We got the last group of cows worked today. V was home from college and E checked out of school early because not much is going on the last few days of school.
It was very nice having the extra help.
The little calves didn't know what was coming.
Now they are sporting their new jewelry.
J uses the first number as the year they were born. He used to use the second number as the cow number when he caught and tagged them at birth. But now that we work them later the second number is random. It was also a problem when we kept heifers from a cow. The heifer would have the same number as the cow so the calves would all have the same number.
V has taken over my job of tail holding. I didn't mind giving that job up at all.
And E still enjoys running the pharmacy.
Some of the calves got a little too close to the wrong end of the cows. All of the spring grass has made things a little runny.
Moms were at the door waiting for their little ones to be done.
I had some questions last post about using a composite bull. J's theory is that if you have a crossbred program you like, it is easier to keep the percentages with a crossbred bull. If you use a purebred then there is a higher percentage of that one breed. Our herd is mostly Angus based with red Angus, Hereford, Simmental and Tarentaise. We also have a new bull this year that has a small percentage Brahman. Our main bulls are purebred Angus and Hereford though. J is trying to produce a cow that will be optimal for our location and management.
3 comments:
Ahh I knew there had to be a reason behind it. We have a lot of old hereford influence in our cows, I realy like the cross and we just end up keeping more calves with white on them but we are getting into a lot more solid red angus. We did buy a nice bunch of hereford heifers last year so we are back in business with the crosses again :)
thanks for addressing that,I know here because our cow herd is a mixed bag we breed purebred Angus to get some uniformity
Great photos. The green grass really makes for a messy messy calf table when you brand. icky! I have a special shovel and a bucket of sand for those times! We only tag our 1st calf heifers babies with the mamas number. And we tag our pregnant replacements and hope they keep their tags forever. We do the same thing. The first number is the year they were born, then the next numbers are how they come threw the chute. A great identifier. :)
Post a Comment