Thanksgiving Break

This November I had a Deer Hunters 4-H breakfast because every year our club, The Hale Happy Hustlers, has a breakfast for the public on the opening day of deer season. The picture below is of me and a few of my club member friends. I currently hold the President's position in our club. 

Over Thanksgiving break I had 3 family dinners to go to. The Colliver side, the Broyles side, and the Shields side. I had fun stuffing my face. We have the Broyles side of the family come over to my dad's house, so we had a big mess to clean up afterward.

                                            

Another thing I was doing over Thanksgiving break was working on my rubber-band powered car for Science Olympiad. The project is called wheeled vehicle and the objective is to make a little car that runs by rubber-band power and can go around a bucket while making a distance of 9 to 12 meters. Here was the result- we changed it after this, so it went a farther, and it looks different.

Haven't been a Bloggin'

          So it has been a while since I have last blogged because of summer and what not. so to keep you up to date I showed my steer at the Livingston County Fair in Chillicothe in July. I placed 2nd or 3rd in my class- I can't remember. i sold all my rabbits except one so that I can breed her with a buck if I ever find a Tort Neatherland Dwarf Buck. If not I have beginning to consider artificial insemination. I am beginning to start my own cattle operation also, BYE! LOL

ANYONE NEED SOME KITTENS.................................................?

           In the past few weeks I have been busy taking care of kits (baby rabbits), kittens, and calves. I have a calf named Superman- I've told you about him before- also I have 14 kittens! Out of my 3 mama barn cats they each had a litter. My orange cat had 5 kittens originally she had 6, the grey mama had 5 kittens but one died, and the black and orange mama had 7 kittens but 2 died- I don't know why. 
I have told you before about my baby rabbits also. I hope to get best of breed this year again or better when I show them at the County 4-H fair. 

     There has been a lot of things happen at my farm since the last time I have blogged. For starters, my baby rabbits were born. My doe had 5 kits (baby rabbits) five is a good sized litter. I would have been happier if she had 6 or seven kits but as long as she keeps them all alive I will call it good enough. I have some videos and pictures for you to look at if you want because some people may or may not have seen kits before. 
   Secondly, I have three female barn cats. I have one adolescent tom cat but he isn't old enough to breed. But, conveniently, (jokingly) all three of my barn cats got pregnant- i have had to chase feral toms out of the barn before- and the black cat had 7 kittens! Although one died. so now that cat has only 6 kittens. My orange barn cat had 6 kittens but one of hers died- it happens- and the grey cat had kittens but I can't find them so pretty much I have 15+ cats; that sucks. If you think you need some cats and you live around the Hale, MO area I would be more than welcome to give you some kittens- when they get old enough. Only if you are a nice person though.

   Here are the videos and pictures for your enjoyment!

   

My weekend and what's to come....

      So last weekend was pretty boring other than the fact that I discovered that ALL THREE of my cats are pregnant! God that will be a mess. That means that I will have 3 litters of kittens in my shed. Trust me now I don't expect all of them to live- I hope they all don't, harsh I know, but that is life. 
      This weekend I have to go and get my steers and heifers nose printed and weighed. We load them up in the livestock trailer and take them to Doc Young in Chillicothe. After that we sign in and wait for other people to get out of the way. Then, we open to gate and they open the chute door. The chute looks like this-( you don't have to watch the whole video just some of the beginning if you don't know how a chute works.)

 I like working cows and that is pretty much it! 

My Farm

To give you a long brief i will tell you how Superman is doing. He is 2 times bigger than he was a month ago. He probably weighs about 150 pounds by now. He is eating  calf starter now, although i would like it if he would eat more of it be cause milk re-placer is pretty expensive. Milk re-placer is about 40 to 50 bucks a bag, so yeah it would be helpful to my expenses if he would eat more calf starter. he is drinking water as well. I will post regular pictures of Superman from now on to show you how big he is getting.

          I also have rabbits on my farm and right now I have five rabbits. I had eight but I sold six and bought 3 does (females). The three does that i bought are called Netherland Dwarf rabbits. This is what they look somewhat like...

                             

I also have an older doe that i hope will have another litter of kits because her last litter died because it was too cold for them to be born, also because i didn't have a heat lamp on them because they came 2 days early. But thankfully she will have another litter here in another week or two. This is what she looks like.

This is what the daddy rabbit looks like.

 

Superman...

        
                                       This is him.                                                                      

                                             

 I have a calf on my farm that we saved from near death about 3 weeks ago. He is very energetic and loves his milk. Sometimes I swear that his eyes are 1000 times bigger than his stomach. He still tries to suck on you fingers even though he has finished his bottle. I am trying to get him to eat starter feed- feed that is more rich in minerals and protein- because one bag of milk re-placer is about 40 dollars, so yeah it is pretty expensive. It is fun to watch him run around and buck his little heals. I have named him Superman, because it is a miracle that he is alive. 
         He was born in my grandma's pasture while it was -11 degrees outside and there was 3 inches of snow on the ground. These factors can be fatal because when a calf is born they are all wet so Superman could have easily died of frost bite or hypothermia.
         Anyway, he seems to be flourishing now and I plan to show him at the Livingston County Fair next year. he will be a bull because I just couldn't stand to show him as a steer because after you show them you would have to sell him to slaughter because a steer can't breed so in the eyes of any other human they are just a big fat juicy beef steak. I do eat meat but that is just how I am raised. I have shown steers in the past and hated letting them go because i knew where they were going. that is why I am showing 2 heifers this year. I hope Superman looks like this,

                      

And I hope my heifers look like this,

And this,

                                                    

My life the passed couple weeks...

So I have been pretty busy. Recently i have i inherited a newborn calf. he is about a week old now and he is defiantly growing. We have named him Superman because it is a miracle he is alive. by chance my dad had decided to go and check on our cows. he gets out of the truck to see if the water in the tank was frozen. it wasn't but he hears a loud moo and it sound like a cow in stress. He thought " oh no some coyotes got a hold of one of the calves" but then he drives down in the bottoms and find a wet calf, lying in the snow, while it is -11 degrees outside. he picks it up and puts it in the floor board of his truck and turns the heat all the way up and points it at the calf on the floor boards. We bring him home and we put him in our garage. He was not moving very much and we didn't think that he was going to make it over night. I guess we got enough*colostrum in him that he was alright. it took him a couple days to learn how to suck on the bottle but he soon figured it out and now he is drinking 18 cups of milk a day. that is two whole bottle a day. he is like a dog to me and I hope he grows well. i will show him next year at the fair. i will show him as a bull because i don't want to show him as a steer because if he is a steer he will be sold to slaughter and i already love him too much to let that happen.                                                                                                                                                       
                                                 



 It happened a little like that but it took him a little longer to get the hang of it because he has never influenced by cows.


O n the other hand for Christmas my favorites gift that i got was my .270 Winchester.

It looks a little like this but the stock and fore stock is a bit different. 


 My Dachshund (wiener dog) has epilepsy that means that he has seizures and he can't help it. The vet says it can be triggered by a lot of things. Scooby's is triggered by people, like having family dinners, or having friends over. I tis really sad, I don't know if it hurts him or not either. Also if the seizures happen too frequently then we will have to put him on medication. to go with that he is also hurting because the other day he was under my bed and i reached in to pull him out from the bed and when i touch him he whimpered and i tried again and he snapped at me but he didn't hurt me or anything. I just pray for him to get better because i don't want to put my dog down at 2 years old.