There's Something In That Spring Farm Air...

good morning the cattle have politely informed us that it's time to move to a new pasture we got a busy day today and we'll get to that later but any day is a good day that i've got my favorite players in my pocket good morning cows you got anything to tell me today i couldn't possibly imagine what you guys want it looks like it's tater tot day at the elementary school we got all the kids lined up here for lunch this is unacceptable nothing like a little suspense [Music] the heifers are not happy over there [Music] titus you've been rubbing your nose in it again haven't you there you go bud come on orton come in come in let's go oh you can go come on through the gate where everybody else is there you go [Music] all right not for you warden come on let's go we gotta close the gate back up come on there you go come on orton come on come on come on let's go come on come on norton come in come in come in [Music] come on come on cows come on cows come on cows i gotta go with feed trucks here hustle up for the feed truck 345 first that goes in the back wagon track [Music] [Music] three tons of layer feed [Music] three tons of broiler feed in 10 bags of cracked corn on top of a whole bunch of broiler starter feed i'll tell you what the crack corns for later all right we'll go back out in the pasture and see if the cows have found the nice field that we left for them huh i would say the answer to that is no hi hux huxtable you got nothing to be unhappy about look at that grass down there i'll show you where we wanted the cows to go and they'll make it there eventually so what we opened up is this kind of wide alleyway here which leads down toward the woods and they've got some grass to munch in here there's the spring flops thinner than can be look at all that green this alleyway here comes from the top grove where the cattle get shade in the summer and separates from this five acre field over here and leads down to this 10 acres down here and at the end of this alleyway we have this this is five acres of grass and it's running again about eight inches tall it's got clover coming up in it we'll let them loose on this whole field and they'll be here about a week or so and then we're gonna start tightening up our pastures probably as the grass catches up with us it seems they wanted to follow me down and this is the good part seeing them on new grass oops jordan still hasn't made it out of the other pasture i don't know what's up with him this morning oh get out of my space some viewers say that hillary doesn't talk very much and she's a woman of few words but i think that we both enjoy putting the cows on new grass yeah we do it's they don't listen to me though they only follow peter and they only have one pied piper i guess i don't know must be because i look like jay leno i don't know orton you seem a little down you gotta head way up there and go through the gate and come back around you'll figure it out sooner or later you have two parts of the brain the left side and the right side on the left side there's nothing right and on the right side there's nothing left using these gravity wagons really nice because we can pull them to wherever the animals are out in the field but right now the layers are still in their winter house so that's going over by the winter house the broiler fields going in the yard back here because we've got broilers in the brooder that we're gonna start on regular feed holding the camera and driving is not easy sometimes safety sam would say don't do that on the outer hole if you can yeah i know that doesn't bend so you have to lift it up [Music] or close whatever hole that goes in that other one there we go now we gotta pick up the old trailer these guys are going to go for a ride soon here i wire the doors to the post like this to hold them open and on loading day i'll undo this twist so that when i pull on the door the wire breaks free so i can close the door quickly then we'll go in the trailer here and undo the fence you guys are mud puppies these days aren't you [Music] and then what i do is i've cut this hog panel previously to let out the last batch and just bend the cut ends around to lap in front of the doors and then i take a piece of wire and i tie it on the bottom so that the pigs can't play with this and pull it closed again so this wire that i just put on here gets pulled to the outside of the door and wrapped around the fence post on the other side to hold the panel open taking in the sunshine here's the outside of that wire from the hog panel i just twist it up in here and we already have a customer i asked my contractor why he didn't bill me for my new roof and he said don't worry about it it's on the house hillary is not faking it she really thinks these jokes are funny right yeah does it sound convincing what do we got growing in here these broiler chicks are about three weeks old now and if it were warmer weather they'd be going out to the field but we're gonna hold them for another few days because of the temperatures they're getting into their ugly teenager phase and on this side we got broilers that are a week old what a difference huh they're still cute it's starting to get pretty warm here though on sunny days we've got the fan going here and we put shades over the pens to keep the direct sun off of them in a little while as soon as we get the time we're gonna put a tarp over this that'll cut down on solar gain in here [Music] [Music] hi ladies how are you oh come to see what i got huh i just fed these four gals a little bit of cracked corn and it's an experiment that i'm starting when it comes to ways of raising animals i am a principled person but i wouldn't say i'm a fundamentalist in other words i don't stick to literally interpreted dogma all the time we've never fed our cattle grain i'm giving this a test and the reason i'm giving it a test is because we had an exceptionally dry summer last year the forage quality was not what it should be and the beef that we took to butcher through the fall and winter was not marbled up to the standards that i have always had for our dexter beef and the result was that the steaks were a bit tougher they had the same good flavor but they just didn't have that fat to keep a moisture in cooking and above all i want to provide a product to the consumer that's top-notch quality they shouldn't have to cut it with a cleaver to eat it or have excellent teeth and all that so i'm experimenting you know adding a little grain i think it still meets our original goal of pasturing cattle in ways that benefit soil and build good soil and have the most minimal impact on the environment i'm using locally cracked corn and i'm not using a lot of it and this is not something that i'm viewing as this is the future going forward but rather take these gals to the butcher at the end of the summer and then compare to the other grass-fed beef that we're also going to be sending and just taste test them side by side and form our own opinions of which is the better way to go the other thing is that doc needs to be weaned from his mom he's gosh he's at least six months old now so hillary and i are trying to pick the right time to get him out of this pasture here and put them in with the main herd and there's going to be a whole lot of bellyaching we don't normally wean our calves we keep them on their moms until their mom kicks them off in preparation for the next calf she's going to have we have weaned calves before but it's not typical for us but doc you're gonna have to go out to pasture the food will be a lot better out there you're just gonna miss your mom great little button there we go under the chin find that there you go the other reason that doc needs to get out of here is he is merciless about pooping and peeing in the hay and then the rest of the cattle will pass over it and it's such a waste really bugsy cow flops in the hay [Music] the thing that bugs me about the whole grain thing is i admire the simplicity of growing beef kettle on grass alone and i admire the kind of elegance of that conversion of sunlight and water and soil nutrients and bacteria and all that stuff directly into me i think that's so cool so this is something i'm leery of i certainly scared the cows with that drone fly over i think they thought it was a big bug or something they're all standing in here looking out the door like is it gone is it gone maybe they'll get used to it later on i really wanted to get a nice idyllic shot of the cows peacefully grazing in the field but it was not to be well with only six pigs left i don't have to do this very much anymore and next week i won't have to do it at all hello you monster how are you doing pigs like a scratch don't they even though i torment you guys i know you like a scratch don't bite me he's panting it's warming up the pant today wow i bet you it's all that running that i put them through with the drone you guys are winded well i gotta feed the pigs they're doing the i'm hungry wine but they're eating a little lighter this week till they get on the trailer for the final trip there we go get right on there and eat just to let you know you don't see the chickens too often not because i don't like them but because hillary takes care of them and they're not part of my daily rounds usually they'll be going out and as soon as we get the chance we'll put them on pasture but we need to wait for a day when our kids are home so they can help us and they're going to school now they're back to school it's another beautiful day on planet earth i hope you have a great day and i'll see you next time

Channel: Just a Few Acres Farm

Views: 122,231

Rating: 4.9597635 out of 5

Keywords: farm, farming, hobby farm, hobby farm guys, hobby farming for profit, homestead, how farms work, just a few acres farm, life on a farm, dexter cattle, dad jokes, day on the farm, spring on the farm, slow farming, pigs, release the cattle, grazing cattle, spring grazing, bull, chickens, cattle to new pasture, something in the air, spring farm, spring farm air

Id: g6qYFxIhTXY

Length: 16min 46sec (1006 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 30 2021