Well this has been a great grass growing summer. Not only have we had good yields, the quality has also been very good. Below we are wrapping our third cutting hay. One of the best investments we ever made was getting a tractor with an extra seat (the buddy seat). All the hay we made this year was very good quality and will be a real pleasure to feed to the animals this winter. We will feed third cutting hay to our lambs this fall and winter as we grow them to processing weig

The rain we've received over the past month has really helped the pastures thrive. This is a field we cut for hay in early June. Afterward, we spread fertilizer, and it has regrown beautifully. The field is full of orchardgrass and fescue, which the sheep love. We have a few friendly sheep, like the one pictured below. When we’re out in the field, she’ll often seek us out for some pets. The other sheep are gathered around the mineral feeder. We move this feeder around the far

The last few weeks have been hot and mostly dry. We spread lime and chicken manure on the hay fields last week, and we are grateful for a gentle rain this evening that washed these nutrients off the grass and into the soil. Calving season is winding down, with 33 calves born to date. Moving cows this time of year is a noisy affair. I start by walking through the herd calling them and looking for any new calves. Then the cows start calling for their calves, which might be slee

Our calving season is well underway, with 23 calves born and 13 more expected. Throughout the whole grazing season we check on cows daily when we move them to fresh pasture. During calving season, however, we check the cows twice a day to be sure everyone is doing well and see if anyone is close to calving. Although we think we are the ones checking on the cows, some of them seem to believe that they are checking on us. Our new calves are growing well, and so is the grass. Th

Grazing season and calving season have officially started! May 7 was the due date for calving to begin, but we already have 10 calves on the ground as of today. The grass is growing well despite getting frosted a few weeks ago. We started rotating the cows on May first, which is about normal for us. Here is one our 4-year-old cows with her new calf. Last fall we built a barn over part of the corral. This provides a dry, sheltered maternity area to temporarily house cows and c

Over the past month, fifty-five of our ewes have lambed. There are a few more to go in this first batch, and then there are another fifty-five due at the end of April. Each ewe gets a number painted on her side when she gives birth. We paint the same number on her lambs, so if a lamb has a problem or escapes from its pen, it is easy to identify and reunite with its mother. The sheep and lambs are numbered in order, so the lamb below was from the 34th ewe to lamb this spring.

Our first group of ewes is in the barn and ready for lambing. The earliest due date was March 9. I think one lamb was born that day but it has been a slow start. The ewes are very pregnant so I'm sure a bunch of lambs will arrive while I'm up delivering meat to Rochester. Here is our first pairs of twins. Occasionally we use a heat lamp to warm the newest lambs on cold nights. Most lambs don't need the extra heat but it can help some of the weaker ones, especially when the te

I'm sure everyone is enjoying the warm weather this week. I know I am! The animals are too. There were lots of animals lying in the sun as we went around and fed today. Here I am pulling the twine off a large square bale of hay. They are a bit awkward to unwrap. It has to be done over the top of the feeder because once the twine is off the bale, it falls apart. Most round bales are easy to move with the tractor after unwrapping, but not the square bales. This cow is number 19

Hello and happy New Year! Last week was weaning time on the farm. To wean calves, we run cattle through the corral and sort cows into one paddock and calves into another. The two paddocks are separated by a fence, so the cows and calves are only a few feet away from each other. This fenceline weaning technique is less stressful because the cows and calves can still see and hear each other. For a few days, the cows and calves spend a bunch of time at the fence calling each o

All through the winter, Ted—one of our hay suppliers—delivers a load of baleage bales each week. This baleage is a mix of grass and alfalfa hay, cut in May and early June near Cohocton, NY. It’s the highest-quality baleage that we feed, so we reserve it for our weaned calves and for the steers and heifers we are finishing. Besides bringing a load of great hay, Ted is also very fun to talk with, so I always look forward to his weekly visits. The quality of our grass-fed beef

Every year after we finish cutting hay on our best hay field, we haul in a group of sheep to graze the field in October and November. The pasture on those twenty acres usually grows quite well in the fall and can keep sixty ewes happy and well-fed for sixty to seventy days. While the ewes are grazing the hay field, we introduce a ram to breed the flock for a lambing season that will start in the middle of March. Feeding ewes an extra nutritious diet a few weeks prior to bree

I hope you are all enjoying the warm, dry weather this fall! Unfortunately, it has not been good for grass growth. In fact, we are currently experiencing moderate drought conditions in the northwestern part of Yates County. We generally supplement a bit of dry hay in October to increase fiber in the cow's diet when the grass is very lush. This year, due to the drought, baleage is making up more than half the cow's diet, and will soon be all their feed. When cows are grazing,