[June update] What we've been up to! 🐄
[June update] What we've been up to! 🐄
Long time, no speak! May was full of baby calves, preparing for hay season, and weaning goats
Hiya, farm friends 👋🏼
Can you believe it’s already June?
It seems a little scary to me how quickly this year is flying by… but déjà vu tells me I’ve said this before.
So maybe that’s the new normal?
…or maybe that’s just true for us at the farm; springtime does something crazy to our time!!
Since spring time is full of baby goats, lambs and calves - on top of EVERYTHING else that comes along with the growth and wonder of spring time - todays update will just be a quick round up of what we’ve been up to at the farm.
Table of Contents
The baby calves are here!
On May 4th we welcomed the first, and June 4th we welcomed our fourth (and final!) Pineywoods baby calf of the season!!
These 4 calves all arrived literally within 1 month.
Bitsy had her heifer calf (girl) first, and she has had zero issues - we haven’t had to work on Bitsy or baby at all!
Mabel had another heifer calf (girl) on May 8th. Unfortunately, the baby had a rough start and we had to tube feed her for a few days but she finally came around and we love watching her zoom across the hay field.
Georgia gave us our first (and only) bull calf of the season.
He was so big, that she struggled during birth. Jeff tried to assist, but even the vet struggled when he arrived and they ended up having to use the calf puller.
We also had to tube feed this little bull calf for the first few days - he was too weak after a long delivery to even stand so could not drink from momma.
Thankfully, we were able to milk momma for her nutritious colostrum so that he could get some strength and energy and finally able to drink on his own. Momma and baby are doing great!
And then there was Bluebelle. She delivered our last baby girl just a couple days ago. Thankfully, she had no issues and delivered 100% on her own.
By the time we even realized she had a baby - this little one was already drinking from momma!! 🤩
It was a hard month of caring for the new calves, emotions running rampant, lots of prayers to God to help save them, late evenings and early mornings for both of us, and even a little time away from work to make sure they were given their best chance at survival.
Praise God for them all doing well now!!
Prepping for Hay season
One thing that I’ve learned the hard way with farming is that the hottest months of the year (June, July & August) are typically labeled as hay season.
What “hay season” means is that our hay fields have grown out and need to be cut, raked, and baled at the ideal time (before the grass gets too stemmy), then stored in the barn to feed our livestock throughout the year.
We’ve got a love-hate relationship with hay season 😅
It’s just SO MUCH WORK - and typically needs to be done on the HOTTEST days of the year (in order for the hay to properly dry before being stored).
So this May as we were preparing to load up our hay barn with new hay, we had to move some of our final bales from last season into our goat barn in order to make some room for the old hay barn to hold all of our new bales for the year.
Normally… the cutting and baling doesn’t start until June, but our farm has been blessed with so much rain this spring that we actually had to cut & bale one of our hayfields the last week of May this year!
Our second & third fields were cut yesterday to be baled on Friday & Saturday - please pray for the weather to cooperate so that no rain drops until the last bale is stored safely away from the moisture. And also that we have abundant help again!
We’re also hoping for a 2nd cutting later in July/August so your continued prayers for rain at the farm (and even for God to bring help to us for baling each field!) means so much to us!
Weaning + parting ways with some baby goats
We started weaning some of our baby goats in late May, preparing for them to be ready for their new homes.
Already this year, we’ve said goodbye to Paris and Cupcake.
The final set of kids that will be weaned this weekend will be Sweet Pea’s babies so then our milking operation will be in full swing with all mommas done with weaning!
Which means…
It’s here! Raw goat milk is now available for 2024
This year we are introducing our Penner Mini Farms herdshare program as an option to co-own our dairy goats with us for the season - thus enabling yourselves to some delicious dividends of fresh, raw goats milk every week.
Some added bonuses would be access to farm visits at our private family farm, first dibs on any new goat milk products (hello, cheese + fudge!), and just simply being an integral part of the herd!
Learn more and sign up for our herdshare program here.
WAIT!!! BEFORE YOU GO…
🥛 RAW GOAT MILK 🥛
Want to be co-owner of our herd, thus entitling yourself to dividends of fresh raw milk weekly? ⭐Check out our herdshare program!⭐
Not interested in being a co-owner of the herd?
👉Reach out if you’re interested in a one-time or biweekly purchase instead*! *Note: daily priority is given to all herdshare members
🐄 GRASS FED BEEF🐄
We may have some Grass Fed, Grass Finished Beef available as early as November 2024.
We do expect to sell out of our beef in a short amount of time, so be sure to jump onto our "first come, first serve" waitlist today!
🙏🏼 PENNER MINI FARMS PRAYER PARTNERS 🙏🏼
Every day we try to pray over ourselves and the farm.
We ask God to “give us clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, and clean food to eat”; for the animals and for ourselves. We humbly invite you to partner with us in prayer for the farm!
We’d love to hear how we can specifically be praying for your family as well; please do us the honor of letting us know how we can pray for you!