Chicken Scraps Blog

Well...  here I am making apologies again.  You can tell when I am staying busy farming, and when I am just writing about being busy, because when I'm truly busy, I don't post on my blogs!  Anyway, thankfully I usually have my phone on me and take lots of pictures, so these will give some idea of what we've been up to.  Enjoy! March and April were filled with: Trying to get good advertising pictures of Buttercup (so we could sell her heifer.) Spending time with younger siblings.

For those who are interested, here is a pictorial, high-speed description of the month of February. I got to experience what having a pack of four high-energy dogs is like when I "puppysat" a couple of my sister-in-law's Aussies. (They are great dogs!   palacepupsaussies.weebly.com )

Hi Everyone! Sorry I have been away from blogging for so long.  It seems like over the course of the last few months I've been so busy doing  things that I haven't had time to write about all I've been doing.  Well, it's good to stay busy, but it is also good to keep up with my blogs, so this week I have tried to focus on sewing and computer work.  So far, this is the first computer work I've done, except for a little writing on my current book, but hopefully I will be able to pile quite a few more languishing computer projects into the next few days. If you have subscribed to my newsletter, you are already aware of what has been going on in our lives; it's been a lot!  Two siblings have been married, two calves have been born, one goat is due to kid soon, and Cleone is ready to be bred for her first litter of puppies, to name a few!  If you are not subscribed to the newsletter, you can sign up now via the form on the right hand side of this blog. ...

We are offering our very nice naturally polled Jersey bull for sale or stud. He is from Shepherd's Hill Farm's closed milking herd of Jerseys from registered lines.  Almost all of their cows are A2/A2 and excellent milkers.  Barbacoa is a great bull; calm, medium sized, well built, polled, and a great example of a Jersey. I have A2/A2 test results in hand, and will be happy to email them upon request. Stud fee will be $50 per cow, if she does not need to stay overnight or be milked by me.  If she stays overnight or needs milking/ other special care, we will discuss further terms. Contact me at 352-745-3576  by call or text for more info, or send me an email at chickenscrapsblog@gmail.com This is one of his calves; our beautiful heifer, Bayberry.  She is polled and A2/A2, from our horned, A1/A2 cow, Blossom.  (Blossom is horned, but carries a recessive polled gene.)

In breeding Border collies, my first goal is to produce quality puppies, rather than quantity.  Thus I chose my two dogs from reputable breeders who breed healthy working dogs.  To make entirely sure though that Cleone and Duncan are free from the dreaded collie eye anomaly , I sent in blood samples last week to a lab in Tallahassee. Today I got the test results and they are both normal, non-carriers! To view results, click here .

Have you ever tried to herd a 16 m/o dairy bull?  It can be interesting, even when he is comparatively mellow, like Barbacoa.  Any bull that is sexually mature is potentially dangerous, and the closer they get to 18 months or two years, the more dangerous they are. Now, if you have to somehow move that beast from one pasture, past a 5 month old heifer, through the yard, into another pasture, what is the easiest way to do it? You call a high drive Border collie! Yesterday I tattooed our bull for permanent ID before we sell him, and had to get him into the milking stanchion.  While we didn't get the dragging him into the stanchion adventure on video, my 10 year old brother, Justice, did get some neat footage of Cleone moving him.  As you can see in the video, she is no expert, but that is my fault, not hers.  I simply don't know how to train a herding dog to the high level of skill that many reach, so while she is a great helper for me around the farm, ...

Feldman Family Pansy Pansy is a beautiful heifer with a great temperament.  She is well built, and in perfect condition.  She has been very healthy her entire life, and has been kept on a good regimen of milk, free choice kelp based minerals, grass, and alfalfa hay.  We do not practice feeding grain to our cows, as we feel that grass is their natural food, and the milk is much  healthier if they are fed exclusively grass. Pansy is used to having her udder handled quite a bit, and allows me to "milk" her without much fuss at all, if any.  She also picks up her feet, and leads okay.  (I am working on improving her leading training, and also teaching her to tether.)