Flyin ARM'S Homestead

12/13/2022

12/09/2022

We have cattle going to butcher January 1st. I believe we have a 1/2 left or we can quarter them. If you're interested on purchasing either please reach out to me or Adam.

We would like to personally thank everyone who has bought from us. I was hesitant having 4 go in at the same time but it's been very easy to sell!

12/07/2022

If you're looking for an equine vet granted she does cattle as well. Robin Surface is the way to go!!! This woman has changed my opinion about veterinarian in every single way possible! She is very knowledgeable. She will find a way to make you understand she never makes you feel stupid or uneducated. Every time she's on my property I am inspired by her as a person. She never judges the fact that I have a fear of horses due to an accident she understands completely. Dex gave us some attitude today. She never once blamed him, She asked me about his history. I explaind he was abused by a man. She blamed herself she's seen Dex before hes never acted like this towards her. She was in her coveralls she has short hair. She blamed herself for his attitude towards her. she said "I bet you anything he thought I was a man that's why he acted the way he did."
Dex had beans his sheath had to be cleaned.

12/05/2022

We are trying out a different way to feed round bale (Rhonda saw it on tiktok). Also, getting turn out number one done (in time we will have two) This way, we can open up all the all 4 pastures, with Midas, Z, and Handor having an area to themselves.

11/17/2022

11/16/2022

This is a little bit of a rehash of one of my previous blogs, but I'm seeing folks advertising quarters and half beef sides for sale and they're not explaining things or their pricing clearly. Here's what you need to know!

First: Terminology. Live weight is how much the animal weighs when it's out in the pasture. Hanging weight is how much the animal weighs "on the hook", or after it's been slaughtered, skinned, the guts removed, the head removed and front and rear fetlocks removed. In short, hanging weight is mostly meat, but still includes a whole lot of bones you can't do much with. "Cut and wrapped" weight is how many pounds of actual meat you end up with in your freezer.

Most farmers or wholesale stores sell their animals based on hanging weight which may or may not include slaughter and butchering fees (ask before you commit!). It makes sense to use hanging weight because that's how the butchers also charge the farmers: they charge the butchering fees based on hanging weight or "on the hook".

All these different weights can only be estimated until the animal is in the form described. For example, if the animal is still alive, you can only estimate hanging weight. Once the animal has been slaughtered you know it's hanging weight, but you can only estimate your cut and wrapped weight. But once the animal is cut and wrapped, you know how much meat you're getting and how much you paid for it. For a high quality steer under two years old and on good feed, you can estimate your weights based on ratios.

For example, a 1200 lb live weight steer will have a hanging weight about 60-65% of it's live weight or around 780lb hanging weight. Or, you could say that the ratio of hanging weight to live weight is about 60-65%. Of that 780lb hanging weight, you should also get about 60-68% of that in meat or 507lb of meat, cut and wrapped. In other words, your ratio of cut and wrapped meat to hanging weight is about 60-68%.

If you buy a whole steer from a farmer based on hanging weight, you can estimate how much you're paying per pound of meat in your freezer using these ratios. Say your steer is 800 lb on the hook, or hanging weight. The farmer is charging $4.40/lb hanging weight and the farmer is paying for all the butchering fees and slaughter. To estimate your cost per pound of meat in the freezer, you simply divide your cost per pound of hanging weight, by the ratio of cut and wrapped weight to hanging weight. In this example, it's $4.40/0.65 or $6.77 per pound of meat in your freezer.

So even though you're only paying $4.40/lb hanging weight, when it gets into cut and wrapped form, your actual cost is closer to $6.80/lb.

Here's another example: a farmer is charging $3.60/lb hanging weight, but is not covering the butchering or slaughter fees. The butcher he used charges $0.75/lb hanging weight for cutting and wrapping and $85 for the slaughter. Let's use our 800lb hanging weight steer mentioned above to calculate our cost per pound of meat.

We take the farmer's price plus the butchering cost or $3.60 + $0.75 which is $4.35/lb hanging weight. Then, we divide that by our estimated ratio of cut and wrapped weight to hanging weight or $4.35/0.65. This gives us $6.69/lb cut and wrapped. BUT! Someone has to pay for slaughter and if the farmer doesn't, the customer does. So, we have approximately 520 lb of meat from our 800 lb hanging weight steer, and $85/520 is $0.16 per pound of meat for slaughter. So our total cost per pound of meat in the freezer is now $6.85.

This is a little bit of a rehash of one of my previous blogs, but I'm seeing folks advertising quarters and half beef sides for sale and they're not explaining things or their pricing clearly.  Here's what you need to know! First: Terminology.  Live weight is how much the animal w

11/12/2022

11/12/2022

Update!
Calves and more calves
Everyday we are stepping closer to our goals.

10/20/2022

Update one Dex. He is healing perfectly

10/20/2022

What a beautiful day!

10/20/2022

It’s time to retrain ourselves in how to learn and expect learning to go.

For decades, top names have pedaled programs in digestible, easy steps. You can buy a dvd and a trademarked stick and stick to the plan for success; follow the flow chart. Trainers have rotated horses in and out of their barns at lightning speed, 30 days to broke. We’ve subconsciously learned that you can buy results, in a customer is always right mentality -
But you can’t buy it, and the customer is not always right. The horse is.

You can’t buy an education, and you can’t buy training. Not really. You, the student, have to open your mind, do the work, be your own salvation. The teacher can guide you to it, but you can’t buy it.

It’s time to get comfortable being uncomfortable. It’s time to accept information you don’t like- to be told you have to go back to basics. It’s time to stop seeking tips, tricks and tuneups, and start seeking a real basis of knowledge. Its time to understand the horse doesn’t come reading the training manual- it’s time to learn to observe and think for yourself, stop seeking a step by step plan.

It’s time to be ok with hearing no- your horse is too lame to jump, you can’t ride him til he’s ready, hes going to break down if you don’t rehab him first.

It’s time for clinicians and trainers to stop dumbing the content down, and to start taking their craft seriously. It’s time to tell the public what they need to hear, not what they want. It’s time to say you have no need to learn to piaffe, or flying changes, or whatever -
you need to learn how to sit better or quiet your mind. It’s time to start delivering the truth and not what’s going to make you popular.

It’s time for real change in the industry - it’s time for real change within ourselves. It’s time to get comfortable not knowing, not being validated, and not being sold a magical cure. You know it to be true, but it won’t happen until you take it to heart, and put it into action.

10/20/2022

Fat horses are at greater risk for exercise intolerance, founder, metabolic syndrome, insulin resistance, the formation of colic-causing lipomas (fat tumors in the abdomen), joint and bone problems, reduced reproduction efficiency and increased stress on their heart and lungs.

According to a recent survey conducted by the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine, 51 percent of the horses had a body condition score (BCS) of greater than 6, which would be considered fat. Nineteen percent of that 50 percent had a BCS of 8-9, which would be considered obese. Ideally, we would like to see our horses with a BCS of somewhere between 4 and 6.

One reason we are seeing more fat horses today is that horses evolved as free-roaming grazers on sparse pasture types. They gained weight during the summer grazing and lost weight, sometimes several hundred pounds, during the winter.

Once domesticated, horses served primarily as work animals, providing either transportation or draft power that required a tremendous amount of energy in the form of grain supplement. It was not uncommon for cavalry horses to be ridden 30 to 50 miles a day.

Today, most horses are recreational horses and being ridden for a few hours a week. Even show and ranch horses are only worked moderately. In addition, today we fortify our pastures with the goal of improving weight gain and productivity of cattle and other livestock with little thought given to how these forages might affect the horse. That coupled with high-energy grains and supplements that many horse owners think are necessary has resulted in over nutrition of our horses.

The first step in getting your horse to a healthy weight is to admit that it is overweight. The key to managing your horse’s weight is balancing diet and exercise, and the first step is to determine their weight.

If a scale is not available, weight tapes work well or you can use a simple formula to calculate horses’ weight: Measure the horse’s heart girth and body length in inches, then plug in the following formula:

(heart girth x heart girth) x body length/330= the weight of the horse in pounds

Once we accurately know a horse’s weight, we can calculate the pounds of feed he should receive. Horses placed on a weight-reduction plan should undergo a moderate level of exercise, producing an average heart rate of 90 beats per minute throughout the entire exercised period.

Ideally, they should be removed from pasture and placed on a hay diet that is by weight 1.5 percent of their body weight. A slow-feed hay net can help make limited hay last longer, to help satisfy the horse’s urge to eat. The hay should be fresh and contain less than 10 percent nonstructured carbohydrates. Nonstructured carbohydrates are sugars and glucose that are rapidly absorbed by the horse’s body. In fat horses or insulin resistant horses, high levels of blood sugar can contribute to laminitis development, which is the case in horses that grass founder.

Your local extension agent can test your hay to determine its carbohydrate level. If the hay is higher than 10 percent, you can soak it in a hay net in cold water for several hours to remove much of the sugar. Let the hay drain for 30 minutes before providing it to your horse. It goes without saying the water used to soak the hay should be discarded and not given to the horse.

If you cannot remove your horse from pasture, applying a grazing muzzle works great. The advantage of a grazing muzzle is that the horse exercises throughout the day but is able to eat a very small amount of grass.

Once your horse has reached its ideal body condition, maintaining the proper weight is a balancing act, and exercise will continue to be a key component. Because obesity can affect your horse’s health, schedule regular check-ups with your veterinarian; especially prior to and during the weight-reduction process.

https://aaep.org/horsehealth/obesity

Great read!

Written by Dr.

10/20/2022

Everyday Handor back legs are getting stronger. He was born with weak tendence due to stressed.

10/16/2022

Had a little photo shoot with my favorite horse on our land.
Dex
To me the true black are just beautiful

10/15/2022

I am always interested to read studies or firsthand accounts of horses and stress. We’ve somehow got it in our minds that stress is a bad thing but I figure that raising and lowering our tension is a regular part of life.

You may recognize the sort of horse that I have in Tee. Quiet, unobtrusive, content to watch life go by from the sidelines, this personality never EVER wants to make waves. What a wonderful friend! Laid back and generous, this sort of character is so easy to love.

But wait. Tee, like so many of these soft, expressive horses, is lacking a stoicism that allows him to be brave. If it’s not currently in his playbook—for example, the purple exercise ball that I left in the pen for Sunny to torment—all bets are off. As I write this, even after allowing Tee to follow the ball while we pushed it ahead, the little horse is still trembling and snorting in apprehension. That the ball might move towards him is almost enough to stop his heart.

I have diligently worked to help Tee overcome his worry of tarps and ropes around his feet and legs, or anything like a lunge whip near his tail. You’d never know it. He is still frightened of chaps when they are over your arm and yet, chaps on your legs are fine. While he can gradually become accepting of these things, if I really make a point of helping him out, he will almost always be surprised suddenly if one of these is encountered on any other day.

Tee says that stress needs to be booked into his calendar and that he’d appreciate a notification of its imminent arrival. You know, to be ready and able, so that his bowels don’t turn to water. He so wants to be good at his job!

It is important to distinguish that ‘desensitizing’ this sort of horse almost always has a ‘flooding’ aspect to it; that this sort of training can too easily backfire or overwhelm. The horse who is unbelievably sweet and caring will either turn inward and sucked back… or, he will often explode. In a weird way, the horse—or human—who doesn’t want to make waves in life often has a hard time coping when the water gets rough.

I compare this sort of horse to Cody, who is pretty much Tee’s polar opposite. The crusty old codger reminds me of the big guy riding around in the Popemobile. There’s a protective layer of plexiglass that somehow bounces all unwanted stressors right back to the person or thing that took aim at him. It’s not that he doesn’t see them or chooses to avoid. Nope. Cody has an uncanny way of shedding anything that does not serve him. Got troubles in the form of hail, driving wind or rain, belligerent cows, marching bands, flapping tarps or even emotionally upset riders? No problem. Cody doesn’t take it personally. He could care less about petty annoyances and just sets his mind and shoulders straight ahead.

He won’t hug you or beg for cookies and he sure-as-shootin’ won’t carry your sad little burdens, either. This horse is big on boundaries.

Both horses are deemed wholly safe and are wonderful to ride. The one horse is fluffy and loveable; the other, not so much. How they each deal with stress fascinates me, however. Just like people, our horses all have their different ways of coping with life.

📷 Mary Durant.

10/14/2022

We have one whole beef available in January we will do halves if we have 2 people interested. We would be willing to divide up a 1/2 into quarters. We can already sell a quarter.

10/14/2022

We have plenty of time however we are gonna start looking for a donkey. In the spring the new calves will go out to their own padlock. We're hoping to have the outside fence completely done so coyotes should not be a problem granted we really don't have very many around here but lately we've been hearing them quite a bit more. In a perfect world I would like a gelding. Not looking to spend a lot of money because we don't need anything fancy. Very open to an adoption or rescue also. If anyone has leads please message me and I will look into it.
Thank you

10/12/2022

10/11/2022

A few little updates all the calves are still doing great and have been named.

As we prepare for more calves we moved the chicken to their new home.

Making room for the boilers that we will be getting beginning of the New Year. If you want chicken let us know so we have a rough estimate how many to purchase it's going to be a small batch this 1st round.

Beginning of the year we will have a full beef available (or half) if anyone is looking to buy.
Hoping around May-June to have chickens ready.
We will also be doing a few extra hogs this coming year.

If interested in any of the listed above reach out to Adam or I.

10/08/2022

The next few months of our life's will be focusing on babies. Working on names for this round of calves 5 bulls and one heifer with more due at any time.

10/06/2022

I had someone asked if we had sold Flyin Handor Lee. Even though the vet was just here a few weeks ago giving him his shots.

Every day he gets the exercise and interaction he needs he is in my pocket just everything we could ask for. His back legs are getting stronger and with another hoof trim happening soon we believe his weak tended will start strengthening up even more. He is disentatized to most things already. I can lead him anywhere I want.

10/06/2022

Anyone remember that stud that me and my girlfriend went to Oklahoma to rescue and ended up being the wrong one that they put on my trailer. Who turned out to be a July 2020 foal. Who happens to be a very nicely papered appendix stud. Who just turned 2 a few months ago and isn't even fully grown yet let me show you this Golden Bay today.

Let it be known that Dex the black horse next to him is is 15.1

10/03/2022

09/22/2022

Vet day for Molly who was confirmed to be between 12-15 years old and Handor. Handor has been weaned from Molly two weeks and she has already shown so much improvement