Nebraska Bound

Not us, just our cattle.

The calves we weaned 45 days ago were ready for the trip to the feedlot.  

Once again, Joe had everything lined up to work like clockwork.  

But there was still a lot of pushing, tugging and shoving to get 77 head loaded on 4 trailers  for the short trip to the farm across the river where they have cattle scales and a loading area large enough for a tractor trailer.  

At the neighbor's barn, they were sorted in to groups of 10ish, 

                                         

run onto the scales, 

and weighed.  

The tractor trailer got backed in 

and bedded for the cattle. 

52,515 pound were loaded into 7 different compartments for the 22 hour trip. 

I hope they all had their mooving buddy. 

This was the list the trucker gave us of the number in each group for each compartment. 

If you look closely, you can see the trucker straddled over the entrance.  He was making sure the cattle kept going to the right spot and then he could jump down and close off whatever compartment they just filled.  

 Now we just need them to put up a cattle cam in the feedlot so Joe can keep up with them for the next 8 months.

As a bonus, the fog lifted and I was able to get a picture of our house from a spot I don't get to see too often.  

There it is, those two white dots.  

Three Weeks Early

The fall cows are not suppose to start calving until the first of September.  And the Hereford bull wasn't put in until a week later.   So the Hereford cross calf  born Thursday is at least 3 weeks early.  Joe said it was shear luck that he even saw the calf.  The cow had had it then left it to be back with the herd.  Joe was able to get her and the calf up.   But the calf is not very vigorous.  

It weighs about 40 pounds.  It sucked 1/2 a bottle of colostrum Joe went back with but the next feeding he wouldn't nurse.  

I ended up having to tube feed him.  

He wasn't doing any better the next day so we loaded him up and brought him back to the house.  There was no way he would be strong enough to nurse the cow, so Joe turned her back out.  

He was born Thursday.  I have had to tube feed him 3 times so far.  This evening he did manage to nurse about 1/2 of what we were trying for.  Maybe tomorrow will be a better day.  

 

Cattle Worked

Yesterday morning Mike came over to help us work our weaned calves so they will be ready to head out to the feedlot soon. 

I pulled up the vaccines and Joe administered them. 

While Mike kept everyone moving up the chute. Everything worked well and everyone was still speaking afterwards. 

 Finished and fed in 2 1/2 hours. 

Good and Bad

We had a calf that had not been doing well for a couple of days.  This morning, we spent over and hour in the rain looking for it, then another hour trying to get it to the barn.  We ended up having to haul it in the tractor loader.

I thought we were just going to run down and give it an antibiotic shot so I didn't even wear a raincoat.  Once Joe roped it and we examined him, we saw that it was theileria from the ticks.  So the plan changed to get him to the barn with the cow and do a blood transfusion.  

But it was also Camp Mimi day with Sadie and Allie.  I finally got the transfusion done but it was very complicated.   Back at the house, Allie had to have a change of clothes and I had to have my third change.  Sadie just took her clothes off and didn't want to put anything back on.  I was at least able to convince her to put on a tee shirt.  

After a late lunch, I pulled out a game from my youth,  Hands Down.  The "slam-o-matic" was a big hit.  

Then we played a game of Lego, Race to Build It.  Sadie wanted to play a second time but Allie just wanted to play with the blocks.  I ended up taking Sadie to the TV room for another surprise game.  Allie didn't last long by herself with the Legos, and she joined us.  

We spent the rest of a rainy day (almost 2 inches) playing Wii Fit.  

They had a ball.  But there was lots of reminders about how to take turns.  We sent them home after supper and probably ready for bed.

Joe and I then went back to the barn to check the calf.  It died while I was giving it more IV fluids. It was a rough day. 

 

All Night Long

We weaned our fall calving cows yesterday.

It was pretty uneventful but a long process.

After sorting off the cows, we loaded up the calves, 

15 at a time. 

It took 4 trips to haul them all to the house. 

Then we got to listen to this, all night long. 

 

Everything But The Cat

Today I photographed all the animals except for Kit Kat.  

When I walked to the barn to feed Draper, her and Golden Boy (not his real name yet) were in a perfect spot for a picture.  

We had to get some cattle up and on the way I took this photo.  I thought it looked a little like the Pacific northwest.  

The cattle when they are in this field, always pick the steepest part to go over when we have to get them up.  When I stopped to catch my breath I took this one.  

"That's not an animal" you might say.   

But I beg to differ, Maggie is one of those rocks. 

 

Last Group

Joe and I worked the last group of cows and calves this morning. 

We had 11 pairs to work and 7 for me to pregnancy check. 

It was nice finally getting the last ones worked.  Joe will be turning out the bulls out soon. 

The mud is long gone and we are back to dust. Some rain would really be appreciated. 

I did find a surprise in the barn. Luckily, it was just the skin and not the snake. 

Pretty cool how the scales over the eyes even shed. 

 

44 More

Monday we worked 10 cow/calf pairs.  These were at our farm up the road.  Since Joe is still doing the Sandhills shuffle for calving, these ten were in a different group than the rest.  (you can find out more than you ever want to know about the Sandhills calving method HERE)

It wasn't difficult to just do 10 pairs, and that meant 10 less to do later.  

Later came today.  We did 34 pairs.  

We noticed one of the cows limping.  I thought I could see something stuck between her toes.  

When she came into the chute, there it was, a stick.  Joe was able to reach through and pull it out.  

She might be sore for a couple of days.  But hopefully, that is all that was wrong with her.  

No other drama, and we got them finished and turned back out.  
 

Cattle and Mud.

Joe and I worked cattle Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.  We are barely speaking to each other now.  Anyone that has worked cattle will understand.  

There were actually no issues and everything went smoothly.  

Calves got 2 shots, ear notch, and pour on for ticks.  Cows got one shot.  

And look!  Since the first of the year we have gone from abnormally dry, to moderate drought, to severe drought.  We are now on the borderline of extreme drought according to the drought monitor.  But we finally got enough rain to make mud, over 4 inches in the last 4-5 days.  At least now the tire troughs have filled back up.  
 

Turned Out

We finally got the first group of cows and calves worked so they could be turned out. 

We had them up in a smaller field last night so they would be easier to corral. 

Cows got one shot and dewormed and calves got two shots and their ear notched. Joe has been notching ears instead of tagging. Then the heifers we keep as replacements get a tag later.

It was just 17 pairs so Joe and I whipped it out in no time. 

 Then it took three loads to take them across the road to our rented farm.  17 down, 150 or so to go.