Leanne

You may have read about Leanne a while ago, she had a difficult delivery of her first calf and was unable to stand on her own for several weeks. Well, this picture is of Leanne. She is still not the most agile cow in the herd, but I have argued with Ben that she isn't the least agile either.
After weeks of babying her, carrying feed and water to her, lifting her first with hip clamps, then with a full-body sling and later helping to stabilize her hind end while she attempted to get up... we can now say that she is fully mobile all on her own. I saw her run last night, it wasn't a pretty run, but she was gimping along, three legs running and one stiff leg only assisting when it could. Hopefully she will do alright on the treks back and forth to the pasture in a few weeks, right now she doesn't have much traveling she has to do.
The other cows have been picking on her a little, but most get out of her way when they see her in their path. She still wears the scars from the hip lifters and the sling, but I would say it was worth it. All those weeks she never lost the brightness in her eyes or the perky look on her face. Leanne was excited every time we came near and knew that it was time to try and get up. She would 'moo' everytime the other cows went in to be milked because she wanted so badly to go with them. Now she can go, but she isn't getting milked, I think she just likes to feel like a part of the group.
We are thankful to have the bedded pack barn because if she had been immobile for that long on a concrete floor there is no way she would have stayed as healthy and pneumonia most definitely would have set in. Now we can hope she gets bred soon, continues to improve while on pasture and gets her chance to be part of the milking herd next year.

Could be the same title as my last post, but instead let's say call this 'Spring'

So it's snowing again (thus I have time to write). Maybe this snow will damper the smell of chicken manure permeating our farm. We received our 3rd tractor trailer load of chicken manure yesterday, the 4th, and hopefully final, load is on its way tomorrow and phheeewwweeeyyy it smells rotten around here. Probably most visitors thought our farm stunk already, but we never really noticed until this crap arrived.
Being organic means that we can't use synthetic sources of nitrogen to fertilize our fields, but chicken manure is an excellent source of nitrogen. Another local organic farmer found a chicken farm in Lancaster, Pa that is sending a truck to Wagner Lumber in Owego to pick up mulch and therefore doesn't need to charge much to send loads of manure up here.
Thanks to Organic Valley's regional herd health meetings we have also learned more about folliar feeding our pasture and hay fields. You might wonder why we would learn about fertilizers at a herd health meeting, but if you knew Dr. Paul Detloff, the veterinarian presenting at these meetings, you wouldn't be surprised by the topic. Dr. Paul came all of the way from Wisconsin to spend a week traveling New York State to help Organic Valley farmers learn about managing herd health on their own farms. Dr. Paul takes a holistic approach to looking at animal health and considers the health of our soils and quality of our forage as the groundwork for healthy cows. We learned a lot about how to make our own fertilizers using a source of sugar, milk, fish emulsion, apple cider vinegar and various other lesser ingredients to spray on our fields or even our home gardens. Dr. Paul also realizes that most farmers have a hard time finding hours in the day to mix these foliar feeds, so most farmers will purchase them from a local supplier, but he uses a homemade blend for his own business growing herbs for the various tinctures he produces and I intend to use his recipe for our garden this Spring.
We were lucky enough to host one of the herd health meetings and have Dr. Paul evaluate some of our cows. He is such a pleasure to listen to and has so much knowledge to share that if you ever get the chance to attend a conference that he speaks at I would definitely recommend it. One of the topics he explained to us was a old German theory on reading bovine hair coats. This theory, which Dr. Paul tested with success on our farm, uses the visual interpretation of a cow's hair patterns to distinguish the quality of milk production (quantity, protein and butterfat), the breeding status or even the endocrine function of a cow.
We have spent the last week trying to implement some of Dr. Paul's suggestions and Ben has had to wake me from a daze as I study a cow's haircoat instead of doing the task at hand while we are trying to milk.
Between our search for foliar fertilizer, the truckloads of our chicken manure sitting a couple hundred yards from my house and the arrival of our clover seed you can bet that the winter is almost over and this snow won't stick around very long.

More Snow ARRRGHHH!

Yesterday was spent digging out. Skid steer didn't want to run, 4' drift in front of the parlor door, much bigger drifts all over the farm, a cow died yesterday, a calf (Charlie)lost her fight with pneumonia, and the milk truck driver got stuck several times on the way to our farm Sunday night. It was the kind of day that made you stomp your feet, throw your fist in the air and shed a few tears, but the sun came out, the best Vet we could ask for drove from PA through really nasty conditions to help out, our neighbor spent most of the day doing all he could to help and my parents worked their butts off helping Ben any way they could. By noon we were getting back on track and today will be business as usual.
The cows are itching to get out and enjoy this sunshine, but for right now the snow is too deep to keep the fence hot enough to restrain them. So instead they kick up their heals and do laps in the bedded-pack barn. It is great fun to watch, especially when Ben spreads sawdust in the evening, the cows chase each other around the pack, bouncing, kicking, bucking and they like to run through the stream of sawdust as it comes out of the blower. Will rides on Ben's lap in the skid steer while I guard the barn door to keep the crazy girls from galloping outside.
Spring is on it's way, some of my seeds are planted, our chicks are ordered, we will be frost seeding clover soon, the birds are chirping more every day, I heard a kitten 'mewing' in the hay mow and I noticed yesterday that my relish supplies are dwindling. There may be ice on the tree branches, but it won't be long now before a crocus emerges and the golden-green hue of buds replaces the ice on the trees.