Good morning everyone!
We hope you have all had a great week and, fingers crossed, this new week is just as good.
We have had a few days of rain, and that makes us happy. We are so concerned at how bad “Super El Nino” might get. So long as the farm does not get too wet, we want to keep that soil moisture right up!
We have sold some animals
We did sell 15 of our Rising yearling steers and heifers, and also two yearling bulls. This will help us as we worry about Super El Nino. We have a number of cows to go, once their calves are weaned. We are hoping to sell these cows in calf. We will run them with Mt Vernon on 1st October.
This coming breeding season we want to be very disciplined on the number of animals bred. We don’t want t0 have to sell animals off early. We would much prefer we let them grow out their lives in the one place, stress free!
Our Facebook page:
Our Facebook page was “hacked” 9 months ago, and despite repeated requests to Facebook, nothing happened! It has been so frustrating!
Our website is supported by a really smart guy in India. Over the years we have become friends as well. Hi name is Nikhil. A few days ago I complained about the terrible Facebook support. He replied that he would have a look and see if he could help. In 24 hours it was all fixed. Nikhil – you really are a champ!
We will now post some little bits on Facebook most days, if we can!
Foundation animals
Quite a few posts ago, I made mention of one of our “Foundation cows”. I did get an email asking for an explanation of what exactly a foundation cow was?
In essence, it refers to the original animals we started our herd and our business with.
We actually had two goes at it. We originally started with some unregistered Angus cows, that we purchased from Christchurch. We still have one girl from this original purchase. Sylvia is now 19 years old – quite a special age. She is a “retiree” – and she is allowed to stay as long as she in enjoying life. On our second go, using registered animals, we imported embryos from Australia, over two consecutive years. We have two left from these originals. Keryn is still going, and we will breed her again this upcoming season. The other is Jamie, who we retired this year. She can stay on the farm for as long as we are here, and she is still enjoying life. I love her to bits!
I think on one of my posts I listed one of our oldest cows, Libby, as a foundation cow. My mistake – she is a daughter of one of our originals.
Spotlight on:
Today we would like to spotlight two new babies, born in the last couple of days.
The first is Qubee – a bull calf from one of our older cows, Quantum. It is a strange name, but I have a friend called “Cubie”. As the calf needed a Q name, we thought this was a perfect iteration.
We have already tagged Qubee – and he is a wee character. I was a little worried for Quantum. She lost her calf last year, and has grown a little fat. But she calved without any difficulty. Phew…
The second calving was on Saturday night – also to an over fat girl. When we woke up on Sunday morning, we heard a lot of bellowing, and found a heifer calf on the other side of our new 9 wire high fence, all alone. Her mum was with the herd on the other side, and was so upset that she could not reach her baby. How the calf got under the fence I have no idea! They are safely back together. I am really delighted with the calving.
Mum’s name is Unique – and she is one of our very special cows, genetically. This is her first live calf. Last year she had a horrendous calving – we had to perform a c-section to remove the calf (which was dead). With a C Section, often there can be damage to the cow’s internals, and she is not being able to breed again. It did take Unique quite a while to get back in calf, but she did, which was a relief! She actually then got a little overweight, so we were relieved she had no calving issues!
We have named her lovely calf Unity. Welcome to Lake Farm, little girl!
With all the spring “new borns” – we should mention that the swans on the edge of the lake also had some little ones. It was lovely to see them.
That’s all for this week. We love feedback, so would love to hear from you!
Colin and Keryn