It seems it is becoming a trend to get our bad luck out of the way early in the year. I knew Holstein was bred later, but didn’t think she was due to give birth soon. As it worked out she picked nice weather to go into labor, but that is the only thing that went well. We ended up having to intervene and long story short we got experience correcting a calf that was trying to come out wrong, pulled the calf, lost the calf and lost the cow. Things don’t always go smooth, but that was exceptionally rough.

Holstein was our tamest cow, so tame we were literally milking her in the field after the calving trouble. Having a dairy breed around meant a higher chance for mastitis, but we didn’t even have a chance to cause the problem in this case. It seems Holstein contracted mastitis before giving birth, and it probably led to her loosing the calf.  I noticed she was in labor that morning, so I was keeping a close eye on her. After first letting her try to take care of business we decided to lend a helping hand. We were too late and our attempts to resuscitate the calf we pulled were to no avail.

After the loss of the calf Holstein retained the placenta. We gave her a day but she wasn’t passing it and we went into action giving her a clean out shot. We also started to milk her to get some colostrum. We quickly noticed that she had mastitis in the two back quarters and started her on antibiotics. All our efforts didn’t change the downward spiral.

Our efforts were in vain, as her condition deteriorated to the point that we ended up putting her down. We had great hopes for Holstein, and it was a tough loss. Holstein was one of my original three calves, and I picked her up way down in Springfield with Angus.

The second string of bad luck happened while moving the grain drill into the shop. I had the 861 idling to warm up in the cold weather. I went to work on something else real quick and heard the tractor die. It had killed itself abruptly and when I went to restart the tractor it didn’t want to turn over well. I had a lot on my plate at the time so I figured I would check it out later. To my dismay while checking on the tractor later I learned it had seized up. I will have to split the tractor and am probably looking at a rebuild in the best case scenario. It was another hard loss as I got spoiled using the larger tractor, and the 8N wouldn’t be able to fill its role easily.

On a completely different but related subject what do you do when you need to find a tractor in your price range? Well considering I buy almost all my machinery off posts on Craigslist that is where I went, but I want to share some tricks to finding the best deals while consuming the least amount of your time. I wanted a 30+ hp tractor with live PTO in usable condition for less than $2000 before hay season, that is a tough order.

www.iftt.com is a great tool for anyone who uses Craigslist. I have spent a lot of time looking through Criagslist, and IFTTT has helped make that chore easier. Their motto is “Put the internet to work for you” and it is very fitting. Most of my farm implements and all of my cattle were found through Craigslist ads. Craigslist is one of the best places to find some items and IFTTT makes it that much better.

IFTTT is a website that can be used to do many things. I use it to notify me of items posted on Craigslist that I have an interest in. I have what IFTTT calls formulas searching for everything from cheap vehicles to cattle on several area Craigslists. I am also sent a notification of anything listed in the free section of my two closest Craigslists.

These formulas can be setup to search Craigslist in any of the normal modes of searching. From category specific and price range searches. You basically run a search on the Craigslist you want to search in with your specifics filled in and copy the URL box into your IFTTT formula. Anything that is listed meeting your search criteria will trigger the formula. You are then sent an email of the new posting, or you can also be sent a text message as well as other options of notification. Formulas can be turned off and on as well as deleted at your whim.

When I am searching for something I don’t want to waste my time looking for items that are overpriced. So I search within a price range that gleans the best results. For example I have a search out for Dexter in a price range of $200-$900. I am looking for Dexter Heifer calves and the $200 minimum price removes all the Dexter tv show DVD’s from my search. Although I do occasionally get a listing for a Dexter trailer. While I do miss the ads where no price is listed, they are usually overpriced anyway. This formula is how I found Milk Jug my Dexter cow.

There are other functions that IFTTT can do, but the craiglist search function is the most valuable to me and the only one I use. If you are vigilant you can get some great deals, but those deals will be gone quick. This is a great way to be notified of those deals and get a jump on them.

Another great tool that makes Craigslist more user friendly is Search Tempest www.searchtempest.com

If you live in a more remote area, but are willing to travel for the good deals Search Tempest allows you to search all the cities within a mile range of your zip on one website. This makes searching the ten Craigslists within 150 miles of my home town much easier. You can search different categories and price ranges just like if you were on the individual Craigslist pages, from one website.

As a side note I am not affiliated with Craigslist, Search Tempest or IFTTT. I just find them very helpful when you a running a small farm on a tight budget. As such I think it may interest others.

Farm Updates:

I built the finalized model of our PVC cultivator tractor and will be posting about it soon as well as making a Youtube video on the design. We are in early spring and well prepared for planting if the weather cooperates. We have separated our purebred Buff Orpington, Araucana, Barred Rock and Silky chickens to provide eggs for incubation.