We farm in total about 1200 acres of which about half we own. We refer to the different farms by their location. Old Hagerstown refers to the road name of the farm that we rent. We keep all of our beef steers at this farm to finish them off before they go to become the beef that we sell thru our home delivery and dairy store. We raise Holstein and Brown Swiss cross cattle.
Each evening my parents go to the farm and feed the steers, sometimes Sophia or Jereamiah will tag along to ride with Poppy in the skid loader. My Dad will take 3 large scoops of ensilage (chopped corn, and corn stalk that has fermented in a pit) to feed in the bunk and then later he will also feed some cracked corn and soybean meal on top (that we raise and mill on our farm). Thru the winter this, along with bales of hay makes up the majority of their diet...but come springtime the steers will spend more and more time out in the pasture eatting lots of green grass and we will have to feed them less and less out of the bunk in the barnyard.
The rolling fields of the farm at Old Hagerstown Road provide quite the workout for the steers as they travel down a large hill to get to the main creek that runs thru the farmland, and then they have to climb back up the hill to get back into the barnyard, this exercise provides nice leg muscles that produce a nice meaty lean steak!
Brownie, is a Swiss/Holstein cross that is overly friendly and quite a pain,he pushes everyone out of the way so that he can get the best spot on the bunk, he also will knock you over if you are out in the yard with the cattle and he wants to play!
