Baby piglets & Meat chickens

You may have already seen the picture on our Facebook page, but we had our first ever litter of piglets.



They are growing like weeds and super cute! One is already pre-sold. Our next gilt is due in July.

Nathaniel and I have decided to add broiler chickens here as well. We are trying to diversify enough to farm full time, without getting to big to handle it all. We have decided to raise 200 broilers this summer in the milk cow pasture. Raising them in the pasture will help with bug control, fertilize the pasture, and give the birds a much more natural diet and life. Please email us and reserve your birds today - flowerfieldfarms@gmail.com

2011 Baby Calves

We are right in the middle of our calving for the year. So far our dairy x beef cow Magnus had a little bull calf in February. We were getting enough milk for the house here for the first few weeks. Delaney's heifer had a baby that she didn't mother, so we put the baby on Magnus. She is now officially a nurse cow, because if I am going to spend 15 minutes doing the milking routine, I want enough to make it worth my time! She does have some very good attributes. She has and excellent temperament - the best on the place, and very good maternal instincts. Magnus will be AI'd to a Normande bull called Uvray:



This should produce a heifer that can join the milk crew.

Daisy is due any day now - from her ultrasound this winter we had set a due date for the middle of April, but she was with the beef bull this year instead of being AI'd , so we really aren't sure when the baby will be here. She is bagging up good, so hopefully any day now! We plan to AI her to a jersey bull for a purebred jersey heifer.

Polly is next to calve - she was AI'd by her former owners and has a due date of May 27th. She is currently bred to a guernsey bull, which will make the calf 1/4 brown swiss, and 3/4 guernsey. Hoping for a heifer!! Debating between using guernsey bull again or trying normande this time.

Anna will calve last - she was AI'd to a brown swiss and is due June 21st. The calf will  be pure bred brown swiss, so a heifer would be great here too! She will be AI'd brown swiss again.

We hope to move up the calving of the entire herd so that it only lasts 60 days from Feb 15th to April 15th. This may take 1-2 two years depending on how quickly each cow becomes pregmant after calving.

 Earlier this week I found a some normande x jersey crossbred bottle heifers for sale in Colorado, and since we were going down anyways, I couldn't help but bring two home. They were brought in from a grass fed dairy in Wisconsin, normande first calf heifers bred to jersey bull for calving ease. They have already starting their halter training, and will also be trained as oxen. They will truly be triple purpose, meat, milk, and work. I plan to use them in the garden for tilling as well as help harvesting. They will be used when we are able to do milking demonstrations or exhibits, and my pull a cart in a parade one day!



Roana


Belle

Roana will be the neigh ox, while Belle will be the off ox. They are an awesome addition to the dairy herd!

As far as beef calves go, we had 2 cows and 6 first calf heifers to calve this year. So far we have 3 heifer and one bull calf on the ground. 2 of our favorites had heifers and they will definately be kept. We also have 4 yearling heifer we saved from last year that we will be adding to the herd... (wait, our limit is supposed to be 10 hd - we need to lease some pasture!!!)

Finally an Update =)

I didn't realize it had been so long since my last post! It has been hectic here lately and the time just flew. Nathaniel has been gone for the last 3 days in Chadron taking a Select Reproductive Solutions class which means by the time he gets home he will be certified to AI cattle. I'm not so sure that the cows care if he is certified or not, but it would have cost about the same to pay our vet to AI the four milk cows as it cost for the class. This will allow us to breed all of our cows to some of the country's top bulls at a lower cost than actually owning 1 bull.
Delaney has had a busy week as well. While Nathaniel was gone, she had Kindergarten Roundup on Thursday, where she learned all about the school, the busses, and the lunch room.Yep, we even got to eat at the school =) Aren't you sad you missed it honey? Our first beef heifer of the year also calved this week, and it happened to be Delaney's black girl with a white line down her back - happily named Stunky. While feeding we noticed that Stunky looked much thinner than she had a few hours before, and was already cleaning - but no calf to be found. The only calf we could find was with an old cow that had no milk, but tried to eat Nathaniel's lunch when he grabbed hold of the calf. After watching this pair the better part of the afternoon, we decided that cow had not calved, but infact stolen the calf from the heifer. We now have little Buttercup here at the house, and Nathaniels black milk cow Magnus has adopted her quite well for a first calf heifer. I am not getting as much milk for the house now, but when I look out the window, she has a black calf on either side of her nursing away.
Our larger hereford gilt definately looks bred, and we turned the two younger gilts in with the boar this week. We now have 7 beef cows left to calve, 2 dairy heifers and 1 cow. We have 4 replacement heifers we saved from last year that will be first in line for Nathaniel to AI. Sheep are due in April too. I am excited for more babies!

Going for Organic!

Just wanted to let everyone know that we got our first load of certified organic alfalfa hay in today, and we are filling our our Organic producer application as we speak. We will have a transitional period of 1 year before our milk can be certified organic, while the cows have to eat all organic feed and obtain at least 30% of their diet from grazing. The best thing is we really don't have to change a thing, other than we cannot buy any new heifers that do not come from a certified organic farm. That is okay too, beacuse we have contacted the folks at http://www.clovercove.com/ and will purchase heifers from them if need be.

Here are a few pictures of the new heifers:


Anna - Brown Swiss


Polly - Brown Swiss/Guernsey


Agnus - Guernsey/Black Angus

2/24 Had a second to add some info I missed last night: We will also be certifying mom's 40 acres organic, and we will graze the replacment heifers and sheep up there. This also means that all of our fruit, veggatables, and eggs will be organic too! We will update more as we get further into the process.

Strawberries

In the summer when there is an abundance of cream and eggs we love to make strawberry shortcake from scratch around here.With all of the interest in cream and eggs being picked up at the farm, I thought what perrennial plant would compliment them better than strawberries! Last year we put in about 50 plants, and enjoyed quite a few berries the first year. They bloom early and often, which is great for the honey bees too! I have ordered 500 + plants to put in this year, so we can look forward to some this year and many more in the years to come!

Here is a recipe for Angel Food Cake from my mother in law LaDona McGowan:

12 egg whites
1 1/4 cups sifted cake flour
1 3/4 cups sifted sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoon cram of tartar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract

Let egg whites warm for one hour. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Sift flour with 3/4 sugar, resift 3 times.
Beat egg whites with salt and cream of tartar unitl soft peaks form.
Gradually beat in sugar.
Gently fold in extracts. Sift flour mixture over egg whites, gently fold in.
Push into ungreased angel food pan, cut through with knife twice.
Bake on lower rack 35-40 min.

Serve with fresh whipped cream and sliced strawberries.

More on the Dairy

The dairy cows truly are my favorite part of the farm, and milking is my favorite chore to do each day. We have had dairy cows on and off since 2004 when we first got married. Nathaniel's family has kept a dairy cow much of his life, and his dad has as well. Homemade ice cream is a birthday favorite around here.
The milk cow provides so much for the homestead - milk, cream, butter, sour cream, ice cream, and a variety of cheeses. Milk can be used to make a chemical free milk paint, rear ophan animals(we raised an injured piglet last month on frozen milk from our jersey, Daisy) and is a great fertilizer for the garden. Pigs thrive on milk and whey soaked grains, which makes their meat very juicy! In order to have fresh milk every spring, she provides us with a calf each year. A heifer that can grow up and remain in the dairy herd, or a bull calf to fill the freezer, or train as an ox. And then there is all of the manure to fertilizer the pastures and the gardens. What could be more versatile? Wait until you come out to get your milk and Daisy tries to slurp you with one of her wet kisses!
We are going to try to breed our cows to that they are more like the cow of olde - ones that provide alot of butterfat, and a calf that marbles like an angus! How are we going to do this? Enter the Normande.
The Normande is a breed imported from France that is better suited to grass based production, and has high butter fat. We have ordered Normande semen from http://www.normandegenetics.com/ to crossbreed some of our cows with.
We have also decided on two new heifers, one purebred brown swiss, and a brown swiss/guernsey cross. They both first calve heifers, one due in May and the other in June. The brown swiss/guernsey crossbred will be AI'd with our Normande semen, as will a shorthorn heifer we have named Spotty. Daisy will be bred to a purebred jersey, and the brown swiss heifer will be bred to a brown swiss bull, so that we can test the two crossbred calves against the pure american dairy breeds, and see where to go next in our breeding program. We have decided not to use any holstein in our program, as they are too closely bred and have too many health issues to work in a grass based dairy. Brown swiss are second to holsteins in production levels, but are a much hardier animal, often times living and producing into their teens.
My camera is broken, but I plan to get a new one this week and add lots of photos to the blog and our facebook page - I know that text without photos isn't much fun! I also wanted to throw out there - If there is anyone who needs/wants raw GOAT milk, let me know. We milked nubian does when our oldest son Eddie was smaller and couldn't digest the cows milk. We would be happy to add back a few goats to meet the needs of our customers! Please e-mail us at flowerfieldfarms@gmail.com with any questions.

Farm Club

I have recieved alot of interest from around the panhandle for fresh raw milk - very exciting! So far I have received inquiries or purchases from these areas:

1) Scottsbluff
2) Mitchell
3) Alliance
4) Lodgepole
5) Pine Bluffs, WY
6) Lusk, WY

In trying to make it easier for people to purchase raw milk at the farm, which is required by NE state law, I have decided to try and organize my own version of Sam's Club - called Farm Club. Whenever we have a relative that goes to Sam's Club, we send a list so we don't have to make the same trip that they already did.

That is the plan here. After people sign up for a cow share, or let me know they are interested in purchasing milk, we will try to organize people into groups that can take turns driving out for the raw milk. If you are interested in purchasing other products that week such as eggs or pork, you can email me and we will send those back along with your weekly milk.

So if anyone has been hesitant to contact us do to location, please keep this in mind. We will add other areas to the list as we hear from people.

2/10 Update: Added Lusk, WY to locations.