Weekly blog post:

 This week at the Stiles Farm, I began setting up meso-mammal scent and camera stations around the property. I learned how to drive a t-post as well as set up a scent station and then traveled around the property looking for wildlife travel corridors and tracks to determine where to place my stations. This week we also began the process of fermenting corn for hog bait. For our corn container, we used an old barrel and had to make a lid out of plywood and lumber. During this process, I learned how to use a circular saw and power drill. This week I was also able to get more comfortable being in close proximity with cattle by assisting animal science intern Taylor Burrell and farm manager Ryan Collett with sorting cows in the working pens.

    

 

 

Monday, we fixed a gap in the fence line where a wash out occurred. We patched the gap so that we could move the main herd into this pasture for grazing, without having to worry about cows getting on the neighbor’s property.

Monday afternoon we tried to move the main herd to a new pasture from the hay field by coaxing them with some cottonseed. While most of the main herd was disinterested, the cows and heifers in the northwest pasture were more than happy to follow the hay seed into the corral so we could sort them out on Tuesday.

Tuesday morning, I moved the northwest pasture herd into the working pens to sort them. We moved the pregnant heifers to the headquarters pens to keep an eye on them and moved the others to new grazing.

Wednesday morning, we tried to move the main herd once again, and this time it was successful! Thanks to the help of Dr. John Tomecek, his horse, Shiner, and a little bit of cottonseed, we got most of the main herd to move towards the pasture we want them in.

By: Taylor Burrell

 

Week 1:

 

During my first week as an intern at the Stiles Farm, I accompanied Dr. Tomecek and his graduate students to the San Antonio Viejo Ranch near Hebbronville, Texas. The goal of the trip was to conduct feral hog control and to see how the remains are used by wildlife, with an emphasis on coyote observation. Along with learning about feral hog management and coyote population dynamics, I also learned how to drive a Polaris, use an ax, build a fire, and how to mount a game camera using wire.

Upon returning to the farm, I spent the rest of the week exploring and getting to know the property as well as becoming familiar with driving a manual transmission. During my exploration of the farm, I observed a large diversity of wildlife including this common nighthawk and great horned owl. We also scouted a field of native, annual sunflower in order to determine future management needs in preparation of dove season 2018.

     

 

 

 

This week at the Stiles Farm, I learned how to drive one of the tractors to be able to feed the cows hay. On Wednesday, I helped put up a temporary gate, connected to the electric fence, to make sure the main herd would stay out of the hay field while grazing in the pasture we opened up for them. Thursday morning, I checked on the fence and made sure the cows were where they were supposed to be.

I was also able to learn how to load and unload the seeds from the planter, as well as change the plates for different seeds, from cotton to canola (same plate for both sesame and canola). And while planting the sesame, we had a small number of egrets following the planter to catch the bugs that would fly up.

We also started getting the farm ready for field day on the 19^th of this month!

Writer: Taylor Burrell, Intern

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yesterday was my first day of the internship at the Stiles Farm. We were able to spend some time in the field with Dr. Tony Provin, soil scientist at Texas A&M, and we dug corn roots to evaluate compaction. The different tillage methods utilized on the farm affected the level of compaction in the soil. Therefore, where the field was deep chiseled, there was less compaction this year, as opposed to where it was no-tilled and had tractor traffic.

 

I also spent some time learning how to drive our spray rig and scouting cotton for fleahopper damage.

Writer: Taylor Burrell, Intern