Fridays Fences #60

As promised, the fence fixing story.  As family was leaving after a wonderful visit Saturday night, we heard a pack of coon hounds barking in the distance.  The only problem was, it wasn't distant enough.  They were on our farm without permission.  The next morning there were a bunch of yearling cattle in front of the house where they shouldn't have been.  

All of the commotion of the dogs and hunters spooked the cattle and they ran through the fence breaking the bottom wire.  

High tensile electric is not the easiest wire to work with.  It was a good thing Emma was there to help.  She can work on fence with her eyes closed.  

After splicing and reattaching, J then had to tighten the wire.  

Take my word for it, there are 2 strands of electric wire there.  

Now, back where you belong.
For more Fridays Fences click HERE.

Celebration

Happy Birthday L  We enjoyed your visit.

Christmas Goose or Goat

Sissy is still a bother to J.  She gets into the feed of everything else at the barn and goes pretty much anywhere she wants. 

She made it past Thanksgiving but she's getting rather plump.  

Goat for Christmas doesn't sound bad does it?  

On a totally different subject.  Happy Birthday A.

Spying

J and I worked on some fence this afternoon but that sound like a story that I need to save for Fridays Fences.  Anyway,  I was admiring the view from the top of the hill we were working on and of course started taking pictures. 

I love the silhouettes the oak trees make.  You can also just make out our closest neighbor to the east.  

Maybe you can see it better with a little zoom.  

Wow, probably 2 miles away and I feel like I'm almost in their yard.  You could never do this with a Kodak Instamatic. (And I didn't even add in the computer zoom).   My how times have changed.  I wonder who's spying on me.

Fridays Fences #59

You had to know that having worked cattle earlier in the week that Fridays Fences would feature more on this topic.  

The cow through a fence waiting on their calves. 

These cattle pens were new before J and I were married.

They are getting higher on the list of things to do.
For more Fridays Fence blogs click HERE

Run Turkeys Run

Happy Thanksgiving.  I saw these turkeys while going down the driveway the other day.  

I guess they knew Thanksgiving was coming and they were out of here.
V has been wanting to go hunting, E wants to spice up Thanksgiving, and J wants Sissy (the bottle goat) gone.

My suggestion was for V to shot Sissy, E could cook her and J would have his wish.
Don't worry, it didn't happen.
On a different note, I've know for some time that it was just a matter of time, before I would run out of space for pictures on my Picasa account to which this blog is linked.  I ran out yesterday.   I recently found another photo storage site, Photobucket, and this is my first post linking to an account there.
Looks like it might work for me.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Fence Line Contact

It's been a month since we brought Brother home.  So, we thought it time to let him have some fence line contact with the other horses.  

 Lots of smelling first.

 Then looking.

 Then running.

 More looking,

 more smelling with some added squeals, 

 more running,

then settled down to eat.  The next day was fine, just standing near the fence making nice.  The next step will be the scary one.  Do you put in the most dominant horse with Brother or the least?  With Otoelene we had Lady who was on the bottom of the pecking order which worked fine.  J thinks we should put in Jessica first and just get the worst over with.  I see pros and cons with either scenario.

Great Day in the Morning

With V home on Thanksgiving break, we took the opportunity to work the fall calving cows.  

 I was wrong about the Pear Cow, she was not the last to calve but she did have twins.  There are still 2 left to calve so we didn't work those.

 J is always good about having the cattle up so there is no running around for the rest of us.  Besides, they are trained to the sight and sound of him and we just scare them.

 We sorted out the cows first and just gave them their pre-breeding shot, quick and easy.

 Then it was the calve's turn while the moms looked on.

 The heifers just got a 7-way  vaccine while the bull calves also had to be castrated, or "switched" as J sometimes refers to the procedure.  One of our neighbors just lost a 500 pound calf to blackleg because he hasn't vaccinated his calves in years.

 V has recently changed her major from Accounting to Animal Science Business Option so we thought we would let her help with the business end of the procedure.  She was the official tail holder (hence the latex gloves she was donning in the last picture).   At first she tried it from outside the chute but her arms weren't long enough.

So she ended up inside where she could hold them better.  She did an excellent job and the whole day went along without a hitch.  J at one point was a little frustrated with a very slippery object and I thought he might have used some bad language.  I said he sounded like he could have been in the movie "The Grey" which we had recently watched on Netflix   It could never be run on network television because they would have to bleep 90% of the dialog.  V then clarified what J had said and said, "I don't think they said, 'Great day in the morning!" on The Grey."

Anyone have a good caption for this poor calf?

Training Continues

The weather was nice yesterday with no wind for once.  We took the opportunity to do some more work with Brother. 

 J worked on more desensitizing with the plastic.

 Brother didn't seem to mind anything we did with it.

 He even wanted to follow after it when J put it away.

 He's getting much more relaxed lunging and doing better than he had been to the left.  He usually tenses up and throws his shoulder out this direction.   I then pulled him up to the fence and sat on him for about 5 minutes.

 J has been dying to do this.  He tried on Otoelene several times but just pulled her over.  He was finally able to accomplish it on Brother.

But I think he hurt himself when he went to this side.  He says his chest is still sore today.  I don't know if J is ready for an RFDTV horse training show just yet.

Yet Another Load

We just sent off our third load of cattle this year to the feedlot Nebraska.  

 We didn't have enough of our own to make a load so J bought steers from two of our friends.  The calves have all been weaned and vaccinated and kept at their home farms until today when we all hauled to the local stockyard to weigh and meet the tractor trailer.

 We weighed ours as a group but one seller wanted individual weights on all of his cattle.

 The stockyard is a little more high tech than our neighbors scales where we usually haul ours from.

 We ended up with a little more weight than the trucker wanted to haul so we kept 2 of ours out and brought  them back home.

Now it's a 22 hour wait and hope they get out there safe and nothing gets sick and corn prices don't go through the roof and the weather stays reasonable and maybe June cattle futures go up and people keep eating beef, it's what's for dinner.

Farrier

The farrier came Monday.  I had the shoes pulled off Thumper and Hank for the winter.  We put just fronts on Otoelene and Jessica in case we have some good weather to go trail riding.  

 Then it was Brother's turn.  He has never had his feet trimmed and they sure needed it.

We've been handling his feet some.  He picked them up good but wasn't the best at standing still.  The farrier was patient and finished without anyone losing their tempers.  His feet look much better now.

Brother on Plastic

With the nice weather we've been having we have gotten to do some more ground work with Brother. 

 V was home for the weekend and came to watch before heading back to school.

 We thought we would try him over plastic this time.  First we got him use to it waving around on both sides, then waded up an rubbed all over him.  He hardly even flinched.

 Once we laid it out on the ground I about had to hold him back to keep him off of it before I was ready.

 He walked beautifully back and forth never hesitating and not minding when the wind rattled it around.

 If you remember it took me 45 minutes the first time I tried with Otoelene for her to get one foot on the plastic.  Check out that post HERE.

V and J showing some affection before she headed off to college.