goodbye crutches

It has been 5 weeks since Blake slid around the end of a gate and slammed into the post behind him in the photo.  The 4 wheeler flipped and he received a concussioin and a broken leg.  Meanwhile he has missed out on working in some severely cold weather and deep snow.  Now the weather has warmed, the snow is disappearing and his injuries have healed.  He is ready to forego the crutches and return to a normal routine.

protein supplementation

Winter time means our grass is dormant and it has close to adequate energy but it is short on protein.  The grass will have about 4% protein and the hay we have has about 7% protein.  The microorganisms in the cows rumen  (1 of her 4 stomach compartments) need about 8% protein to enable them to convert the grass into adequate nutrition for the cow.  So we are feeding extra protein with vitamins in a molasses base in these tubs that we distribute in the pasture.  The tubs weigh 250 lbs. which means if grandpa isn't available to throw them onto the pickup Blake needs to get the tractor out to load them.  

weaning late

The cow-calf pairs were brought to the corral for separation today to start the weaning process.  This is a record for weaning calves late--January 8.  Traditionally we wean around the 1st of November, but with the lack of grass due to drought the past few years we have been weaning much earlier, last year September 4.  But due to reduced cattle numbers and adequate moisture and grass this year we justified weaning much later.  The calves have been eating feed from the creep feeders and eating hay with their mothers for several weeks so they had no problem starting on feed in the corral.  This may translate in to having very few sick calves this season.