Here is my blog post!!
Howdy! The past few weeks on the farm I have spent much of my time fixing and building fences so we can continue to rotate the cattle herds to maintain forage availability. I have learned a lot about both barbed wire and electric fences. We have fixed mostly barbed wire in the pastures and have run a top electric wire in the places where the barbed wire is too low. This past week, we also constructed an electric fence using t-posts and metal rebar rods to fence off a native grassland restoration area.
A couple of weeks ago, a few of us spent the day penning and loading the northern herd onto a trailer in order to transport them from the northwest pastures to a different set of pastures on the farm known as “Four Corners,” in order to rest the well-grazed pastures and utilize the more abundant forage in Four Corners. The southern herd has also been rotated between a few new pastures in the past few weeks and has needed very little supplemental hay. We continue to have cows birthing calves in both herds, and I have enjoyed spotting the new additions (they are so cute and are my favorite!)
I have also been moving haybales from the hay pasture to the different hay lots around the farm and then lining them up together (which we call “stacking”). Moving hay has allowed me to continue practicing operating the tractor and pulling a trailer with our standard transmission truck.
Though cattle production and management are the areas of agriculture with which I am most familiar, I have enjoyed expanding my knowledge base of the broader industry through the learning opportunities involving agronomy and crops here on the farm. For instance, a few days ago I went to go scout for aphids on one of our milo fields. Additionally, we were able to have some specialists on corn and plant pathology come out to the farm and film their discussions about some common plant diseases affecting crops in Central Texas and the Texas Blackland Prairie this year.
Kyra LeJeune
Farm Intern