Welding and Backhoe Field Work

#bfrdpwy #aginternship #RightRisk

As we finish up this week of the GrowinG-WY internship, we continue to put part of our focus on the raising of bum lambs, as well as adding more hay feeders around the property. Keeping the sheep moving from one place to another helps fight the parasitism cycle while exercising the ewes. Another thing we focused on this week was repair of a bale feeder and adding trenches to the bottom of the pasture to channel water to drier, less moist areas. I have been able to get quality time on the backhoe and was even able to do some wire-feed and stick welding.

As we continued to raise the bum lambs, we have been able to slowly wean more and more off the milk replacer. As of now, we have only about 9 bums receiving milk replacer, with portions of creep available for them to transition to creep feed. All of the other bums, as of now, have been successfully weaned off milk and are entirely on creep feed with mineral and Deccox. We have placed the bale feeders in various positions along the ditch bank in drier areas to keep the moister down on the soil and reduce the possibilities of the worms successfully cycling.

We have noticed that the ewes have started breaking some of the welds on the feeders, so we decided to repair the broken ones using wire-feed welding. I was able to utilize the wire-feed welding successfully and fix some of the panels. As I stated earlier, we started to irrigate further down the pasture and found that the water was not successfully making it all the way through in certain areas. To assist the flow, we took the Kubota with the backhoe attachment and dug out trenches to channel the water to certain areas of the pasture.

This week has been awesome in terms learning and being able to run certain pieces of equipment. Ty, the owner, showed me various ways to use the welder and how to select the settings of the welder depending on the method and material being used. Some questions that I raised this week were: what methods of welding work better depending on the materials being manipulated, and how to set wire speed and heat to properly make solid welds without burning through the material or over feeding the wire.

As I stated earlier, this week has been amazing in terms of learning with the ability to operate the welder and the backhoe. With the understanding of using a welder, I plan to go back home and used my stepdad’s welder to fix some trailers and other pieces of equipment, while teaching the information to my brothers. I also plan to use my knowledge of working a backhoe to help my stepdad with digging pit sites for septic tanks. With just what I have learned so far during this internship, I have already helped family back home better judge the conditions of their livestock and even livestock they intend to buy for future endeavors.

Submitted by: Elijah Richardson
Edits by: GrowinG Internship Team