Only Seven Bottle Calves!! And Superbowl Snack Recipes

Calf warm in her hutch

Yippee! We currently only have seven bottle calves and all of them are healthy and drinking well. You probably cannot sense my joy and excitement, but it is like Christmas. No better, it is like Christmas where someone buys you a car!!!

So why is this sooo exciting. One, it is always good to have healthy calves and when calves are healthy they eat well. Two, we only have twelve hutches that actually have bottle holders. If we have calves in the others, we (ie Lisa and I) have to hold the bottles for them. With the cold weather we have been having the shorter time I am outside the better.

Last week we moved about eight calves to group housing and sold about six. We went from about 20 calves to seven. Chore time was cut from 2.5 hours to 1.5 hours. AWESOME!!

Super Hutch group feeder

Our next calf due is not until February 22nd (Tim’s birthday) and we don’t start our spring flush until early March. Having a break in calves allows us to clean out the hutches and let them rest. This is important because some calf illnesses need a host. When a warm body calf is no longer around the space the illnesses go away. This keeps future calves healthier.

We hope that everyone enjoys this Super Bowl weekend. Maybe now that chore time is much less, I will be able to see some of the game. I don’t know who I am rooting for yet, but it really doesn’t matter. I will be enjoying the game time snacks. We hope you make dairy part of your snack lineup. Here is a link to some GREAT Dairy Makes Sense snack recipes!

Emily

Zweber Farms is a 4th generation family operated organic dairy.  We are proud Organic Valley farmer members and sell our milk under that label. We also specialize in sustainably raised beef, pork and chicken and sell it directly to customers in Minnesota.Visit our website to learn more, www.zweberfarms.com. Connect with us on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.