Eden Shale Farm Update - May 2019

The flurry of springtime activity has continued at Eden Shale Farm. After getting our commercial fertilizer spreader in early April, we have since been able to spread some manure. The bull barn created the most manure this winter with the 61 head of steers that lived there until the middle of February. We were able to clean the entire barn out in one day and set a new record for the most loads of manure spread in a single day at 26. That may not seem impressive, but we are renting the skid steer which means we have to go pick it up first thing in the morning, haul it home, scrape and haul the manure, and haul the machine back to the rental company all in a day. We still have some other manure that needs to be hauled that we will get to after we get the first cutting of hay baled and in the barn.

In preparation for breeding at the end of May we have worked all the cows and heifers and given them their pre breeding shots. This also includes a cultured pinkeye vaccine, Long Range dewormer, and fly tags. Also, the yearling heifers were pelvic measured and tract scored. On the day we did the yearling heifers, we hosted a UK Animal Science class at the farm and the students helped work the heifers that afternoon. After working the heifers, the students stayed for a tour of the farm.


​Dr. Higgins has been working at the farm this month planning for some construction projects for this summer. One of those projects is to renovate the bull barn. This will include new flooring in the barn, new pens, new waterers, new feed bunks, and a new manure stack pad. The numerous pens in this barn will allow us the opportunity to show different flooring options in each pen. We hope to have this finished for the Open House Tour this fall.

This past month we also participated in the Owen County Farm Safety Day held at the extension office & fair grounds. Greg and I took two of our tamest heifers to the safety day and got the opportunity to talk to kids about the proper way to handle cattle. I asked each group of kids if they lived or worked on a farm and I was happy to see that, at least in rural Owen county, a vast majority of kids did have experience with a farm and had been exposed to cattle.
We finished up our tour schedule for this month with hosting the UK Forage Workers Tour. We were only a 2 hour stop on their full two day agenda. It was a great group and I appreciate Dr. Jimmy Henning for bringing that group to Eden Shale Farm.

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