Vaccination & Tattooing

All calves need to be vaccinated. It helps prevent them from getting sick and helps build up their immune system. We had to run all the calves through the chute system and give them shots and tattoo them. Tattooing is a means of identification we put a tattoo gun in their ear and they each get different letters based on their ear tag. Tattooing is also for registration, whenever you go to a show they check your tattoo so that they can make sure it's the animal you registered. Another way of identification is by branding; we don't brand because in our opinion it takes away from the overall look of the animal. When you tattoo you have to use a tattoo paste; it helps to read the tattoo. One setback: it's green, and it gets all over your hands and is really hard to get out.

3rd Safety Video!!!!

-JT

Colt

This week I have been riding my horse more and she's been doing pretty good, considering she just recently had a baby. He is adorable and he is really energetic and a little bit shy. My horse Splash was usually pretty protective of him and wouldn't let anyone near him. But now she'll go and eat and let him stay by himself a little more. So when we saddled her she was alright about it.

So I went riding and we let the baby in the riding arena with the other horses and he followed his mom around while I rode. He did well and so did she. Then the baby would follow around my sister's horse which was kinda funny because when he was first born he wouldn't go near her.

Tonight me and my sister went riding again and we played a fun game of horseback tag. Which is obviously just like normal tag but on horses... Yeah all in all my horse is doing good.

Heres my next safety video !!!  

-JT

Achievement Day

So we had our club's Achievement Day on Saturday and it went alright. Achievement day is the day when all the members of our club bring all their projects out and we showcase them. Then a judge picks the best animals and then we get cool awards. I did alright, my heifer came in 3rd and my 3 year old came in 2nd. Overall it was a good day and I'm glad it's over. It took a lot of work to get all my projects ready.

Now on to new business. I did some farm safety videos a while back and they are finally all edited together. It's all about Personal Protective Equipment and how to choose the right kind. I'll link you up each time I blog.

Click HERE to view my first video!

More Washin...

Well I washed my cows again tonight. This time I washed my 3 year old 4-H project and her calf. He is really cute but he's missing a lot of his hair. He has bald patches all over his body. This is most likely due to all the medicine we gave him when he was born. He wasn't very healthy and probably had scours. So we helped him by feeding him by bottle everyday because he was to weak to drink by himself. He finally pulled through which I was very thankful for.

For anyone who was unclear about what the phrase Safety Up! means, it is basically a phrase that means "Be Safe" or "Be Careful". So take the correct precautions especially around livestock or machinery on the farm.

-JT

Calves

So Grooming Day went well, I got my steer and heifer all groomed and got their pictures taken. Yesterday I was working on washing my cow-calf project. My cow took a really long time because she is BIG she took a long time to wash and dry. Then I worked on my calf who is really cute, and I got him looking all pretty. He hasn't been washed before and he didn't really enjoy it, he kept moving around when I was trying to wash him.

And the fun part was trying to clip him, he didn't enjoy it so much at first but then he didn't really mind after a while. You always have to be really careful when clipping animals because they may try to kick you in the hand... that's why you should always Safety Up!

Speaking of calves, calving is one of the busiest times in the year for a farmer. Sometimes you have to get up at like 2:00 in the morning to go out and help a cow with calving. If the cow is having real trouble with the calf (this happens often with yearlings because they've never calved before) you may have to pull it. You have to wrap chains around it's front legs and pull it out of the cow. Our calving season is really early compared to other farms; we start calving in early January and sometimes even late December. Other farms may not start their calving until March or April. So that's calving, it's a hard process that we have to do for every single cow in the herd.

That's all and don't forget,  Safety Up!

-JT

Grooming

Today, I groomed my steer to get him all ready for Grooming day tomorrow. First I had to wash him, he is white and extremely easy to get dirty. After he was all clean and sparkly I had to blow him off. I had to get him nice and dry so that I could clip him. My uncle came out to help me and gave me some good tips on how to clip my animal. After all that he was looking really clean and handsome. I have to do this to every one of my animals in order to get them ready for shows. It is a very long process and after much practice I have become a pretty good groomer.

This is my steer after all the cleaning and clipping.

He looks really good and I'm probably going to have to do the same to my heifer later on today.

-JT

The Farm

Alright, I have started this blog in order to inform people about agriculture and how important it is.I live on a farm with my family and we do many different things on the farm. I am going to blog about what I do on the farm and how this will affect me. Some people don't know what it's like to live on a farm so this blog will help to spread knowledge of farm life.

-JT