We rounded up on Saturday and then helped our neighbors round up their cows. We sell our calves together, and he has a portable scale so the buyer comes right to the ranch. It is so much less stressful than having to haul the calves to a scale somewhere. We do have to haul to their ranch, but it's just a couple of miles cross country.
Sunday morning we were at it at daybreak, getting the cows and calves into the corral and sorting the calves from the cows and then sorting out the steers from the heifers. We have only sold the steers so far so we're feeding 100+ head of heifers at the moment. Some of those will go to market later and some will be kept for replacements. We had lots of good help so it went pretty smoothly. J and Jared were on trailer duty hauling the steers to the neighbor's while the other guys got another load ready to go.
As soon as we got settled up with the buyer and the trucks loaded with calves we headed back to our barn to pregnancy test our cows. I was impressed with the vet getting right after it and getting it done. All I had to do was keep records and sometimes I could hardly keep up. Sometimes he likes to talk so our neighbor told his wife not to talk to him so he wouldn't get distracted. We finished just before dark and then came to our house where a great meal awaited us. It's nice to have your own personal caterer for a sister-in-law.
The next day we preg tested at our neighbors. It was a cold and miserable day and I asked myself more than once why I was not at my job--indoors! I had taken the day off and gotten my boss' wife to work for me. I joked with her that if the weather was crappy she was supposed to call me and say she had an emergency and needed me to come to work. She didn't call. M and his friend, Roger, were brining the cows to the tub, R was loading the tub, and the neighbor's wife, Holly, and I were up on the tub getting the cows down the alley to the chute. M admitted that he was actually feeling sorry for Holly and I out in the elements. I told him that I couldn't feel my feet after the first half hour so after that it just didn't matter. We finished about 3 and then had a nice stew lunch.
This weekend we moved our heifers closer to home. It's the second time we had to get them out of the same pasture. It wasn't easy the first time, and it wasn't any easier the second time. The pasture has a couple of boggy coulees without good crossings, and of course, they were as far away from the gate as they could possibly be, and we had to get them across both coulees. We found one limpy one, and she made it clear that she wasn't going anywhere so we left her behind. After much cursing, we finally got them out and from there they moved easily, but slowly. We drove around on Sunday trying to find the limpy one but couldn't get everywhere with the pickup so didn't find her. M went out yesterday on the 4-wheeler and found her and got her moved out with the other cows. She had worked her way in that direction.
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| You can lead a cow to water..... |
Something spooked the heifer calves in the corral one night and one got her leg injured. R called in the morning and said one "had a cut on her leg". More like tore the skin halfway off her leg so we've been cleaning that and dressing it every few days. So far she's doing well, and she's an excellent patient. She'll be stylish, too, getting a new color of vet wrap every three days.
J has been hauling gravel and doing some road work. C has been helping with the cattle hauling and R was on vacation for the weekend. We had Kobe for the weekend and thought it was going really well until he and Junior disappeared for a bit on Sunday afternoon and Kobe came home with some new body jewelry--porcupine quills. Hope he learns one of these days.
We're making progress on our fall paperwork thanks in part to some gale force winds with cold temps that have kept us indoors. We're still hoping for more good weather because we still have lots of projects to work on. First up, pouring cement and setting the new waterer in place. After that, it's all gravy.
