The Story of Little Orphan Annie

It has been a very fun and interesting day at Hat Trick Farm. Today one of our first time mamas, Suzette (not the one pictured) delivered a beautiful heifer calf. Unfortunately for the calf, the mother abandoned her. While we tried to get Suzette to let the baby (who was named Annie--as in Little Orphan Annie!) nurse, another mother tried to take it. Now we know that Farlow, the other mother, was in labor and probably thought that we took her calf.  In the end we wound up letting Farlow have Annie as her own. The picture above is of Annie (left), Farlow (middle) and Henry (right and who was Farlow's actual calf).

A little more news since Molly was born. We have lost another calf and had 3 more living calves. All the babies names are Molly, Zagnut, Bella, Noella, Annie and Henry.        

It's a Girl

Welcome and introducing......Hat Trick Molly. 

After losing the calf on Friday the joy now abounds on Hat Trick Farm. 

First Calf

First calf of the year was born sometime in the middle of the night on either May 1st or 2nd. We had
 a bull calf with a belt that went from his front legs all the way on to his back legs.The calf was stillborn for reasons we can't identify. After about 1 day Sunburst, who was his mother, had not gotten up. So we did a more detailed examination of her and found that since she struggled while delivering, one or more of her nerves got damaged. Sunburst is now getting medicine to recover.

Spring Fever is Here!!

We moved the cows to a new and drier pasture.  The spring fever is definitely showing.  We feel that the cows and last year's calves get bored in the same pasture all winter and enjoy a different view.  Also, we were checking the cows to see if we could see any signs of calving.  Stay tuned--baby pictures are on the way!!!

Candling Eggs

Today, middlest and I candled all 41 eggs to see how development was coming along.

We found 31 eggs that have movement in them!  3 were discarded because they had a ring at the bottom that indicated a bad egg.  1 was discarded because it was infertile.  We still have 5 eggs that we are keeping an eye on but we're pretty sure they are no good/infertile and 1 that is probably bad.

We will check those 6 again when we take them off the egg turner and put them on the bottom of the incubator in preparation for hatching.  Now I can relax for a week until May 8 when they are supposed to hatch!

We're EGG-specting!! (Hopefully!!)

Our new adventure: 41 eggs hoping to be chicks when they grow up!! (I won't post pictures every day for the next 21 days because it would be the exact same picture!!)  Stay tuned--Due date is May 8th!

Cold but Happy

Here is a more recent picture of our herd. We are hoping to be expanding by 15 or so in May so stay tuned for baby pictures.

Welcome to our blog!

   

Welcome to our farm!  We hope you enjoy reading about our family and our farm adventures!! We are a family of 5...Dad, Mom and 3 girls.  We purchased our farm in October 2011 and got our first cows in April 2012. As of 2014, we have 16 Belted Galloway breeders, one stock bull and 9 yearlings.  We also have one Guernsey that is our family milk cow and her heifer calf.  In May 2014, we are expecting  15 (possibly 16!) calves.  The picture above is of our first 7 cows. We also have 40 something chickens and 2 dogs!!  Dad and Mom always say that on our farm we raise cows, chickens and children.  More pictures and posts to follow.