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.

selfie

I (grandpa Wohlers) grew a winter beard so the winds would be kinder to his handsome, but delicate face when the temperatures dropped to 0 degrees and below--it did help.  However I was expecting it to be red as it once was many years ago--it wasn't.  The beard is now gone.

Redneck feedtruck

It's -20 degrees F and the calves are out of feed ----the creep feeders need to be filled--the auger wagon is broke down and the 5 ton farm truck won't start--what am I going to do?  Well, I found an old liquid supplement tank in the junk pile (it holds the equivalent of 8 to 10 bathtubs of feed) and strapped it on the hydro bed pickup, filled it from the overhead bin then commenced scooping.

Sad time

Kate was excited to get out of the house to go on a quick trip to the ranch Sunday to check ice on the tanks and be certain that the cattle were alright.  She was anxious to be out of the pickup and was being her usual exuberant self while going to the shed to get feed for the heifers.  Somehow she went under the pickup and was ran over dying instantly.  The human members of her household are very sad.  Kate will be fondly remembered forever.

Drink then back to work

The autumn construction project was to build permanent corrals around the central water tanks with gates going to 4 separate pastures for the rotational grazing.  An old theory was to have a pen around the tank with only enough room for cows to come in to drink and then need to leave to go back to grazing.  The thought being that they would not lounge in the area of the tank destroying the grass.  We needed a small entry gate rather than having a wide opening as we have had in the temporary openings to the whole pasture since building the cross fences several years ago.  Now we wait to see if the theory works.