Viewing cattle

While attending the recent Akaushi convention Wohlers Ranch staff visited Bovina Feeders the feedlot where our cattle are living a life of leisure and eating a very well balanced diet formulated for an ideal growth rate and for developing optimal muscle and fat characteristics that will be nutritious for people.  This pen has the Wohlers Ranch cattle that obtained most of their growth while eating grass in Nebraska for 15 months before finishing in about 4 months at the feedlot.  This is one of our yearling heifers saying hello as we viewed her and her penmates from the bus.

Akaushi convention

 notes

Blake, Sharyn and Arden recently attended the Akaushi Convention in Lubbock, TX.  Akaushi bulls are what we are breeding the ranch cows to.  This cross produces meat that contains a higher concentration of monosaturated fat relative to saturated fat, which the American Heart Association notes can lead to lower cholesterol, the prevention of coronary heart disease, and weight loss.  Second, it is a significant source of oleic acid -- the compound in olive oil that the USDA touts as good for the heart.  Beef has many nutritional benefits and our cross breeding program enhances it further.

stone bones

 Dave an amateur paleontologist (he is actually a research chemist) spent the day at the ranch and we searched numerous locations for fossils.  Searching is tedious and recovering fossils is even more so, but we did find several ancient animal bones and this maxilla (wild guess-prehistoric camel).  We also found a 3 inch piece of petrified wood.  Blake and Arden found the experience interesting and now know more of what to look for, but will probably not spend much time searching in the future.

Big rain but lucked out

Big rain, 3 inches in 20 minutes on the north pastures and surrounding neighbors' ranches.  This caused the sand canyon to flood with water reaching 6 foot deep.  Unfortunately do to the roads in that area crossing the ranch we had 6 fences wiped out.  Fortunately we did not have cattle in these pastures having moved the yearlings to near the buildings the day of the rain for marketing this week.  If the steers had got on the road during the storm or after they could have traveled many miles and been difficult to locate.

2016 winter feed

Baling hay for this coming winter's feed was finished this week and all bales are now in the hay yards.  A new custom harvester accomplished the task in a timely fashion and the properly harvested hay tested 9% protein and 52 TDN so it is much better in protein and energy than the late harvesting of the past 2 years.  About 320 tons of hay was baled which should see us through snow conditions since we still have very adequate grazing conditions due to good moisture this summer.  This meadow was hayed for the first time in 20 years and creates a pretty sight from the house.

wetlands study

A UNL grad student (Cody Dryer) was at the ranch several days this week working on his master's project.  He was accompanied by a botanist from Kansas and 2 students.  They collected dirt and water samples down to 3 foot deep in a swamp area previously selected by GPS.  Identification was made of all plants within the selected area.  Cody will relay his findings and conclusions from here and his other research locations when he completes his thesis.

Bull Project

Wohlers Ranch is cooperating with Dr. Dave Hardin from UNL on his bull dominance project.  We turned 7 bulls out with 105 heifers, Then Dave observed for 4 days to determined which bulls the heifers preferred to associate with and which bulls were most aggressive in chasing heifers.  Next year we will DNA test the offspring to determine each calf's sire to see what the correlation might be.  This information may be useful in giving pasture assignments to bulls on multiherd ranches with many bulls and several cow groups.

abandoned calf

The ranch branding happened recently, in gathering the herd an abandoned calf was brought to the corral (she probably is a twin).  This little heifer will need to be bottle feed for a couple of months.  Fortunately we had extra help to aid in this task for the first few days (Joe and Isaac were at the ranch for the branding).  Now after a couple of weeks she (Samantha) is progressing well  and living in town where she can be on a regular feeding schedule.

New Driveway

The 1 mile driveway into the ranch has had  steep grades and was nearly impassable after heavy rains or snow for over 100 years. Therefore I have long dreamed of building a new road up on the ridge so snow would blow off and rain would run off leaving it dry.  Therefore we haven't applied gravel in 20 years so that rocks would sink under the dirt, of course the result was even worse road failure.  A new road is being built on the ridge and raised above the prairie and a culvert will be placed in the one draw being crossed.  192 big truck loads of small gravel has been hauled with many more yet to come and then a final layer of large gravel will be overlaid.  Happy motoring into Wohlers Ranch LLC

Summer grazing

Spring grass has arrived in the cool season grass pastures, so cattle were being moved to summer pastures 5 days ago.  This is a small herd of steers being trailed to a pasture in Dawes County.  Surprise!! We had 6 inches of snow last night so Blake hauled hay to all groups of cattle today.  Hopefully the snow will melt quickly and work for the proper season can resume.  The ranch has received above average moisture for the 3rd year so we should have another excellent grazing season and get good weight gains on the yearlings.  

new hires

After 2 years of synchronizing all of the cows for AI breeding by appointment (This is a lot of work), we purchased bulls to do it natures way.  This is more expensive, but will offer benefits of less labor and debate as to the correct sire of the calves.  After the 12" of snow 2 weeks ago and another 8" 4 days ago our driveway was a mess.  The dually and 32' trailer had to be towed to the corral and after unloading it had to be towed the mile back to the county road.  The bulls have adjusted and  are enjoying life on the Wohlers Ranch.  They will enjoy it even more when they get to meet the beautiful cows that are waiting for them.

 

Winter's first snow

We had our first significant snow--nearly 12 inches.  This meant that we started feeding hay to the cattle as the grass was covered up.  Fortunately some aggressive snow tire were put on the ranch pickup the week before and we were able to get down the road and into the pastures while in 4 wheel drive with no problem.  Dalai seemed happy and quite contend with the snow, he must have remembered stories that his mother told him about the Andes when she lived in Peru.