Egg Mobile Progress 2

Today I got to work on the Egg Mobile for a few hours. It really does go faster when you have someone to help but when by yourself, you find all kinds of ways to use arms, legs, feet, hands, elbows, hips, foreheads, you get the picture. Especially when hanging sheet metal for siding while standing on a Little Giant Ladder.

I feel it is about 60% finished. The inside is done I just have to finish exterior things.

I still have to put sheet metal on the roof, put doors on the front and back for the chickens to enter and exit, and put doors to open behind the nesting boxes.

I may have to add more roosts but I will have to see once they all get in there. This is only half of the roosts.

I want to paint something funny at the top of both the entrances.

Still need to put doors on the backs of the boxes to lift up when collecting eggs.

Working Pens

For the last year, we have been raising 30 stocker steers for the first of our grass fed beef. In some posts ago, I pointed out that our initial vision was to be a producer of fine grass fed beef using stocker steers from a breeder who raised his calves only on grass up until weaning. Then we would get them at weaning time, he would wean them for us using hay, and then we would finish them out on our pastures.

Well, our beliefs in sustainability grew more and more. Land management became the core of our beliefs along with herd management. I quickly learned that if you don't have complete control of your heard, from birth, you will always be inheriting someone elses poor land and herd management problems. Hence the reason we decided to convert over to a closed herd of Red Brangus cows.

We got ourselves into the egg business, thinking that 100 layers would be good, then decided that we would want to finish out 20-40 hogs a year. Well, now we have about 400 layers that will start laying end of August, we are set up to finish out 120-150 hogs a year, we are converting from stocker beeves to a closed herd of Red Brangus, and are in the works of getting an on farm outside poultry processing area built.

So in the next year, a lot of new things will be taking place here as we go from production phase to actually having product to sell. This has finally led us to getting our official set of working pens.

Over the last year, I have learned that cows simply allow us to control them but at anytime, could actually leave the property and never come back if they so desired. No fence, be it an 8' game fence with welded panels on 4' centers, could actually keep a full grown cow in if it really wanted out. Hence the reason for a good set of pens. Plus, my cows haven't yet been trained to simply walk up to a trailer in the middle of the pasture as I point them out and tell them to load up, its time to walk the final leg of your journey. I think they would look at me like I was a bit loony and continue to eat grass.

Naturally, as a cow gets moved to a new environment, they begin to get anxious, stressed, and act a bit whiley (sp?). I know this. And I know that the first time I introduce them to the pens, it will be a bit of a shock for them. But my remedy for that will be through routine and familiarization.

I have found that just like kids enjoy, and need structure, ( you may feel that your kids do not feel that way but that may be the problem, they lack structure) cows are the same way. They like to know things will be the same over and over. Things just go better when it happens this way. You explain the rules and guidelines, and they do their best to follow them. They know what to expect day in and day out. Soon they learn that the handle side of the rope is where they go to move from paddock to paddock. A lead cow immerges and leads the cows each and every time. It makes them comfortable. After a while, they know the system up and down and will perform like clockwork if the time is invested early on.

So my plan is to always allow the cows to rotate through the pens even if I don't intend on working them. Just to let them get use to the routine of going in and out of them. That means that every 30-40 days, they will walk in and out of them. We will gather weights and data, every 90 days, so that we will be able to tell what type of Average Daily Gains (ADG) we are getting. By rotating them through each time, they get use to the gates, the tub, the alley, and the chute. Hearing the sound of the metal rattle and echoes of the moos. Without structure and routine, there is mass confusion, and when working cattle by yourself, you just can't allow that.

We will be getting a pole barn built over the top so that they will be out of the sun and it will be a great place for when we go to wean our calves next year.
****Note to all who have never weaned calves----you really need to have a good set of high panel pens for weaning your calves. If not, they will jump over them or go through them and be back to their mamas by day end.

Here is a little tour of the new set up. From a cows perspective. MOOOOOOO

This is the gate where the cows will enter

Once inside, the will be in a catch pen

They will walk around in a clockwise motion around the partition

Once around the partition, they will go towards the tub

The tub has a gate that comes out and allows the cows to walk in a half moon shape.

As the cows enter the tub, a swing gate is closed behind them and it locks each time they move forward so they cant reverse back.

At the end of the tub, they go into the Alley. You can adjust the width for bulls, cows, or calves so that they cant turn around once inside.

The alley leads to the chute. I like that they are closed panels because it helps the cattle not get scared by movement on the outside of the alley.

This is the chute where we will have our scale so that we can weigh the beeves every 90 days or so. We don't vaccinate, use chemical dewormers, fly repellents, or antibiotics, so the main reason will be for weighing the animals.

This is the work area that can also be used as an alternate pen

Once out of the chute, they will either go to the going to processor side.

Or through this next gate

Where they will go into this next pen to be turned back out to pasture.

The holding pens are pretty good size, 20'x40'

Whether loading in the trailer or going back out to pasture, this will be the gate you leave out.

I really like the idea of semi permanent portable pens because they really are easy to set up and move around.

I was at the fire station when they came out and put them up where I told them to over the phone. Well, when I got home and started to look at them, I realized where I told them to put them was underneath the power lines. I can't put a pole barn in the easement so right away, I got to take them apart and move them. I moved the whole set of pens about 150' away by myself using a tractor of course in about 6 hrs. So I highly recommend them.

So this is the new addition to the farm which I am so excited to get to use. I have about 2 weeks till they rotate around to them. Come on guys, hurry up and eat already.

Egg Mobile Progress

Well we worked on the egg mobile for a bit today and finally got all the framing done by this evening. You don't realize how hard that old steel gets over the years. Now that all the framing is up, putting all the tin on should go pretty fast. Should, but you know how that goes.

We got to get a little bit of the tin on before night time so after seeing it coming together, I think it may actually work. We live right off the highway so we want to get a mural painted on the side for farm fresh eggs. It will be like having a 24' billboard moving around.


The cows are doing amazing. There is a tremendous difference in moving them 2-3 times a day vs 1 like we were usually doing it. They are wiping it clean, weeds and all, in a matter of about 6 hrs per 3/4 acre. It will be interesting to see how the grasses recover with the amounts of urea and manure that are being put into each paddock.

The paddock on the right will get 30-40 days of rest before the cows rotate around to it again.

Tomorrows grass

I thought we might get a bit of a small shower to end the day but that too passed. It was very pretty though I thought.


I get to be a fireman tomorrow so the farm chores will have to be done by Aunt Debbie and my amazing wife. What a pair they are.

New Project

I'm a firm believer of not having to have it all figured out before getting your feet wet in farming.

We bought 300 chicks before I had a brooder house set up, but you know what, when you have 300 chicks coming in the next couple days, you tend to figure out a brooder house pretty quick.

We bought two sows, and some feeder pigs before I had a pasture fully designated for them, but as they get bigger, then your motivation comes for getting things further in line for them.

You can try and learn all you want from a book, and try to have things set up absolutely perfect but sometimes I want to write a book, and right when you open the cover, bam, a big wrench flies up and hits you in the face and says, "Now whatcha gonna do?"

The best training is OJT (on-the-job-training) so my advice is if you want to do something, do it. Then learn together and figure out how to fine tune things as you go. The great thing is you should never be satisfied with how you have things because there is always going to be improvements you will see can be done.

So that being said, I have about 375 pullets or so that are going to need a place to lay eggs in the coming weeks, so........

Today is the day for converting this old cotton trailer I picked up a couple of months ago into the first of our full fledge mobile egg machines. I found two at one place and brought one home but the other needed some work before I could haul it the 50 miles at 30 mph. So Old Man Scarmado is suppose to be fixing it for me. These things are old as Mathusila (sp?) but will be great for what we are doing.


So Aunt Debbie and I started our project after I finally got all the materials gathered up. I know a guy that had some old tin that he sold me for cheap so I bought about 600 linear foot of it or so. You can never have enough old tin, especially when it is the good stuff from long ago and not the cheap gauged stuff you have to buy at the local hardware store.

Its so fun when I get to do projects with Aunt Debbie because of her personality. She is the most positive person I know who is constantly uplifting you even when you really feel like you don't know what you are doing. I can hear her now, "Thats okay," as I break the 6th drill bit.

Plus I am always putting her in a bind because I am 6'1" and she is 4'11". Honestly. So out of habit, I tend to put things where they are just right for me but way out of reach for her. I don't do it on purpose but you would think that I could figure it out by now. So that is something I have been trying to get better at doing.

So tomorrow, we hope to be close to done with all the exterior work on the trailer. Then comes setting up the inside for roosts, boxes, etc.

On the sides of the trailer I will paint in neat letters, FARM FRESH EGGs. We have over 3000' of highway 105 frontage so surely people will see it and be interested.


This was the sunset as I was moving the irrigation for the night water. The cows moved a couple hours earlier and were loving the cooler evening as some clouds rolled in.

It makes you realize at the end of each day how blessed you were to have gotten that day and be prayerful that you get to experience another when you lay down to sleep.

Same Song Different Verse

I know I have said it before, I'm still alive, just not blogging right now. Well, I'm still alive and I can only say that I am going to try and do better. Things are magnificently great right now and there is a lot to update, but baby steps, right?

Other than not having rain, everything else seems to be going full steam ahead. Rain is a huge part of farming so I will get to that topic in a bit.

We currently have 61 head of cattle grazing on our pastures. As stated in a post long ago, we are moving to a closed herd of Red Brangus cattle. We currently have 25 Red Brangus heifers who should all be about bred now, we hope. We have one bull currently, Pete, who is a frame score 5 bull that we hope we can breed down with. Eventually, we will be down to a frame score 4 or 3.


We have 3 black baldy heifers we are going to keep so that we can see what kind of calves they throw. They are kinda long legged gals though so they may not get to stick around as long as everyone else. It will be worth a shot though.

We have 32 stocker steers we are feeding out for meat until we begin to butcher our own calves in a couple of years.

I thought I loved the black baldy breed but after getting into the Texas summer, I realize, I don't much care for them. Actually, I don't much care for any black cattle. I will try to take a picture tomorrow to show the proof, but after about 11:00 in the morning, they are looking for shade. I actually had to put a water sprinkler out for them because I felt like they were getting too hot. When you do Managed Intensive Grazing, lots of times, there aren't any trees because you are managing where the cattle graze. So in came the sprinkler. The Red Brangus eat all day and even lay in the sun. Not the black ones. They lay under the sprinkler for hours at a time cooling off. Such the reason why we will never, on purpose, own any more black cattle. We're going RED.


Our first hogs are set to go to the butcher on August 1. This is very exciting for us. We have 3 that we are going to get processed so let us know if you would like to purchase some retail cuts.
After that, we will have 3 more then we will be into our Born on Yonder Way Farm Piglets.

I love this hogs blue eyes

Our two sows gave us 20 piglets, of which 18 made it to pasture. One of the runts got laid on, and after castrating our boys, one had a hidden hernia and it popped out shortly after castration. We lost him. My thoughts on castration in a future post. Just say it wasn't pleasant.


So of the 18, we will probably have 15 that will make it to finishing weight. Three somehow had hip problems and they slowly are getting worse. They will probably get butchered at an early age for our personal consumption. I don't know if the hip problems were genetically obtained or what but if we have the same problem on the next litters, we will have to maybe think about culling the sow from the program.

We are up to 4 sows now with 2-4 more in the future. I think we would like to keep 6-8 breeding so that we can produce somewhere between 120-150 hogs a year. Sounds like a large number, but after you start having piglets and seeing them on pasture, you wish you could do 1,000 pigs a year. They are by far the easiest animals on the farm.

"How You's Doin?"

Our pullet count is up to about 375 or so. I don't know, we have chicks, and chickens everywhere. Right now, I just let the ones that are setting outside of the houses hatch them out. This week we will probably get 15-20 more chicks hatching. I figure the more the better. We currently sell out of eggs every week so that is good.

We are in the process of getting a store front built with a kill room attached. We want to process all of our own poultry so until it gets finished, we can only count the days till we get to start raising and processing chicken and next year, turkeys.

We currently have 45 paddocks for rotating. These are approximately 2 acre paddocks. To get a better graze, I have been cutting each paddock into 3 pads and rather than moving the cows 1 time daily, I went to 2-3 moves daily. What a difference it makes.
You would think I had mowed the grass. Saves diesel and who needs commercial fertilizer. When you pack them in this close, they give a pretty good bit in each pad. Cows are such efficient animals its amazing to think how they can turn that grass into pounds.


As stated before, we have been lacking in the rain department. Water is life, and without it, everything living will die. How evident that is when you are farming. We had 18 acres of irrigated pasture put in last year and just last week added 17 more. Now we are up to 35 acres which has been a huge blessing this year. We are looking to be fully irrigated by end of the summer which will allow us to do many great things at Yonder Way.

We use the K-Line system which is a bunch of sprinkler pods that are attached by a poly tubing and pulled around your 4 wheeler or buggy. (Thats what we call the Polaris Ranger.) I really enjoy how it works and you can move them any where you want, as long as they reach, and water only specific paddocks if you like.


So for now, you have been caught up. My wife does an awesome job at updating our family blog, which lots of times flows into farming, so if mine gets stuck for a month or so, check her's out. Hopefully I will do a better job.

Piglets, Chicks & Hogs oh My!

As stated in the previous post, Lucy our sow, had a litter of 10 piglets on Saturday. Well, four days after her, Ethel had her a litter of 10 piglets. Now all would be great if all 20 piglets make it but in Ethel's litter, 2 were extremely small. I mean small. Lucy actually had 12 piglets, but 2 of them didn't make it and the two that we think might have been still born were much larger than these 2 runts. We try to allow things to be as nature would have them here so I unfortunately have to go by the way of "survival of the fittest." It is hard seeing these two little guys fight for their positions. I tell you what though, if they make it, they will be some bad some guns. Pigs with attitudes. My wife has a neat little story on our family blog about them.

Lucy and her 10 piglets

Some of Ethel's new piglets...You can see the pink runt in the front.

So yesterday was the big day of moving our laying pullets out of the brooder house and onto pasture. I have never in my life had to move 300+ chickens but Lynsey and I devised a plan. So to the side door we moved the cattle trailer and we were going to herd them in and load them on the trailer. Well, they didn't want to go out the door so they just went to flying and packing into the corners. Not good. I thought for sure they were going to either crush or sufficate each other. So to plan B which we didn't have. We got a net and started rounding the pullets to the door just keeping them in a semi circle so that I could get in and start putting them on the trailer. Eureka, it worked. Just took much longer handling each bird rather than them just loading themselves on the trailer. So out to the pasture they went and boy do they look more at peace now. I can't imagine confining a bird for all its life and not allowing it to do what its natural instincts tell it to do.

The new pens....Eventually will be used mostly for our broilers.

Roaming from the pen

Roamed right out of the pen and to the barn...I moved them back that night to their new house and they did great staying in there today.

This hen came out of some bushes the other day and had 14 chicks following her. She is down to 11 now due to some stray cats. I have to get rid of them. She is the best mom ever.

This is just a plug for kittens. We are kitten rich and I mean these are some fine kittens. True barn kittens that are nice. Is that an oxymoron? In the next couple weeks, we will have 19 kittens to give away. Please take one or two, maybe three.

7 of the orange and white

4 of these...more long haired

I got our new 12 door hog feeders in this week. The lady told me at the feed store that they come in 2 sections and you just assemble the top to the bottom. Simple enough, so I ordered 2 because I would only have to pay freight once and in a couple months, we will be able to use 2.
However, in this area, nobody finishes hogs anymore so they thought I was absolutely crazy for even buying these things. Sounds great for us from a business stand point because no competition. Especially when you are producing pastured pork supplemented with certified organic grain.

These are 40 bushel feeders but I have the extra bands to make them 60 bushels if need be. I like the size of the 40 bushel though because I can use the small tractor and dump feed directly from the bucket to the bin. Plus I check the pigs everyday so I don't mind bringing feed a few times.

So when I went to pick up the feeders, they were not in 2 sections, but in about 10 pieces, with 4 bags of about 300 bolts and nuts and pins and washers all mixed together. So then I open the instructions and in there is a diagram that looks like it was drawn with a pencil. I'm not going to get any deeper because I am happy with the feeders now but after about 18 hours to assemble one, I was a little unhappy. So I called the manufacturer and they were very helpful. But this is what it looks like with the hogs happily eating out of it.

Putting together was terrible, you really need 2 people, but other than that, they are great feeders. Very durable.

The last two days have been great rain days. The first day we got 1.1" and the second 1.3". So I hope the seed really begins to come in. We are still real thick with rye grass right now but I only think I will get one more rotation on it before it goes to mostly seed head. Thats good though because I am hoping it will reseed itself pretty good this year.

Thats about it for now. I have a little bit of seed to get put out next week and then I'm tapping out on that. That will be a huge weight off my shoulders.

Still Here Busy as Ever

Yep, you probably thought I had fell off the face of the earth but not the case. You see, I don't know what happened.... There was the baby goat, BIB, then came the second kid, Bambi, and then I just got so busy out here that I didn't really want to blog about all the little things that were going on. I don't know why, I just really wanted to come in and spend time away from the computer at night. So thats what I did. But I will catch you up on the great things that are going on here.

First things first. Once again, I hate the goats. Yep, I'm a fair weather goat fan and right now I just wish they would run away... But they are so dang cute roaming around the place...They just keep roaming into places that they have no business going in and eating seed, dried molasses, and getting into the pig and chicken feed. They are relentless. However, when all the spring seeding and spreading is done, they will have nothing to get into. But I still wish they would run away.

The cows are doing great. I am particularly pleased with the Red Brangus we purchased almost 2 months ago. They are extremely efficient and looking better and better each week. Even crazy #707 is in full swing. They are currently rotating on our 40-45 paddocks. Pete the bull is very laid back but I haven't seen him working his magic yet. Maybe he waits till no one is watching. I look to have 5-10 beeves ready by end of the summer so that is exciting.

Pigs are really enjoying life and getting bigger and bigger. Lucy and Ethel were pregnant, Lucy had 10 piglets last Saturday night, and Ethel's rolls are still in the oven. She looks miserable. Her heat cycle falls 4 days after Lucy so I figure she should have her piglets in the next couple of days. Lucy is a great mother, just overbearing to Ethel now but I guess that is expected by sows. I remember walking up on some feral hogs when I was a land surveyor and the mother of the piglets chased us up a fence. We had to sit there for 2 hours. So I figure letting them live in their natural environment brings out nature in them. Our stocker pigs are really filling out. They look awesome. I have 3 that will be ready in about 4-6 weeks I think and then I have 3-4 others that will be ready by end of summer. One of the stockers, I am going to keep for a breeder sow, she looks great and has converted feed much better than any of the others. We'll see.

We officially have chickens coming out everywhere. We are currently getting about 30 eggs daily but that will change in the coming months. Of my 300 layers we purchased, 9 have died, only 4 were natural deaths. (I had a rampant mother hen get inside the brooder ring and she went to killing my other chicks looking for her lost one that got in there. I was pretty mad at her for that.) I have been very pleased with Ideal Hatcheries chicks. However, I have hatched about 60 of our own chicks and have 3 hens setting right now. I figure we have the room, why not let them do it. I mostly allow my bantams to set since they are such great mothers and I am the only one that usually eats their eggs. They are pretty small. I am going to be moving about 325 layers onto pasture tomorrow so they will officially be out of the brooder house. To think confinement chicken never get to look forward to roaming on pasture. (Next we get our broilers and turkeys)

Our pastures are looking great. Its amazing in just one year the difference. Not only have we put out seed for our cool and warm season grasses, but implementing Managed Intensive Grazing has changed everything. By rotating each day, aggressively grazing then allowing to rest for approximately 40-45 days, our grasses are awesome looking. This is kinda funny, but in one week, we had someone from Conroe TX send a letter saying that they wanted to buy our property and soon after that, someone called from Houston TX and said they wanted to lease it for their cattle. If they only knew how much has went into this place. It is nice to know though that people are beginning to notice the place when they drive by.

Plans are in motion for our new office building equipped with a fully operational kill room for our poultry. More on this in the near future.

So this is what is going on. I can't promise posts everyday like before because right now, it is so busy, that at night, I just want to relax at home with my girls. However, I will be more diligent in keeping this blog updated. I love farming, its my passion, but I don't really love typing on a computer... but it is a great way for me to document the things going on at the farm. More pics will be on the way. Thanks for checking in and reading about our lives.