Fall Update

Some of our cattle and sheep co-grazing with a hen.

Summer has ended and new life is around the farm. We have had 14 new born claves born in October with more to expected in through the middle of December. We had twin calves for the first time this year. The cow is a first time mom and has done great raising two claves. Our senior cow, White Rock Blossom is 15 years old and is successfully raising her 11th calf at Mad-Kettle Farm. Many of our Dexter cows are closing in on double digit age and remain productive within our herd. 

Our cattle have been co-grazing this fall with our bred ewes. The bred ewes will remain with our cattle until the week of Thanksgiving. We will split them as our bred ewes will begin lambing at the beginning of January. Co-grazing has allowed for more flexible grazing options with our developmental ewe lambs. This group of ewe lambs has benefited from having access to more clean pastures than in previous years. Our 14 ewe lambs are currently with our new ram TLF 21009, we will be expecting lambs in March. In total, we should hopefully have between 85-100 lambs born in 2022. 

Last summer, we raised 4 broad breast white turkeys. This year we decided to expand our turkey operation to 30. We lost one turkey while they were in the brooder for the first 6 weeks. We then moved the turkeys outdoors for the final 10 weeks of growth. A few turkeys were able to fly out of the electric netting and predator's killed two birds. Since losing those bird, the turkeys are put in the barn at night. We will be harvesting them before Thanksgiving and expect weights around 18-20 pounds per bird. 

A group shot of the turkeys on pasture.

We have the beef. We will be bringing our slaughter cattle home from our lease around Thanksgiving. They will be on a finishing ration of unlimited hay and supplemental grain feeding schedule until they are taken to Gore's Custom Slaughter. We hope everyone has a safe and happy holidays.