Cows For Sale - November 2013 - SOLD

Better late then never!  Life has sped up here, but I found an opportunity to get this together finally.  These are the 2013 cows that are for sale.  For those of you who are not familiar with our farm, we breed our cows to calve in a two month window.  Any cows that do not get bred in that window are sold.  We are honest about any known problems with the cows.  The most up-to-date list of which cows are still available can be found here.

There are a number of three-quartered cows in the group.  We are asking $725 per cow.  Please e-mail me at amazinggracedairy@gmail.com if you have any questions and at that point we will give out our phone number if needs be.

The pictures will be in numerical order except for the two open cows.  They will be at the bottom of the page.  Both of them are three-quartered cows and if you are interested in either one of those, we can discuss a price.  The amount of $725 is in reference to the pregnant cows. 

Please remember when looking at the milk weights that we are a seasonal grass-based dairy and we operate a low input system.  Our previous buyers from confinement farms have commented that the cows always come up in milk once they begin feeding them silage.  I believe that is everything.  Here we go...

74~Pregnant

We do not actually expect to sell 74 as she is a high Somatic Cell cow, but she is pregnant, so I figured I would offer her.  We do not have any genetic information on her.  I am guessing she is a combination of Holstein, Milking Shorthorn, and Jersey.  She has historically been one of our best milkers.  She is a FOUR-QUARTERED cow, but the front left quarter is the one that is driving her SCC.

414~Pregnant

414 is a Dutch Belt Cross.  Her sire's code is 138DL396.  Her dam was a Holstein/Ayrshire Cross.  She is a FOUR-QUARTERED cow.

 

614~Pregnant~Dry

614 is a FOUR-QUARTERED cow.  Her sire is New Zealand Ayrshire Challenge and her dam was a purebred Jersey.  Her Maternal Grand Sire was Prospector (JE).  She doesn't have the prettiest udder, but she does milk and amazingly enough, her somatic cell only rose this past test (go figure), before that it was at about 300.

721~Pregnant~SOLD!

721 is a THREE-QUARTERED cow.  We bought her, and the farmer who sold her to us did not keep the best of records so we have no genetic information on her.  I believe she is a Milking Shorthorn/Swedish Red Cross.

 

1024~"Bravo"~Pregnant~SOLD!

1024 (Bravo) is a FOUR-QUARTERED cow.  She is out of a Swedish Red herd bull and her dam is a Milking Shorthorn/Holstein Cross.  I really like this cow.  Not that I don't like the other cows, but she has a lot of potential, and I am sad to see her go.

1030~"Daisy"~Pregnant

1030 (Daisy) is a THREE-QUARTERED cow.  She is out of a pregnant cow that we bought, so we don't have much genetic information on her.  Her sire was a Holstein and her dam was a Holstein/Jersey Cross.

 

1132~Pregnant

1132 is a THREE-QUARTERED cow.  She is a purebred Ayrshire.  Her Sire is Finnish Ayrshire Record, and her dam is a New Zealand Ayrshire Mika daughter.  She didn't start out very well this season due to a hard calving.

1156~Pregnant~SOLD!

1156 is a FOUR-QUARTERED cow, but she is very light in the right rear quarter.  Her sire is New Zealand Ayrshire Brody and her dam is out of a herd bull and a Dutch Belt/Normande (180NM4) Cross.

1175~Pregnant

1175 is a THREE-QUARTERED cow.  Her sire was a purebred Ayrshire herd bull who was a Finnish Ayrshire Bigmaker son.  Her dam was a Dutch Belt/Normande (213NM11) Cross.

Open Cows

1019~Apple (polled)~SOLD

1019 (Apple) is a POLLED THREE-QUARTERED cow.  She is open.  She is out of a cow that we bought.  Her sire was a Swedish Red herd bull and her dam was a Milking Shorthorn/ Holstein cross.  She still is milking quite well considering what we are feeding her.

 

1134~SOLD

1134 is a THREE-QUARTERED cow.  Her sire is French Normande Tetrapack.  Her dam is a Dutch Belt/Ayrshire cross.

1176~"Baby Tater"~Open~SOLD

1176 is a FOUR-QUARTERED cow.  My husband affectionately calls her "Baby Tater".  She is the daughter of a cow we had named Tater--that we sold in 2011.  Her sire is New Zealand Ayrshire Nigel.  Her dam is a cross out of NZ AY Edberg and a Ayrshire x Dutch Belt x Holstein Cross.

Thank you for taking a look at our cows.  If you are interested in purchasing any of them, please e-mail us with any questions you may have amazinggracedairy@gmail.com

Blessings to each of you in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  To Him be all honor and glory, both now and forever. 

Looking Back - A Summary of Percent of the Herd Bred

Wow!  It has been a month since I posted anything.  Time seems to have sped up as of late.  We had our final pregnancy checks on the heifers in mid-September and on the cows at the beginning of October.  I have a lot of information that I am hoping to share so long as I am able to find time to sit down long enough to share it!

Overall:  Our cows bred much better this year than last.  Actually, to look at the numbers, this was our best year since we started dairying at this farm, which is a hopeful sign.

Here is a table which summarizes our information.

The cows that freshen in February (with the exception of 2010) are actually cows that are bred for March, but calve a little early.

Our May calvers are an unpredictable group as in one year we kept all of the May calvers, another year we kept the ones that were due in the first two weeks of May, and so on... This year we only kept the cows that are due in the first week of May in 2014.

-The low percentage of cows that bred back in 2012 is discussed here.

As for the calves-

-in 2011 we had one calf that I did not remove from the pen that she was born in right away and I let her drink off of her mother.  She was in the pen for about 24 hours when I removed her.  She died two days later.  The vet said it was likely from poor colostrum quality and an overload of environmental toxins.

-in 2012 we took our heifers to my husband's father's farm due to a virus that the calves were contracting from the cows.  I was not the one raising them this year, much to my dismay.  One died from scours at about a week old and one died from bloat at two months old.

-In 2011, we raised 41 heifers and only had 34 calve in this year.  1 died (as discussed above) as a calf.  2 of our heifers left right before they calved (one involved laying on a hill with her back pointed down in trying to calve--that was discouraging, and the second tried to calve, but whether it was due to a twisted uterus or just her inability to deliver the calf, her body mummified it so we sold her instead of trying to milk her.  We had poor breeding all around in 2012.  We are not sure if it was due mainly to the weather or the bulls (we personally prefer to blame the bulls :) ) but we sold four heifers due to the fact that they were open after breeding season.

-We raised 43 heifers in 2012 and we only have 36 first lactation animals entering the herd next year.  Two died as calves, two were open at the vet check and were sold for beef and three were killed in a freak accident at the farm where we take our heifers to be custom raised.

I am heartened by the percent of cows that bred back.  We would definitely love to see that number improve, but I am encouraged that this is the highest percent since we began farming on our own.  Bit by bit we will try to improve.  This year we added a product called Thermal Care by ADM to the cows' ration.  We do not know if that helped improve breeding or not.  We didn't really see a drastic difference in the cows like we were hoping, but we did notice a reduced amount of visual heat stress on the cows (the number of cows panting, and the number of cows with tongues hanging out).  I am not sure if that is enough for us to justify the cost, however.

These numbers only reflect my husband's and my herd.  They are not the whole--as we also milk my father-in-law's cows at our farm as well.

Ok, I am off to bed, but I have LOADS more to share!  I still need to post our cows that are for sale.

I would encourage you all to pray for our nation's leaders.  There is much corruption in the government and I am disheartened by it, but God is still in control.  Not only that, He commanded us to pray for our leaders.  Blessings to each of you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

A Pasture Walk/Field Day at Holterholm Farms

Danny and I were fortunate to be able to attend the field day at Holterholm Farms in Franklin County Maryland on August 17, 2013.  Ron Holter and his son, Adam, are good friends of ours and generously opened up their farm.  It was a lovely day to be out amidst the the animals.

Parking in one of Ron's pastures.

Stan Fultz, University of Maryland Dairy Science Agent  (another friend of ours) welcomed everyone and gave the introduction.

As you can see there were a number of people there!

There were a number of excellent speakers present.  Dr. Steve Washburn from North Carolina State University spoke on "Genetics and reproduction for pasture-based systems."

One of Ron's Jerseys came to hear what Dr. Washburn was saying, and to check out these strange creatures who were invading their old pasture. :)

Dr. Paul Dettloff, Organic Valley Staff Veterinarian, spoke on "Cow Health:  What to look for in the grazing cow."  He was a very knowledgeable and compelling speaker.  Though Danny and I feed some grain to our cows, he gave a very eloquent argument for why farmers should reconsider that choice.

Dr. Paul Dettloff speaking.

Ron also has very CUTE little pigs on his farm!  They know just how to look all sad and hungry to try to convince you to give over whatever food you may have...I caved and (with Ron's permission) gave them the leftover bread, lettuce and cheese that had fallen onto the serving tray as people were taking their sandwiches.

 Ron said that I could have one if I could catch it. :)  If only we were set up to bring a few of these guys home... SO CUTE!!

Dale Johnson, University of Maryland Extension Regional Specialist (and yet another friend of ours), spoke on Pasture Poultry, and had lots of good insight on things that are needed versus things that are not really necessary when pasturing poultry.  One example he gave, was that if you have hawk pressure, you do not necessarily need to put netting over the run for the chickens.  You need to make it in a long narrow zig-zag shape so that the hawks are unable to swoop down and grab a chicken.  He also liked the feeder that Ron's son, Adam, has in his chicken tractor because it allows a lot of space for feed while discouraging chickens from roosting on it (because the wires over it are too narrow) so that the chickens will not poop in their feed.

They also had a soil pit set up and a rainfall simulator.  Danny and I didn't make it over to the soil pit, however.

All in all, it was a beautiful day to spend admiring God's creation.

Blessings, grace, and peace to each of you in the Name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  To Him be glory and honor forever.  Amen.

Breeding Season

This will be short.

Breeding season has begun for our herd of cows.  I started artificially inseminating them on Monday the 20th.  So far we have bred 46 cows.

We put the bulls in with the heifers on Thursday the 23rd.  We used to start breeding the heifers first, but it is not enjoyable to train new heifers to the parlor without a nice group of cows to show them how it is done and to squash them in place once they do get in the parlor.  Last year was our first year of beginning to breed the heifers after we began to breed the cows and we liked how that worked out as far as freshening them in this spring.

I am insane for staying up this late.  It is midnight and I have to get up in about five hours to continue breeding the cows.

Goodnight all.

Calving Season Statistics

With only one cow left to calve, I will post our calving season statistics.
*We freshened 175 cows thus far.
*We are milking 169 cows.
*Our calving season began February 21, 2013.
*Calving Difficulty -out of 175 calvings, we pulled 12 calves and the vet had to cut one out.  That makes 13 total, which equates to about 7.4% of the total calvings.  They were all heifers and looking at them, they usually fell into one of the two categories of either possessing a very narrow rump or being only medium sized (for our heifers) and having a huge bull calf.
*We had 4 recorded milk fevers (2.2% of the herd).  Danny fed increased levels of Mag Ox this year along with corn gluten feed for the pre-fresh ration and he feels as though that helped.
*There were 6 animals with retained placentas (3.4%).  We treat our retained placenta cows with 1 drench of whole leaf aloe vera gel from Pharm Aloe starting 24 hours after calving if the cow has not cleaned in that time frame.  We continue with this treatment until they drop the cleanings.  Most of the cows dropped their cleanings within three days of beginning treatment (we did have a few cows that waited until several days after calving to begin to show that they did not drop their cleanings).
*We had one cow that never calved, but that we began milking.  She looked as though she was close to calving for about 4 days.  Then we noticed she seemed to look depressed and actually looked like her udder was beginning to shrink.  We drenched her with aloe and Cal-drench and called the vet.  We described her symptoms to him, and without looking at her, the vet said it sounded as if she has a twisted uterus and was unable to calve and her body simply mummified the calf.  She is milking now, and appears to be fine (other then she never had her calf - I palpated her and confirmed that her calf was still in there).  Every once in a while she will expel horrible smelling watery discharge.  She is alert and has a very healthy appetite and has not lost condition.  She is now 63 days in milk.
*We had one cow that turned out to be open.
* One cow turned out to be pregnant to a much later breeding date.  So, we sold her (she was also showing symptoms of johnes and we tend to get rid of cows pretty quickly once they get on that list).
* One heifer sort of aborted.  She bagged up and never actually had the calf, but her body was in the process of trying to mummify it--we sold her.
*Three cows were shipped soon after calving (1.7%).  One was a johnes cow.  Two were heifers with no decent quarters--either blind or extreme mastitis in all four quarters.
* and finally, 3 cows died within 40 days of calving (1.7%) .  One was a result of milk fever and a hillside.  One was a result of trying to calve on a hillside, and one cow (just today) was anemic with a heart murmer and had to be put down.

So, we are waiting on one lone cow to calve.  She is in with the milking herd, because there is no way she would stay in a paddock by herself.

Blessings to each of you in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

"My grace is sufficient for thee:  for my strength is made perfect in weakness."
~2 Corinthians 12:9

Some New Experiments!

I have been following The Dairy Crossbred Blog for over a year now.  I enjoy reading about their experiments with different breeds and genetics.  Some things I agree with and some I don't.  In reading the blog it has inspired me to try another breed with our herd.  So, this year I looked through the sire cataloge and picked three or four bulls that interested me.  Then, I e-mailed the company to see which bulls are actually available.  The borders being closed have limited supplies so the bull I that was my first choice was not available, but I found one that I hope will not disappoint.

This will be my first steps with Montbeliarde!  The bull I chose was Arobase.  I wanted to try Avallon, but unfortunately he was not available.  I ordered the semen from Creative Genetics of California.  They were excellent to work with and sent the order very quickly.  Here it is!

They even sent us a free Procross t-shirt!  I wish it was in my size, but I think it might fit Danny better.  I hope it at least fits one of us.  It may be too small for him and too big for me :/  Ah well, I would wear it anyway.

I also am trying out an MRY bull this year as well.  I have heard good things about them--one of the positive things I have heard is that though they carry more flesh, they are not as big as Montbeliardes.  The drawback of the MRY breed is that there is limited selection without the borders being closed let alone with them shut down.  The bull I am trying of the MRY's is Dos 4 from CRV.  The nice thing about CRV is that they have a sales representative close to our area, so I didn't have to pay for shipping!

Eventually, I would like to narrow my crossbreeding selection down to about three different breeds.  The breeds that are in our herd are:  Holstein, Jersey, Milking Shorthorn, Normande, Ayrshire, Dutch Belt, Lineback, Swedish Red, and Norwegian Red...I don't think I am forgetting any of them.

The breeds I am actively using to breed with are New Zealand Ayrshire, British Friesian, Finnish Ayrshire, Lineback, New Zealand Holstein, New Zealand Kiwi Cross, Jersey, Norwegian Red, Normande, American Ayrshire, and now Montbeliarde and MRY.  Some of these bulls are leftovers that I am simply trying to use up.

I am in full on preparing for breeding season.  I am slowly but surely matching up which bulls are on the service sire list for which cows.  I might try to write out my system later, but that will be for a different post.

Blessings to you all in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

160 Cows on One Acre...for 12 Hours!

My husband put the cows in the field that we call "the Calf Pasture."  As it is the only pasture surrounded by four wires of electrified fencing.  He only expected them to be in there for a couple of hours as there didn't appear to be that much grass in there.



Boy were we wrong!  At 11:00 AM I texted Danny, who was helping his dad that morning, and told him, "Don't hurry back, the cows still have piles of grass."  And they did!  Danny said that the pasture had about 90% clover and 10% fescue and bluegrass.  Even when we took them out to milk there was still some uneaten grass in there.  I looked at Danny and said, "if only all of our pastures produced like this one..."  But for the most part we give the cows about 3 acres of grass for a 12 hour period, and right now we give them some supplemental hay to help it last until the next milking.  We are on shale ground, so the fertility isn't the greatest and we are only ever ten days away from a drought.  Meaning that if we don't get rain or precipitation for 10 days, the land already has a look of a drought to it, because the shale allows the soil to drain very quickly.

Here are some pictures of our cows enjoying the calf pasture. 

701 - a Milking Shorthorn/Holstein Cross

1005 - Jersey/Holstein Cross.  Her sire is Kiwi Cross Northsea 190XD2

757 - Jersey/Holstein Cross

Everyone's favorite cow, Tubby! (an Ayrshire/Normande Cross - she is a NZ Ayrshire Challenge granddaughter)

One last picture of 160 cows on one acre.

Blessings to you all in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

The Graveyard Field...

Our calves are in the field that we have named "the Graveyard Field".  I am not sure that we shouldn't change the name of this field.  It is next to a graveyard (see below) but it is also next to a church.


 
We use either our tractor or our ARGO (a six-wheeler) to haul milk and feeders over to the calves in a cart. 

Dad's tractor is pulling our cart that we haul the milk and the calf feeders over to their field.

"Why might this picture be of Dad's tractor hauling milk over to our calves?" you might ask.  Well, the Graveyard Field is living up to its name.  Ironically, both our tractor and our ARGO have decided to stop in the Graveyard Field with no urgency to move...ever (grin).   Maybe we should call it, "the Church Field."  Maybe then our pieces of machinery would be resurrected with Christ...ok maybe not.  But here sit the two pieces of machinery until they are fixed.

 My hope in sharing this is to bring a smile to your face.  I can not do anything to fix either of these pieces of equipment (they would NEVER move if I tried), so I will choose to focus on the humor of the situation, and hopefully bring some smiles to your edge of the globe as well :).  Blessings to you all in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  To Him be glory and honor forever, Amen.

Calf Pens for 2012

This year we are attempting to keep the baby calves on the farm again.  Last year we took them off of the farm because they were having trouble with their respratory systems and we could not figure out what it was.  So, we took them to my father-in-law's farm.

Since then, after analyzing our records (thank you DHI-dairy herd improvement and more specifically Dairy One) we saw that calves that were given one nasal vaccine (TSV2) were being treated just as much as the calves that we didn't vaccinate, however, calves we administered Enforce 3 to, we treated 2/3 less of that group.  We then looked at what Enforce 3 covered that TSV2 did not.  The only difference was that Enforce 3 protected against BRSV as well.  Then we talked to our vets (who had already been out to look at the calves and could not figure out what was the root of the respiratory problems).  When we told them our findings our vet looked at our calves and cows and said, "Yep, you have classic case BRSV.  Not fun.

We started a new vaccination protocol for both the cows and the calves last year.  This year we noticed a definite decline in clinical cases, though we could still see some.  We knew we had to get them away from the barn where we used to house them, because it is only 15 feet away from the holding pen.

So, we took them across the road to what we call the "Graveyard Field," being as it is right next to a graveyard and a church.  Though it does sound ominous :).  So far we have not had any baby calves die this year once we get them on the ground and get them started.

We started out by building pens out of big round bales.  These were bales that were made late and we were selling them for mulch hay.  Most of the bales had plastic wrap on them, but some did not.  The pens looked like this:

We put three round bales on each side and two in the back.  We put them close enough that we could lay two gates across the top, which we secured a tarp to so that they would have a nice wind break and shelter in inclement weather.  Danny sat a bale on both sides of the "roof" to keep the wind from carrying the gates off.

I took these pictures during feeding time this morning.  This is our baby pen--the youngest ones.

We also provided a little bit of a running space outside comprised of four pieces of calf panel from TSC.

 BUT..... we were having some problems with some of the pens.  The pens made up of bales wrapped in plastic provided too much temptation for the calves....and they chewed on the plastic.  Then they proceeded to lick the moldy shell of the bale underneath the plastic (why, I have no idea - especially because we were offering them fresh clean hay, grain, water, and milk).  So, we visited TSC again and purchased some round pen gates, which have so SO many uses on the farm, and this is the new and revised pen, which wouldn't work in early March, but thankfully we were through the cold, yucky weather by the time they started chewing on the plastic and moldy bales.

We used three 12' round pen gates per pen.  The best thing about these gates is that they have their own hinges and pin locks built in.  We did have to move one of the gates in a little bit so that the two 12' gates still reached across the top of the pen to form their roof.

We built the round pen gate pens right as the weather started to get very warm, so the calves really appreciated the extra ventilation.  For the two pens that did not have bales with plastic on them, we simply pulled out the two round bales that formed the back of the pen and we put gates across the back so that they could get a nice breeze through their pens as well.  Thankfully, they don't chew on the net wrap...

And those are our calf pens.  As far as the calves not getting BRSV...we still have some issues with it.  We notice the most problems when we don't get the calves away from the cows quickly enough.  We have had to treat a number of calves this year, but it has not been nearly as bad as it was in past years.  Also, it helps that we now know what to look for and can address the problem quicker.

May our Lord Jesus Christ bless you and keep you.  I am going to head to bed, but I have so much more to share!  We have had lots going on and I am just now finding time to sit down in front of the computer and write it out.

We Have Not Fallen Off of the Planet...

This will be a short post, but I have not abandoned this blog.  I have lots to share, both trials and triumphs, but not tonight.  Tonight I need to go to bed so that I can get up in the morning.

To summarize, we are milking 139 cows and have 30 left to calve by the 10th of May.  We calved about 20 more in March this year then we did last year, so we are condensing our window, which is nice in one sense, but exhausting in another.

We have had 5 sets of twins so far, and two sets were from bull bred heifers.  All but one set were born alive without assistance.  One of the heifers had a dead bull and a live one.  None were heifer heifer.

Our calves are here on our farm and Dad is raising his calves at his farm as well as all of the bull calves, which is very helpful.  We figured out what we were dealing with in the baby calves the past two years--BRSV.  The cows got it from our bred heifers that we sent off farm to be raised at a fellow grazier's farm.  He had some beef cattle there from the auction house that a man bought to "make a quick buck" off of them...  We instituted a new vaccination protocol last year and it has seemed to lessen then symptoms that we were seeing in the cows.  We took our babies across the road from the cows and put them in the pasture that is not touching the cow lane at all and has a barrier of trees between it and every other pasture.  So far, we have only treated 6 calves for BRSV symptoms and they are a result of us not getting the calves across the road quick enough.  We give the calves Enforce 3 nasal vaccine and that has helped reduce the instances of the virus.

We have one calf that is struggling with some bloating.  We got the vet out to look at her and he isn't really sure what it is, but said to keep doing what we are doing, which is pro-biotics and fluids.  We gave her the antitoxin for clostridium, but whether that was the issue or not, it hasn't seemed to have stopped the bloating.  We changed the nipples on the feeder, but that hasn't seemed to have helped either.  I lowered the feeder in case she is a ruminal drinker, but that hasn't seemed to have much effect.  We have given her activated charcoal, in case of toxins, we thought it helped at first, but now seems to be hit and miss.  We gave her mineral oil in case she is indeed eating the plastic that is wrapped around the bales that comprise her pen.  She ate well tonight, but I think that was because she knew we would bother her more if she didn't.  Still not sure what to do with her, but we are praying and hoping that she gets better.  We also have to get a tuber with a stainless steel tube on it, because she ruined my two with flexible plastic tubes by chomping on them.  It is discouraging to do everything that is within your knowledge and power to do and have it still not be enough.

(4-28-2013:  I reread this and I wanted to add something.  Yes, we get discouraged by sick baby calves, calving problems with the cows, and equipment breakdowns.  BUT that is why we put our trust in Jesus Christ, who is the Author and finisher of our faith, because we have heaven to look forward to.   Even when things are discouraging, I must remind myself that even in this, God is still in control.  No matter what this is, it is not out of His control, and that gives me comfort.  He is never surprised and He is never not in control.  Though I may wish circumstances were sometimes different, I will still choose to praise His holy name.  I will still choose to give thanks.

"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say rejoice!  Let your gentle spirit be known to all men.  The Lord is near.  Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.  And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hears and your minds in Christ Jesus."
~Philippians 4:4-7

I strive for the peace of Christ.  Things can be going smoothly, but man may not have peace, and things could be going horribly, but I know that Christ is my rock, and the anchor in the storm.  He will hold fast any who call upon His name for the salvation of your souls.

It sounds really preachy, I know, but turning to Christ is how we hold it together when mountains seem to enormous for us to climb.  We don't always react the way we should right away, but when we take a deep breath and remember Who is actually in control, it allows us to step back and have peace.)

Well, I need to go to bed, but I will be back.

Blessings in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  To Him be glory and honor forever, Amen.

Drying Up

Well, we are drying up the cows.  We usually have one to two dry up sessions per week, but the end is in site.  I think Tuesday will be our final day of shipping milk.  Our milk truck driver will come on Wednesday early in the morning and that will be it!

....ok so it won't completely be it, but we won't be shipping the milk.  We still have six heifers that are hanging around that are either just recently marked pregnant or open and we will continue to milk them once a day so that the cats will have milk to drink and hopefully so that the heifers that didn't get pregnant can last until this next breeding season, where they will have another shot at getting pregnant in the window.  We don't normally do this, because it tends not to be cost effective, but we could use the cow numbers and it is just a shame to sell first lactation heifers if you don't have to.

Well, that is all for now.

Blessings to each of you in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.