@dave_shelby , I guess for what
@kenny thomas stated... few acorns and the drought combined with not alot of berries and other edibles in the woods. The blackberry crop here was very small and so were the wild raspberries and the wineberries... I do see a lot of wild cherry berries now, but I am not sure how edible they are, and the mulberries were plentiful earlier... but even the black walnuts seem to be fewer this fall.
We have been fortunate in that we have had just enough rain to have plenty of hay although the pastures had gotten dry, we are down a bit in cow numbers so rotational grazing has been good.
We have had alot of bear damage to big rolls of hay. Had 3 in a field all torn up, rolled all over the place... son picked up what he could with the bale truck and put them out in the fields for the cows to pick at.... had another in one of the few fields left in the subdividion, right there amongst all the houses, that they rolled around and tore it up.
I guess it is good we didn't plant any corn this year. Have not fed out of the bunk we filled last year since the price was so high on calves this spring we did not keep any, of the weaned ones.
Have got a big bunch recently weaned off the cows that are now starting to calve, that he is going to keep to feed for a bit I guess... We turned them out with the cows this spring because we had fewer spring calving cows..so we put the calves back out with the pregnant cows for a couple of months, instead of weaning sooner, and just brought them home and weaned them off and the cows moved to the 2 fields we calve them in here... the weaning was much easier since they were a little older and only had 1 that got out and went back to the cow and we got it out easily. Cows were ready to be done with those calves... got a break and a couple have started calving now... most will be coming in Oct. Needed to use the grass... and from a bull that was bad a couple years ago, lost several months and wound up with twice the number of fall calvers than spring ones. Some have backed up to June and July, this year so hope that more will back up another month... but we also wound up culling some and have just not replaced them. We spayed and sold a group of heifers that would have been put out with a bull this spring too, so had 20 less head to graze this spring.
Attrition with age and a few more non-breeders, has cut our numbers to less than 120 brood cows...not keeping those 20 or so breeding age heifers, so we have plenty of grass although the fall grass is dry and not as nutritious now. So, we are fortunate in having enough grass to take care of things. In fact, we are contemplating putting out some of these early fall calvers at one place for a couple months.... can move 15 or so there since we brought home a group to wean the calves, 2 weeks ago. They aren't due until later Oct... but this group of earlier calving ones could go out there for a couple months... we brought them home in mid Aug and most had dried themselves up already, so thankfully they got a good 45+ days off before just now starting to calve again. Have had 11 in the last week.
But the bear situation is concerning... and we will allow any on the farm to be shot..... I would like a bear skin rug.....always wanted one.... might be the year....need to cut the deer numbers down though.... if the winter is bad they will wind up starving or in the hay feeders with the cows...
