Just when you thought you've seen it all...

The farming experience is usually all fun and games here at S&K Farm, or at least a mixture of hard work and fun. The past 48 hours have been a little bit of a different story. At 4 PM on Thursday, Farmer K received a call that one of the herds (that's 83 head to be exact) were visiting on the neighbor's farm. Now that doesn't sound too bad...until you consider that particular neighbor doesn't have fencing between himself and the railroad, or really between himself and anything. To remedy the situation, Farmer K, Farmer S and Farmer K' sister and father descended upon the farm to save the day. The herd politely came when called and returned home...all 83. Just like that. So the humans worked on the fence and made sure the fence was up to par and headed home at dark.

Fast forward to Friday morning at 7:30 AM. Farmer S decided to do a drive-by the farm on his way to work at his office job. That drive-by prompted a phone call to Farmer K to say the big herd was out again...all 83 again. So Farmer K, Farmer S and Farmer K's sister and father descended upon the farm again. Let's not forget how wet the grass is at 7:30 AM...soaking. This time the herd wasn't as accommodating as before. After a couple of near stampedes and several attempts to group the herd up, all the cattle were eventually returned to their field. Fences were mended until 1:30 PM. At that time, all the cattle were settled down for the day and laying in the shade.

Fast forward less than 30 minutes...to the phone call from the neighbor that a cow had been missed when the herd was rounded up. After the 5 minute drive back to the farm, Farmer K determined no cow had been missed. Instead, 10 cows had pushed through the fence again. So Farmer K and her sister, plus Farmer S who left his day job again returned the cows to the correct field. At this point, exasperation was near so the entire herd was sent to the holding pen for the day. The remainder of the day was spent repairing the fence line...or so we thought.

Saturday was spent repairing the fence line, fortifying the line to hold the cows. Now you may wander why the herd suddenly had such horrid behavior. It's all because the grass is greener on the other side, literally. The neighbor's farm is a hayfield so the grass is all tender compared to the herd's pasture. In mid afternoon, Farmer S and Farmer K determined the fence was sufficiently fortified to let the herd out while we could keep tabs on them and continue to work the line. As soon as their pen was opened, the herd made a beeline for the fortified fence line, which withstood the test. For 3 hours the herd wondered up and down the line, bawling like the world was ending, nonstop. Eighty-three bawling cows and calves is a lot irritating noise. At about 5 PM, while working on the fence, Farmer K looked up and uttered an expletive - 20 cows were on the other side of the fence visiting the neighbor's hayfield again! So all the human's started scrambling. The latest hole in the fence was found and plugged while the escapees were rounded up. The entire herd was put back in the holding pen for the night...and that's where they were at 8 PM. Let's just hope they are there on Sunday morning.

If you want to place any bets, the plan for Sunday is to continue to work on the fence line but turn the cows into another field for a few days until they forget the sweet, succulent grass in the neighbor's field. Let us hope this works! If it doesn't, there will probably be a herd for sale cheap sometime soon!

Babies, babies and babies...a lesson on cattle calving seasons

Calving season is finally over with the arrival of this little fellar. We think he's kinda cute!

A little bit of education is in order for our readers...about calving season. A cow will cycle through her "heat" approximately every 3 weeks. After exposure to a bull, if she "takes" or "catches", her gestation period will last 9 months. Typically cow/calf producers like to expose the cows (i.e. let the bull do his thing) for a period of about 45-60 days. The purpose is so that all the calves are born within a fairly tight time frame, referred to as calving season. Producers like a short calving season so calves are all a similar size and weight when they reach selling age. A uniform group of calves will bring a higher price for the cow/calf producer at selling time. Here at S&K Farm our calving season has lasted a little longer than we'd like our first time through but we're just excited to say we've reached the end with only a few speed bumps! Now it's time to get these calves growing like weeds!