Manure, again....with the promise of compost for next year

Well, I got a lot of work done this morning.  2 hours of schlepping soggy, composting, drippy manure out in the cow pen.  Every time it rains, the mud mixes with cow droppings, gets churned up beyond recognition, and when you shovel it, you lower the level of the cow-yard each time.  With cows, is there ever going to be a day I can call "clean"?  Not a chance.  

Now I understand why some farmers like cement cow-yards.  Cement is sounding like a nice option, not so much for the cows, but for keeping things clean(er)!  

 

With the freezing bouts of below-zero weather this past winter, a good amount of soiled straw bedding made it as far as the wheelbarrow could plow through snowdrifts and was deposited when there was no more room for pushing it farther.  So not very far, and still within the cow-yard.  

With all the rain, the cow pen hasn't had a chance to dry out for more than a day or two at a time. With the busy-ness of spring, a lot of that composting and very saturated bedding is still where it landed in January, or March, needing to be shoveled out for the cows' sake.   

Some spots were needing daily draining after yet another rain, while other spots were ankle-deep for the cows and boot-sucking deep for me.  Not pleasant.  But the draining part reminded me of playing with rain-water by the curb of our neighborhood roads.....forming makeshift dams out of dirt or silt, stepping through them to let the torrent of water through, making boot-tracks in areas of high-silt to let the water flow through.....  If anyone saw me in my cheerfully-colored rain boots these last few weeks, making paths through the manure for water to drain away, they'd think I'd lost it!  I'll admit, it has been a little bit of a challenge, and some days I didn't haul manure like I should have (plus, the ground was too wet for the wheelbarrow) because I'd spent too much time playing civil-engineer and directing water through boot-print after boot-print to reach the drainage area.....

As it has been:  The cows carefully step through the muck, sliding a bit as the mud under the composting manure and straw shifts with their weight.  At least their ankles are protected from fly bites when the mud dries.  

The pigs sneak in whenever I let them out of their own pen, wallowing in the liquid that pools in the low spot of the cow-yard.  Cows confront them, but it takes a lot of trouble on the cows' part to oust the content piggies from the best wallow they'll ever find.  And pigs are then protected from fly bites as well, although you don't want to be very close when they shake themselves off.  :)

 

I was thinking as I hoisted fork-ful after sopping fork-ful:

"Last October, when we had the whole extended family over, someone joked about how we had run out of space for the manure and had to pile it up against the silo".  I had been just a little bit miffed about that comment back then.  Clearly, the person (whoever it was, I don't even remember anymore!) didn't shovel cow manure and didn't know anything about where or how we managed manure, and couldn't possibly understand why I had piled manure against the silo.....(Actually, I piled it there out of desperation last year, because I'd fallen behind and the cow yard was dirty enough that I wanted to clean it up before company arrived.  So they were partly right, after all!)

And I was working up a good gripe again, as I shoveled.  Grumble, grumble, what do they know.....

Until I realized that piling that manure against the silo last year had a few positive features, not evident at first, not until a few months later.  

One:  The first two years we were here, the silo tended to leak from the outside-in, because the floor level is below the drainage level outside.  The inside of the silo would be a pool deep enough for ducks to swim in, as the last of the spring snows melted and the spring rains pelted down on ground that wasn't thawed enough to absorb any of the extra water.  So water worked its way in through the cracks between the silo tiles, pooling in the large circle below the barn's floor-level.  Sometimes it froze, and I thought that must be a bad thing for all those iron hoops that hold the whole structure together.  With manure/dirt/compost piled up outside, there was a natural barrier to the water seepage.

And even better:  Where did I get the best composted stuff for topdressing my raised bed gardens this spring?  The stuff against the silo!  The cement tiles absorb the heat of the sun all winter, making the composting process speed up, and delivering the most wonderful, black, crumbly compost in just a few months' time, between autumn-yard clean-up to spring-garden top-dressing.  True, it wasn't fresh manure when it was deposited in a heap around the bottom of the huge silo, but.....hey, it was great for the gardens when the main compost-pile on the other end of the barnyard was still frozen and unusable.

A little side-note:  The composted manure does deliver quite the solid layer of sprouted clover, which could be seen as a draw-back.  

Except:  I top dressed each of the 4x4 gardens with the silo-compost quite early in the spring, so the clover also sprouted early.  I added barley to sprout along with the clover, and.....by the time I wanted to put in tomatoes and other warmer-weather veggies, the barley-clover blend had grown to over 6 inches tall. This became wonderful green food for the rabbits:  a little pulled each day, each 4x4 garden planted when it was cleared of green food, and weeds kept to a minimum because of the "green manure" (barley and clover) which kept the soil covered and protected from weed seeds.  

So, with a sense of purpose this time, I slung mucky churned-up manure towards the silo with a satisfying "splat", clearing the ankle-deep mire down to the mud (which will now be churned up into more mire, but minus little clots of maggots and rotting straw and stuff).  

The cows were able to slip and slide on pure mud rather than mud that was buried under 4" of winter/spring grossness, and progress was made.

I will be quite sore tomorrow, that's for sure.  But if the heating of the silo tiles works like it did last year, we'll have a nice system in place for early-thawed, well-composted manure next spring.  

(There's probably a better way to deal with things, and a life-long farmer might shake his or her head in disbelief, but for now, it seems to work.  Last year's deposit of muck was unwittingly the trial run for great garden soil this year.  The silo isn't being used for anything else except as a pigeon safe-haven, why not put it to good use helping with the gardening efforts...)

Win-win, all around, drainage and compost and green food early in the spring for the rabbits, and it all started with manure clean-up the first time I piled the stuff against the silo for lack of time to move it anywhere else..... 

Laura

Another vet visit

The lambs at 2 weeks old:  Baby May on the left, baby Patriot on the right

The vet was out, again.  Last Saturday, he came to "dock" the lambs' tails and "band" the ram lamb's unmentionables.....This involved a metal prong-type appliance that stretches thick rubber bands, and applies them to the body part that needs to be removed....such as the long part of a lamb's tail.  After a week or so, the circulation has stopped, and the tail (or other part) falls off.  Uncomfortable for the lambs for maybe the first day, but after that the two of them were out playing and running again.

Until yesterday, when the little ewe wasn't acting normal.

I noticed that the little ewe lamb's tail was gray and stretched out, dragging on the ground, and she was tripping over it and bothered by it.  The ram lamb's tail was still white and intact, not ready to fall off yet, still looking rather normal after 4 days.  Discolored and matted wool on the back of the ewe-lamb's back legs.  White wool on the back of the ram's back legs.  Definitely a different scenario between the two tail dockings.

Today, the ewe lamb was having more discomfort, trying to lick the back of her legs, acting a bit reluctant to be up and on her feet, and twitching at odd moments as if something was poking her unexpectedly.  All down the back of her legs, where the tail swung and made contact, the wool looked wet and dirty, not just discolored.  Her mother would sniff her and walk away, as if the scent of her baby was different, somehow.  

I finally cornered her and sat down to check her skin.  On closer inspection, I saw white wiggly things where the rubber band had not cut off circulation of her tail completely.  No maggots were infesting the healthy skin on the back of her legs, which was a huge relief.  (Hopefully you were not eating when you read that last sentence.)  ;)

I became overly concerned when I read about "flystrike" on the internet, and called the vet to describe what I saw and observed.  He decided to come on out and have a look.

The vet's diagnosis:  The tail must have been stepped on (he had a more humorous thought that involved mischievous pigs pulling on and playing with the tail as they chased the flock of sheep, but....the sheep haven't been in the company of the pigs since before Saturday.)  After it was stepped on, the tissue died and stretched and became infected with maggots.  Left without treatment, it could have been a real health hazard for the little ewe.  Treated, maggots killed, antibiotic given, it will be fine.  I will continue to give her penicillin for 5 days, to make sure that the beginning infection is completely knocked out.  She will continue to be spritzed with fly killing spray, to make sure that any remaining maggots are no longer alive and causing damage to living tissue.

The sheep are bedded down now on fresh straw, rather than the 2 foot-high winter bedding that we are still working to dig out, little by little.  Baby ewe is more comfortable without wriggly things burrowing under the remaining rubber band and towards living tissue.  Mama sheep is happier that her baby smells like her baby again and that the dead tail and it's wriggly population is out of the way.  

The small flock is happy that no people are out there chasing them around any more, as was the case several times today while I or the vet needed to get a closer look.

Poor baby May.  She's had kind of a rough start to her life.  I hope that she's back to her bouncy and adorable self tomorrow.  There will be one traumatic moment when I have to catch her, give her a shot, spritz her with fly-killer.....and then she's free to run and play for another 24 hours.

 

Laura

Pigs and cows, short-lived buddies....

Well, it's time to call the pigs in, with the promise of a nice, full bucket of slop.  

Instead of grazing nicely in the same pasture as the cows, this afternoon both pigs saw the cows, made a bee-line, proceeded to nip at noses and "wuff" and squeal in the cows' faces, and have riled up Bessie and Caspian to the point that matronly Bessie is running.  AT the pigs.  Charging.  Tossing her head and kinking her tail, like when the dogs have goaded her past her patience-level and she intends to run them into the ground.  When mild-mannered Bessie reacts that way, look out!

Any real farmer could probably have told me how cows and pigs combined would react.  I thought it would be nice, convenient, fun to have both types of livestock sharing the same pasture.   'Guess not.  It was worth trying, to have dual-purpose grazing in the afternoons.  I already make sure that the sheep and lambs have munched their fill and are back in the barn before the pigs get let out.  Now it seems that the cows have to be kept separate from the pigs as well.

Wow, I've never seen those pigs high-tail it before.  Cows just gave chase again, and both piggies were running for their lives (although it looked like they might just be enjoying it.)  Pigs ran/scampered in circles around trees and the huge fire pit, while the cows were kicking up clods of grass and dirt as they gave chase.  

Cows have now gone into stampede-mentality, and are dashing all around the pasture with their tails kinked high in the air.  I've hidden behind a tree before when the cows went on a rampage because Rocky (the husky) decided to taunt them.....

Well, anyway, time to put a stop to the fun.  The pigs can graze on their own at another time, since it was their fault that the cows were goaded into action.

But imagine this:  If you're a big, placid cow who is just minding her own business, who is happy to be out grazing after a morning of munching straw, how much would YOU like it if a big black pig got in your face and "wuffed" as he tried to nip you on the nose?  I saw Buddy's teeth at the ready, no joke.  

Bessie and Caspian get first dibs on the grass.  Buddy and Bea have just lost out by being the playground bullies.

And just while I was finishing with this typing, amazingly the pigs have sauntered back to where the cows are/WERE contentedly grazing, looking to rile things up again.  But they've rolled in mud since they left the last time.  Maybe it's all in an effort to see just how quickly the cows can become disgusted and run them off again.

They are happy little pigs, I'll give them that.  And they could stand to lose a few pounds (especially Bea), which all this running would help with.....  I just don't have time to deal with pigs that are going to get themselves trampled as they gleefully antagonize the much larger animals.

I had read somewhere that cows hate pigs.  Maybe it's just these particular cows and these mischievous pigs, but I'm not taking any more chances that they will work things out sensibly.   Slop-bucket at the ready, time to call the little piggies home.

Laura

Pigs Meet Cows (with no fence between)

Photos:  Pigs grazing happily.  Cows watching warily.  Pigs sauntering into the cows' personal space.  Cows taking offense at the intrusion.  Cows trying to make sure that they've established that defiance will not be tolerated.....

Sauntering along, Buddy and Bea were enjoying the fresh grass.  Not being too picky, they devoured clumps of long grass and clover that the cows and sheep had turned their noses at earlier. They were new to the pasture, and loving the freedom and the ability to s-a-m-p-l-e as they leisurely sauntered along.  Every mouthful evoked a blissful grunt or some other noise of pleasure, as they continued their dinner conversation.

 

Bessie and her calf Caspian were peacefully grazing at the other end of the pasture.  They had curiously sniffed noses with the hogs over the fence panel, but never seen them out in "their" pasture.  

Bessie and Caspian were accustomed to having the pasture all to themselves, or else Caspian would playfully charge at whatever was flocking in their grazing space (ducks, sheep, geese....)  So I was watching to see what would happen as pigs and cows spotted each other.  Could I have stopped any disastrous results as they unfolded?  No way, not with a 1000 pound cow and her 500 pound calf, if they clashed with a 130 pound hog and his 70 pound side-kick!

Buddy and Bea moseyed along, unperturbed, delightedly munching whatever they discovered and making happy exclaiming noises back and forth.  (This is delicious!  Did you try THIS?  Wow, this clover is fabulous with a mouthful of freshly harvested grass!  Would you look at this warm fragrant pie?  There are seeds left in it!  Bonus!  Try some with a smidge of this rich black dirt.....)

Bessie and Caspian swung their large heads up, gazed on these strange creatures in the pasture that had always been for COWS (and sheep), and snorted.  Those pigs were not where they belonged!  Caspian tossed his head.  They moved slightly closer to each other and swiveled their ears towards the intruders.

Buddy sauntered over, unflappable as ever.  Bessie put her head down and moved menacingly towards him.  He let out a dramatic "SQUEAL!" and scampered away, soon returning to his unhurried moseying.  

Bea kept grazing, seemingly unconcerned, as she moved herself almost imperceptibly closer and closer to the large motionless cows.  

As she got close enough to nose them, Caspian made a move towards her and Buddy quickly galloped over to protect his little companion.  With the high-maintenance piggie Bea safely behind the burly foot-ball player Buddy, cows and pigs faced off.  

WUFF!  (Buddy)  SQUEAL!  (Bea, in her whiny princess voice)  MOO!  (Bessie, in a warning fog-horn-style, motherly bellow)  Pigs go scampering like puppies, cows put their heads down, and yes, there is going to be the showdown I was watching for.

You'd think that the pigs would stay away from such large creatures, but they were unperturbed.  For over half an hour, pigs and cows would cycle back into each-other's area, the power-play continuing as Caspian tried his scatter-the-flock approach, Bessie tried her head-down-no-nonsense-charge, Buddy continued to Wuff and Squeal as he faced off and then scampered away, and Bea continued to trot along as if she was going to graze where she WANTED to graze, whether the cows tried to run her off or not.  (Really, Bea knew that Buddy would run interference for her at any cost, and she was going to put that protection to good use!)

They eventually stopped the drama and everyone decided to graze peacefully, if not slightly warily.  In the days since, Buddy and Bea seem to follow the cows, to the consternation of cows who just want to graze without any constantly-commenting company.  

Pigs wander around, continuing to sample or just plopping down in the middle of tall grass to munch and enjoy the day, making their little pig-noises in appreciation of whatever they are experiencing.  

Cows (much more quietly) seek out clover and succulent grasses, AWAY from the intruders, but no longer seek out a confrontation.  There is enough grass and shade for all 4 of them, apparently, so all is well.

 

The only remaining power play?  Pigs gleefully scampering into the flock of 5 sheep, seeming to plot and plan for the most dramatic scattering of the flock every time.  Lambs high-tailing it until they have lost track of their mothers, mamas bleating loudly for their missing offspring, sheep panting in the shade after another run-in with the mischievous black piggies.  No photos of that, just yet, but for the sheep's sake, I've started letting the pigs out only when the sheep have grazed their fill and are resting back inside the barn!  

Always an adventure!  :)

 

Laura
http://dykstrasfarm.blogspot.com/

Two Pigs on a Hot Day

That's Buddy.  Yes, he's standing in their now-filthy drinking water.

Bea wishes she was bigger so she could crowd in there with him!

(They are guinea hogs.  Buddy is one year old and probably 130 pounds, and Bea is 7 months, about half his size.) 

And no, they aren't confined in the muddy ex-cow shelter all the time.  Lately they've been out grazing with the cows and sheep, which presents several potentially funny scenarios...... But--short and sweet for today.  The grazing story is for another time.  

I thought you'd like the image of a 130 pound pig chilling out in his drinking trough.  :)  

 

Laura

A Special Edition.... by Jeremy

Photos:  Barn kitten in the grain-room window, and the two new kitties when we first brought them home, back in May.

From Jeremy:

"I was in the barn, talking to my mom and we were just talking, and we see something fall from the ceiling and at first, we thought it was a piece of insulation, then I go over to look after i see that it is moving. Then i see white and eyes. I see what it is and it's a kitten! Then we brought it back upstairs while it was mrowing and trying to escape."

The background (from your usual ho-hum blogger):

Two new barn kittens were brought home in early May.  Orange tabby, of course!  Rather than keeping them in a dog crate for a few months for their own safety, we set them up on the second floor, in the old grain room.  In the photo, you can see one looking longingly out of the grain room window. 

Lately, they have had the run of the 2nd floor hay loft, and we hear them overhead, thumping, playing, skidding on the floor.  Very active.  Always busy.  Hiding, scooting, ambushing each other, but still friendly if we come upstairs to sit with them.

There are a few holes cut into the flooring of the 2nd floor, which we know to look out for.  Nothing has ever used those holes to get from one floor to another, to my knowledge.  

Today, Jeremy and I were having a normal conversation on the first floor of the barn (punctuated by honking geese, squealing piglets, and splashing ducklings), when something white/orange literally fell from the ceiling behind us.  We both burst out laughing, because, caught in a ring of loosely coiled fencing, was one of the 2nd floor kittens.  He must have leaned too far over in his curiousity, and lost his balance.  One cat-life, lost in an instant (assuming you believe the "cats have 9 lives" idea).

Jeremy rescued it and brought it back upstairs to relative safety (it was a good thing it happened while we were there, or it could have been disastrous as the kitten fought to free itself and ended up tangled worse than ever!)  

And that's the reason we both started the morning with a good uncontrollable laugh.

Laura

Mama duck achieves sainthood

That's stretching it a bit.....

But she WILL receive a free-pass of sorts:  a bright red plastic cable-tie (loosely attached) around her ankle, to let me know what a good mother she is and that she gets to live out her life here without taking the dreaded trip to the butcher.  It's a badge of honor, to commemorate the selfless sacrifice of not just a good mother, but a GREAT mother.

This will distinguish her from a few of the other female ducks, who sit steadfastly on their little nests of eggs, only to abandon those babies when they start to hatch.  Last year, that happened twice.  Flighty mother ducks who only want to be back with their friends, after 28 days of sitting on eggs.  Baby ducks out on their own, toddling after any black shape that wanders near, desperate to bond with their absent mother.  Baby ducks huddled in the middle of the barn floor for warmth at night, disappearing one by one.  Some were killed by rats, I'm sure of that.  Some just died because no-one was looking after them.  Last year, that was the sad scenario.  

The lure of fresh grass and clover was more intoxicating than the drudgery of keeping the babies warm, at least for SOME irresponsible duck mothers last summer!  The blame doesn't all go to the mothers, though.  The drakes (male ducks) are quite eager to reclaim their harem when the nesting hormones are no longer raging, and didn't care much for babies keeping those mothers at home....  

I didn't mark the ducks with their lovely ankle bling last year, so I don't know which females were bad mothers, as opposed to this super-mama.

She hatched out 9 babies of her own, just last week.  I had put fencing up around her corner, where the nest was, to keep the barn cats away from her and to remind her that the babies needed to be with their mother.  Just in case she was one of the adolescent moms from last year who saw more value in being part of the harem instead of staying home with her babies.  And yes, before the fencing went up, the males were hanging around, trying to convince her "Come on baby, it's party time with the flock.  Those eggs will be just fine without you!"  The pressure was on, until a barrier convinced them to only check in with her occasionally and not try to lure her away from her snug little nest.

So, 9 peeping little black fuzzballs hatched from 12 eggs.  I heard the babies long before she let anyone see them.  Soon it looked as if she was lounging on a fuzzy black pillow--those little ducklings peered out with curious black eyes from under the safety of their fierce mother.

Happening in the house, at the same time:

For the very reason of mothers abandoning their nests of eggs, I had 16 eggs in the incubator.  Another mother had filled a nest with eggs, then abandoned them after starting the brooding process.  So there were little embryos of life in those eggs, and no mother sitting on the nest.  I have a hard time just letting them die, even though the life inside is not visible.  I had taken them inside and put them in the incubator, just 27 days before the barn mama's babies were hatching.

This batch had an amazing hatch rate:  All 16 eggs hatched, over a 4 day period.   Barn mama hatched her eggs on Thursday, incubator eggs started hatching on Friday.  Babies were within a few days of each other, age-wise.

 

The upstairs of our house has housed ducklings, turkeys, and chicks already this spring.  It smells like poultry and there is a layer of dust on everything.  

I looked at those 16 ducklings in the big plastic bin, with soggy bedding after just 2 days (ducklings slosh water everywhere--very messy!), and had the brilliant thought of putting them in with the other ducklings and their mother.  

I didn't expect the mother to like it, and really thought that there would be two groups of ducklings--the thriving group with a protective mother, and the cold, huddled group off by themselves.  I expected that the barn cats would get a few of them, and some wouldn't be hardy enough without a heat lamp.  There would be casualties, and the first to die would be the ones without a mother to call their own.

Here's what really happened:

I carefully tipped the plastic bin on it's side, inside the fenced duck area.  A few cautious ducklings toddled out.  The mother duck's babies dashed over to check out the newcomers.  The remaining ducklings in the bin saw the happy commotion and overcame their fear.  Together, the twenty-five new friends toddled as fast as their little webby feet could take them to the wading pool (a large plastic plant tray) and jumped in, splashing around and happily getting acquainted.  

Mama duck was so taken by surprise that she couldn't believe her eyes.  She quacked to her own babies, who ignored her completely in the sheer joy of meeting other kids who looked just like they did.  She stood by and watched as her own brood mingled with mirror-images of themselves, until the tiny flock of 9 were so mixed in with the newcomers of 16 that it was one large mass of fuzzy black cuteness.  You could almost imagine her raising her black-feathered wing up to cover her face, and peering out in dismay through wing-tip feathers at the insurmountable task that had just been plopped into her domain.

When they were soaked and exhausted, the cheerful foster-siblings clustered together, settled in for a nice nap, and mama duck had no choice but to position herself over the much larger flock of babies.  

Since then, the ducklings go everywhere together.  The wading pool.  The safe spot against the wall.  The safety of the mama's shadow when they're tired.  The warm shaft of sunlight streaming in through the dirty window became their personal tanning bed.  As fast as their little legs will carry them, they stream in whatever direction the whole group decides to go, like little wind-up toys.  They preen and fluff their wet duckling fluff as they lounge in the safety of their "mother's" watchful gaze.

When the other 5 farm-ducks come inside after a long day of munching lush grass and playing in the mucky cow-pen, they waddle past the fenced-in area as if to commiserate with the overworked mother, and she looks longingly at them but goes back to fussing over "her" babies.  Male ducks quack to her and get quite boisterous in their demands to come back and join the party, but she's safely contained inside her maternity ward with 25 little fuzzballs.

Mother and ducklings will remain in the relative safety of their little fenced corner until the ducklings are just a bit bigger.  The three barn cats from last year are just a bit too eager to sample "duckling" (as opposed to mouse, baby pigeon, vole, shrew, chipmunk.....), and the mother couldn't have protected NINE babies from them, much less the additional 16.  

This duck has earned her keep.  Her babies will be her size in less than 6 months.  She will be indistinguishable from the female babies and the other ducks, except for that special, hard-earned band of red plastic around her ankle, reminding me of her successful mothering and fostering, and earning her a place of honor on the farm.

Another duck mama is now sitting and hissing on a nest of about 15 eggs.  I don't need more ducklings.  But I will fence her in, give her the chance, and see what happens.  She too might earn a lovely red band, to grant her the privilege of another season on the farm.  Lucky for her, there are currently no hatching eggs in the incubator!

 

Laura