Good morning!
We hope everyone has had a great week! Weather wise, it certainly has been mixed!
On the farm it was an unusual week. Over the last couple of days it has felt like spring is solidly in the air. The days before we have had rain that we haven’t experienced in all the 20+ years on the farm. One night we had a huge electrical storm. The nice part is that the farm drains well (thank goodness).
Fencing: This is now complete, but today they will replace the wire fencing around our house, which is looking sad! We are now also working to get all our electric power back onto the fences. This is almost complete and the voltage is really high, which is great. I guess this is to be expected, with new “clean” fencing. It will be so nice to have all the electric tapes out, and know the cows won’t even think about breaking through them.
Willow trees: All the tree bays are now complete, and we have 15 odd Weeping willow trees ready to plant in these bays. They are still at the nursery, and once I have completed my other jobs, I will pick them up, and start planting. I really can’t wait to get it completed.
Keryn Returns from Wellington on Thursday: It has been lonely up here with just my little kitties looking after me. Keryn has been really busy looking after the grandkids, so is probably looking to return for a rest (lol). My son and daughter-in-law have had the most unforgettable South American trip so it was worth making the sacrifices.
Feeding out: It has been such a pain not being able to properly feed out our newly purchased silage bales (with our bale feeder). Once the bale is open, it just collapses into a pile. Baleage needs to be spread out, so all the cattle can eat it – including the little ones. Whilst the quality is excellent, I am now having to open each bale, and hand load the baleage on my farm trailer to feed out (600kg on and then 600kgs off). It takes me two hours to feed out one bale. Lol – I don’t need to go to the gym! C’mon Spring! The one advantage is that I can create a really long, thin row of silage, so that none is wasted, and all animals can eat to their heart’s content.
A continuation of my “Epiphany”: For those who read last week’s blog, I have had huge feelings of regret for sending off one of my older commercial cows. She had lost her pregnancy, and it seemed the right thing to do at the time.
What has become very clear to me is that I am really happy with the breeding stock I have, and in the last few years I have left on the farm, I do now want to replace them. They are all special, and I can’t see any point wanting to breed “replacements”. There might be the odd one (who is not super docile – most are really good). The other point is that our commercial (unregistered cows) are as good or better than our registered stock.
So I am tempted to de-register most of my herd. It costs us a registration fee each year for each cow. As I am not trying to breed and register replacements, there is not a lot of point to keep most of them registered.
I will probably compromise, and maybe keep registered just a handful of our very special girls.
And one last point: I am still very keen to breed a “super bull” with the very highest marbling genetics possible. This guy, if I get to breed him, will be registered.
Spotlight on: Today I would like to spotlight a new girl, born on the farm this week.
This girl is ” Xena” (this year is the letter “X” for registered cattle). Xena is the daughter of one of our big buxom cows, Libby. Her dad is our special guy, Tristan. We have a first calving heifer (Vienna) with the identical breeding (Tristan-Libby”). Vienna is genuinely one of the very special girls, with the most amazing docility. She loves coming to see me every day. If Xena can be anything like Vienna, I would be so happy!
That’s all this week.
We hope you all have a great week, and can’t wait to post next week’s blog!
As always – we love feedback. We would love to hear from you!
Regards,
Colin