Forecast

The forecast for the next week:

Seriously Kansas....?

-Meteorologist Ryan

Shafted

My pickup started to make an interesting noise when I was driving down the road.  It turns out the u-joints on the drive shaft started to fail and I needed to replace them.

Like just about everything I do on the farm this was a new experience for me.  In order to get the u joints out of the drive shaft we had to heat up a plastic seal that held the u joints in place.  There are little holes on the side of the u joints that allow the melted plastic come out.  After the u joints were heated up and the seals melted we replaced the ujoints and reinstalled the drive shaft.

-Mechanic Ryan

Skid Marks

We've been hearing how much other farmers love their skid steers, and we saw one on eBay for cheap so we snapped it up.

I know. It's hard to believe it isn't green, but it came with a John Deere key chain...

When we got it home I tried it out.  It was the first time I operated a skid loader but they are pretty easy to use and I can see how it will be very useful for our cattle operation.  I'm also thinking how cool it would be to build a bike or 4 wheeler ramp with it....

-Skid Steerer Ryan

Wheat Watch Season 2 Episode 2

Below is a picture of out dry land wheat, and there isn't very much to look at because of the drought.  We actually have a couple problems with our wheat - The first problem is obviously the lack of moisture.  The second problem is that the verity of wheat that we plant in Western Kansas requires a hard freeze after the wheat sprouts.  The process that is required is called vernalization and it is what allows the wheat to flower and produce grain.  So even if we do get some wheat to grow at this point, it will probably not have had enough cold weather to allow it to produce grain.

 

 We dug around a little bit and found some more wheat that was trying to sprout.

On a positive note our irrigated wheat is coming out of dormancy and has started to grow greener and taller.

We recently got a decent amount of snow around the farm.  It was nice wet snow and there was about a foot of accumulation.  Since there has been some cold weather to go along with the moisture there may be a chance that we'll actually have some dry land wheat to harvest. 

-Farmer Ryan

 

The New Breed

At the beginning of February we sold all of our bred heifers and unfortunately the amount we got for our heifers was pretty disappointing.  So when a farmer or rancher stops making money it's time for a change.  So we've switched up the operation and bought some older bred cows.  We are now running a calf-cow operation.  Which is when we calve out our cows and raise the calves to weaning.  Weaning is the time when the calf is pulled away from the mother cow. 

When we were breeding heifers we would only purchase Black Angus.  This year we have Black Angus, Red Angus as well as some Black White Face cows.  The Black White Face are a crossbred of Black Angus, and Hereford cattle.  When raising cattle for beef production there is an advantage to having crossbred cattle.  The cattle that are crossbred have a greater genetic diversity, and they typically outperform cattle that are purebred in things like calving birth weight, weening weight, etc...  The technical name for this is performance improvement is heterosis and it is also known as hybrid vigor.  We have about 30 red cows and about 20 white faced cows the rest of our herd is Black Angus.

So far we have about 25 calves and we have only have 1 black white face and 4 red calves.  The rest of the calves are all black because it is the genetically dominate trait.  In order for the calve to have red coloring both the sir (father) and dam (mother) both either have to be red or have the recessive gene for the color red.  This is true for humans as well; the red hair gene is recessive and it only appears when the parents are both carriers of the gene. 

Everyday we go out and check our herd for new born calves.  When we find them we tag their ear and if they are a bull we castrate them.  We do this in the open pasture and sometimes it can be interesting getting the calf away from the cow.  The more protective cows will come after you and you have to keep an eye on them through the whole process.  The guy that works with the cattle the most on our farm has told me that there have been times when he had to roll under his pickup to get away from an angry mother cow. 

I think I've learned more about cattle in the last month than I have in the last year on the farm.  Taking care of the new born calves requires a lot more time than the heifers, but it's worth it to see all the cute baby calves running around. 

-Ear Tagger Extraordinaire Ryan

• My Grain Headaches Suggested Reading: Storey's Guide to Raising Beef Cattle - If you are considering raising cattle or would just like to know more about cattle breeds, genetics, handling techniques, and calving I would recommend reading this book.  

These Boots Are Made For Farming

One of the questions that I get a lot when I tell people I'm farming is: "What kind of boots do you wear?"  I have to admit I'm not really sure why I get this question so much.  If you are one of the people asking I have taken the below picture for you.  The boots I wear are waterproof and have they have steal toes.  I'm pretty sure that if I would have got the regular toe boots I would only have 8 toes at this point. 

I just retired the boots on the left.  I have worn them the last 10 months and I had to buy some new ones.  When your boots start leaking and it's 10 degrees outside, you get motivated to buy some new ones pretty fast.

I never really considered myself to be the cowboy boot type but after spending the last year working on the farm I'm starting to really like my cowboy boots.  I guess if the shoe cowboy boot fits, wear it.

-Cowboy Ryan

AgConnect

AgConnect is an international farm convention that happens every other year.  Luckily for me this year it was in Kansas City.  Here are some of the highlights from the show:

This is a view from the best vantage point I could find. (The top of a combine)

 

This is probably the coolest thing that I found at the convention.  It is a combine that has a grain cart attached to the back.  You can fill an entire semi truck with one load from this combine's grain bin.  That is about three times as much storage as the combines we currently use. 

 

A trend I noticed while I was at this convention was all the major tractor/combine companies were starting to create "Farm Management IT Systems."  John Deere's version of Farm IT is called Farm Sight.  Follow the link to check out their vision of what a farmer's life is going to be like in the future. 

One technology that is being integrated into Farm Sight is called Field Connect.  It is a base station that monitors information on soil conditions and reports via email or text.  I also saw a system that allows you to configure a tractor's GPS system remotely from another tractor's monitor.  It is essentially remote desktop for tractors.  Awesome.

Below is John Deere's latest combine model:

OK. Not really.  I am starting to notice that farmers' (me included) get pretty attached to their farm equipment.  It probably doesn't help when you start to name them...

 -Conventional Farmer Ryan