jane rough housing, if they point a horn as i approach they quickly get the finger and a stern “Hey,” and I am quickly taken out of the cross hairs. I am not ready to tap my soon to be father in law on the nose yet, maybe after the wedding if he persists 🙂

Erika

[dominiquer60]

I would like to train my shorthorns horns to turn slightly down and inward. My family is not keen on horns at all and I would like to do a little training so that the tips are less of a nuisance, both to humans and getting their heads in or out the stanchions and feeders. After reading this post again, I know that I have to scrape on the opposite side that I want it to turn. My question is how much should I scape way?

Also as far as training them to be respectful of humans with their horns, my theory has been to only touch the horns when necessary and to do so in a respectful and non-harassing/teasing manner.

One person here likes to grab a horn and rough it up a little as if the calf was the dog and the person wants to rough house a little. I have asked nicely a couple times to not do this because it promotes unwanted behaviors. Of course since I don’t have nearly the cattle experience that this person has, I get laughed at 🙁
Am I crazy for my “respect” approach, is there something else that I could do better?

Thanks in advance for your help,

Erika

[dominiquer60]

Mike,
I live in Eastern New York. Many local governments have fencing rules, but usually pertaining to places within town/cities. I assume you are asking about livestock fencing though. Other than the hearsay requirement of a 7′ stallion fence I don’t know of any such laws. I would assume as long as the fence is on your land and it works that is what matters most. You could always contact your town or county offices, the NYS Ag and Markets, or Farm Bureau to make sure you are going about fence correctly.

Erika

[dominiquer60]

Geoff,
The ground was not dusty, just the road that we live on:)

I took it as a sign that we had dried up enough for a little harrowing on the gravely south slope. The standing water finally left the flat at the bottom of the valley, but it will be a couple weeks until we get on that for onions.

The little patch that I worked up was nice and mellow, moist but not smearing. I had seeded some late oats last fall, they did not grow much but worked in very easily.

Chomping at the bit to do the rest tomorrow.

Erika

[dominiquer60]

The dirt road that we live on started to get dusty today, I gave in and hitched the older team to the harrow and worked up the garden (80×100). It worked up well and made the fat cattle tired.

I think that I can chain harrow in the morning and find where they hid my Planet Jr, its time to seed the first radishes, turnips, carrot, beets and salad greens. The key is to tuck them in under two layers of row cover after I am done seeding, otherwise it will be May until they germinate.

This is our best drained ground so I will have to be patient for the other pieces, but we always try to get these few things early, it usually always pays off.

Happy tilling,

Erika

[dominiquer60]

Mitch,
The proposed grading system sounds sort of how we roll already, most customers are repeats and if someone wants light they can find someone else to buy from. I just tell them that the light stuff is for candy making and that we like the dark because it has more flavor. Our regular customers are just happy that we have some.

Erika

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