Winter in Wyoming

Here are some cattle pictures from the last few weeks, taken in Eastern Wyoming and the Bighorn Basin. Hope your week is going great!

Pictures of Cattle

Here are some cattle photos from recent weeks for you to enjoy. They were taken on our place, and while helping Adam near Ten Sleep. Hope you had a great Wednesday!





calf photos

Here are a few more calf photos from this past weekend. Hope you enjoy looking at them as much as I enjoyed taking them!






















I know this one is slightly blurry, but it's on here for my dad. This heifer has to be one of his favorites-he's all about loooong cattle. However, he would agree with me that she could be longer hipped. Nobody's perfect...

Wednesday shots

Here are a few photos from last weekend for you to look through. Several of these have also been sent off to be considered for ads and whatnot in a magazine, which is why so many of them are verticals - per their request.

Boys and girls

The two heifers pictured in this post made my weekend. The above heifer, number 2, is my favorite of the bunch, and she was kind enough to have a heifer calf. Little number 14 will likely be one of my favorite heifers of her generation, and there's a good chance you're looking at replacement heifer for our operation next year.
I have been hoping this heifer would have a heifer calf since we turned the bulls in last summer. I hope she has heifer calves every year of her life.



Then there's this heifer, who belongs to me. She's a big girl - I call her a steer maker, and she must have heard me because she had the biggest calf to-date, and it's a bull. I didn't really want a heifer out of her because I prefer a more moderate cow than she is. If she raises a great big steer calf, that would suit me just fine.

These aren't the only heifers that I specifically hope have either a boy or a girl. There others who are still keeping things under wraps (or hide) for the time being. This is a fun time of year, and when you see the first results of your genetic and breeding programs from the previous winter (when you bought bulls) and summer (when you selected which bulls to put where, and turned them out with the cows).

Decisions have big impacts in agriculture. These calves, and their counterparts, are the future of our operation. We already had over a years worth of work in them before they arrived, through selecting, raising, feeding and caring for their mothers and fathers. Seeing healthy newborn calves is a great reward for all that time and dedication, and it's even better when the right heifers have bull, or heifer calves.

Sorting out pairs

After tagging calves, we sort all the pairs out of the calving lot. Doing this reduces confusion - trying to match up cows and calves, especially in the dark, can get very complicated as more and more calves are born for both the humans and the cows. This also gets the cows back out on pasture, which is better for the overall health and happiness of both the cow and calf, and reduces the chances of scours from occurring, in addition to a number of other things.

We write down how many we sort out, after they're physically out of the lot. Here are Holly and I starting on round two. We head any pairs that are ready toward the nearest gate. We also keep things as calm and low-stress as possible.




It's typically a slow process, involving lots of mooing and concern every time a cow loses sight of her calf for an instant. These heifers are good mothers, and very concerned about their babies. They stop a lot and make sure they have their calf, and he's alright. Then you go a little further and repeat. Add in a couple other pairs, like here, and everyone has to sort through the calves every few steps too. It's cute, and fun, so long as you're not in a hurry. If you're in a hurry, you might as well go do whatever you're hurried over, then come back to this.
This is one of my favorite things to do, and my dad was kind enough (or hurried enough) to leave the last three days worth of pairs in the lot for Holly and I sort out Saturday morning.




Then there are the ones that attempt a getaway, or think you want them to head off in another direction. Or, sometimes a calf just feels good and takes off, running and bucking across the pasture. This will cause at least his mother, and possibly all the mothers, to take off after him.




In these instances we stay with the calf, and bring him back to his mom, then get everyone lined back out and headed in the right direction again. This is another task that gets more difficult as the calf gets bigger and more coordinated.
This little guy was just feeling good, and was easy enough to turn back to his anxiously awaiting mother. Young, uncoordinated calves prevent a lot of good mothers from running off or getting away. If she cares about her baby, you can use that to your advantage when sorting or moving pairs.



I was enjoying it. Holly was perturbed he was attempting a runaway.




The cow gathers him back up and heads out. If a calf keeps this up, we might take him on a little lap, and take some of the fun out of running away from his mom. This guy was one attempt away from that, but decided to quit his antics just in time.




We get everyone back in a bunch, and if they haven't made it through the awaiting open gate, start them that way again. Some will just gather up their calf and walk on down the fenceline, find the open gate, and continue on. Others need a little more encouragement. Nobody ever blamed a first calf heifer of being too intelligent either, so you have to that in mind.




We give them lots of space if they're heading the right way. This lessons the confusion and concern over whose calf is whose.




Calves typically follow, and have a tendency to get hung up at gates. Sometimes this is easily fixed, like here, and sometimes you have to go get the cow if she just runs off.




Once out of the calving lot the cows have access to a really high quality alfalfa hay bale. This prevents them from losing condition as they produce milk for their calf and deal with being a young mother. The key thing is getting your first calf heifers to breed back, and if they lose a lot of weight after calving the chances of that are significantly reduced.
This heifers were raised on grass, and know how to graze. They typically head out and graze most of the day, then stop by and eat a little of the bale on their way in for a drink. But, there are also the gluttons, who are camped out by the hay bale 24-7. Once green grass makes its appearance, and they can get adequate nutrition through that grass, they won't get any more hay.

Holly and I had lots of fun. Here we are going after another bunch. It's typically a one, two or three pair at a time deal, and was a great way to spend part of our Saturday.

March Madness

I was asked to submit some calf pictures to be considered for a magazine cover recently, and these are a few I sent.
This is also a little teaser of what's to come in weeks ahead, picture wise, as I'm willing to bet I'll have a lot more calf photos after my next couple trips home.
In the meantime, welcome to spring in Wyoming, which typically makes its appearance in March. This is the time of year when the weather can vary between -30 and 80 degrees, there can be a foot of snow, or mud, or dust blowing and no green grass visible for miles.
It's also a time of calving and shearing. Of cleaning out barns to calve in, and keeping your Carharts close, but hopefully not on your person, every day. It's mud and muck and snow and wind and baby calves and spring riding, and I like it.

Irritations

I'm always talking about making our cattle better, and about all the things we do to improve our livestock, and showing you pictures of animals I like.
Well, there are always a few each year that aren't exactly top quality.
These are the bane of my cattle-related existence each year. I may hate poor quality cattle more than I hate lazy people...maybe.




Here is one of the culprits this year. Sometimes these smaller calves are simply young. This is not this guys problem, he's just bad. The other steers are about the average size of the group, and you can easily see that the baldy is much smaller. He isn't growing much either, and he will be animal that costs us money instead of making us money. As I've stated before, we love our livestock, but we also have to make a living off of them. This guy is one of the worst in our herd at doing his job, which is to grow and gain.
He makes my blood pressure spike every time I see him.
Another thing is that while I don't like other people's poor quality cattle, I have no control over that. Having to deal with this guy, and his partner in crime (yes, there are two of them) is extremely irritating to me because we raised them.






See the other one? In the back, on the left, the baldy. Another thing is that your worst cattle are always worming their way to the front. My dad will say your worst calves are always the ones that stand on the road for you to see.
These poor quality animals make me even more determine to improve the overall quality of our cattle, and are my main point of argument as to why we should match each calf to it's mother, and keep this record every year. Then, if we have to cull a percentage of our herd due to something like a drought, we can drop the bottom 20 percent out. I can tell you these two calves' mothers would be the first on the truck if I had that information this year. We don't do this right now because I'm the data-person, and I'm not there to collect this information.
You're always going to have higher and poorer quality animals within a bunch. But, we are constantly striving to narrow the gap, and bring the poorer quality end closer to the top end in type and quality. It's a never-ending challenge that is incredibly enjoyable, until something like one of those two scraggly little baldies wander up to you, then it's more like a dare.