As Promised

As promised, pictures of the new calves. My farm scheme for this summer is to attempt raising calves (2 at a time) on goats milk with the hopes of selling the extras when weaned and to come ahead in the farm checkbook. Cole and I have already weaned 4 calves, so it was time to start on a new batch. Three of those calves will stay on the farm until next fall when they are butcher size, which means that we are technically in the money now (less, of course, the new grain grinding bill and the hay that needs to be bought soon and the continuous barn remodeling expenses and the high chance that one of the little buggers may not survive until they are weaned.... maybe next year we'll come ahead....) But, at least like Bert says, I'm in the pool swimming rather than just talking about it.

There is a big Holstein dairy farm a few miles up the road that we have been buying our calves from the last few years. Grace, Cole and I loaded up the dog crates in the van and went to pick out the cutest of the bunch. Rob likes to look for dried umbilical cords, shiny coats, and no scours~ me, I go for the spots.

Once we got them unloaded and situated into their stall in the barn it was time to teach them how to drink that good goats milk from a bottle. Six to eight weeks to go of twice a day feedings, then they will get sent outside to the big boy's pen for a week or so until they {Lord willing} get sold.

The big boys are doing great! We had the ceremonial banding bash the other night. The bull calves are technically now on their way to being steers. Rather than like years past of Rob playing cowboy and trying to lasso them in the big pasture, the unsuspecting little critters walked right up to us in their little corral thinking we were going to give them their supper. "This will just pinch for a minute boys...." Oh the joys of farm life!

The big, Big boys are happily grazing in the green pastures. We have yet to get the back pasture fences going. It has been a great weather year, with plenty of rain and sunshine, which makes for lush pastures, which equals lots of yummy T-bones in my freezer.