From the Barns: Running on fumes

For once I have no complaints on the weather, especially the past couple of weeks. Temperatures have been warm, but moderate, now turning to more fall-like. Mix in two nice rains and conditions seem to be quite good. The next week’s forecast looks nice, so the Lord is really blessing us right now during this autumn season.

We did get started with completing some practices on the Environmental Quality Incentives Program project. Two grass waterways are built, seeded, fertilized and strawed down. Two waterway rock crossings, one access road also done and work is in progress on two stream crossings. We prioritized these to complete this fall while weather was nice and for the most part dry. A hay feeding station is scheduled for construction in the October-November time frame. Otherwise, from now until spring, we will just pick and choose practices to work on as time and weather permits.

Fall calving season is going relatively well, a lot of calves on the ground, but still several to go. To me, the calves seem more thrifty and stouter than the past couple of falls. I don’t know if that is due to better fall weather or maybe some new management practices we have incorporated into the program. We did wean our spring-born calves back on Sept. 20 — 108 of them. Once they bawled out, they were moved out of the barn and now are getting 10 pounds dry matter of the grower ration, plus free-choice hay. When we revaccinate in a week or two, we will separate the steers and heifers, then feed them accordingly.

Speaking of hay, we have about 900 bales already hauled in and on inventory, but have 400 to 500 more bought or spoken for that we are going to try and get hauled in next week. Because of the mid-summer rains we received, there was a second cutting in this area, so I believe there will be plenty of hay to get everyone through the winter. Quality is poor to fair, though, as is usual in southern Illinois. Most of that will be for grinding into the rations and the better hay has been stored separately for free-choice feeding this winter.

We have continued to ship one to two loads of fat cattle each week. The better cattle have maintained that 50% plus prime grading and dressing yields have stayed in the 65% to 66% range. With the fats I have been selling live cash, I have been getting positive feedback on them. Two loads will be going out this next week, one load selling cash and the other on the grid. It will start slowing down after that, with two to three more loads going out late October through mid-November.

Thought our total numbers would be down, but we have placed several hundred new feeder cattle in this past month, including 325 head that came in this week. Had to scramble to accommodate those, but we got it figured out and have been getting them processed and hayed and fed and they all seem to be settling in quite well. May need to skip a week, but I think we will end up taking more the last half of this month.

David, Wyatt and I have been hitting it hard, with long days to get all the work done that has to be done. In the last two to three weeks, I don’t think we have been in the house before dark and sometimes well after dark. Sometimes we are running on fumes, doesn’t seem to be enough rest to keep us going, but somehow with the Lord’s provision we manage to march on and keep the cattle fed and checked, with lots of other work in between. So far, fall is going good and praying that it will continue.