Beyond the chickens...show world

So I mentioned in my last post we were starting a new adventure with a show cow.  An adventure it most definitely is...

We started this adventure in May.  My boss (also my husbands boss at a different company) also owns a farm...Bear Creek Farm (busy man).  He raises registered Angus and Polled Hereferd cows.  He offered to sponsor Lauren and her friend Stephanie (whose Dad works at the Farm) with a couple of his calves he thought would make good show cows.  I will tell you more on this later but you can not just pick a calf and make it a show cow...there are MANY factors to look at when deciding if a calf is "Show" quality.  So Lauren and Stephanie are basically borrowing and caring for the cows for the year.
Lauren is working with the Polled Hereford this year and Stephanie the Angus (they have different ones so they don't compete against each other at shows).  Ready for some animal knowledge...Polled Hereford - It is a hornless breed which is a natural genetic mutation that was selected in a different breed in the late 1880's.  An Iowa rancher capitalized on the idea of breeding Polled Herefords and started the registry with 11 naturally polled herefords (otherwise they were born with the gene that grew horns and they could physically remove them later).  They originate from England (which you need to know for showing) and they are known for deep forequarters, depth and muscling, docile temperament, fast-growing calves, and good quality of beef.  

Back to the adventure...Here are some pictures of the first day the girls worked with the calves.  Now remember, these calves were born in a field, nursed from their moms and were weened off their Mama's like regular calves...these were not bottle babies that had always been around people.  These were wild calves when we started this.  We also had NO idea what we were jumping into...How hard can it be to walk a cow around a ring...we did know there was a little more to it than that but REALLY...some of this stuff just seams crazy...(you'll see).

We put the calves in the shoot so the girls could get close and start brushing.  Wild animals aren't to fond of being brushed at first...they begin to realize it's kind of nice:)

Meet Scarlet...

 Brushing and making friends

 The first attempt at walking her...she did not want to move

So all of this started while our fences were being worked on (I mentioned all that work in the catch up post) so we could not keep her at our house in the beginning.  We went to my bosses farm everyday and worked with the calf and brushed her and walked her.  As the days went on, Lauren and Scarlett became more comfortable with each other and Lauren learned more how to control her.  She also began to learn the basics of what she would need to do in a show ring and started working on the set up and all of that.

Dad watching on as Lauren learned how to make Scarlet do what she wanted her to do.

 Austin loves helping...Scarlet was so small when we first started:)

 Working on holding Scarlett's head up...not easy with a head that big

She has to get tied up to make her strengthen her neck muscles to hold up her head.  Cows don't naturally hold their heads up all the time.  You can see this is her "you're not my friend right now" face:)

 
  Scarlet set up like she would be for a show...

A little cattle judging knowledge so you know what and why the judges are looking for on show day...for beef criteria (which she would fall under) they are looking at the head and neck.  This should be broad and sit evenly on the shoulders and the base must be in line with the spine. The head size must be in proportion with the rest of the body.  The Topline (or the back of the cow) should be straight.  It will have a slight bend but mostly straight (this is why we do many things to grow hair...I will tell you more later).  The legs the judge will be looking at mainly the structure and for some muscle.  As the judge looks at the main body and ribs, they want to see as much rib extension as possible (large chest area).  They want to see the amount of muscle on the cow consistent throughout the animal from the head to the rear (Rump).  They don't want to see heavy muscles in the front half and not in the rump or visa versa.  They also judge the rump.  They will stand directly behind the cow and they are looking for a wide rump...they should see only the rump and none of the body.  They will also see if the legs are straight or point inwards or outwards.  There should be A Lot of muscle on the rump.  The judges will check out the cows hooves and their pasterns (the bones that run from the top of the hoof to the fetlock (kind of an ankle).  They will also watch the cow walk.  This is also checking their legs and their step.  All of this factors together and basically tells what kind of price it could sell for and how good a beef cow it could be (just in a show ring).  So as you can see...much more to show cows than just walking them around...also why you can't just grab any cow to show.  They have to have the right lines and structure to start with to build on.

 So once our fence got done at the house and we were ready to bring Scarlett home...Oh wait, remember the thing I said up there about some of the silly things...right...no sunlight.  WHAT??!!??  No, they can not be in a field in the sun.  If they are in the sun, they get hot and if they get hot they will lose their hair.  Yes, I said hair...No really, the hair is VERY important.  I know you thought we were talking about animals right...WRONG...we are talking about show cows here.  They fall under a completely different category as we have learned.  Oh, and our field we fenced for her is ALL sun...so, Scarlet needs a pen.  We got this one below from Mike's work (actually a horse stall but perfect for what we need).  So we got it home and with the help of the neighbor's tractor Mike and I did our first barn raising (well pen but we can think big:) ).

The wall's are up:)  Notice the big tree for shade.

 Well, the wall's are supposed to be wood slats that butt up against each other but we decided it would be entirely too hot to close her in.  So we got cattle panels and cut them to fit.  There is always a breeze at our house and we figured it would defiantly help keep her cool.

It kept the dogs in so should work for a cow...

 Next was the roof...Lauren helped fill holes...(and it's RED TIN...my favorite)

 So, we have a field for her (to put her out at night when there is no sun) and now we have a pen for her.  So it is finally the day for Scarlet to come home!!!

Arriving in the trailer

 Welcome home Scarlet!!

Her pink feed bucket...is anyone surprised it is pink?

Back to the fun of show cattle.  It is A LOT of work.  As all the factors above are judged there are different things to work on to better the look of the cow.  As I said, the hair. I will try to get a good picture soon of one of these cows that is a really hairy breed (you talk about fluffy).  So you want the hair long so that it make the illusion they are bigger in spots and straighter lines in spots...so it is a challenge to get cow hair to grow just right.  Cold water and cold air promote hair growth.  So everyday the cow is to be wet down with cold water, again, no sun and cold air.  Some people that do show cattle actually have a cooler room they put their cow in.  You read that right...it is an air conditioned room the cow lives in so it will grow hair.  We DO NOT have a cooler room, just no sun and a fan:)

 Here is Lauren wetting down the cow (only water...soap is once a week or they will get dry skin)  are you beginning to notice they are a little high maintenance...

 Work , work, work...Scarlet is getting bigger...

Lauren is blow drying the cow. 

Oh, did I forget to mention that you blow dry the cow?  Why yes, you have to blow dry the cow after she is wet down.   Along with the cold water, you have to brush a lot to stimulate the hair growth and blow dry them so the hair grows the direction you want it to.  And if your cow happens to have kinky hair you must blow dry it so the hair lays straight (luckily we do not have that problem).

Let me interrupt our post here for a moment...in the process of all this cow "fun" our life has gone on otherwise...in the mean time...the kids have started school...Lauren is in 7th grade this year and Austin is in 1st...WHERE DID THE TIME GO...as always, Austin is full of energy and always wanting to help...good for Mom (as you will soon see) Lauren keeps us busy and has her hands full.  Along with a show cow she has to...let's just say pamper...she is in band..plays the flute, and plays volleyball.  So a cow she has to feed and walk twice a day, bathe and brush. a flute she has to practice 100 minutes a week (for a grade) and volleyball...practice at 6:30am every morning and a game on Monday nights (she has to be there for all 4 team games played) and homework.  How does a girl have enough time to do all of this?  Luckily we all pitch in to help.  

A typical day around our house...So mornings start around 5:30am...get up get dressed ready for school/work...take Lauren to practice...come back home, Austin and I go out and feed the cow, take her to her pen make sure she has water and hay then feed and water all the chickens and turkeys.  Go to work/school...kids go home in the afternoon and do homework, Mike and I get home from work and dinner gets made (Lauren practices flute)...eat, go outside to wash, brush, dry, walk and feed the cow.  Put her up for the night and do chicken/turkey duty...and when Lauren has conflicting schedules...we work it out:)  Sometimes it is crazy but mostly fun!  Just wanted you to know life isn't all cow...but quite a bit...

Back to our regularly scheduled post...So, after months of the girls hard work it was time to go to our first show...it was a Alumni FFA show and thought it would be a good one for the girls to work out their nerves and do a lot more learning...So we meet at 5am and loaded the cows and were off to our first ever show...

The cows when we first got to the show...

 And a bath...you must be pretty for show day...

 The girls blow drying their cows.

This was a cow across the isle from us (Lauren competed against these two...that's Lauren's cow closest) As you can see it is VERY hard work to be a cow on show day...

In the show ring...Stephanie showing...

Lauren getting her cow's feet right...

 Lauren is in the middle...she was up against some big cows...

Sorry, that's about all the pictures I got of the first show...think my dad got more but I haven't seen them yet;)  The girl's learned a lot from their first show as did we all.  We needed to beef our cow up and grow more hair.  Lauren had some more handling to work on and she has been daily working on them.  Overall the girls did great for their first show.  They both got first place in their class and Stephanie's cow won breed champion in one of the rings.

 The girls with their ribbons

As of now, we are about two weeks out from our big county show the girls will be in and we wanted to make sure they had a little more practice.  This weekend we are going to a show in Paris Texas.  Now all the hard work we have done leading up to this there has still been more to do.  Remember all the hair growing...well on Tuesday we had to go get her hair trimmed to even everything out.  Yes, grow the hair to cut the hair.  We get the news that Tuesday is trimming day...be at the school by 6:30 am to wet her and dry her so she is ready by 8am to clip.  This means she has to be clean and dry (Soap bath) Monday night (Soap twice to get all the dirt out or it will tear up the clippers) and she must be fully blow dried to cut down on any dirt that might stick to the wet hair, and she needs to be wet down Tuesday morning to wash of any dust she might have picked up over night and fully dry to be clipped.  If you recall in my interruption earlier...Lauren has volleyball games Monday night and practice in the mornings...Yay for parents and little brother.  So after we watched Lauren play Monday night (her team won) Mike & Austin and I went home and washed and dried the cow.  Next morning...everyone up early, load up the cow and off we go, Lauren to practice us to the ag barn...

To the ag barn for hair cuts....

 

 Getting her hair cut...

  

Can you tell by the look she is not excited...

With much time left in the show season we all look forward to more adventures with the cow.  I will update everyone on this weekends show and how it goes.

It has been fun to watch Lauren learn about the handling of the cow and see her step up to the responsibility of caring for her.  Learning about how to feed and what portions to feed and why to feed and all kinds of extra knowledge about cows is a big reason for Lauren doing FFA.  As her parents, we hope she is learning there is more to "show day" and cows then being in the ring and winning.  The daily care, responsibility and eventually reproduction of livestock is all a part of this adventure and we can't wait to learn more. It has also been fun to see the personality of the cow...she has her days that she just does not want to walk or do anything and she has her days where she gets into everything...

Here is one of her days she reminded me of a little kid letting us know without words she was NOT happy with us...She was mad we brought her in one morning and she dumped her water bucket over...she then rolled it all around her pen and as you can see rolled it through the mud and rubbed her face in it.  Defiantly a bath day after that...

 We are excited to continue showing and hopefully Austin will have an animal in the next couple years (he is too young right now).  It is a lot of work but we enjoy the family time we get to spend outside making memories with our first show cow and all the other animals and activities around the farm.
Gotta get stuff ready for the show this weekend...Good Luck to the girls and their cows:)

Animals...the beginning

Animals...I figure since I have updated you on the kids and house and projects I should move on to the animals.  When we first talked about moving to the country we knew we wanted enough land we could have animals (farm animals that is).  We also knew it would take time to get the larger animals, we didn't just want to jump into too much at one time.  We decided to start small...chickens.  I had done some research on chickens and houses and thought I was all ready for them...HA!  Man have I learned A LOT about chickens in the past two years.  I will take you through some of my chicken adventures...and more...

Back to I was ready for chickens...so I thought...I did have a house plan.  So our first big work weekend I mentioned in an earlier post, my dad & I built my chicken coop.  I wanted it to be cute so it wasn't a big eye sore on the property.  I think we did great!

The front

Here is a picture of the inside before the chickens moved in

And the back...obviously after chickens moved in

Here is a picture of my nesting boxes where my chickens leave their wonderful eggs.

When I bought my very first round of chickens I had already decided I did not want plain ole white eggs.  So I chose my chicken breeds as to their egg colors.  I knew I wanted Brown eggs but I had also read about chickens that laid colored eggs.  I knew I had to have some.  So my first round of chickens I got 21 chicks that were 3 different breeds.

Don't they look SO good (They are)...I still love all the variations of brown and the green ones

So fast forward a little...I am skipping the details about where I did a lot of the learning about chickens...we lost 8 birds to predators, I rescued 3 other ones from near death from wounds and we ate one because he was getting MEAN!!  That doesn't sound good but we had decided he needed to go before he hurt someone and we weren't going to waste him.  So with all that loss I was down to 11 hens and one rooster.  Not getting the egg production I had expected since I wanted to sell eggs (which I do), so what did that mean...I need more chickens.  Again, to the research about how to bring in chicks with one year old birds.  Did you know most of the sayings about chickens are true...there really is a "Pecking Order" and as the person who deals with them everyday you have to be established in that order with your rooster so he doesn't attack you...because of the pecking order you can't just add new birds (especially babies) to your existing flock.  They will literally peck them to death.

Other true chicken sayings:

A bunch of cackling hens - they can really get going

Like a chicken with it's head cut off - I won't give you the gross details but when we ate the one rooster I defiantly found out what that meant when we killed it...

Chickens have come home to roost - they all put themselves to bed on the roost every night!

Sorry, back on topic...with all my research the best way to bring in more is to have a separate coop for the new ones and have a joint fence.  That way as the younger ones grow big enough to mix in with the original ones they get "face time" through the joint fence so they will "know" each other when you add them.

So back to the drawing board and a new coop idea is hatched...haha, couldn't resist.  My husband took some convincing that I needed a second coop.   I explained it wouldn't just be for the babies I was bringing in, he couldn't see building a complete coop to bring in one round of babies for a couple months...what would it "do" after that.  I explained if I had a hurt chicken (which by this time I had already had 3) that needed to be separated I could put her in there so she could heal, or I might need more babies at sometime (not a good example at the time).  I had my reasons and uses all listed out and he agreed it would make sense to build it.  Once he heard all the uses he nicknamed it the "Chicken Hospital"...it would be used as a nursery for the babies, an ER if I had a wounded and so the name stuck.

So here is my second coop "The Chicken Hospital"

Equip with directional signs and all...

This is a picture of the nesting boxes (before the bottom was closed in)  because I might need boxes if a girl is only wounded.

 I must say, my hospital has been used much more than I had even anticipated.  I will give you a quick walk through of all it has been used for...

 So it's original use, getting new babies.  Yes, I ordered them online and they came in the mail.  The post office called and told me I had to come pick them up.

 They are always so cute and fluffy when they are little.

 Austin with one of the babies.

It's next use was to hatch babies.  I had a hen that went broody and insisted on sitting on eggs, so after trying for almost a week to make her quit I decided since I had the space I might as well see what happens...as you can see IT WORKED...(much more research on hatching babies and a new adventure with chickens)  Did you know you can hold an egg up to a light a certain way and see inside as the baby is developing...it is called candling and is VERY neat! A little bit of chicken knowledge for you to take away:)  I actually have now hatched two rounds of babies:)

This is from the internet but you can see the veins and the dark spot is the chick.  We did this and the kids thought it was the coolest thing!

My mama with three babies hatched:)

Just about the time the second set of babies was almost ready to move to the big pen, the feed store in town http://www.bearcreekstore.com/ (happens to be owned by my boss also and where my husband is employed) got in turkeys.  I had said last year I wanted to raise turkey's for Thanksgiving but wasn't ready with just getting chicks.  Well, thanks to my hospital I was good to go.  So I got 8 turkeys and brought them home...had to kick the second round hatched babies into the big pen, clean out the coop and tada...we had turkeys.

They look almost like chicks (just a little bigger and their coloring is different).

Well, that brings on more research and more learning...already lost 3 (only 2 1/2 months in and still researching...)...but have no fear, the store got more and needed someone to buy them (insert big cheesy smiley face here).  Do you know what that means though...I have 5 turkeys that are pushing 3 months old that I can't put baby turkey's in with.  Turkeys grow VERY fast.  They are already bigger than all my chickens.  If I put babies in there they would squash them.  I had already told my husband (who loves me SO much and puts up with all my crazy chicken stuff) that I was going to want the turkeys out in a bigger pen so they could get more green stuff since we are going to eat them...

So operation build a new pen began last Friday night since I had 4 new turkeys at home already in a box...and since he convinced me to get the 4 more...

So here is their new "hut" outside so the babies could move in the hospital...

Here are the original 5 enjoying their outside...I told you they were already big.  They will be SO yummy though:)

To add to the chicken adventure, a visitor we have to watch out for is snakes.  It's bad enough we live in the country so they are pretty much always there but with chickens you get the added Chicken Snake to watch for (they are also called rat snakes).  Known for eating chicken eggs, it is pretty obvious when we have one hanging around the coop (actually think we have one now).  We will go from getting 15 eggs in a day to 3...no lie that was our count the last two days.  Chickens lay an egg, on average, every 27 hours (see, now you are getting more crazy chicken knowledge).  That's about a egg a day so to go from 15 to 3 there is a problem...

This is my husband with the last one we killed...

  So, needless to say it has been quite an eventful couple years with the chickens (and now turkeys).  All the knowledge I thought I had when I started the adventure was nowhere CLOSE to the things I have now learned about chickens (some I could still do to not know but I guess it's too late for that).

We are starting our new adventure now with a show cow that I will tell you about next time...new research to do..oh yay;)

I will leave you with this.  We did finally come up with a name for our place and a logo (since we will be getting larger animals we will need one and a brand)

Here is our Logo...our name is Wing N It.  

 We wanted to use a N for our last name but not use our last name...this one is fitting since that is pretty much what we have done with all the new adventures we have come across the past two years on a farm.

Hope you have enjoyed my chicken adventures as much as we do.

Time Flies

WOW...Time can sure fly by without even realizing it.  I feel like it was just a couple of weeks ago I wrote the last post here and it was 2 years ago.  So needless to say A LOT has happened since I last wrote.  I will give a quick run through (trying to touch on a little of everything) and then I WILL write again talking more on some of these more in depth.  I can say this "Paper Cowgirl" is truly becoming more of a True Cowgirl...we now have 23 hens, 2 roosters, 5 turkeys, 2 dogs, one show calf and two beautiful children.
So first off, the children...

Now 12 & 6

Can you believe it!!!  It is hard for me to believe and they live with me:)  Lauren is going into 7th grade (third year back in public school & she had a great transition) and getting ready to be involved in MANY things.  She had a great 6th grade year with straight A's, because of her hard work she was one of only 4 students in her grade that made straight A's ALL year!!  She also made the BETA Club!  During her 7th grade year she will be enjoying her second year of band (she played the flute last year and is wanting to try percussion this year), she will be playing volleyball for her first year and her biggest adventure is a show calf.  Meet Scarlett...
 

This is when she first started working with her.  (More on this subject later)

Austin will be in FIRST grade this year.  He absolutely LOVES school and is so excited for it to start again.  He also had a wonderful year last year with having the highest GPA (not sure how you have one in Kindergarten) of the boys in his class.  He loves to read and tries to spell everything.  He is loving living in the country and is growing up so fast.  He is quickly learning many "Cowboy" things and wants to be a real cowboy when he grows up (no Paper Cowboy for him).  He is excited to help his sister with her cow anyway he can (he really wants to show a pig but has to be 7...almost there).

Austin and his Kindergarten teacher

On to the house.  We have done a lot of work in the past two years.  We now have flower beds that go around three sides of the house, we built a deck out back and we are slowly getting grass to grow so we don't have so much mud:)  Our biggest project that was just finished was clearing the front fence line of all the over growth, ripping out the old falling down fence and having a new fence with entrance put in (and a side yard fenced for the show calf).  So I will go through a quick blast of pictures here to give you some visual updates.

 Just a reminder of what the house looked like when we moved in...

Here is a recent picture with all the flower beds around it:)

Here is a picture of the back before..

 .

And now with the deck.

 

I love all the space we have to hang out and entertain now

 

We will move inside now (because I am excited to show you this) and then go back out for fencing pictures.

 

Remember this wall I said we wanted to take out...(notice the corner of the entertainment center on the left)

  

Well, with help from my parents...WE DID...

Once we cut the sheet rock there was no turning back...

 

View from the kitchen to the Living Room...took us a while to decide how to frame it but once we found this old barnwood we knew it would be perfect...

View from the Living Room...we also decided to use the barnwood to make the TV wall more interesting (that is the same entertainment center pictured above...the flowers are where the saddle was)  It opens up the house SO much.  You may also notice the living room has been painted (thanks with help to my wonderful mom!!)

Back outside to the fences.  So those that have been to the house before know we used to have a pretty thick tree line right at the road.  This offered a nice bit of privacy and some block from all the road dust.  However, there was also a fence in the thick of it all which was falling down and was no good for use.  We still eventually want cattle and will need a working fence for this to happen so we decided to just have it all cleared to make way for the new fence.  Many people would wonder why we would take out the above listed benefits of the tree line but in the end I LOVE how clean the property looks now.  We will in time plant crape myrtles and other things to add some of the privacy back but without all the crazy growth like before.

So here are a couple of pictures before the clearing...

 See all the thick crazy growth...

And after...

This one was as the guy was clearing the trees...

This is now driving up to the house...

 

Our second entrance....

The main entrance...

 A little hard to see but you get the idea

And here is the new "side yard"...we borrowed the neighbor's cows to mow and test the new fence for a couple days:)

We are so happy with all the things we have accomplished in the last two years and it seems like no matter what we get done there is always a list a mile long of more to do.  

I hope you have enjoyed this little catch up and tour around.  I will write again soon because I didn't even get into the chickens (that is truly a whole nother story to tell with more chickens, another coop, hatching babies, turkeys...).  I will catch you up on that and more on Scarlett next time.

Until then there is always something to get done...