January 3, 2010 -- Happy New Year!
It’s calving month! I finally crawl out of my warm bed and head for the hay barn at 7:30 am to load the tractor with hay. I notice the herd has spent last night on a hill top next to what we call the “Little Woods”. They are just getting up themselves and 
starting to move toward their favorite feeding site (they have three of them) along the fence at the back of the house. The thermometer reads 7.6 degrees.
The sky is clear for the first time in a week and the moon that was full on New Years Eve is starting to show signs of erosion. It’s going to be a sunny day.
I dress warmly. Over my flannel pj’s (they are in right now you know), I put on a fleece pullover with a high neck and a pair of fleece sweat pants. Next goes a Carhartt 
stocking cap, a wool scarp around my neck and another scarf tied over the cap and under my chin. On top of that goes a Carhartt jacket. Warm socks, tall rubber boots from Wal-Mart, and two pairs of gloves (one pair brown knitted liners, the other lined leather work gloves) complete my fetching ensemble. A little chap stick on my lips and I’m ready for anything. Someone asked my the over day why I don’t wear a Carhartt overall. The answer is simple. I can’t stuff the legs of the overall into my boots and I don’t want to wear them over my boots because the legs will get muddy. So, I only wear flannel lined jeans or my flannel/sweat pants outfit that I can tuck into my rubber boots.
The bulls have the best situation on the farm. They sleep in the “East Barn” with a nice big stall lined on two sides with the hay storage. As I roll open the big door and turn on the tractor, steam is rising from the bulls’ bodies to the point that it looks like they are standing in fog. The tractor is a diesel and will have to run it a few minutes until the chug, chug sounds drops to more of a purr. I busy myself throwing hay to the bulls and stacking hay in the tractor’s front end loader to take to the herd. I put enough hay on the tractor to feed sixteen mixed head- six cows, eight pregnant heifers, one bull and 
two coming yearling calves. They usually get three 60 pound bales of good alphalfa mix but this morning I decide they might need four. The extra hay will help them make more heat and keep themselves warm. By the way, the “West Barn” is open, I’ve left it open all this winter so that the herd can sleep there if they choose. Most nights they prefer to sleep outside. The exception is one of the heifers, GMEG Marla. She has hurt her left hind leg on the hard, cow hoof print pocked ground, and is staying in the barn with Uno the goat. She gets hay this morning along with Uno.
I feed the chickens in the morning so that the rats have less chance to steal from them. I’ve f
ound enough dead rats in the chicken house to know that the roosters will kill them if they see them. The chicken house is a pretty comfy place this morning. It’s just one of those little 12 x 12 wooden buildings like you can buy at Lowes or Home Depot.
My husband built a small interior room along one side of it with a chicken wire ceiling and that forms a loft. Most of the chickens like to sleep in the loft, a few roost near the ground on wooden 1”x 1” poles. I only clean the chicken house once a year in the spring when I put down a good thick layer of wood shavings. In the fall I put down another layer and the shavings combined with the chicken dropping make a nice thick insulating floor cover which composts slowly over time. The chicken house door is a double door of wood frame and hardware cloth. It faces south, so all the winter sun pours in and makes it cozy.
The new nesting box system is doing very well. The eggs are not freezing like they have in past years. I’m still getting 9 or 10 eggs a day, which is pretty good considering I have no light or extra heat in the chicken house this year.
The chickens are my primary composters. All my kitchen fruit and vegetable scraps go to the chickens along with old stale bread and crackers. A few days ago I noticed I had one pumpkin left and it had gone through several freezes and thaws to the point where it was pretty soft. I cracked it open and tossed it into the chicken house, figuring the chickens would clean it up quickly. They did a good job of cleaning out the pumpkin flesh and seeds – I thought. This morning I noticed the shells of the two pumpkin halves were still evident and frozen solid. One of the pieces had a three inch round hole cut into the back of it which looks like it is forming the entrance to a tunnel into the chicken house floor litter. Rats! I’m sure that’s what I am seeing. They must have come out at night and decided to move in to the pumpkin! This afternoon I’ll have to get my shovel and go on a search and destroy mission.
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