High Prices Everywhere!

May 7th marked beef prices hitting an all time high.  They peaked in late 2003 due to Mad Cow issues but this month they surpassed those prices. 

So it's a good time to be a cattle farmer, right?

To that I answer... meh.

Corn prices are still riding high and with late planting across the Midwest it looks like they are going to stay that way, at least for a little while longer. When inputs are high, your final output product has to reflect that high price.  Luckily, here at Green Acres, we have a deal worked out with a close family friend for a corn source.  But when that runs out, our feeder cattle have to be sold.  It's a lot of keeping track of supply and monitoring how long it will last us.

The severe drought last year caused a lot of small and mid-sized operations to have to sell off their herds.  No summer or fall rain meant low crop yields and burnt up pasture ground.  We struck gold last year in the form of corn stalk bales, otherwise we would have been in the same boat.

The price of calves has risen with the price of fats.  We use to be able to buy 5-10 feeder calves a year for our feedlot.  But this past year we have bought a total of 0, zilch, nodda... Again luckily we've been able to increase the size of our own heard.  So basically the 11-14 babies we raise every year go from Momma to feed lot to hamburger.  Heartless, I know, but keeps our costs down substantially.  We are a small farm and unique in the fact that we feed out our own calves.  We see our calves hit the ground as babies and then haul them off a year and a half later to sadly meet their certain demise.  Most large operations will raise calves and then sell them off to others to be finished on grain.

With all these negatives there are of course positives...

Like I said the price of fat cattle is high.  Next Monday we will be taking 5 Green Acre grown premium shorthorn beefs to the sale barn.  Prices are extremely high compared to just 5 years ago.  We still get excited when we see how much each calf brings per pound.  But to any other operation this is just normal business.

I would never want to be forced to sell off our whole cattle heard.  It's our hobby.  Nothing makes me happier than seeing a green pasture full of red, white and roan cattle with adorable babies running around.  It's a lot of work, way more than the pay off, but we don't mind it at all.  It's how I grew up and I wouldn't trade it for the world!

With being on the verge of summer start looking for more posts.  This weekend should be busy.  We are hopefully taking half the heard to their summer time pasture but before we do that we've got to walk and fix fence.  This weeks rain will put a damper on our ability to get the pasture ready.  But like my dad said if we don't get it this weekend, there is always the next.

Plus Sunday is Mother's Day so go home, hug your mom and take her somewhere nice!

And because I can't just type up a post with no pics, here is one for your viewing pleasure.

Yes he's sticking his tongue out at me... he's a cheeky calf!

April Babes

I'm behind in my posts.  In the past 3 weeks we've had 3 and a half calves.

The half part is sad and not cute at all so if you want to scroll on to cuteness do so now...

Mary aborted her calf.  She was about a month and a half from calving.  We have no clue why she aborted.  We are sad and disappointed that the baby didn't make it, but we are glad Mary aborted like she should have and everything else went OK for her.

On a happier note we've got 3 other healthy babies.

This pretty little girl was born first.  She's almost 3 weeks old now and doing great.  

The second baby is also a girl.  She was born a week ago.  And last week when we went to get mom and baby into the barn it was raining cats and dogs. It's been raining lots of those lately so instead of making the baby walk through the muddy barn lot we took them through my parent's yard.  This induced an episode of Elsie barking drama...

Once we got them inside, little baby found a nice warm spot in the straw to lay down.

She's a pretty thing with a red and white tail.  A day after she was born she came out of the barn to explore the muddy lot.

Here she is almost a week old.  She's one of my favorite calves so far.  She's full of attitude and fuzzy and cute as can be!  In the evenings we've been moving mothers and babies into the barn lot so they can get inside.  This little baby rebels for being forced into a muddy barn lot.  The other night she came right up to the barn door, looked at us and mooed in disgrace.

Then, Sunday we had yet another baby girl!  That makes 3 heifers on the ground for April.  The poor little thing is made like a deer.  She's small boned and so far has only been able to find one faucet (as my dad calls it).  She needs a bit of time to get her footing and in the mean time I think we'll call her teeny.

Missing Fingers

A few weekend ago Arren and I were at my parents house.  It was nice outside and I was mowing while Arren rode the four wheeler around.  Green Acres is right down the rode from a dredge ditch.  It's like a creek but not as cool. 

So there I was mowing along and Arren stops the four wheeler right in front of me.  I mouthed "what" and he motioned me over.  "There's something I want to show you"... "What?"... "A turtle"... "Oh!".  I hopped on the back of the four wheeler and we were off.

By the time we got to the turtle's temporary home he had burrowed and lodged himself in the water and mud on the other side of the ditch.  Arren wanted mud boots to try to catch him.  I wanted nothing to do with this turtle because it was a snapper with an appetite for fingers.

We rode back to the house.  Arren put on some boots.  My dad gave him a tarp strap. "The turtle can bite this and you can get his tale".  The strap was only about 5 inches long...  I proceeded to tell Arren that I wasn't about to marry a man with 9 fingers. 

Much to my dismay we rode back out to Mr. Turtle... in my mind it was soon to be a blood bath.  Arren went into the water.  I threw him a stick.  He worked the turtle out of the mud.  Stuck his hand in the water and pulled out this dude.  Turtle wasn't happy.  I snapped a few pics.  Arren put him back in the water.  The turtle went AWOL and attacked...

Just kidding!

He swam away.

Don't try this at home kids!

Moldy Oldies

We are past the stage of round bales here at Green Nacke Acres.  We've moved onto the ole square bales.  Our cows get 6 bales a night.  We are working our way through some very moldy last cutting hay to get to the decent hay stacked on back.  I have worries and trepidations when I'm breathing in the dust from those moldy bales but then again... the cows have to eat that stuff so what can it hurt!

We open each bale and toss it down into the hay feeders below.  And by the time we feed the next night, the cows have hungrily consumed all 6 bales.

The babies get fed downstairs in there own little get away spot.  They can come in a lay down in fresh straw and munch on some yum-yums!

(Holly & Isis)

These two aren't old enough to really start eating yet.  They will grab a few mouth fulls and pretend to eat.  But Bruce is old (and big) enough, to make up for the little ones.  He comes in and chows down on some grain and sweet feed.  Big guy loves his sweet feed!

(Bruce)

Babies

Well Hello Babies!  You're looking rather cute today!

(Isis, Holly, Expo & Valentine)

Mind if I join your little group?

(Expo & Valentine)

I promise I won't bite, or yell, or move too fast... I'll even crouch down to your level.

 

I think we can be friends!

(Isis)

Wait... come back.. where are you going...

I'll never be cool enough to hang with the babies...

Expo

Hello.  It's been a while... don't worry I'm back with a post with enough cuteness it's bound to make up for my lack-o-postin.

We had a new baby last Saturday.  We were at the Beef Expo (yes, there is an expo for beef cattle) so we had a family friend check a cow we thought could calve any day.  He called with the good news that we were now the proud parents of a bouncing baby bull. 

This is one of the few Mommas who doesn't actually have a name.  Just a number... well a former number.  She use to be number 7.  So I call her 7.  Not to be confused with the number 30 she actually has on her ear tag.  I can never remember that 7 is now 30.

So 7 had this little baby.  And everyone is doing quite well after "the incident".

The second day Momma 7 was penned up, she discovered she could stick her head through our temporary gates to get to the calves feed.  My dad saw this going on and gave her a swift kick in the butt which, sent her into a conniption.

She managed to tear down our temporary gates with her head still in them, soon dislodged her head, but then lodged her whole body in a little hole we have this set-up for the calves to come in and out of their small pin.  Until the other day, no cow had ever attempted to squeeze through said hole.

It was a struggle, but she made it.. somehow.  My dad said he thought he was going to have to get the saw and cut her loose (a fun task no doubt) but then she wiggled freed and only lost a few patches of hair.

With the calf still inside the pin, my dad took his time resetting the gates and soon the cow was politely mooing to be let back in with her calf.  So my dad opened the gate and in she came.

A friend called naming rights at the Beef Expo and so this little dude's name is fittingly Expo.

We've got one more cow left to calve and that should be the last one for another month or two.  Big Momma (the cow) is getting close so expect another baby post soon!

Another Surprise

Surprise!

It's another baby girl.  We walked into the barn Friday night and saw her and Momma Annie standing there.  So we penned them up and got to work!  The poor little baby hadn't eaten yet so we headed inside to mix up a bag of colostrum.  Baby calves need the colostrum from their mother's milk in the first hour or so after being born and we wanted to make sure she had her share.

We keep this stuff stock piled.

It's a dry power we mix with water.

And load up the bottle.

My dad was on bottle duty so I could snap some pics.  It took a little getting use to, but the baby caught on pretty quickly.

Momma Annie was a bit concerned but this is her 11th calf and she's a pro by now.   In fact, last year Annie had a calf in March so this little baby was another huge surprise.  Literally, a HUGE surprise...  The baby is a big one.  Especially for a heifer.  But she's also very strong and a bit hard headed.  We could tell it must have been a long birth because if you listened closely, the baby had a bit of a wheeze when she breathed.  That means she probably didn't get all the mucus and gunk cleared out of her airways.  But as the days go on she'll get stronger and soon she'll be out running with the other calves.

Speaking of other calves, here is Bruce.  He's taken quite a growth spurt over the past few weeks.

So what do you think the new baby's name should be?  My dad suggested Valentine since it's so close to Valentine's Day.