Casey Lane

Here (north Florida) I've seen it grown for agritourism corn mazes. The corn here is too far gone by fall when its time for corn mazes. The sorghum makes a more dense and nicer maze.

Ah, that's much better! Thanks!
Have you used it? Any pointers? I let the livestock step on the garden hoses. This looks like something I should bury at path points I guess.

I heard a lecture by Darren Daugherty, where he talks about handling their livestock watering needs for portable grazing systems with dairy hose. This sounds appealing to me, since currently I am using a web of garden hoses and contemplating running, PVC, but hate to tie myself to a "system". I looked up dairy hose online and it looks extremely expensive because its a food grade hose for pumping milk.

We put ours on the east end of the house, where we have the world's largest eave overhang. They are no problem there. They have a pasture adjacent for their flight paths. They stay dry and I hope the house mass helps moderate temp fluctuations.

Now thriving! But needs a better friend than these pigs!
http://youtu.be/372god8UYRs

This is great! Thank you! I just heard on Paul's podcast how awesome both of your speeches were at Voices. How can we hear them online? YouTube?

Yes, more on breeding and mini cows. My jersey is very small and I'm not sure what to do with her. I hear AI is tough with one cow figuring out the heat cycle.

We have a neighbor down the road selling a mini zebu bull and cow that he bought for pets. They look healthy but I'm afraid maybe too small. My jersey is 10 months old and is only 36" tall at the shoulders. Maybe she'll hit a growth spurt.

UPDATE!
Finally decided to call a vet. The first week of the year. She decided to treat her with another dewormer (safeguard) and Albon (a sulfa drug for coccidia). She is like a new animal! She no longer sits in her own poop, jumps up anytime I approach her, runs and has a serious appetite now. I tried to put a rope halter on her today and she was actually bucking! We can't call her lazy daisy anymore. Vet says her growth is definitely stunted but she can certainly grow up to be a productive animal. We'll see.

Adam, I certainly agree with all the things you said, except I think us homesteaders are determined enough to realize when we made a mistake and not let it keep us from doing good things in the future. I'm still not sure my family is willing to make the milking commitment right now anyway, but one day we may buy a cow already in milk and keep daisy around to see how it goes.

Thanks for all the comments.
Casey

Well, Adam had me feeling guilty before I went to bed last night and I figured I would shell out the cash to bring out a vet. I don't know now though. When I went out this morning, she was already up and when I approached her with the idea of giving her the "power punch", she shot past me out of the barn. I also noticed she ate the sweet feed scoop that had been out for her for days.

I did try to give her milk again and she would have nothing to do with it. I was really shocked by how little she eats. Maybe a few handfuls of hay a day and a measuring cup or so of alfalfa pellets. She grazes for several hours a day on rye and ryegrass that is coming up and is about 6". She does sit around a lot. This morning I gave her some of the power punch and made her stand up. She ate some pellets and 20 min or so later went out on her own to graze. She's gotta barn to sleep in and fresh water daily in the field. I'm almost out of the power punch and haven't found any more locally. I did find some probios (live probiotic cultures in a powder) and I added it to her pellets today.

Tonight I noticed some mucus in her eyes which had not been there previously. I think tomorrow I will try to take her temp. Never done that before.

If I gave her some antibiotics, what affect would that have on her rumen function?

Cull. That sounds reasonable and something I would surely do with one of my birds. I guess this is my wannabe homesteader failure but we've certainly seen her as more pet than livestock (hate to say it). She certainly isn't costing anything to keep. She eats so little.

No vaccines that I know of. I'm at work today but wife says she's getting up and down on her own today.