(Tuesday) Yesterday Bruce started to feed after breakfast and got a call that the truck would be ready. We had decided to sell one load of corn and put the rest in the harvestore. The complication of doing that is Keith would bring his truck and park it and Ed would combine when he had time. I was working in town again so Bruce had to stop and run him home. Ed combined the last 7 acres of corn, and after the truck was full Bruce had a half full gravity box to unload. Bruce then had to go and get Keith so he could take his truck home. Since it was late in the day Keith said he would deliver it to the co-op today. When Bruce got back it was time to feed. I was going to be gone and Joe came to help milk. Feeding took longer than Bruce had planned since he ended up climbing the silo twice to figure out why the unloader wouldn't work. It seems that one of the paddles in the blower is a bit long and if it stops in the wrong place it wedges. I had planned on feeding calves when I got home, knowing that Bruce would probably have a late day. We also have 2 special needs cows which add to milking time. One is the DA heifer that is still struggling. Bruce decided to switch drugs, thinking that what he was using wasn't as effective as he would like but that means she will have a milk withhold until she passes a drug test. The other is also a heifer that had mastitis in one quarter and, as it turns out, herpes virus on another teat. This virus causes basically the same problems on a teat as a cold sore does on people. The teat can blister and peel and become very sore. In worst case senarios the animal has so much scaring that she loses that quarter. The odd thing with this virus is it only shows up in cold weather and it only happens once in a heifers first lactation. It is relatively rare and we can go for a few years without seeing it at all. In the meantime Bruce has to treat the mastitis and milk the teat by hand. It will take some time and gentle care before we can use a milker on that quarter.
(Wednesday) Ed had given up on fixing his stalk shredder after being told the manufacturer was back ordering the part again. They put the old parts back together enough to make it work and Ed started shredding stalks this morning. Bruce did the normal barn chores, along with dealing with a vet call for our DA heifer. She has had such a struggle. First calving, then the DA and then the bug we have been fighting with. She is eating but is slow so they gave her an appetite drench, hoping to perk her up and get her going. My morning was spent running for parts, bearings for the dump trailer and large bolts for the manure spreader. Two bolts had rusted off in the manure spreader on the guide for the door on the back. Thankfully nothing else broke so Bruce replaced the bolts pretty quickly after welding the bushing in place. We had dinner and then Bruce went out to rake. He was on an open tractor today, and with a high of 40 degrees he had many layers of clothes on. By the time he came home it was dark and he was cold! He ate an early supper and went out to feed. I started milking myself early in hopes of getting him home at a relatively early time tonight. I wasn't successful at getting him home as early as I had hoped but I was excited that I was able to milk all the fresh heifers without any trouble. Bruce managed to get to bed in the same day as he had gotten up, just barely : (
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