A flying calf hutch!
We knew the windstorm was coming. We took precautions. As usual, we parked a car next to the trampoline and chained them together (this is since the trampoline hit the roof year before last). We brought in the kiddie pool (which we have fetched from the neighbor's field once already), loose tarps, anything like that.
But it just never occurred to me to tie down the calf hutch. For those city folks among you, a calf hutch is about nine feet in diameter and maybe four feet high. Weighs perhaps 100 pounds. Looks like a UFO as it is gliding silently over three fences and across a state highway.
It's back. And tied down. There's another windstorm predicted tonight.
7 comments:
Hi Aimee, Here in Oz we don't have a hutch for calves This is the first time I've heard of one. Are they used as a feeding station or for weather protection?
You must have had a "fun" time retrieving it !! Sorry, but I have to admit I laughed at your story and you probably don't think its funny !!
No doubt you will think so when you recall the drama in a few years time.
My husband asked me where do you live and I showed him the pictures on the side of your blog...near Mt. Baker, but in which state? Funny that, we live near Mt Barker South Australia
Good lord! I'm glad it didn't come in through back door. This wind is making me nutso. Enough already!
Hope you all are in same place tomorrow AM -- I'm hoping to not be sleeping with a fir tree...
Oh my goodness you had one heck of a wind storm.
Sending calm breezes!
Sherry
Hi Olive,
Calf hutches are actually sad. On a commercial dairy, the calves are separated from their mothers very early and chained inside these plastic hutches. At large dairies there are rows and rows of them. To tell the truth I have no idea what happens to dairy breed calves, but I don't think they have a very nice life. Or a very long one. I bought a used calf hutch off Craigslist
because it is just the right size for a small herd of goats to take shelter in and much cheaper than building something the same size.
I live in Washington State, just a few miles from the canadian border and very near the ocean. It's very beautiful here, but also very wet.
Kim - good luck! Hope you pulled through all right!
Thanks Q!
Hi Aimee,
I have two of the same calf huts for little groups of sheep in rotating pastures. They've been great in our MN winter just to keep the wind and precip off. Not good in summer-- they're hotter inside than out, and the grass grows better in them.
My hutches usually move across the field because my horned Shetlands like to bash them. In winter, they skitter across icy fields! Some battering rams ONLY get calf huts, because they can dent but not break them.
Hi Aimee - I found your blog through Gail V.'s blog. We, too, are new to farm life. It is always an adventure! We bought a calf hut a few months ago. I wondered if the wind would be an issue... Now I know! I have it with my Finn flock. I better go tie it down! I look forward to reading more of your adventures. ;-)
thanks roundabout! Hope you are enjoying it!
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