It's That Time of Year!

It's that time of year, that time of year where Mother Nature can't make up her mind from day to day what season she'll drop in us.  

It's that time of year when horse hair is covering every glove, coat and work jeans you own.  

It's that time of year when baby bovines are being born!  I love calving season.   I love the new babies.  I love the sense of rebirth, starting over.  And I love the smile they bring to my kids and my face.  

Unfortunately, very little of my time has been spent tagging babies, or doing much of any spring work.  My time was spent having an unplanned surgery to remove my gallbladder and then of course on the recovery road 'taking it easy and healing'.  I don't sit still very well.  But, I feel a 1000 times better and am back to almost normal activity

Yes, its that time of year.  Time of year of new dreams, hopes and prayers.  And that time of year where you sit straddling a fence, trying to decide what your next plan of action you will attempt on that ticked of heifer in the corral.  

#473

We were out tagging calves, feeding corn to cows the other night when Tally captured this video.



#473 has become braver over last few weeks, and she finally decided to eat out of the bucket and let me scratch her head.  There's one in every crowd!

Spring in Montana

Mother Nature isn't letting up.  April Snow Showers will bring May flowers, right?  Snow in May? Sure, why not!

 Now, why were are truly grateful for the moisture she is giving us, couldn't Mother Nature at least warm up by 20* and send us this much needed moisture in the form of warm spring rains?

Here is a few snapshots I have taken in the last couple of weeks.  Sadly, this is the most snow we have had all winter.

Wet, cold horses begging for some hay

Mama taking care of her brand new baby

Hubby filling hay feeders for the heifers calves

Snow covered hay bales kind of makes for a pretty picture

Black and white

TC enjoying the snow and helping do chores

nom nom nom 

slushy, watery muddy mess

Tearing into the bales before they got put into the feeder  

Heyyyy Bossss!

Ok, let's try posting this video once more so it can actually be viewed.  Sorry!

TC is (so she sometimes informs me) mine and papa's cowboss.  She's learning at young age, though honestly most of her time is spent catching an nap while we are out feeding cows.
This morning I had to stop and capture this little video of her.  She cracks me up.    Enjoy!

Tis the Season

Tis the season to be buying bulls!  Last week we attended our first sale of the season.  We went, we looked, we liked and we bought!  My checkbook is a lot lighter as we came home with 2 bulls for ourselves and 1 bull for the corporation.

I love bulls sales.  I'm not sure why.  Maybe it's as simple as bull sale means a trip to town.  Maybe it's because I can remember going with my dad as a young kid and later on in life going with him as a serious looker/buyer.  Could be it's just all the excitement, the cleaned up and cattle and getting to see and visit with people.  Whatever the reason, I just simply enjoy a bull sale.

Last week on twitter, I tweeted asking what EPD's are most influential to you and your operation when choosing new breeding bulls.  It was a quite a conversation and there is no right or wrong answer as each cattle operation is different.  The one big this we talked about is how some people forget to actually take phenotype into consideration.  I feel that is and should be a big part of our selection process.

 On that same particular twitter conversation it was discussed how many cattlemen and women actually understand and comprehend what each EPD stands for and means.  Do they understand their importance or how one may correlate with another?  If I was smart enough I would post a link to the conversation, but that is way over my head!

So how do you use EPD's?  How much influence do they have in your selection process?  What are the top 3 EPD's you look at while browsing a sale catalogue?  Do you take the time to actually look at the bull?

Family Friday Night

Family Friday nights around here in the summer are not your typical family outings.

Nope, on any Friday night (and really any night of the week) we load up the kids and dog and head out to go check cows, check crops, go do some irrigating or a hundred other things that need to be done.  We take this time to be together as a family, but do get our work done and teach our kids.

T and TC just love going to check cows and helping putting out mineral.  I could say its because they are with mom or dad, or because we are spending time as a family but I would be lieing.   They enjoy putting out mineral so much because 'mixing' and 'stirring' the mineral is just the most fun!  It really is, just ask the two little blondes in the picture!

Putting out mineral is just one of the many things we do together as a family.  We irrigate, we seed, we hay, we move cows, we work cows, we harvest, we play, we fight, we hug and we love.  Its just what we do.

The kids, though they are young, have already learned you can't go check cows, put out mineral without checking on the water!  And maybe so mom can snap some pictures.  

 I just love old windmills.   Our Family Friday nights may not be typical, but they are who and what we are and do!  Pretty sure I wouldn't change a thing!

I Like Cows

I like cows.  

They are beautiful.

They are survivors.

They are stubborn.

They are good for one's soul.

I just really like cows.

Fall Work

These pictures/this post was scheduled to be published last October.  Somewhere there was a hiccup and it wasn't.  I find the pictures too cute not to post now.  So here ya go, better late than never.

It's October in Montana which means fall gathering, shipping calves, and working cows.  One of my favorite times of the year.  I missed out on a lot of gathering and fall work this year because I have a sweet 10 month old baby girl to take care of.  Such is life.  

Last weekend our good friend was gathering his herd and planning on running his cows through and working them.  The forecast called for an unseasonably warm day with no wind.  Let me tell ya, no wind in Montana is call for celebration!  Big T was at preschool with Grandma scheduled to pick her up.  So Baby T and I loaded up and headed out with Big D to go help Uncle Charley.  Baby T and I waited as the rest of them gathered the herd.  She actually caught a good nap, and I got caught up on some reading.  

Then came the sorting and the working and the visiting.  So what else was I supposed to do.  We backed the pickup up next to the chute, and threw the jumper/exersaucer on the back and  Baby T got to take in all the action!

Checking out the herd.

Smiling for mom.

Some may think it's wrong.  I think that there is no such thing as too young!  The weather was great, and she was happy!  And like it or not this is her life until she is 18 and gone!  :)  Besides, it's fun to watch all the cowboys (young and old) interact with a baby when the baby is on there turf!

Like Flies on a Cow

Driving through the cows the other night, while searching for that hole in the fence that needed to be fixed, I was noticing how bad the flies are on the cows and calves. It got me to wondering, is there really anything that works for keeping the flies under control in your cattle herd? Let's face it; flies are a nuisance.  Nuisance to me and to livestock of all kind.  Even my four year old runs around the house with a fly swatter in hand attempting to kill the buggers!

Producers can put fly tags in their calves during spring working or branding.  How effect is that?  How long does it really last?

Do you use the mineral feeders that have the fly dust back built over top them like a canopy?  Every time a cow comes to get mineral, they rub up under the fly dust bag?

How about the cattle mineral that has fly control in it?  Help control flies from the inside out?

Do you have cattle oilers set up in your pasture for you herd to use?

 
 
Do you spray your cattle periodically as you are rotating pastures?

Have you discovered some biological control that works in your herd?

I am really curious as to what works for you and your herd?  I am always up for learning something new and maybe it's a technique that we haven't tried and may work for us.  Or

April 2011

April 2011 came in like a lion and went out with a roar!!  What a storm we had April 29th & 30th!!  Given the circumstances, we should consider ourselves lucky, as we were just on the edge of the storm.  My friends 15 miles away thought I was full of @#$% when I was describing what I was seeing as I looked out my one window I could see out of!  We lost several calves, and a cow which always hurts, but producers to the west and south of us suffered bigger losses than we did.  

The wind and driving snow in the storm pushed cattle through fences, into damns, miles away from home and into coulees where they piled up and died.  Early Saturday morning we got a phone call from my uncle telling us his big herd had pushed threw his fence and were scattered along the county road.

We had several calves that we lost during the storm.  Dana had found one alive, and we brought him into the garage, and I warmed him up and worked on him for quite some time but he didn't survive.  We figured he must have gotten trampled and was hurt inside.

Tally, who is 4, received quite the education during this storm.  Her first lesson was learning how the storm had broken the power lines, and therefore her t.v. and the lights wouldn't turn on.  She also learned how to be quiet while mommy and daddy were busy discussing and weighing our option on what the best plan would be to take care of the cattle.  But probably the biggest lesson was learning that now matter how warm we make sick baby calves, and how much we pray they live, and how sad mom gets when she can't save the baby calf, baby calves can die.

Like I said above, we have to consider ourselves lucky.  We lost very few of our herd.  We had power back within a day.  And most importantly our family was safe through the whole wicked storm.  My one wish is that Mother Nature back off and send us and the rest of the country some nice weather.

New Heifers

We bought a few new replacement heifers this spring, and I keep forgetting to take pictures of them.  Miss Tally bought 3 heifers of her own, and we bought 4.  Several have calved so far, and they have some nice looking calves at their sides.  Tally's Papa sent her some purple ear tags to put in her heifers and she is very anxious to get them put in!

Cows

I like cows.  I like taking pictures of cows.  You may call me crazy, but I have been accused of worse!  I snapped these real quick the other night as we were out tagging some calves.  

11,12,13

11. 12. 13.  You met 14 the other day.  These are what is left of my original herd.  I'l still waiting on these old gals to calve, but it shouldn't be much longer.  I am hoping for a couple of heifer calves out of these 3 for some replacement heifers to use in our herd.  Guess time will tell!