Pretty but Deadly

The pastures have areas with many of these beautiful   flowers this year, usually there are only a few of this species and in wet years a much wider variety of wild flowers will be present.  I believe the abundance of this plant may be a result of our severe drought.  Unfortunately this plant is Death Camas which is deadly to livestock and people (it can be mistaken for wild onion that is good to eat, but Death Camas does not smell like onion).  Fortunately cattle don't eat it if there is plenty of grass available.  We will need to be ready to move the cattle to a new pasture before they are out of adequate grass in each pasture.

grazing rotation during drought

Due to the drought that the panhandle of Nebraska is experiencing we have delayed turning cows into pastures by 2 weeks (this has resulted in overgrazing the calving pastures, but hopefully they will have time to recover if we get adequate moisture).  As the photo indicates the grass is still not very tall and the pasture will need to be monitored closely so the cattle are moved to the next pasture in a timely fashion.  Pasture S5 is in 1 of 3 pasture rotation systems that we use at the ranch.  The S pastures will have 125 cow-calf pairs this year (last year we  overgrazed this system by trying to keep 180 pairs on it during the grazing season.  Our goal will be to keep these cows in S5 for 1 month and use 1/2 of the forage grown there this summer.  I will show a photo of this location when the cows are moved and we can evaluate our success.

now a gaggle

A pair of geese have been nesting and raising their little goslings on the river below the corrals for 3 or 4 years.  This year they have brought 3 of the now adult goslings with their mates to nest at our location.      
This photo captures 6 of the geese (2 are in the background close to the dam).  The other pair is out of the picture 100 yards to the right.  They are fun to have around because they allow a person to walk up very close before they walk or fly off a ways.

Winter hanging in there

It  is May 1st, 2013 and winter should be over but this is another 3 inches of snow at the ranch, the moisture is appreciated but it is hard on the baby calves that are still suffering from the effects of the blizzard of a few weeks ago.  Even with the recent snows the panhandle of Nebraska is still an inch below normal moisture for this year that added to the record drought of 2012 means the pastures are not recovering for normal grazing in 2013.

lucky orphan

Once in a while a cow dies from complications when giving birth to a calf, resulting in an orphan calf.  Blake bottle fed this calf for 3 days before another cow had a stillborn calf.  That cow was very willing to adopt this calf and he has the good fortune of returning to the pasture with all the other calves.  Blake has the good fortune of not having to feed this calf 3 times a day for the next 2 or 3 months.