The cows and bull may be gone, but they’ve made way for this big group of feeder calves.
Twenty eight new calves.
That makes a total of 33 calves for the upcoming market year.
They’re all penned up in the barnyard for a few days while they acclimate to their new surroundings and get used to electric fencing.
Andrew, as fellow farmer market providers and travelling down a similar road, albeit from southern Australia, I would like to see your barn set up for winter as despite being in a warmer region we do get two months or so of pretty cold weather. We raise pigs and beef cattle but I feel they must shiver half their weight gains off during the winter time and have been thinking that we should look at barn assisting our stock during the cold times. Any photos and hints much appreciated.
We give our cattle access to an area that they can get out of the snow or rain. The pigs get a dry place to sleep with about 12″ of straw for bedding. Last winter was pretty hard on the cattle, with most of them losing a bit of body condition, but then again it was below 0°F (-17°C) for nearly two months with a few days at -20°F (-29°C). The pigs pulled through last winter just fine. I suspect that giving them a dry place to sleep might be your biggest challenge. We’re lucky enough (usually) to have the ground freeze solid, which helps a lot in keeping things dry. Livestock are a lot tougher than most people give them credit for. If they’re healthy and dry (or can get somewhere dry) they can get through some downright awful weather.