From the Barns: New calves daily

A month ago, I reported about how green it was around here for this time of year. A month later, I am saying just the opposite — how brown things have turned! Really no measurable rain in the past 30 days and with the heat like it has been, things do dry up fast.

In many pastures, there is very little to no forage now to eat. In some pastures that we hadn’t grazed too hard, there is still some out there, but I’m not sure how long it will last. I have resorted in some cases to feeding cows and heifers with the total mixed ration, especially if they have a calf at their side or are carrying a pregnancy.

We have not gotten around yet to doing any pregnancy checks. We have just not had enough cool days and the right timing to do so, hence we are waiting to do that on roughly 250 cows and heifers.

We did go ahead and wean the spring-born calves two weeks ago. Did have a nice day to do that. After the roundup of two different groups of pairs, we sorted the calves off at the feedlot, then hauled them over to the main barn, ran them through the chute for vaccinations and weighing, then placed them in the receiving barn to bawl out and start them on feed.

They had been used to eating the ration at the bunk alongside their mothers, so teaching them to eat was not necessary. I try to bring them up on feed slowly to adjust their digestive systems without overloading them and each and every day they were asking for more feed.

They are still in the barn, as we are waiting for a little bit cooler weather to kick out somewhere. Keeping the barn bedded and they seem to be doing well. Going to go ahead and revaccinate them in a few days and they should be good to go for a while.

This week we are going to go ahead and start planting some wheat for grazing. Roughly 100 acres. It is so dry it may not come up for some time, but with wheat we think we can get by with that. Going to make some arrangements tomorrow to get the ground sprayed for weeds and then drill it in.

Have another field at the Russell Farm that we want to put into a more permanent hayfield. Going to sow a mix of grasses and legumes. A little reluctant to get that in the ground yet, until maybe we get a rain. Maybe this ground is holding more moisture than I think, because I know when I did some soil testing last month that there was some there. I may need to check that a little closer and see if we should go ahead and get it in or not.

Fall calving is starting to kick into a higher gear. We did have 20-plus calves in August from that group of recipient cows and that went pretty well. Now we are at the time where the majority of the herd should starting dropping babies and we seem to be having some calves each day. That certainly requires checking those groups multiple times a day and mostly David and Brett are tending to that.

I know last night they had to intervene and get some colostrum in a new calf that for some reason wasn’t getting anything from her mother, who is a heifer. Always something to be worrying about or taking care of.

Selling a load of fats every month. Wow, have things changed in the fat cattle market and not for the good. I won’t take the time to go there, but disappointing and frustrating that outside influences interject and cause havoc in the markets, instead of just letting the laws of supply and demand work like they should.

Fortunately, we haven’t had to sell into this much lower market yet, but I don’t think we can avoid it much longer. When the fat cattle need to go, eventually you have to get them to the slaughterhouse.