A New Home for the Calves

 It has been a very busy week of moving cattle for Travis and the guys. The calves were moved from their calf hutches, which is a great home for them from October through June.

In the calf hutches, they are fed pasturized milk twice a day until they are six weeks old, when they are then fed a grain mixture and water twice a day. Madi really likes when they are little and still drinking milk out of a bottle because she thinks they are the cutest at that point. Can you tell just how much she loves them by the big grin on her face?

Once the calves leave the hutches, they are brought to a turkey hutch to live which is a great place for them to be from mid June through late September. The turkey hutches provide a great environment where there is a lot of air movement and also protects the calves from rain and hot sunshine.

The past couple of weeks, all of the new calves were immediately put into a turkey hutch to live.

Today, Travis and the kids worked on moving all of the weaned calves (those that no longer need milk but grain and water instead) from their regular calf hutch home to the much cooler turkey hutch.

 

Kids Summer Project

Summer vacation is in full swing at our house already! The past two years the kids have each raised a bull calf over the summer. Before school starts in the fall they have to sell their calves and they get the money. Yesterday morning, which was the second full day of summer vacation, Madi and Tyson wanted to get their calves. I took the kids to the barn and they helped clean the cattle trailer out and service the robots. After helping with these chores, they got to pick out their calves. Tanner decided he wanted to raise two calves this year and because he has been responsible the past two years, I agreed. Out of the six calves the kids had to choose from, four of them were loaded into the trailer and brought back to our place.

The kids had to feed them for the first time last night. Today, Madi spent most of her day with the calves. She even did extra things (like bed for them and spread it around all over) for her brothers calves because she felt sorry for the calves.  After her grandpa told her that there were two more bull calves born today, she sweet talked me into letting her get a second calf.  So, as of tonight the kids now have five calves at our place.

We took pictures of the fun things they have bought with their money from the last two summers. They are really proud of their purchases! They bought their own trampoline, a 4-wheeler, and Tanner bought an autographed basketball from the 2009 state championship team, his favorite possession!