On the Farm

Every night while it’s cold, Hubby needs to make sure the tractor that he uses at the farm for feeding is plugged in.  Over the weekend we were going out but did a quick swing into the farm to make sure he had remembered to plug it in.

For those of you who are farm or mechanical savvy, there is a heater on the tractor motor that is ran via electricity.  In the really cold, the motor won’t start unless the tractor is warm.  To warm the motor, the tractor has to be plugged in.  Recently we’ve had a warmer stretch of weather but it’s still below freezing every night.

If the tractor doesn’t start, he can’t feed the cattle.

Anyway, we stopped by to make sure it was plugged in.  While there I snapped a few photos and asked a few questions thinking I’d write a blog post about the farm.

Typically when I write about the bunker of silage, I write about it in the summer when they are filling it and Hubby is doing this…Packing down the silage during harvest.

I’ve never shown a picture of what the bunker looks like at this time of year.  It’s emptying out.

There is more feed in the silo so there’s no worry that there isn’t enough feed for the cattle, but the bunker is emptying out.

Growing up on the farm, our kids loved an empty bunker.  They would roller skate or play tennis against the high walls.

The cattle are doing pretty good.  The struggle when temperatures fluctuate from going above freezing to below freezing.  They actually do best when temperatures stay in the teens above zero.  This batch will be going to market soon.

This is a pen that’s been at the farm about two months.  I talked with Hubby about rate of gain and what they like to see.  He said that they like to see them gain just over 3 pounds a day or at least 100 pounds a month.  These came in as 300 pound calves and have worked their way up to about 500 pounds.

Cattle are ready for market at about 1300 pounds.  Previously they liked higher weights…they’ve gotten so they like lighter weights now.

The majority of these will eventually end up at the packing house in Green Bay Wisconsin.   That’s about the best place in the area for Holstein cattle for the best prices.

At this time of year, most of Hubby’s time is spent with the cattle.  There is some time working on equipment and getting ready for spring planting but a lot of time is spent scraping manure and cleaning the pens.

I like this time of year…I see Hubby a whole lot more.  I need to treasure this next six weeks because after that…He’ll be back to working lots of overtime again.