Almost Halfway

Our 3 Angus Bulls for Purebred Cattle Management -- they will be for sale soon...

Two of our steers for Steer a Year

Since two weeks have passed. Had Purebred Cattle Management, Steer A Year and Marketing meetings on Tuesday night. We heard reports from Denver Stock show, had a slideshow presentation on Angus and Shorthorn bulls we might use and another presentation on spaying market heifers. Tuesdays and Wednesdays are my longest and hardest days to get through. I have four hours of Lab on Wednesday, completed with a Young Cattlemen's meeting at night. We're discussing a lot of things that are goin on real soon, including some educational stuff for elementary kids. I fed friday and saturday nights. Saturday evening a lamb was born at the sheep barn and we had to run to the Dairy to steal some selenium.

Speaking of Dairy, I applied for a really nice internship at the Columbia River Dairy/Three Mile Farms this summer. I worked really hard on it and would be completely happy if I got it :) I might interview for the BeefNorthwest Internship as well (which is in the same town) but I have less of a chance to get that one. I won't make any plans until I hear back from them, but it could be possible I might have to reduce my rabbit herd drastically this spring. I'll know by the end of February I hope.

Last weekend was spent studying for Midterms, week 4. I had one Tuesday morning at 8 am and another at 6 pm. I got a higher grade on math this time around and I did ok on animal food tech. Thursday night was my Chemistry final and I got a 96%, I missed one question so I was pretty ok with that. After my miderm on Tuesday I hurried upstairs to my PCM/SAY meeting and caught the important details. We talked about growth hormone implants in market steers and their effectiveness & public views on them. I signed up for Friday and Sunday night feedings.

Friday, I was pretty happy to see. I was really exhausted and only had to make it through two morning classes. When I got back to the house, I read my e-mail to discover we were meeting down at the sheep barn at noon to go out to Hillside Ranch. Only three of us went, plus our advisor so we piled into one car and headed out towards Harrisburg. I had never been there, but it's a beautiful ranch! We loaded and unloaded some hay for the manager, and we looked at all of her cows, heifers, calves and even her bull Jazz. It was nice to do some livestock evaluation with senior members of the Livestock team and learn some stuff about Shorthorn cattle. We were there primarily to learn the stock names, to associate them with the pedigrees we're copying so we can select bulls across the nation to breed to for next years calf crop :) There are already two calves on the ground, a bull and a heifer and more to come in February and March. When we got back it was time to do my evening feeding. Some friends who were going to Red Bluff bull and gelding sale showed up to look at our steers. They are growing so well!

I couldn't make it Red Bluff or St. Helens... it just wouldn't have been smart after such a long week. Today I'm headed out to a 4-H'ers house to help her breed some rabbits. She has got to that part in rabbits and wants to make sure she does everything right. Tomorrow will be spent studying for my last two midterms and feeding in the evening. I hope to catch some better pics, if not oh well.

Monday I have an HHS midterm and tuesday is anthropology. I'm aming for A's on both of them. Then tuesday night is Purebred Cattle Management/Steer a Year again, my 4-H meeting, Collegiate 4-H and Young Cattlemen's meetings... and it continues.....

Rabbits -- My three left with Karyn yesterday to go to St Helens. I hope that all runs smoothly. The Chinchilla and Steel sisters were both bred to Boomerang before they left. Mozzerella recieved her box, she is due in a couple of days to Keepsake. We are hoping for good things :)

That's my update - I'm alive and crazy busy :D

a relaxing weekend :)

After two weeks of school, a weekend was well anticipated and deserved.

I fed steers Friday and Saturday nights. The 3 Black Angus bulls came in on Thursday and they are oh so beautiful! We'll assign feeding schedules for them (as well as the feedlot project steers) on Tuesday evening so I should be heading down to the cattle barns more often.

Saturday afternoon I held a 4-H showmanship workshop at the fairgrounds for my club. We have a lot of new kids, some that just got their rabbits so we went over the basics. About half of our kids showed up, so it was worth it :)

Talking rabbits, I registered a bunch this afternoon. Local breeder Jill and her friends Ken and Jeff & Terisa had some to do. I got to do a Checkered Giant and some Thriantas, and well lots of Dutch. I also helped cull and look over some juniors... and some neat colors Jill is working on. she's got a Lilac/Fawn Harlequin (which is named Lana :)) and she is also working on Steel, Chin, and Red Dutch :) I got my bunny fix :)

I also heard back from my parents that the babies are doing well, and I'm going to try and have them send some pics next weekend hopefully :)

Small and Large

On the small side, Mia did kindle yesterday. They didn't live very long, so she'll recover and maybe make a couple shows this spring.

We did confirm Mozzerella is a Chocolate Frosted Pearl. We had suspicions of this for some due time, but I never e-mailed until yesterday to make sure. She is bred to Keepsake (Bkn Chocolate Chestnut), due Feb 2nd. With the colorful pedigrees behind these two, I cannot wait to see what colors I get :) I'm not going to emphasize work in chocolates, but I haven't had a lot of them around so I figured why not.

On the large side, today we worked with our steers, as a part of our Steer-a-Year project. We took pictures of them and ran them through the chute. We administered booster shots in their neck and implanted a growth hormone into the back of their ear. We also recorded new weights; most of them were within the 700-800+ lb range now. The Holstein bull calf had an excellent rate of gain; we also cut and trimmed his horns since he was getting very pushy with them. They are all on a "hot" ration, 80% concentrate (a specially formualted grain) and 20% roughage (hay). I was on the night feeding, I also feed tomorrow night and we have another meeting on Wednesday. I'm going to start partipating in the Purebred-Cattle Project, Angus and Shorthorns with a couple OSU ranches.

Hopefully I'll add some pictures soon!

Back to School

Well, I headed back for Corvallis on Sunday morning to start Winter term. I'm taking 19 credits, so I probably won't be posting much at all (except for my two litters due). I just wanted to explain my absence and post some pictures that I took before I left :)

Sierra - January 2009

** We've finally found a nice high school girl to lease Sierra for some western events. She'll primarily use her for western pleasure and reining and if all goes well, maybe some other stuff too. Her first show for 09' is next weekend!

and back to the rabbits... Here is Stitch :) He's a proud papa to 11 babies who are coming up on 2 weeks old :)

Babies!

Mia is nesting, we expect babies very soon! Chocolates are a possibility as they both carry it :)
Easy Summer Breeze x Stitch
5 Steel
2 Chinchilla
1 Chestnut
Maid Dignified x Stitch
1 Bkn Chestnut
1 Bkn Chinchilla

1 Chinchilla

We are very happy with all of our babies! They are doing so well in the horrid weather :)