A Day on the Farm Pt 1.- Daily Chores

youngwildfree (43)in #farm • 7 years ago (edited)

Every day presents new and different challenges. These don't always revolve around the farm, but many of them do.

Because farming is part of my daily routine, I guess I never thought to make a post of some of the things that I do all the time.
Currently, we raise Heritage Ossabaw Island Pigs, and beef cattle, which I will ellaborate on in a future post.

DAILY CHORES

These are a few of the things we do on a daily basis during the winter, they typically take 3-5 hours to complete. This usually depends on the weather, bad snowy, blustery days usually result in a messier barn to clean!
Our day starts with the pigs, since our farm is divided between the property at our house, and the property we own about a mile away, at our grandparents house. The majority of the cattle reside there, while the heifers (which total at about 10) live at our house.

Our days revolve around our animals.

As many farmers do, we care about how they feel, and how they are raised.
Since the pigs live at our house, we start with them.
Because they are quite peculiar little pigs, their diet has to be different from your average feeder pig as far as nutrition content of their food. We ended up buying the individual ingredients and mixing their food ourselves. We let it soak and begin to ferment before feeding it.
It looks like this:

And honestly, due to an accidental fling of our mixing spoon, I can say it doesn't taste bad at all.

Thanks @bluerthangreen for the 5 gallon buckets! We haven't come close to running out!
After the pigglers have been fed, a.k.a, distracted... The cows get their turn. This involves our beloved skidsteer, Mojo, my brother, and a haybale.

The cows are overjoyed every time they hear Mojo coming with their favorite pastime, hobby, downtime, or anytime activity. They trot along after the skidsteer and wait (sort of) patiently for it to be placed into their feeder.

After the activities at the house, we drive over to our larger farm counterpart. This is where our daily exercise takes place.

The barn is very old, but slowly we've been repairing it in effort to keep it standing as long as possible. This includes a new roof, tearing out the loft flooring and beams, replacing them, and this year we are hoping to remortar the base level walls.
Its crazy the way that a routine can be so effortless once fallen into place. Everyone knows their jobs and what has to be done with no words spoken in between. Which means more nonsense and bad singing can take place while still being effecient...

After using a scraper to scrape both the manure into a gutter, we use shovels and wheelbarrows to haul it out onto our artistic masterpiece, "The Manure Pile"

(My sister and brother showing some dedication like true artists)
After the scraping/scooping/dumping has taken place, come the beautiful layer of sawdust. This not only makes it look nice, but it provides grip for the cows, as the cement can be slippery afterwards.

Now comes the moo moo's favourite part. FOOD!!!

Our hay is all grown, baled and stored by us; while it is a laborous process, it is also extremely rewarding in the face we know exactly what is going into their mouths, and in turn, meat.
Feeding starts with a round bale, stored in the second story of the barn. The cows go through 1+1/2 at the farm everyday, and 1 at our house.
We flip the round bale onto its side, and peel off a good amount of layers before rolling it out. From there two people will stay upstairs and push the hay through a chute and into the lower part of the barn where a third person is filling the mangers. We feed twice a day, about 8-12 hours apart.
At times it can seem monotonous and unchanging, but for the most part, we make it fun and enjoyable, finding little things to laugh at and ways to switch it up. Life would be full of negativity if people didn't enjoy the little things in their lives.

(My brother, sister and I on a gorgeous summer evening on a herd check in the gator with our parents)