It was time to forget about farming for awhile and go to cow work. Last Sunday we moved our heifers closer to home to get ready for pregnancy testing. We were wondering how that would go because, well, they are heifers and because we had hauled them to pasture instead of trailing them. We always laugh that when we drive into the pasture on a 4-wheeler they come running to us. It wasn't much trouble to get them out of the pasture and they seemed to know where they were headed. The nice thing about heifers is that they move right along, so the move didn't take long. We wanted to cut the bull out and M thought we'd have to get them all in the corral to do that. I didn't think it would be hard to get just the bull in so I suggested we try that first. He hazed him out of the group with the 4-wheeler and he ran right into the corral by himself. M hates it when I'm right. I just think it's worth trying something the easy way before you try to do it the hard way.
We also cut a cow out of a pasture to put with the heifers so that we could test her. The next day M said all the heifers were near the fence, and he didn't think she was with them. We rode into the pasture she had come from and sure enough, she was back in there and had taken a heifer with her. We didn't have any luck getting the cow back out, but we did get the heifer out and back with the others, but she did it the hard way and put on more miles than she would have had to. The cow is a bit of trouble so she may just go to market.
On Wednesday we rounded up our big herd to vaccinate the calves and pregnancy test. It was a crisp, cool morning and within the first 10 minutes I couldn't feel my fingers--even with gloves. It did warm up quickly, thank goodness. Of course, there were cows about as far away from the gate as possible so it took a little while to get them moved. We had to cross a stubble field and the dust was horrible. Made us wonder if we were doing the right thing by vaccinating while it's so dry. There have been some cases of dust pneumonia in the area.
We sorted and ran the calves through and vaccinated and then had lunch and waited for the vet to pregnancy test the cows. J thought he'd get out of helping us (not really a cow person) but we needed him to bring the loader tractor up to unload some pipe for the neighbor so he got roped into running the chute. I always say it's the price they pay for free meat.
The cows tested good, and we were happy with our AI catch in the heifers. I think J thought I had lost my mind since I had to pet my favorite heifers. There was some head shaking going on.
The most difficult part of the day was getting the cows and calves to head back out of the corral. We wanted to take them through the grass so there wasn't so much dust, but they had their own idea so we had to take them through the field again. The dust cloud was so bad that we couldn't even see them for awhile.
We hauled bulls home along with a fat open cow that will make good hamburger and called it a day--12 hours later. Then we packed for a much-needed weekend away.
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