If you have been following us on Facebook or Instagram,  you have probably seen photos of a cute little black and white cattle dog named Piper. Despite being a dog, Piper is still very much a part of our ‘herd.’ Piper is a ‘working dog in training.’ She is chock full of energy and wants to be helpful.

All of that energy is hard to channel though and when we don’t have enough work for Piper to do, her extra energy and inherent curiosity can really get her in trouble!

​I tend to be pretty hard on Piper, but as I am writing this, NP is gone on a business trip (he will be back before it is published) and I have to admit that Piper is kinda nice to have around …
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She has been my ‘gate watcher’ & ‘steer-keeper-out-of-the-wayer’ and just plain companion as I wrestle hay bales, buckets of grain, and fresh bedding through gates and across pastures. NP’s patience and the time he has put into training Piper is really starting to pay off. It is nice to know that I can set Piper at an open gate and tell her to ‘watch it’ and not have to worry about the cattle getting out while I make multiple trips in and out with hay bales or wheel barrows full of bedding. She is also good at pushing the cattle back to give me space to work in the pasture. The cattle are a curious bunch and like to investigate anything and everything that is happening in the pasture which can make it hard to get a task accomplished! Piper particularly loves this ‘steer-keeper-out-of-the-wayer’ task! She can be a bit over zealous though and the next step in training is to reign in and channel her enthusiasm! Part of the problem is that she doesn’t get to do this task nearly often enough. This is compounded by the fact that the steers learn in pretty short order to back off when Piper shows up!

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If you've been following us on Facebook, you know that we have been preparing for our milk cow, Abby, to calve. What we weren't expecting was that Abby would have TWO calves! And both heifers at that! Talk about growing the herd ;)

Abby had her calves early Wednesday morning during the snowstorm that we had. It is common for cows to calve during inclement weather - I've heard it's due to the atmospheric pressure changes but who knows for sure? Abby did a great job of cleaning her calves off and I helped her finish the drying process. Luckily, Abby did decide to have her calves in the shelter of the nicely bedded shed we provided her instead of the muddy pasture!!

After moving the calves safely to the side, I milked Abby to harvest the life giving colostrum. We then fed the calves each an overflowing half gallon of the liquid gold (read more about colostrum here) and moved them to the hutches that will be their homes for the next 2 months. Once the calves were good and dry we also put blankets on them. Between the blankets and the deep straw bedding in the hutches they should stay cozy and warm! You can read about why we use calf hutches here. I was thankful to have my dad on hand to help feed, bed, and move the calves! Between the snow and being pregnant, it would have been challenging to do by myself!

Enjoy!
Brun Ko Farm

Soon after honey harvest, NP started preparing the bees for winter. Honey bees are not native to Iowa and our cold winters can be tough! Luckily honey bees adapt well and they do some of their own winter prep work too! Bees prep for winter by kicking out the drones, aka the male bees. The drones serve no other purpose than to fertilize the queen and so rather than feed the extra mouths through the winter, the workers bees kick the boys out! Bees are also really good at self regulating the temperature inside the hive. In the winter they keep the hive between 93 & 96 degrees Fahrenheit. They do this by forming a cluster and flapping their wings and shivering.  Because bees need to stay warm it is also important to not open the hive on cold days! NP uses a guideline of 50 degrees F or warmer.
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Although bees are pretty good at taking care of themselves, honey bees are not native to Iowa and they need some help from us humans. We leave a good amount of honey with the bees as this is their food for the winter. However, NP also supplements the honey supply with sugar and protein patties. He also put a mouse guard in the opening of the hive. A mouse guard reduces the size of the hive opening so that mice can’t get through it. Mice are always looking for a warm place in the winter and what better place than a protected hive full of yummy honey?!  Bees can actually kill mice but they really need to conserve energy through the winter months so a mouse guard really helps!

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Remember all of that heat the bees generate by wriggling their bodies? Well, all that work also creates a lot of moisture inside of the hive. This can be a real problem if the moisture can’t escape. Beekeepers have several methods of helping the bees with this problem. NP and a neighboring beekeeper got together this fall and they constructed moisture control/ventilation boxes. These boxes have a screen on the bottom and are filled with cedar wood chips. The wood chips absorb the moisture from the hive and the moisture then escapes through holes drilled into the side of the box.

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If you liked this blog - check out our previous post about honey harvest!
www.brunkofarm.weebly.com/blog/honey