Manure spreader

We drove to Carthage, MS and picked up a small manure spreader for the landlord the other day. I am beside-myself-happy to have a manure spreader!   It feels like getting free fertilizer every time we use it. 

Using the spreader brought back some memorable "learning experiences" (which is what I call screw ups) for me. 

 When I worked on the farm at college, we had two or three chicken houses at the back of the property, along with several herds of beef cattle and a dairy milking 100 at times. Most people who worked on the farm did it it all- the dairy, feed mixing, fence building, chicken house duty, feeding, milking, plumbing, painting, and if you stuck around for the summers, hay making.

 Once or twice, I had the opportunity to help clean out the chicken houses and spread the rice hull chicken litter on the pastures with the manure spreader. And then there was the time we cleaned out the dairy lot and spread that...

The dairy lot was a concrete or hard dirt slab that stayed covered in manure, because cows were constantly on it. Any cow that needed to be watched closely stayed there- mostly the sick cows that were on antibiotics and couldn't be milked into the main milk tank. 

If milking cows (which I did a lot of), we would have to finish milking the main herd, and then switch the pipe to drain out onto the floor so that the sick cows' milk wouldn't go into the tank and throw the white cell count up. You can't sell milk that has a high white cell count. 

Anyway, back to the lot. It wasn't too hard to get the bobcat in there and scrape up the lot, but it was hard to find a time when there weren't many cows in there. So, it didn't get done very often. 

One of the times that it got scraped, though, I was sort of new to the farm, and I got the honor of taking it out with the manure spreader. Despite my experience with driving my dad's little Kubota tractor since I was about 2, this girl who grew up on 5 acres with only dogs and cats had never run a spreader before. Well, I got a quick tutorial and just drove that thing on out to the pasture. 

I followed instructions and turned on the chains and the beaters to get the manure pushing and flying out. That PTO driven spreader and I were making good progress, till I had to open a gate, or move a cow, or something that took a few minutes. I left the tractor running and did my errand, then got back on and turned the beaters back on. Much to my surprise, no manure was flying out. Then, I looked back and realized that about a third of the damp cow poop in that large spreader had compacted against the beaters, which is why they wouldn't move or throw manure out. The chains, however, were still pushing the black gold further into the beaters. 

After shutting it all down and trying to move the manure away from the beaters with my hands, it was obvious I would have to head back to the farm headquarters to get a shovel. I don't know what I was dreading more- telling my supervisor, Ms. Jerri, that I had screwed up, or having the other students who grew up on farms see that the "non-farm-girl-who-is-an-Ag-major-for-what-reason-we-do-not-know" had screwed up. 

I learned a lesson that day- never run the chains if you're not running the beaters

Lesson 2 came on a very windy day when we cleaned out the chicken houses, and I was quickly spreading dry chicken litter out on the pastures with that same spreader. I was driving around haphazardly on those green hills, just enjoying the sunshine and the sound of the tractor, when I made a curve and BAM- chicken litter in the mouth, eyes, nose, hair, pockets, and more. 

Lesson 2- don't spread anything on a windy day. But if you have to spread on a windy day, try not to turn into the wind. But if you have to do that, make sure to close your mouth and eyes when you turn into the wind. 

Gotta go spread some free fertilizer!

This ain't the horse world.

Mondays have become my busy day again it seems.

This one happened to be my son's birthday, and my city-girl sister was visiting from Lafayette. We got some stuff done around the house in the morning, and then went to the sale barn for around 11:00. 

This was my first sale to attend without a person beside me who I could ask questions, and once again, I was a nervous wreck! By the time they got done selling all the cows, I felt like my heart was going to pound out of my chest, and once again, I couldn't remember what the cows' that I bought numbers, weights, or anything else were.

I ended up buying three cows. Two were boring old bred black cows- one looks pretty nice, the other is just ok. But my third purchase was a gamble. She was in a herd of skinny cows that all came together. She's spotted, horned, and weighed, full grown (I assume), 431 lb. because she was so skinny, and she's small-framed.

The low weight and the ugly made her sell for pretty cheap, and I was happy to get her. 

Unfortunately, I didn't bring a trailer this time. I had drive an hour toward home, get the truck from Josh, get the trailer, nail some pieces of cattle panel to the trailer floor, get my daughter off the bus, and drive the 2 hour round trip to Baton Rouge to get the cows. Luckily, my sister-in-law offered to keep the kids and let them play with her kids while I traveled, so I didn't have to worry about that.

When I went to pick the cows up, I had to get some guidance on where to go and what to do. This one man beside the loading chute asked me what I was picking up, and then he told m "you bought that one with a white face." I began to wonder, "how do these people remember what they bought, much less what I bought?"

So, I asked him, and he told me. He was the one bidding against me for that cow.

 

On the way home, I contemplated the day. Walking on the cat walk before the sale, quietly studying the cows with 20 other people. Eating lunch in the cafe, whispering my purchase plans to my sister. Sitting alone (well, with my sister and son, but alone in the cow-sense)  in the sale barn while purchasing. Listening to that man tell me that he was bidding against me.   And then it dawned on me- This ain't the horse world.

 In the horse world, when you buy a horse, everybody is happy for you, or even thankful that you took that horse off their feed bill, sometimes even thinking in the back of their mind, "sucker". In the horse world, generally people are encouraging, yet competetive, always wiling to give advice, whether or not it's solicited.

In the cow world, everyone is competition. For land, for cows, for prices, for information. Everyone wants to make the most money they can. Everyone wants those nice heifers and cows. Everyone wants that lease land. Everyone wants the good price on hay. 

So, everyone is quieter. If they like a cow, they don't mention it. If they find a good lease, they keep it quiet. If they figure out a way to make more, they keep it quiet. Whereas the horse world is full of knowledge and advice, the cow world seems to be full of competition and sealed mouths. 

TM