Trainer or no trainer?

In the last year I have gone from 6 horses to 2.  The last two horses I have are 3 years old; with all my other responsibilities, they are not broke out.  In the past I have started a couple of young ones, both of them I worked with from the time they were born.  This time, however, even though these two were born here, I have not really worked with them.  They are terrible for the farrier and don't have the best manners.  Mind you, they aren't horrible to be around when you lead them with a halter or if you are working in the pasture.  The dilema is this:

1.  Can't seem to find enough time to get out daily and work them.
2.  When I do work them, I am not sure that I am doing it right.  I just don't want to train them with a cue and have them be re-trained because I did it wrong (different).
3.  I need them to be "kid" safe as my daughter wants to show next year.  I don't expect that she will be showing either of these two, however, I am trying to keep in  mind that it may be possible that one of them (or both of them) will end up in the show ring.
4.  Brings me back to #1; I know I HAVE to find time to work them daily.
5.  Can't afford a trainer right now...maybe late winter?  Please note the word maybe...  :)
6.  If I do find the money for a trainer...how to choose one?  I have had a couple of trainers and most of them were not the best experience for my horses (or me).  There is a good trainer locally that I used once before, but she is very busy and now she works mostly with Andalusions/Crosses.

I have access to RFD TV where I have been watching a lot of different trainers...I find that I really like Ken McNabb and Clinton Anderson.  I try to pick up different tips and tricks from them, but not easy to do from a short show.  Clinton seems to have a great way of teaching, but I can't  seem to find the money now...his DVD's are very expensive.

What techniques or trainers do you use and reccommend?  I know that your trainers are probably nowhere near me, but how do you choose a good trainer?  It seems every time I ask other people around here, no one has anything nice to say about anyone else.  If you do your own training, did you have a mentor (how did you find one) or are you self taught and where is the best source for information?

Rambling, on and on, and on...

There has been so much going on...since my last post "Where's The Beef?".  The steer, Melinko, has gotten out 3 or 4 more times; today being one of those times.  We went to our first sale this season...the River Falls Dairy Club Sale.  Where we sold Diva, a calf by our Debra cow.  Diva found a new home and will be staying in Wisconsin.

We held another Dairy Farm Management Team Meeting and there is so much to do before the next meeting in April.  All this along with the new jobs and cleaning up for spring...whew!  How is your week going?

Have You Ever Said This...?

Have you ever said...No More Animals In The House!?

I must have said this time and time again...so what happens? I start looking for a small dog for my mom. I don't particularly care for small dogs. They seem to be more difficult to train and keep on track (just my opinion).

No problem finding a dog for my mom right! Well, there was this fenced area in the yard with 3 puppies...I asked what was up with them and the owner said; those puppies were from her friend who thought she could breed and sell them. It turns out she is not a good breeder and didn't have the puppies advertised or sold. The puppies were then dropped off with her and she was trying to sell two of them, but the third one was larger than the standard for the breed. Hmmm, which one do you think I was holding? Yep, the one that was too large. Of course I had to ask what she was doing with him! Her response was IF she could find the right home for him, she would just give him up.

She is what I would call the ideal breeder...all the bitches were living in the house and the studs had plenty of room in custom built kennels that were clean. All the puppies were whelped in the house and cared for in the house with separate pens for outdoor play. Her requirements for people are that the don't get to go home with a puppy on the first visit and you don't have to call before you show up. I like that you can see they keep the kennels in pristine condition at all times. If you have to have an appointment, they probably cleaned just before you got there. This particular breeder also showed that she was responsible by taking in the puppies that her friend had bred. Her friend had purchased one of the breeders females and bred it to one of her studs. Thus the resulting litter that ended up with this breeder.

Any way, as I held this young pup I wondered how he would fare with my Koda. Knowing my retriever had been missing Snickers (he passed about a year ago), I thought maybe since Koda is still young he might like someone else to play with. I checked with the breeder to see how she felt about living on a farm...the Humane Society frowns on me. She said it would be fine if she could speak with my vet. I gave her my vet clinic and she was excited as it is the same clinic as hers.

Time to get on with this story...I took Kenai home. For those of you without children...Koda and Kenai are the main characters of "Brother Bear". By the way, mom did not get a dog.

I should mention...Kenai is a King Charles Cavalier (most people think he is some sort of Cocker Spaniel).

Nothing against the Humane Society; I understand that they need to be careful about who they let adopt from them, but not all farm owners keep their animals outside.

Kenai and Koda spend 95% of their lives in the house...winter is too cold and summer is too hot, they like the temperature controlled house AND sleeping in bed with us.

That means we have 2 dogs and 2 cats in the house full time and whatever stray cats show up in the barn get to stay and get fed.

I had been looking for a home for my indoor cats for a while...no one wants to help me clean the litter box, the hair is out of control and Kenai loves to torture them...which means that Koda has learned from the young one to play "chase the kitty". My daughter's boyfriend's mother (what a mouthful) was looking for a smaller pet for her youngest child. Teach him responsibility (supervised of course) and give him something to cuddle of his own. She loved the fact that the cats were used to staying indoors, were "taken care of" and trained. Tada! They had a new home.

Now, down to the two dogs, right? Nope! I seemed to forget that every spring/summer there are many babies that seem to need us.

If you look very closely, there is a towel with a tiny kitten head sticking out.

This poor kitty's leg looked like Swiss cheese. It finally let us pick it up about a week after I noticed it was injured. We have 2 barns...the milking barn and the horse barn. The horse barn has all very friendly cats and the milking barn has all feral cats. This kitten learned to be scared of humans from its mother. They day we caught him the vet happened to be on the property. While examining the kitten my daughter asked the vet what the "white" thing was. The vet grabbed a tweezers and pulled out a long white worm. Poor kitty! Needless to say we had a new "pet" for the house.

Sadly, the kitten only made it with us for 3 days.

We are sorry he didn't make it, but I am certain we will have other visitors from time to time. I guess I should never say "never". So the house has too many hairballs and never seems clean, I guess it is best to count my blessings and be happy we have the ability to help those in need.

Stress, Stress and Heat Stress?

With all the stresses of dairy farming...milk price, feed price, illnesses, breeding, cleaning, labor, and inspections. There are many more, but I am certain you get my point. Now, there is heat stress.


You see, happy cows are comfortable, well fed cows. Happy cows are the ones that make milk (it's true and not just a commercial). So what is my problem? The heat index has been over 100 for the last two days. Since we raise Holsteins, most of my cows are black and white. The more black they have the hotter they are.


The problem is I can't afford an air conditioned barn, keeping the cows in just makes them hotter as they emit large amounts of heat, keeping them outside gives them the opportunity to catch a breeze and some shade. A breeze would be nice for them right? Well it would be, IF, they didn't bunch up like this...





There were 3 groups like this all on the concrete, giving each other a ton of heat, foaming at the mouth and panting like dogs.



This is a huge problem because as they are foaming and drooling they are becoming dehydrated. Milk is primarily water and if they become dehydrated it depletes the amount of milk they produce. We keep our water tanks full with "floats". As the cows drink the water the float refills the tank until the tank is full and then quits until the water is depleted below the float line again.


Most of our cows have been "shown" at some point in their life so they know all about water and getting washed. A couple of years ago when we had some sweltering weather, I decided to put a sprinkler on the wood part of the fence. Of course I attached it with twine...that and duct tape keep the farm running you know. :) After a few days the cows decided to pull the sprinkler from the wall and that was the end of that.


This year I decided that I would try to find a tripod system like the commercial landscapers use. Fleet Farm just happened to have 3 kinds to choose from. My fence is 5 feet high so I decided on the tripod that extends to 6 feet and "mists" up to 1900 feet. Here is a picture of my new "cow sprinkling" system.

The one thing I miss using this system as opposed to the cheap up and over sprinkler is that I can not stop the water from going 360 degrees. I would love to set it at 180 degrees and keep the water just going into the cow yard.


While my cows seem to enjoy the shower, my horses do not appreciate such things. Most of the time they don't even care for the fan I have in their shelter. The nice thing about my horses is that they do enjoy going to the wash rack, having a nice bath and munching on my lawn while they dry. It also helps that I only have 6 horses; not like trying to hose off an entire herd of cows.


I hope all of you have a GREAT summer and find creative ways to keep our creature friends cool and happy!

Down on the farm...What a day

What a day!

It all started when the roller mill would not work. This put the morning helper I have behind...he has to leave for school by 7:00 a.m. Then, I don't get the chores done, but have to get home in time to take my middle child to school...my youngest is going to stay home sick and my oldest is so old he moved out.

2007 Manitowoc County Grand Champion Steer

Raised by my daughter

I get home and my 5 year old greets me at the door. Instead of hi mom, I get; Sissy is staying home today, sick. I check on my 14 year old and sure enough, she is staying home sick. I say ok, this will give me an opportunity to get a few of the undone chores done right?

I go back to the milking barn, finish a few chores, go back to the house where I start chores in the horse barn. Keep in mind the day before the hydrant was frozen in the heifer shed and I had to have a specialist come out and thaw it. Here we go...

I unload some cat food, horse grain and leave the garden hose for later. The door was left open as I had to go back out to get the hose and it let more light in. I decided to start with grain...gathered the amount needed for my daughter's beef steer project...open the stall door and instead of using the usual bucket, I used the grain bag. This spooked Patches and he and Cowboy bolted past me and out the side door.

Panicked, I ran to my front door and beat on it until the kids answered. Told my daughter to get her stuff while I grabbed the truck and headed down our road. The steers had already gone quite a ways away.

I called information and tried frantically to reach the neighbors about a mile down the road hoping to cut the steers off from the highway. No answer, tried information again for the neighbor's on the other side of the road. This time the operator did not speak good English, nor did he understand the spelling of my neighbor's last name. After trying to spell for him 5 times; I said "never mind" and hung up. In between me and my neighbor's at the end of our road (where the highway is) there is another neighbor (my husband's father). I, however, do not get along with this particular person at all. Now what? The steers are already more than a 1/4 mile from home with my daughter trailing us on foot.

I swallow my pride, say a prayer and call...he says he will come! Prayers do work people. As I hang up the phone the steers seem to be mellowing, they turn and look at me so I slowly get out of the truck. My best hope is to get around them...I think!

Just as I get around the truck, the steers start heading back towards our place. I look down the road and see my daughter coming towards us, I try shouting for her to get back and stop them at the drive way; she is too far away and can't hear me. Finally, we get close enough and my daughter starts to move back. At this time, we have more than 6 inches of snow on the ground and the steers had been staying on the paved areas. My thoughts were that they might go back up the driveway. Just as they turn up the drive, my husband's father comes up behind me. I park the truck at an angle in the drive to block the steers exit, open a gate to the south pasture and start running around the side of the house, circling the steers.

I shouted for my daughter to get some grain and sort of cornered the steers between two fences. The south pasture is vinyl fencing and the north pasture is electric wire. Patches, the larger of the two steers, decided to bolt through the wire fencing to visit the horses.

What Patches doesn't realize, is that the paint mare (Ginger) does not like strange animals. Ginger starts chasing Patches and Cowboy has not decided which way to go yet. My daughter comes out of the barn at that time and Cowboy then commits to running through the fence where Patches did.

We get the animals separated and all is well...I send everyone back to their homes and try to calm myself enough to finish chores. I get them all fed, go out to the truck for the hose and find that in all the excitement the hose has already started to freeze. Not that it ends up mattering as the hydrant is now frozen as well.

I guess having the hydrant guy out is much cheaper than having to replace my daughter's steers.

The moral of the story is, prayer works and NEVER leave a barn door or gate open!

Down on the farm...Life With Koda

Life with Koda

Last year my daughter started asking for a puppy. You need to understand that I need another animal and responsibility like I need a hole in the middle of my head. We already have 1 farm dog, 2 inside cats and numerous barn cats. The barn (shed) is filled with dairy heifers and horses.

The previous summer (2005) I had to put the farm dog (he adopted us when we moved here) on joint medication. During the winter he became increasingly stiff and I knew he would not be able to make it for very much longer. So, in the spring I started contemplating a puppy to ease the children's inevitable loss. I was not looking for a replacement for Snickers, but something that would take their mind off Snicker's passing when the time arrived.
In July my middle child's best friend got a Golden Retriever puppy. The puppy, of course, was adorable and my husband fell in love with the idea. Naturally, he doesn't take care of the animals, so why not?

We set out to find a Golden Retriever and all the kids came along. There was an advertisement for a puppy that was last in his litter, no papers, price reduced. I am no rookie when it comes to puppies so when we got to the home and the puppy was completely obnoxious, I had no problem saying no thank you. Not far away there was another litter and off we went.

The puppies were placed on the floor and the kids (18, 13, and 3) all joined them. As I watched, the kids begged for their favorite puppy. My 13 year old decided we needed a female (so she could have more puppies) and my 18 year old acted like he didn't want to be there (not his choice in breeds) and my 3 year old just wanted a puppy to love.

Well, after about 30 minutes of watching, a particular puppy kept sitting quietly behind my 18 year old and was not shy or upset about my 3 year old picking him up or petting him. We took him home.

On the way home, my 3 year old decided to name him Koda after the little bear on Brother Bear. Koda settled in quickly and learned to stay out of the way of our Snickers (border collie). My 3 year old really wanted a dog that would fetch with her and chase her, poor old Snickers just couldn't do that anymore.

Well, this February Snickers passed away. We miss him daily and remark about him regularly. I don't believe that once your pet dies that you just forget about him. We all talk about how we miss him herding the cows and horses away from the fence when we come home and his incessant barking.

Koda with my youngest child...he sat there for 2 hours while she slept

As I said, Koda was not a replacement for Snickers, but he is a new addition and is living up to my (now 4 year old's) expectations. He fetches, chases and even drags Bry around the kitchen.
We are approaching 1 year with our new puppy and feel that the experience will be lasting for our last child to grow up with her own dog. He is the best baby sitter, friend and companion we could have found. We know that dogs are not immortal but the unconditional love and adoration we get and give from our pets is priceless.