Spring has Sprung 

​This time of year as the weather gets warmer and the mud begins to disappear, it is refreshing to watch the grass turn green and watch the spring flowers burst from unexpected places.

​In spring time it is never hard to find something to do, and such is the case at ESF. We have recently received the Pasture to Plate cattle and will be holding the first field day session next week on April 20th at 5pm here at the farm. I encourage everyone to come out and join us for this first session which will cover health protocols for receiving cattle and a demonstration on how to perform these task.

​We have finished up some of Dr. Higgins projects that had been carried over from last year. We got the roof on the small feeding structure.

In that last picture you will notice the cows only have access to one side of the feeder. That is because we still had materials staged in the gravel lot. We now have those materials moved and the cows have access to both sides of the feeder.
We also utilized a large feeding structure that can hold 6 round bales to feed our heifers this winter

​We had to scrape the concrete clean twice over the course of the winter. This generated approximately 18 tons of manure that was applied to hay ground this spring in compliance with our Nutrient Management Plan.

​We do have plans to build a covered stack pad this summer so that we will be able to store an entire winters worth of manure. If you notice the blue calf chutes and the pile of gravel on the left hand side of the picture; this is where the stack pad will be placed. There is existing concrete here and the location is out of the way to both fill the feeder with hay and is easily accessed when cleaning out the feed pad. 

This feeding system has worked well at the maternity barn complex and I am looking forward to getting the permanent structure in place.
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Other odd jobs around the farm have included rehanging the door on our fencing room. We went in there one day to grab some wire and when we opened the door it literally fell off the barn. 

​I’m sure a lot of you have a room such as this designated for fencing supplies on your farm. This room was already being used when we took the farm over and it looks like most fencing supply rooms do, a mess. But I know exactly where everything is, so don’t go in there and start “cleaning it up”. 

​We found some new lag bolts and rehung the door in some wood that was not rotted. It didn’t take long at all and we had it as good as new.