Beautiful spring days...

What a beautiful spring weekend it was! Due to the Easter holiday as well as a coworker needing to switch shifts I was lucky enough to have the entire weekend to spend with my family. So what did we do? We spent a large part of the weekend at the barn of course.

My niece Christina and her boyfriend Nate were visiting and offered to help. I will NEVER turn down help when it comes to cleaning out the barn. So off we went.

With the car loaded down with straw, grain and people we headed to Charlestown. Aeryn is always excited to show off her animals and this was no exception. And because of the beautiful weather we were able to take the young ones out to walk.

We had a really good time with the little guys. Aeryn has learned through experience that the earlier that you can get your animal to respect the halter, the better you are going to be. This os one of the mistakes that she learned from when training her animals last year.

I love seeing how much my little girl has grown. The look on her face on Easter morning when Jay told her to walk to one of the other fields and drive the RTV back was priceless. I did however send Christina with her just so that she would not have to drive back alone. Not that Christina knew how to drive the  RTV anyway. Sure enough, Aeryn managed to get the vehicle safely from one place to the other. ( Like I had had any doubts. )

The four new calves are settling in well. They are even getting along with our four older girls even though contact between the two groups has been limited to interaction between fences. I am not quite ready to let the little ones have as much freedom as our massive girls. Call it a mother's paranoia. Lilly had an amazing idea however, to make it so that the boys managed to have a bit of outside time to "play".

Jay used the tractor to drag all of the round pen panels to the cow pasture next to the barn. Then we constructed a "playpen of sorts" by looping them from the doorway, back uo to the gate. This created a great area for them. They jumped and danced when they came outside to explore for the first time.

Their castrations have healed nicely and they are not suffering ill effects from having their rabies and tetanus shots. They are energetic and eating like fiends  There has been an increase in the feed bill that I am sure that I will notice more in the coming months. For the time being, due to their young age, we are giving them a combination of milk replacer and a calf starter grain with a 15% protein content.

This is a bit of a switch to what we have been feeding the girls. Since we have brought them home almost a year ago I have tried a few different combinations of feed rations. Currently they are getting an "all stock" feed with a 12% protein ration and cracked corn. This seems to be working out well for them. They are gaining weight at consistent levels, as well as maintaining the heat to make it through the winter and keeping up their energy levels. Our girls are not slackers in the slightest and there is no sluggishness to their movement. They are eager to socialize with their people and each other. There is no competition for food. All of these factors make for very happy cows.