Last week we started a batch of 100 Cornish Cross broiler (meat) chickens with the intent to raise on pasture and sell at the farmer’s market. We are prototyping the system with 100 birds, but hope to get up to batches of 300, as chicken is a high volume – low margin game. A chicken
My previous post was about a disappointing hay harvest. Well, the second cutting exceeded my expectations. I got 39 bales of hay off of ~15 acres. This same area only produced 13 bales the first cutting. What made the difference? Well, I think the fertilizer had finally kicked in. We had a good 2″ of
I had a few acres cut for hay this year as the cows weren’t keeping up and it was going to seed. On 25 acres I only got 15 bales. I knew one 10 acre patch would be sparse, but I was expecting 2 bales per acre on the remaining 15 yet I got less
I’m not a big wine drinker, but when Molly and I visited Fredericksburg this spring I couldn’t help but pick up a few grape vines. I picked up 2 of each of the three varieties available – Black Spanish, Blanc du Bois, and Champanel. These are the predominant wine grapes in Central Texas as they
Added more earthworks to the ranch. This time I put a swale in as the first phase of my orchard. A swale is basically a ditch on contour. The idea being that runoff acclimates in the ditch and slowly infiltrates the soil instead of running off. The added depth of topsoil and moisture retention is
Heading toward Christmas I could see the bellies swelling and the udders filling. I knew we were going to have some winter calves. I pulled two heifers out of the heard (#12 & #21) and put them in a paddock with hay so I could assist with the birth in the event I needed to.
Well 2017 concludes my first year in the cattle business. And I must say, I made some big mistakes. 1. I paid too much for most of my cattle. I was paying premium price on moderate quality animals, and I was paying bred heifer pricing on animals that turned out to be open. Takeaway: a
