From the Barns: The peak of summer

Wow, this summer does seem to be flying by. Just a little over a month until the official start of fall and it doesn’t seem possible. That does mean that we are in the middle of summer, but by all accounts I would say it is a typical summer — except for the fact that we have received a number of timely rains, not too much in the excess and things are really green for this time of year.

Many years we see things brown and drying up and grass getting short, but that is just not the case this year. Temps are up and down, as we will have several hot days in a row, then it seems like it cools down some and is very moderate, so I don’t see any reason to complain from that standpoint.

Breeding season is over. Bulls have been pulled. I believe that this coming week we have enough days on the heifers we bred this summer to pregnancy check them. I imagine we will coordinate that around the weather, but as always will be interested to see what the pregnancy rate ends up being.

As far as the cow-calf pairs, I think we are looking toward a first half of September weaning time, then will keep the cows around close for a while until they bawl out, then preg check them at that time.

The 80 acres that we had sowed the sudangrass on, which were invaded by other grasses and weeds, we are planning on sowing wheat for grazing, which is what we did last fall with good results. Hoping to do that in early September, as well. I think we are going to mob graze it heavily to eat down as much forage as possible, then come in and spray it prior to drilling in the wheat. At least that is the plan for now.

I don’t know that we are as far along in getting projects completed as I had hoped, but we are working on things day to day — bushhogging, cleaning and working on feedlot pens and spreading manure, things of that nature.

I want to get started on some Environmental Quality Incentives Program practices in three different pastures, but for various reasons have been delayed in getting started on those. I have been working on what I need to source to get on those and hopefully it will be very soon. That includes putting in automatic drinking fountains and fencing, both electric and barbed wire. We also have in those practices to construct another winter-feeding station. We will outsource the building of that, though. I am supposed to meet with the contractor this coming week to discuss where and when that can be done.

Fall calving season is drawing near. Most of our females won’t start calving until mid-September. However, we do have a group of recipient cows carrying embryo calves that should start calving on Aug. 20. There are 20 head in that group.

David was figuring up the other day that we are supposed to have close to 200 calves born this fall. That will be the most we have ever had for a specific season. Things may get intense around here, as they say. That will take away the boredom — not that there is time for that anyway, but it will certainly liven things up around this farm.