sunshine hooray!!!!!

Abby decided to lay down and eat her grass out in her grass pasture this afternoon. She has done this since she was a filly. She'd always lay down in her pile of food and eat it. I like that she still does. I had to get her back to or she would have gotten up. I'm glad I have a pretty good zoom on my camera! Time Out was out with Maggie. The two have been together everyday for three days. Oh and notice the brightness and how lush the grass looks?!  That's due to about two weeks of rain, and humidity. We were finally able to get up fencing and put the horses out on grass. This picture with Abby is our back lawn, I no longer have to mow it, the horses do!! Not to mention get Maggie on some more pasture that was ready to be grazed. We noticed a huge increase in her milk. When it was time for milking her udder was full! She has gone up in milk 1.5 gallons a day! That is just putting her on fresh grass! She's on the end of her milk cycle too, we'll be drying her off in August, so she'll calve in October. Not really ideal for wanting a grass based dairy to dry her off in the peak grazing season, but considering all the trouble we had... anyways we are very excited to to see the increase in her milk, and are really encouraged to think how much more cows will give just getting them on spring grass! We have even cut back on her grain as well. We are not graining her for maximum production either, we give her half of what she was getting at the farm we bought her from, because we don't need as much milk as she can give.  But it is very exciting to see the increase and we look forward to having a more grass based herd in the future! This is the first spring that we have had a cow and milking! We have learned so much, and know we have so much more to learn, but it will come in time. Hard to believe that we have had Maggie for almost a year, we got her in June! Wow has that gone fast!
Kinda funny, only because everything turned out alright, don't think it would be so funny if it hadn't! Shortly after I took this picture I had to go get Time Out and lock her in her stall. She was chasing Maggie, and then she decided to take the fence down. She was a little confused and didn't like the shocking she was getting from the fence. She trotted all the way to her barn, then decided to scream for Abby. Abby couldn't care less and continued eating. Maggie was looking a little miffed when I went and had to get her in her stall. She really didn't want to come in yet, it wasn't time for miking, but a little bit of grain shaking near her head lock and she came in, after throwing her head around and pawing the ground to let me know she was not amused. Maybe Time Out was just practicing her team penning skills she really wants to have!! I got the fence back up, and put back together, and told Matthew when he got home we needed to make sure it was the way he had it set up, and we need to fix a few fence posts before putting Maggie back out.
Soooo now it's back to fixing fence and more walking! But when you have a grass operation I guess that's what you do, walk, and a lot of it!! Good thing I like to walk!!
Have a great night all!!