So the month of December started out with a week of very hot and dry weather. It turned the day Brittany came back and has been unusually cool and wet for what is normally the driest month of the year in Canterbury. The rain has been helping us out on the farm since we fell behind on irrigation during the week of hot weather. We were really tight on grass as were all farms in the area. We ended up feeding palm kernel to supplement the pasture, only a few pounds per cow and only for about 10 days. The amount of grass has risen a lot in the last week and we are hopefully out of what could have been a very bad spot feed wise.
Artificial mating finished up the day that Brittany came home so everyone has been getting more much needed sleep. We have been spending most of the day keeping the irrigation going. I was trained on how to run the K-Line irrigation, the roto-rainer irrigator, and how to setup and properly irrigate using the border-dyke flood irrigation. The flood irrigation is what I have on my area that I keep up where the heifer calves are. So far it went well.
I have also been busy, vaccinating, drenching, and weighing the heifer calves as well as keeping them properly fed. Everyone is saying that they are looking great so I guess that means things are going well. I am enjoying having more responsibility and decision making for the pasture management of that area of the farm. Andy (the farm owner) spent some time with me last weekend giving me pointers on pasture management for the calves and agreed to spend some time with me once every other week to go over the decisions and ideas I have, and help me in areas I am still struggling.
This past week I had two heifer calves go down, so we called the vet out and we found out they had B1 deficiency. She said it was to the variation in weather we have been having along with the fast growth that the calves are experiencing. They are both still alive right now, I have been trying to nurse them back to health, I am really hoping not to loose any calves that Brittany worked so hard to raise earlier.
I am looking forward to the 8 days I have off for New Years, it will be a good break before the baby comes and we plan on spending some time traveling too. It should be fun. I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!
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