From the Barns: Feeling my age

Seems like I always begin with the past month’s weather, but it dictates so much of what we are able to get done and what kind of results and performance we see. No complaints. Overall, we have had very favorable conditions. Have had some rains, frosts, below freezing temps and lots of sunshine. You can tell by the activity of the cattle how good or bad the weather has been and what I have witnessed is that the stock has been active, playful, running and bucking, and you know they are feeling good and the looks of them and their intakes would confirm that.

AI breeding season moving along as planned. Last week, we had our timed heifer breeding and with plenty of help and good flow, we ended up doing 87 head in 3.5 hours. The next day, with only David and myself, we put CIDRs in 80 cows. We had to bring a bunch of the cows in from remote pastures and also do quite a bit of sorting. Everything went OK and we pushed through it. Along with other daily chores, including six TMR loads of feed, this made for two very long days. At the end of the second day, this old guy was really feeling it. I think it took a couple more days to recover. This may be the first time I will admit I was feeling my age!

We will pull the CIDRs in a couple of days and I believe the plan is to do heat detection. The cows are up close to the barn where we can run them in and breed them as needed. The heifers we bred are turned out and sometime this week the cleanup bulls will be turned in with them. Speaking of the bulls, a few weeks ago we did our semen testing and out of 27 bulls tested, only one was failed by the vet. Many of those bulls were sold and have now been delivered and, of course, we will using some ourselves. Oh, and we also squeezed in having an embryologist down who put in a couple dozen embryos in our recips.

Going to ship two, maybe three loads of fat cattle this month, including one tomorrow. It is going to USPB. Another end of the month to Tyson. The past month has also seen us place in over 200 head of new feeder calves and yearlings, so we are staying relatively full of cattle on feed. Someone at church today asked me when we ship cattle out, if we bring in others to replace them. I confirmed that was pretty much the case, that it seems like there is a steady flow of cattle in and out of this farm.

All the fall calving cows that we are breeding, along with the bred heifers, are being given all their feed through the TMR. No free choice hay feeding again this year. So, with all those breeding females and market cattle on feed, it is indeed taking a lot of time and feed each day to get them fed. Three different rations — grower, finisher, and cow diet. A lot of planning and logistics to deal with there.

Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving holiday with their families and also wishing for a wonderful time of Christmas. Look forward to talking to you next year!