A Rancher's Perspective

Another Year Past

2010-02-16T17:32:00.000-08:00

Well, almost, anyways. My, time does fly, we are once again only weeks away from calving. The cows are looking fairly fat and sassy, having come through the winter fairly well.

This year we did things a bit differently with the replacement heifers, rather than pail oats to them, we ground all their feed up into one pile including oat bales which constitute their grain ration. It was all scientifically done.... Well, we know the weight of the bales and we estimated the weight of the oats in each oat bale, then mixed enough oat bales in the grinding pile to equal 5 lbs of oats per day. I am happy with how the calves look, so I guess it worked well enough. When we weigh them here around the first of March I will know for sure how well it worked.

Now comes the countdown to calving season. The first calves are due to drop about Mar 6, with the main herd following on the 8th. This year we have about 30 heifers to calve out, and I sure hope the bull we bought for them is as good as his numbers say he should be.

Branding Time

2009-05-04T13:45:00.000-07:00

We branded and vaccinated all the calves the other day. It took 4 people and about 3 hours to get them all done. They got a 8-way vaccine and a shot of ivomec. Here is our day.

Early on, waiting their turn

Down the chute for his turn

Waiting for the vaccines and he is done.

Getting the brand.

Making sure the job is a good one.

Not too many left

Another one through the chute.

The finished bunch

More done than not......

Busy, Busy

2009-04-06T17:33:00.000-07:00

Well, we have been quite busy with calving. We now have over 80 on the ground and about 30 left to calve. It has been a rather cold calving season, but we have had pretty good luck. We are only down one calf now, with 2 live sets of twins. As usual we have had some stuff show up that we weren't expecting, 2 heifers with no milk, and a cow I purchased this spring that appears to have had a bad case of mastitis in the past. All 3 will be taking a trip to town later this spring.

Our Milk/Nurse cow has 3 calves on her now, her own, and 1 of each set of twins. They are all doing quite well. When we brought her in to draft one of the twins on her, I weighed her calf since he was in the barn. He was 7 days old, and had put on 30 lbs since he was born. Comes out to about 3.75 lbs/day, and she looked to have a lot of milk that he wasn't using. The twins are doing quite well on her now.

Sickness has been at a minimum so far, have treated a few minor cases of scours, a joint ill, that has turned out well, a true ear infection, and a couple calves that were just 'off', don't know if it was pneumonia or what, but a couple doses of nuflor set them straight.

Some photos of the new additions for you

Calving Season is Here

2009-02-22T20:24:00.000-08:00

Well, we are officially into calving season. Friday morning when I did my morning check we had a new one. Mama had her all cleaned off, but it was cold and windy so I put them in the barn. Another was acting veeeery uneasy, and as it WAS cold, and I was to go work at the stockyards for a few hours, I put her in too. Did the rest of chores up without incident, checked on my girls in the barn and headed out to work. It was a small sale, so I was back by 1pm. Only gone for about 2 hours. 70 head of cows, bulls and yearlings don't take long to go through the ring.

By the time I got back, heifer #2 had the feet (or should I say foot) out, so I figured another 1/2 hour or so. Meanwhile heifer #3 was spinning circles rapidly on the straw outside, so I had to bring her in. Not a big deal, but she thought she'd rather stay outside and jumped/pushed the gate open and got back into the north corral (where we have the heifers right now) so I had to start all over. But, finally, I did get her in. By this time heifer #2 isn't too terribly happy so I left her for a little longer, to let her settle. Of course in the end the extra time didn't help her out any, we had a leg back, and I had to help. Got the baby on the ground, and mama let go and things were fine there.

Heifer #3, was a little quieter, and didn't seem to mind watching the excitement next door. Gave her a bit of time and she had her own baby. Might have lost that one though if I hadn't been checking faithfully. Had the sac over its nose. I got there in lots of time and baby is fine. So all in all we had a good day. Done well before supper and we had a good nights sleep. No new ones since. I think the best thing about it though was their numbers. Out of 29 heifers and 50 cows, #'s 154, 153 and 152 calved one after the other in that order.....

Saturday morning I had lots of help tagging the new ones. Kick the mamas out of the barn and the kids got to help move babies around. J was a little spooked, but I got her convinced to help, and once she got into it she had fun. Her favorite is the blaze faced one. M isn't real high on the cows, but once you get him out there I think he likes it.

Here are the new ones.

#154

#153

#152

Into our barn

2009-02-09T17:49:00.000-08:00

Here is the setup to get a cow into our barn at calving time (or any other time it might be necessary) It is all set up so you really never have to be in the same pen as the cow. We rarely need to work a cow that way, but it is nice when you get a surprise. As well as to get a cow into the barn, this setup works quite well for processing newborn calves away from mama. They all have to go past our barn to get to the area where we keep the brand new ones for a week or so. So when she is going past the barn it is pretty simple to pull a calf off, into the barn where it can be tagged, banded, weighed, de-horned and tattooed if necessary. And with no mama to cause you trouble all this just takes a second in complete safety. Mama waits outside for her little one.

As before, into the alley from the calving/holding pastureDown the alley we swing 2 gates which directs mama down the small alley to the barn

And down the alley into the barn. Just swing a gate and she either goes in or past.
Through the door into the barn.
The south side of the barn.
The north side of the barn. We have 4 stalls, 2 of which can be opened up into a big pen, or divided into 2 smaller ones. They are all approx 10 x 10 feet in diameter. Another of the north side. The scale is in the corner, the red toolbox holds my tagging, dehorning, tattooing and banding supplies. Forks are up off the floor and we have a supply of ropes and halters hanging there. This area could be used for calving if we really needed it as well.
The Maternity Pen, where she goes if we think she needs help. She comes in through the door and straight into the pen past the green gate, which swings to close the pen off.............. or to force her into the headgate. The gate on the far side swings away if we need extra room when assisting a cow.
Here the gate is swung as if to push a cow into the headgate. The calf puller is hung on the wall right behind so it is handy when needed.With the self-catching headgate, one person can handle the cow alone without any major problems. If she goes down she won't choke.
The option of a larger stall if we have low occupancy.

Our Corral Setup

2009-02-09T16:40:00.000-08:00

For those who are interested here is a tour through our corrals. This system is set up so that 2 people can easily handle a herd of cattle, and one can usually handle a small group or one single animal at calving time. It is all set up so that you can handle a nasty cow at calving without being in any pen with her if necessary. We generally don't have cattle like that, but it has come in handy at times.

We will start off with our calving and holding area. This is where the heavies go before they calve, and when we are working cattle this is where we hold groups of cattle if they have to be in overnight. They come up this hill, and into the corral.

Here you can see the alley leading down to the holding pen, the sorting pens on the sides and the alley going to the barn.

A view of the large sorting pen, alley to the barn and barn on the South side of the alley.
A view of the smaller sorting pens and chute on the North side. There are 3 pens for sorting into here.

Through the gate into the main holding pen.
The main holding pen, where we hold the cattle while we are working them. Right now as you can see it is divided into two and we are feeding some steers on the one side while the colt stays on the other.

The alley into the barn and the large sorting pen on the south side
One of the sorting pens on the north side. The Chute faces into this pen, and there is a small pen on the north side of the chute that leads to the pasture.

The small pen on the North side. The loading chute is on the far end, and the gate on squeeze can be opened to let cattle out into this small pen.

Looking out on the pasture to the North. A large pen for holding animals or wintering them. This runs along the North side of our sorting pens, and is accessed through the gate next to the Loading Chute.

Now back to the Squeeze Chute. This is the business end as you can tell. It faces into the West. If necessary, we can sort cattle 3 ways out of the squeeze.
This is the funnel end of the chute. There is a gate that can be swung so cattle can continue straight down to the loading chute and onto a cattle liner, or so that they are forced to turn and go on into the squeeze chute.

Feb 5 2008

2008-02-05T14:22:00.000-08:00

Wow, it is hard to believe that it is the 5th of Febuary already!! Calving is getting closer, and closer. The first of the herd is due to calve around Feb 26, and I expect we will have some before that. Well, we already do have a couple, but they were out of some heifers that we bought last fall.

Last weekend we went up to a bull sale, we needed to pick up 3 bulls, and we were able to do that. 1 Black Angus x Simm and 2 Black Angus. So providing we have no unpleasant surprises at vet check time we should be done with that fiasco. I really hate having to deal with bulls, but with our pastures, they are a bit of a necessity.

I am on a number of groups that are for horse lovers. Now there is talk of banning the horse slaughter industry in Canada!! Talk about a disaster waiting to happen!! I really don't understand what these people think should (or will) happen to all the extra horses. I know, that I can't afford to keep horses around that are not doing something to pull their weight. Starving, or being left to suffer because no-one can afford to call a vet out would be worse that being sent out to a slaughter facility!!