Friday Farm Fun- Doggin' it

Every evening we feed the cattle with a tractor and hay wagon. The dogs love this chore. Boots and Molly, the cow dogs,  hop up on the trailer and hay as soon as I walk toward the tractor.

Tink in her basket

Tink, the house dog, loves to ride on tractors or machinery. My husband has attached baskets on every tractor we have so she can ride. If the backhoe starts up she yips at the door and runs to get a ride. I stand by the tractor, waiting for Tink's ritual of dancing around my legs until I pick her up and put her in the basket on the side of the tractor.

The old two-cycle poppin' John, John Deere that is attached to the hay trailer starts up, popping and sputtering. When the wagon starts moving, Molly barks with excitement. Tink cringes from the loud noise, but soon is staring ahead with the wind flapping her ears.

Boots and Molly waiting for the gate to open

With the tractor in 4th gear, we sail out of the yard and down the lane to the gate into the pasture. The cows and calves bawl and flow like a school of fish toward the gate. The dogs and I wait outside the field for my husband to come home from his day job. When he arrives, he opens the gate and we move through at a slow pace. Molly barks at the cows when they get close to the hay trailer.

The bulls rub their heads on the 800 lb bales, sometimes shoving them so hard they hang over the edge on the other side. The cows are showered with hay as it is shoved off the trailer and onto their backs before hitting the ground.

When the cows stop following the trailer, Molly stops barking and Boots settles back until my husband jumps off the trailer. Then Boots follows him and the two walk through the cattle checking each one to make sure they are healthy.

I head the tractor back to the gate and out. The dogs settle quietly on the hay and enjoy the ride back to the yard. The tractor is parked and we do the process all over the next day.

Friday Farm Fun- Winter Feeding

This week we started feeding hay. The cows and calves had eaten down all the pastures and were bawling for more to eat.

Last winter toward the end of feeding season, I was feeding by myself, heading out through the juniper trees with the strings cut and hoping the sway of the worn-out wagon would dump hay off either side. A wheel went over a rock and the next thing I knew the trailer was at a strange tilt and the bed rubbing on a wheel. Luckily there was only on bale on it, so I unhooked the wagon leaving it for the cows to feast on, and drove the tractor back to the house. Hubby looked at the wagon when he returned and said it needed an overhaul.

And he did. The only thing left of the old wagon is the tongue, axles and wheels. He rebuilt the rest and it is a sturdier better feeding vehicle. And so two days ago the wagon was christened. Hubby loaded a layer of 800 lb bales on it and I pulled it from the barn to where we are feeding the cattle and it didn't wobble or scare me when I had to pull it over the rockiest piece of road on the place.

The factor that really told me it was made well, was when BB(Black Bull) rubbed his head on the hay bale and the trailer didn't list to the side, nearly sliding hubby off. Before its makeover the wagon was very tipsy.

The only part of winter feeding I don't like is the fact it's dark when hubby gets home from his day job and even though I have lights on the tractor, all those black little calves are sometimes hard to see and I fear running over one.

Off to kick up the hay and give pellets to the five heifers Hubby brought home from the sale. They are getting tamer and have some fun personalities.