hunting paradise???

The ranch has been leased to Heartland Prime Outfitters for hunting rights.  On rare occasions we can have elk, turkey and mule deer.  Their main interest is white tail deer and pronghorn on our ranch.  They do not want to hunt coyote or prairie dogs that we have plenty of.  We are now in archery season for pronghorn antelope.  The outfitters have set up 2 blinds near livestock water tanks.  The hunters wait in the blind until an antelope comes near to drink.  This is Brian from Illinois who is in his second day waiting for success.  The temperature has been 98 degrees during his time there.   He seemed glad to have me stop for a quick visit. 
 

Make hay when it rains

 The ranch has irrigation rights from the Niobrara River however we don't use them as we could anymore.  So we only justify harvesting hay when there is adequate rain to grow grass properly.  Since we do not have the equipment for haying a custom hay crew put up 325 bales for us (about 225 ton).  This is half of the hay we need for the winter.  alfalfa will be purchase from producers for the remainder of our needs.

Beautiful weeds misplaced

 The ranch has experienced 3 years of extreme drought.  It appears to be over as we have received as much rain in the last 3 months as we did in the 3 years prior.  Moisture for 2023 is at 16.3 inches were as average would be 10.3.  The grass is growing great, but so are the weeds.  Many pastures have areas loaded with sunflowers and it makes a beautiful sight.  But being out of place they are still a weed and the cows don't eat them.  

   

Mining gravel

               

We contracted with Dawes county 4 months ago to open up a gravel pit on the ranch.  Gravel was soon piled and ready for transport, but none was hauled until this week.  Being close to the highway the pit is handy for the county.  Being 3 miles from our buildings it minimally affects the ranch operation, but still creates a small side income.  So I consider that a win - win business deal. 
 

Beef Quality Assurance at the Wohlers Ranch

The Wohlers Ranch has pride in raising cattle in a humane manner suppling livestock with proper nutrition, providing necessary shelter and handling them in an easy manner.  Most of our animals are quiet and adjust to our ranch life with no problems.  However there are occasional  members of the herd that are like some people that test our patience.  We recently attended a seminar to update our commitment to beef Quality Assurance.

Labor saver

 Ranching is similar to many industries having difficulty finding employees especially for occasional day help.  Finding qualified and experienced help for ranching is nearly impossible.  Therefore a calf table was purchased so 2 old guys and 1 young hard working young guy could process the medical needs of the new crop of calves.  Blake can push a calf into the table and then hydraulic levers allow the calf to be restrained laid over on it's side so the procedures can be performed with little stress to the calf or the cowmen.

Tidying up

 Old and nonused  often wore out machinery has been relocated to the junk row at the ranch for many years.  Some of the discards may be over 100 years old.  It has been handy to have a source of scrape iron when needing to make equipment repairs.  However the size of the junk pile has been getting ridiculous. A trailer was filled with scrap and hauled to the salvage company.  It was a 2 hour job to load 1 1/4 ton of iron that brought in $240 when delivered 60 miles away.  This is not a get rich job, but after another 6 to 8 loads the ranch will appear more well kept.  

Surprise!

 Wohlers Ranch calves during late April and May in an attempt to avoid harsh Spring weather.  This means placing the bulls with the cows in mid July.  However the neighbors put their bulls with the cows about May 1.  The neighbor's bulls are sometimes looking for something to do by mid July.  Our cows are red and black, Our bulls are red.  Most neighbors have black bulls so the sire of black calves needs to be determined by a DNA test.  A couple of neighbors have white bulls (Charolais).  The calves they sire can be determined without a DNA test.

Two Seasons

There are two seasons at the Wohlers Ranch each year: calm and windy.  Calm season occurs in July when the ambient temperature is in the 90's  and cattle need to drink lots of water.  Of course the wind doesn't blow, the windmills don't turn, water is not pumped and another source of water needs to be found.  Windy season occurs in March and if accompanied with snow we have a blizzard.  Then roads become impassible, cattle may die and tumble weeds collect on fences.  This year the windy season started in February and is still blowing most days yet in May.  There has been many days with wind blowing at 30 to 40 miles per hour.  several days have had winds of 80 mph and 2 days winds approached 100 mph.  roofs of buildings were damaged and large trees were toppled. This is Blake opening a gate with overnight tumble weeds hindering him.
 

Thanksgiving early arrivals

Very often the ranch is visited by flocks of turkeys from the pine ridge area (usually only 7 or 8 in the group).  This was a flock of 30 counted 2 miles west by the river about 3 hours earlier.  They must be searching for a Thanksgiving location.  We may invite them to stay for dinner.

Thieves captured

 The ranch has had a difficult time with raccoon throwing feed out of the self feeders that we keep grain in to supplement calves.   The calves get most of their nutrition from grass in the pastures, but enjoy an extra boost to their diet from the feeders.  We don't mind feeding a few raccoon because they are interesting creatures.  However every night they come to the feeders and throw out shovels full of grain into the dirt then the calves won't eat it.  The raccoon are playing with their food.  So far in the last few months 15 raccoon have been captured and relocated.

Drilling deeper

 We now have 5 wells that have both wind pumping and solar powered pumping on the ranch.  However 1 well at 222 feet deep the solar hasn't been used for several years because the solar will pump it dry and then the only option is to wait a few hours for the casing to refill.  When only the wind is used the well does not pump dry, but it can only support 45 pairs and it is needed to support 100 pairs.  Under the premise that if we went deeper a better aquifer would be found it was decided to drill a new hole.  However, after drilling to 360 feet with no better water source being found we gave up and filled in the new hole.  Now we go with plan B.

antique search

We  have often searched for artifacts at the old stage station site with very limited success.  This summer when the grand kids visited we gathered the metal detectors and hunted for metal at the site of a long deserted homesteaders claim.  Once again the efforts were futile, but we had fun digging up the few pieces of metal detected.

extreme wind

 75+ mph hit the ranch last week causing minor damage to buildings.  The greatest shock was how the wind uprooted 2 spruce trees that were over 50 years old toppling them onto the garage that is now under the trees.

The scratching tree mentioned before in this blog on 4/28/14 was also damaged.  This 125 year old tree was split in two and probably will completely die off within a year or two.
The ranch has been experiencing windy conditions for a month, but the storm on this night was unusual.  The good news is the windmills are pumping enough water to supply the cow needs.

beautiful driveway

Nature lines the ranch driveway with beautiful sunflowers every year.  Unfortunately we will mow them down soon.  Otherwise they hold drifting snow on the road during the winter.

protein intake estimation

Cows do best when they eat grass with adequate energy and protein.  Hopefully the grass has 8% to 14% protein or more.  Typically the softer and less formed a stool is the higher the protein content of the grass ate.  The consistency of this stool would indicate the cow ate a grass diet of  about 12% to 15% protein.  This exceeds the cow's requirements for maintenance, growth and lactation.  Grass of this quality is somewhat unusual for mid August in our region.  Due to above normal precipitation this year quality grass should last into the fall.

pasture monitoring

We monitor the grazing in our pastures by photographing them the day cows enter and then repeating the photo the day the cows leave the pasture.  We attempt to place enough cows in a pasture to eat 50% of the grass in 1 month then move them to a new pasture during the grass growing season.  A pasture grazed in the spring often has enough growth that it can be regrazed in the winter dormant period with little damage.  We reserve some pastures for winter grazing only.  This helps with the sustainability of our pastures without damaging the native grasses.

Saving birds

Cattle can drink water on the ranch from the river and 34 livestock tanks.  The tanks vary in size from 8 to 25 feet in diameter.  Unfortunately, birds will attempt to get a drink from a tank, fall in and drown.  The 5 tire tanks don't seem to be a problem for them to get out of.  However, birds may drown in the metal tanks (often meadowlarks--Nebraska's state bird).  We attempt to reduce the frequency of this happening by creating ways for the birds to get out of the tank.  We place ladders made from expanded metal at the edge of the tank and add an old fence post for the birds to climb.

Scotch Thistle

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Scotch Thistle is now invading overgrazed areas on the ranch (as around water tanks and perennial feed grounds) that have been long invaded by cheat grass.  This thistle can grow to 6 feet or more tall and 4 foot in circumference, which interferes with cattle movement because of its sharp spines.  Each plant can produce 40,000 seeds that can remain alive in the soil for up to 20 years.  It needs to have an herbicide applied when in the rosette stage as Blake is doing here.  Once the stalk shoots up it is too late.  We are spraying the affected areas twice in the spring and once in the fall with herbicide.  It is hard to believe that this ugly plant was brought to the U.S. from Eurasia as an ornamental in the 1800s.

warm calving--not

 May 21 and in the middle of a snow storm.  The past 24 hours has given about 10 inches and the storm has 12 more hours left in it.  The temperature hangs at 33 degrees so most snow melts a it hits the ground so accumulation has only been about 3 inches at the most.  The ranch calves later then the neighbors to avoid winter storms and to have green grass for the cows after parturition.  As you can see the theory is not 100% successful but we still like the program and it's benefits.