Flat Aggie's Winter Adventures in New York

     My first view of the barn at Freedom Ranch-they really know how to do winter in Central New York! 

Freedom Ranch is a diversified livestock operation.  Scott and Sharon custom raise a variety of animals in a pasture-based setting for private sale.  When I visited there were meat and dairy goats, chickens, ducks, steers and a horse living there!  In the spring and summer there will also be pigs on pasture. 

They put me right to work, unloading the week’s grain. 

Since the ground is still snow-covered, the goats, chickens and even the steers get supplemented with grain and locally grown hay.  Once the grass starts to grow they won’t need grain or hay. 

Every morning Sharon milks her 3 dairy goats.  They are wonderful producers of rich milk, each producing between 1-2 gallons per day!  Sharon will use this milk in her home to drink and makes award-winning cheeses and yogurt. 

  

The kids (that’s what baby goats are called) drink their mothers milk during the day, and then the moms get the night off-duty and share their milk with Sharon on the morning.  I claimed to be an expert milker, but didn’t realize just how much milk Haley, her 7 year old Saanen doe, made!  I managed to milk 9.2 lbs. from her though.

Throughout my week at Freedom Ranch I was amazed at how cold hardy the animals are.  Scott taught me that if you can see snow on an animal’s back, that indicates their coat of fur is trapping their body heat in and keeping them toasty warm.  Who would think that these patient steers are really quite cozy?

 Even the does (female goats) and Levi prefer to eat their breakfast outside on a bright, crisp morning.  The meat herd consists of does that are boer/kiko crosses and are quite hardy.   However,  Levi (the horse) must think he lives somewhere tropical and did not grow a winter coat, so he requires a blanket to stay warm!

 

The chickens have a cozy coop area inside the barn where they spend the winter.  Chickens do not like the snow, as their feet get cold in it! 

I enjoyed checking in on the hens each day and collecting the wonderful eggs they lay. 

Did you know eggs come in a variety of colors?  I found pink, light brown, dark brown and even blue eggs! 

 

There were a few freshenings (or kiddings, as goat births are called) while I was visiting.  Ramona had triplets, which is not unusual.  Scott, Sharon and I worked together to help the does dry the kids off and dipped their umbilical cords in iodine to prevent infection.

There is a corner of the birthing stall with a heat lamp to allow the newborns to stay cozy for a few days after being born.  I quickly realized why the kids love cuddling up in there!  The lamp emits a red light so the kids can get some sleep without having a bright white light keeping them awake. 

 

  Sharon also loves sharing her knowledge with students at the local school, Hamilton Central.  She spent a few hours one afternoon teaching the ag students about the basic principles of cheesemaking.  The students got to make three different ricotta cheeses and taste the results too! 

Happy trails…until we meet again after my next adventure!!

Flat Aggie visits Lorenz Farms in Nebraska

January 2019

In January Flat Aggie visited the Lorenz Farms near Broken Bow, Nebraska which is
owned by myself (Bobbi) and my husband Mark.  We have a son named Isaak who
will turn 6 years old in February. He is in Kindergarten at SEM (Sumner Eddyville,
Miller) School located the small town of Sumner, Nebraska.  His school is 3 towns
combined and is Pre-Kindergarten through High School (12th grade) all in 1 large
building.   

Our farm grows corn and hay, which we feed to cattle we raise and custom care of
for a feedlot.  We own about 100 head of cows which we raise calves to sell to a
feedlot and we work for a large feedlot that is about 20 miles away from us taking
care of some of their calves.  The feedlot uses smaller farmers like us to grow
young calves (called feeder calves) to prepare them to spend 4-6 months in the
big feedlot before they are harvested into high quality, nutritious beef.  We can hold
three semi loads of calves, which transport 70-100 calves each depending on how
big the calves are. Right now, we have 267 head of feeder calves in three different
pens from the feedlot. Calves will come to us weighing between 500 and 700
pounds.  They will gain approximately 300 pounds while they are here for 70-100
days. Our job is to vaccinate them when they arrive, get them use to eating fresh
feed daily from a bunk, and monitor their health daily.

Flat Aggie had get up early in the morning so she could ride along with Mark while
he did the morning chores and fed all the cattle.  She got to help Mark load the feed
ingredients into our feed wagon which mixes all the ingredients into a balanced diet
containing all the nutrients they need to grow and stay healthy.  We feed a mixture of
hay, corn, wet distillers grain (co-product from the ethanol industry), and a mixture of
vitamins and minerals. Mark and Aggie checked each of the groups of calves to
make sure every one looked healthy and came to the bunk to get their breakfast.  

This time of year our cows are grazing corn fields.  They eat the left over corn plants
after the grain has been harvested in the fall.  After Aggie and Mark got done feeding
the calvesthey drove to the field to check the cows.  They made sure the water tank
was full and free of ice, checked the salt and mineral feeder to make sure it was not
empty and drove around the cows to make sure they were all healthy and getting
enough feed.  Our cows will begin calving (having their babies) around March 1st. We
will bring them all back to the fields and pastures around our house and barns in mid
February so we can check them and their new calves every 2-3 hours through out
the day and night.  

We brought the first calf heifers (2 year old cows that will have their 1st baby this
year) home the 1st of January.  They are scheduled to start calving Feb 4th.  They
have their babies earlier than the cows so that we can keep an even closer eye on
them to make sure both the heifer and new born calves are healthy and the new
mommies learn how to be good moms.  We keep the heifers in a small pen by the
barn where we can keep them out of the winter weather better and have good
lighting to see what is happening at night. Every night when we do our 10 pm check
we put the heifers in the barn for better protection from the colder night time
temperatures.  We use technology to help us monitor the birthing process without
having to make the heifer nervous with us being out in the pen or barn all the time.
We have cameras installed in the barn that are wirelessly connected to a computer
screen in our living room. These cameras allow us to see what is happening out in
the barn without disturbing the heifers.  We still walkthrough the heifers every 2
hours but we use the camera to help monitor between checks. We were hoping
Aggie would get to see a new calf before she headed out for her next adventure but
the heifers did not cooperate to give her the opportunity to see a new born.

We enjoyed showing Flat Aggie around our farm and sharing with her how we raise
beef.  

Riding along while loading the feed in the feed wagon to mix.  The loader bucket

has ground hay in it.

Tractor and feed wagon are loaded, feed is mixed together, and ready to deliver
it to the calves.  

Feed has been delivered to the calves.  They were not very sure about getting their
picture taken.  These calves weighed 585 pounds when they arrived around and
will be leaving in the next week or two.

Mark, Isaak and Aggie checking the cows.  The cow with the green ear tags

#691 is one of Isaak’s cows.  We use a numbering system on our cows. The

1st number is the last number in the year that they were born, #691 was born

in 2016, this spring she will turn 3 years old.  The last two numbers are their

unique ID number. Every cow has her own number.

Filling the mineral feeder with salt and mineral.  The cows will lift the lid on the

feeders with their heads and lick the mineral and salt.  It was a pretty cold and

frosty day and the cows had some frost on their backs. It is actually a good sign

when there is snow or frost on the cows.  Cows with plenty of insulation (good

clean fluffy hair, and plenty of fat under their skin) stay warm on the inside even

though they may look cold on the outside.

This is the computer screen that shows the barn cameras.  We have two cameras

set up so we can see 2 different pens that are in the barn.  The heifers are moved

into the barn at night so we can keep a closer eye on them as well as keep them in

where it is warmer during these cold winter days.  During the day they are out in a

pen in front of the barn but they have the option to come in
if the weather is really bad. 

For additional class resources we recommend visiting: Beef Farmer Math and All About Beef.

Sheep Farmer Math

In an effort to make math more interesting for kids and to make my kids understand that math really is important, I have started a series of Farmer Math questions to go along with the Flat Aggie reports.  These are patterned after the blog Bedtime Math.  Some of the questions are easy enough for pre-schoolers and sometimes I come up with some to even challenge high school seniors.

These questions follow the report Flat Aggie visits Uptown Farms and Flat Aggie Visits Clay Hill Ranch.  Additional educational materials can be found in the post All About Sheep.

1.  Flat Aggie saw 2 ewes lamb in the morning and 2 ewes lamb after lunch. How many ewes did Flat Aggie see lamb in all?

2.  If 3 ewes had twins and 1 ewe had triplets, how many lambs were there in all?

3.If the ewes are fed 6 pounds of hay per day and there are 28 ewes in each pen, how many pounds of hay does each pen need per day?

4.  What percentage of a bale of hay would be fed to each pen per day if a hay bale weighs 850 pounds?

5.  Farmers often calculate their lamb crop in percent lambs born alive per ewe.  If Uptown Farms had 98 ewes in all, 2 ewes did not have live lambs and the remaining ewes averaged 2.3 lambs born alive. How many lambs did they have in all to the nearest whole number?   What would that the lamb crop be?  (Need a hint?  Number of live lambs divided by the number of ewes in the flock.)

If you are a teacher or homeschooler that would like more information to go with the Flat Aggie reports, send me a message on my contact form.  Along with the report and the Farmer Math questions, we send each teacher an additional page of activities and sometimes a few hands on activities.

Answers: 1.) 4 ewes  2.) 9 lambs  3.) 168 pounds of feed  4.) 19.76%  5.) 221 lambs, 225% lamb crop 

-A Kansas Farm Mom

Flat Aggie’s Visit to NW Kansas

I arrived in Colby, Kansas on a lovely afternoon! I chose just the right time to show up as Farmer Justin and his family were finishing up drilling wheat!

 Farmer Justin and his 1 year old son Emerson were trying to finish up the last field before it got dark. 

When I arrived at the field, the boys were just finishing filling the drill with seed and fertilizer.

 

  I wanted a closer view so I jumped into the hoppers to take a look to see what the wheat and fertilizer looked like! 

After riding with the boys for a couple of rounds around the field it was time to get out and make sure the drill was dropping the seeds in the ground like it should. Justin and I walked away from the drill a ways and got on the ground and started digging to see if they could find a seed.  We’re in luck! We found seeds!!

 Did you know there are 3 major parts of equipment you need when drilling wheat? First, you need a tractor big enough to pull the drill rig, 

then you need the air cart to hold the seed wheat and fertilizer, 

 and then you need the actual drill, which digs a little hole in the ground, lays the seed and fertilizer in the hole and then covers it up so it can grow.

            When we finished drilling the last field of wheat, Farmer Justin and I took a little tour around some of the farm, and got to see what wheat looks like when it comes out of the ground, or what farmers call emergence. 

Farmer Justin says the wheat looks good! This wheat was drilled about 2.5 weeks before I arrived in Kansas. Farmer Justin drilled almost 2,000 acres of wheat this year!

Fun fact: Did you know 1 acre is 43,560 square feet?

            Once wheat drilling was over it was time to start picking wet corn! This is Farmer Justin’s favorite time of the year! You can see that the corn stalk is still green in places. This normally means the corn is not ready to harvest, however, since they are picking it with a higher moisture content  its ok that it’s still green. 

They pick so much corn before its ready to be put in the bin so they can take it to the feedlot to be fed to cows. The higher moisture content allows it to be fed to the cattle without having to add water to it to make it soft enough for the cattle to digest.   If they were taking this corn to an elevator or putting in their own grain bins the boys would be concerned because corn can mold if it is picked at the wrong time and is too wet.

            When I got to the field, the grain cart was loading a truck to send it off to the feedlot. The grain cart will put 1,000 bushels of corn on the grain truck.

 Fun fact: 1 bushel of corn weighs 56 pounds!

I got to ride around in the grain cart for a while and see how fast paced harvest is around their farm! I thought it was pretty cool that their grain cart has tracks instead of wheels! 

            Every once in a while Farmer Justin gets out and crawls on top of the combine to check the moisture content of the corn. To do this he must take a sample of corn from the bin on top of the combine and put the corn into a moisture tester. Then he tightens the lid down so there is pressure on the corn in the tester and then he turns the tester on and it can tell how much water is left in the corn kernels. 

We’re in luck, we can keep harvesting!! Farmer Justin and the boys will spend a lot of time in the corn fields picking all of the corn they planted last spring. Being able to load the grain cart while still picking corn is one way to make harvest go faster. 

Another way to make harvest go faster is his big combines. They run 2 Gleaner combines which can pick up to 4,500 bushel per hour! That means each combine can pick almost 45,000 bushels of corn per day!! That’s a lot of corn!!

            I had a great time in Northwest Kansas and sure enjoyed my time with Farmer Justin and his family! They made my experience so much fun and hope they end harvest well!!

I wonder where I will go next?!

Sincerely,

Flat Aggie