Misfitmorgan's Journal - That Summer Dust

[Bruce]

His mother told him about kids starving in other parts of the world.

 

[misfitmorgan]

His mother told him about kids starving in other parts of the world.

Had a nice weekend. Saturday I weeded the garden, put on liquid miracle grow and put up the pea trellis...finding out my pea row is longer then 15ft so ordered two more 15ft nets in case anything else needs it. My snow peas claim no trellis is needed but we shall see and I also am probly going to trellis my cucumbers. We just now got our corn, green beans and pumpkins in so a tad late but should make it.

We are squarely in drought territory, in the past month we have gotten something like 1/2" of rain. Our normal rainfall is approx. 2.5" for the past month. Our garden soil is literally dust, hopefully things turn around in july as july and august are our wettest months with 3-3.5". Atm small square hay is selling for $5-8.50/bale. The grass is not growing and things are all turning brown. It is likely unless something changes we are only getting 1st cut of hay this year. We should have cut 3 weeks ago but we didn't have equipment and if we had done our field would be fried off brown now. Hay is gonna be over ripe but not much we could do about it. If we get really lucky we might get a second cut later in the year.

We bought a rake on thursday for $250, it needs a new hub which is $285 and we decided to buy new ag tires for it as well which were $200. We didn't even get the thing home and had a guy offer us $800 for it....if we didnt need the rake next week we probly would have made the deal. Sunday DH bought a small square baler for $50, stopped at our friends before he even brought it home and our friend offered him $500 on the spot. He was hanging out helping our friend troubleshoot a riding mower and offered us $1200 for the baler and our rake. As tempting as that was again we need them to make hay next week.

We got super deals on them and only got the baler so cheap because the guy originally wanted DH to take it for scrap along with a bunch of other equipment. DH asked if it would just be ok to pay him the scrap price for some stuff...all ag equipment. To be clear this someone we have known for a couple years, not some random guy. So anyhow I spent about an hour on sunday oiling and greasing everything on the baler, we need 4 new grease zerks so DH said just buy a box of multi-sizes to have on hand. Between the tractor and all the equipment we will need them.

The rest of sunday was spent replacing the brake lines in the 1500 truck. DH had to slam on the brakes when an idiot cut in front of us then hit his brakes for a red light. Apparently the sudden braking was to much and one brake line blew, so the rake came home 2hrs without brakes. We just went ahead and replaced all the front brake lines and inputs, the entire kit was $80. Rear lines have not been done yet but they look to be in better shape.

All the livestock are doing good! Today DH is going to pick up 50 or so old hens. By old I mean 2yr old hens, the same deal we do every 2 yrs from our friends egg business, dollar a bird. We have had a broad breasted hen sitting on a nest in the barn. She choose it and the ducks laid eggs in it too. Last night she hatched out a duckling and is super happy about it but still sitting. She also kicked out 8 eggs that were failed eggs, we checked them all.

Our pyncheon bantam hen who is older then dirt at this point is sitting on a nest of over a dozen eggs atm as well. She is literally over 7yrs old and still hatches babies every year then takes excellent care of them. The nest is of course not all her eggs, she has eggs from our buff and our americana under her.

Two of my midget white hens have been sitting in one of our feed barrels for 2 months. We keep checking the eggs but they keep failing so I'm not sure what is going on there. We may end up buying an incubator and just sticking them in there.

The geese ended up hatching out 2 goslings but either refused to leave the nest to feed them or fought over them. Somehow they ended up dead and they are no longer sitting or laying.

The pigs got bred a week ago for first week of October babies/replacements. Should be warm enough to be safe and enough time to grow before the real cold comes. Really they should have been bred earlier but the sows had a very long recovery from their last litters. Perils of breeding past prime and very large sows, take more food and longer to recover.

DH has agreed with our future plans we will not expand the pig operations. We simply do not have enough room. He wants to concentrate on calves/cows, including having some girls to AI. I want to get to around 50 ewes and 20 does. All that is plenty enough for 12 acres, we have no opportunity to expand our property to any connecting parcel. The little 2-3 acre strip I wanted to buy off the neighbor is not going to happen I'm pretty sure. Honestly right this second I dont have the money to buy it and I'm not refinancing to do it. If this wasn't the year of buy everything we have needed for years....I would have the money. Maybe next year but it's not looking likely.

 

[Bruce]

Do those offered deals a few times and you can buy all new equipment!

My snow peas claim no trellis is needed

I have not seen those claims to be founded in reality.

when an idiot cut in front of us then hit his brakes for a red light.

Um, doesn't a red light mean stop?? Why WOULDN'T he stop for a red light?
And presuming there was a yellow light preceding the red, isn't there fair warning that one SHOULD pan to stop?

Our pyncheon bantam hen who is older then dirt at this point is sitting on a nest of over a dozen eggs atm as well. She is literally over 7yrs old

7 is older than dirt? Don't tell Persephone, she's 9. I have 4 six year olds, one of them is raising the 6 chicks I got from Meyer. Zorra used to do that duty but she died last fall at some months over 8 years of age.

 

[misfitmorgan]

Do those offered deals a few times and you can buy all new equipment!


I have not seen those claims to be founded in reality.


Um, doesn't a red light mean stop?? Why WOULDN'T he stop for a red light?
And presuming there was a yellow light preceding the red, isn't there fair warning that one SHOULD pan to stop?


7 is older than dirt? Don't tell Persephone, she's 9. I have 4 six year olds, one of them is raising the 6 chicks I got from Meyer. Zorra used to do that duty but she died last fall at some months over 8 years of age.

Being able to wheel and deal up to new equipment is a nice idea but wouldnt work. Currently the next cheapest rake we can find is $950, cheapest baler is $1,900...literally the same model baler. So even if we took the $1200 offered we couldnt buy a rake and baler to replace them atm, prices are to high atm. We also have a lead on a haybine for $400 from another friend who doesnt wanna do hay anymore. Next best deal for a haybine is 3hrs away and $500, next closest is 20mins away and $1,500.

Yeah I am pretty skeptical about the lack of trellis.

Yes and No, basically it was a 4 lane road(2 each way), the guy was racing from farther back in the other lane to get ahead of us(which we didnt know, we just assumed he was trying to make the yellow in his own lane), then he swooped over into our lane and slammed on his brakes, making DH have to adjust at the last minute for an entire vehicle length in front of us suddenly. The guy was driving a big suv and couldnt even stop in time and ended up over the stopping line. It was just a real idiot thing for them to do and the sudden pressure was to much for the old brake lines. Up side is at least we have the new brake lines and it didnt blow them in a more serious situation.

Yes 7 is old for a barnyard chicken. She doesn't get feed, she doesnt use shelter except to hatch chicks once a year, half of the time we dont even see her for weeks at a time. Last summer we didnt see her for 2 months and figured something finally got her. She isnt living in a coop, barn or fence and being given feed and water. We do see her in the barn rafters if it is really bad in winter but 99% of the time she is just in the wild doing whatever lol. I'm hoping when we get the chicken fence up she will decide to go live with the other chickens but I doubt it. She only likes.....well, tolerates..... two of our other chickens and those are also the free roamers. One buff orf and a white leghorn.

 

[farmerjan]

There was a wild hen at the house that my ex and I bought many years ago. Saw her a few times....and then after my chickens were moved there, and I started rotating letting out different pens... had several purebred show birds so had several roosters and had then penned in separate pens with 2-6 hens... well, one day in DEC, with snow on the ground, along comes the wild hen with a batch of chicks...... REALLY..... well, she obviously got with one or more of the roosters....
So I made sure she got feed everyday there for her and the chicks and after a couple weeks they were hopping pretty good... so I opened the one door, to an empty pen, and she went in and found the feed and called the chicks and they hopped up and she became a "full fledged chicken" in the flock.... She was the BEST for setting on and hatching eggs, and became very content to be inside.... I had her set on many batches of eggs from the show birds. Have no idea how old she was but we had her for at least 5 years and she just died one night.

 

[misfitmorgan]

There was a wild hen at the house that my ex and I bought many years ago. Saw her a few times....and then after my chickens were moved there, and I started rotating letting out different pens... had several purebred show birds so had several roosters and had then penned in separate pens with 2-6 hens... well, one day in DEC, with snow on the ground, along comes the wild hen with a batch of chicks...... REALLY..... well, she obviously got with one or more of the roosters....
So I made sure she got feed everyday there for her and the chicks and after a couple weeks they were hopping pretty good... so I opened the one door, to an empty pen, and she went in and found the feed and called the chicks and they hopped up and she became a "full fledged chicken" in the flock.... She was the BEST for setting on and hatching eggs, and became very content to be inside.... I had her set on many batches of eggs from the show birds. Have no idea how old she was but we had her for at least 5 years and she just died one night.

She started off in the coop years ago when we got here but she decided shortly after that she was not a coop chicken. I don't think the same trick would work for her, she will not follow food and I never see her eatting any food I put out. I can give it a try though. She can fly really high so I dont think she will have a problem going over the fence if she chooses.

The turkey was off the nest last night with her one duckling. She is so happy to have it, she talks to it non-stop and has it separate from the other poultry. I put a waterer and a pile of feed down by her last night and the duckling got its fill as did she, so good sign. I need to make her a pen with chicken wire tonight so nothing attacks the duckling, the geese seemed interested but she did a good job keeping everything away.

After work today DH is picking up an angus heifer calf....for free!! That deal we have with the local guy for calves he doesnt wanna deal with....in action. The calf is 5 days old and he has been bottle feeding it hoping mom would get her life in order but she hasnt. The mom is going to auction and we get the calf. So exciting, he has some very good looking angus but I guess that is what you get when you pay $11,000 for the bull. Assuming all goes well we will be keeping her and getting her AI'ed when she is old enough.

DH and I are both taking monday off to take our 5 lambs to the auction we should make between $1,000-$1750 depending on their weights and whose there buying. Anything over the $500-700 we would make locally we are happy with. We are unsure if we are taking our two older wethers or not, I want to but DH doesnt. He wants them in the freezer, I told him we still dont have room and I'm happy to get an extra $400-700 for those 2 that were our culls last year. I would like to keep our lambs longer and get more weight on them but the 7 lambs and 2 goat kids are currently eating 25lbs of grain a day as of this past week so the expense will quickly outweigh the gain.

Next year the creep feeder will be set up earlier, this year they didnt start on the creep until 8-10 weeks old which is not ideal. Before then they got grain with the ewes of course but thats not the same as 24/7 creep.

The garden looked ok last night but at 6am the temp said 36F....so cold. Between the cold swing the past 2 weeks and lack of rain, it is a trying year for gardens and crops alike.

 

[Baymule]

An Angus heifer calf! How wonderful for you! $11,000 for the Bull? I’m guessing he is registered and of some highly desired bloodline. Could the heifer be registered?

Thats cute about the turkey and the duckling. She’s gonna freak out when the duck takes to water!

How much do lambs go for at auction? I sure would like to get those kind of prices. You will have to give us a detailed report. Oh, a link to the auction report too!

 

[misfitmorgan]

An Angus heifer calf! How wonderful for you! $11,000 for the Bull? I’m guessing he is registered and of some highly desired bloodline. Could the heifer be registered?

Thats cute about the turkey and the duckling. She’s gonna freak out when the duck takes to water!

How much do lambs go for at auction? I sure would like to get those kind of prices. You will have to give us a detailed report. Oh, a link to the auction report too!

Yes the guys entire herd is registered and has been for decades now. The heifer could probly be registered however I think it is asking a bit much to get the heifer calf for free and also ask for papers He normally sells his heifer calves 300-500lbs starting at $650. This calf is already about 100lbs and he has $20 of replacer into her. I dunno I would feel awkward asking for papers for a free calf, registered or non-registered for the market we will be looking at won't make much difference.

I know she is gonna be so confused....like omg my baby is going to drown. The first thing the duck did was stand in the waterer which she seemed fine with. The duckling looks like a mule duck, so we shall see.

The one we are taking them to is this one. The prices keep going up and down but since we are not there to see what exactly they are selling it's hard to know.
http://www.davidclarkauction.com/images/6-7-21 mkt report.pdf
http://www.davidclarkauction.com/images/061421 mkt report.pdf
http://www.davidclarkauction.com/images/6-21-21 mkt report.pdf
The lowest reported price is at or above what we would get locally, so not a horrible gamble. This is the other option we had and where our buck got sold.
http://www.northernmichiganlivestock.com/market-report.html
I think the price is heavily going to depend on weight, they want them 100lbs or real close for the non-ethnic market and 60-70lbs for the ethnic market. They are all 4 months old but not getting them on creep early enough and ewes getting so thin/lower milk production really slowed them down. I'm betting none of them break 70lbs at sale and we are selling in between ethnic holidays. The other option is keep them another month to hit the market for Eid Al-Adha which lambs over 60lbs are preferred for....we would likely get a better price. Problem is that is also another $200 in grain with no sure guarantee on a higher price.

 

[Bruce]

we just assumed he was trying to make the yellow in his own lane), then he swooped over into our lane and slammed on his brakes, making DH have to adjust at the last minute for an entire vehicle length in front of us suddenly.

There are SO many fools out on the road!

 

[Baymule]

I hope y’all get good prices for your lambs. You are right to sell now, no sense in putting more money in them.