Gravels

Gravels are great for your driveway. They are terrible, however, if you ever find one in your shoe. Our cow, 460, came in the barn this morning limping on one of her back hooves. We kept her from going out in the pasture and instead put her in a stable so she would not have to walk too far for feed or water or a place to lie down.

We later walked her into a catch chute to keep her from moving so we could try to find out what was bothering her. Then we used a rope to gently lift up her back leg so we could inspect her hoof. At first we thought the hoof only needed a bit of trimming. One side was higher than the other and that would definitely not be comfortable to walk on. We then checked in the middle of the hoof and found the culprit: one small gravel.

We'll let 460 take it easy for a while so her hoof can recover faster, but she is already putting more weight on it than before. It is much easier to walk without a gravel in your shoe or hoof.

Wordless Wed: Sun Over Ryegrass

Ag Proud

In order to celebrate National Ag Day all month long, Ryan Goodman asked people from every spectrum of agriculture, extending from producers to consumers, to write why they are Ag Proud. Yesterday my post was featured on his Agriculture Proud blog.

Be sure to read some of the other entries on his blog for a very informative look at the agriculture industry and the nice folks behind it.

Round Up Ready Calves

It wasn't for a good reason that our neighbor called a week or so a go at lunch. But maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. The story really starts just before breakfast. We had headed out to go feed the heifers out in their different fields. One group was not there when we arrived and didn't come after we called for a while. While hoping for the best we headed on back home.

The phone call was to tell us that the heifers were now in a field right next to his farm and he'd be happy to help us get them. As soon as we were in sight of them our "girls" started mooing, thankful to see their friends. They followed us straight to his corral where we loaded them up and took them to the barn until we could find and fix the hole in the fence of their field. Thanks to our neighbor's help, these were truly round up ready calves.

Where did they get out? Storms blew down a tall tree in a corner of the fence. The tree fell at an angle and managed to take down both sides!

Left Side

Right Side

Cows Beneath The Clouds--Wordless Wednesday

Hanging Out With YC's

It is nice to get away from the farm once and a while, and even nicer to hang out with fun people. The last two days I attended the Dairy Farmers of America's Southeast Area Young Cooperator Steering Committee Meeting in Knoxville. While planning for our summer event it was fun to interact with other young dairy producers and share our victories and losses, our goals and dreams, and tales of working with family.

On the second day we had the opportunity to tour the new University of Tennessee dairy facility. It is a researched based farm meaning while there is a regular herd being milked, there are also groups of cows going through different studies. One of the main research goals of the farm is to determine the environmental impact it has on the area. Mr. Charlie Young gave us a great tour and overview of how the operation was working and how he hoped the knowledge gained there would be for the benefit of other producers.