Today in Pictures

[sumdumguy]

Little showers around, not amounting to the inches we need but better than 36 degrees with a 50 km wind. Craven weekend and Ag in Motion should bring real rain. My knees are sore.

[TSIPP]

Checking cows with the drone, sun and prickly pear cactus flowering is a great place for calling home.

[shtferbrains]

Nice cow country.
Drone would make finding them a lot quicker?

[TSIPP]

The drone finds them easy, searching behind every bush and hill on the quad takes time, I get a new drone every few years and they pay for themselves many times over finding sick animals or ones that need help calving.

[TSIPP]

Just before I took that picture I was checking on a cow with a bubble hanging out, that bubble was 2 hours old before the calf came out, I was about to get my sore back on the quad and help her out, was pretty happy when the drone showed me she popped out a heifer calf.

[TSIPP]

So I should probably explain why I’m still checking cows that are calving, I spend 8 thousand a year on elite breeders mineral from the coop and last year 30% of the cows calved so I hauled 5 random cows to the vet and got blood samples and liver samples taken and apparently the cows are deathly low on copper, vet said 100 of your animals should be dead, I switched to the Cargill onyx mineral and most of the cows have calves now, I’ve spent roughly 20 grand in the last year on mineral and it’s working, healthy calfs and the cows have more milk, I guess this has been a problem lately in these hills, I’m not sure why I’m the last one finding this out but at least I only lost mostly one calf crop last year.

[furrowtickler]

Always find it amazing that new holland discontinued making these tractors
we use it nearly very day , and for dozens of different uses

[Blaithin]

So I should probably explain why I’m still checking cows that are calving, I spend 8 thousand a year on elite breeders mineral from the coop and last year 30% of the cows calved so I hauled 5 random cows to the vet and got blood samples and liver samples taken and apparently the cows are deathly low on copper, vet said 100 of your animals should be dead, I switched to the Cargill onyx mineral and most of the cows have calves now, I’ve spent roughly 20 grand in the last year on mineral and it’s working, healthy calfs and the cows have more milk, I guess this has been a problem lately in these hills, I’m not sure why I’m the last one finding this out but at least I only lost mostly one calf crop last year.

Brutal.

Mineral issues are overwhelming. The more I look into minerals, the more I'm surprised there aren't more issues.

People don't talk about it, I think mineral issues get blamed on a lot of other things instead. Rarely are animals tested to see if it may be a mineral problem. I've heard of a vet that insists that it's a copper deficiency (I'm 99% sure it's copper), that leads to lice issues, but most people are just happy clicking along thinking they don't have a problem because they haven't noticed an issue. Shitty that the issues usually have to be so large to get attention.

Glad things are looking better this year!

[TSIPP]

Cows are fat and look healthy I think maybe I lost a few but I know some ranchers lost at least 30, they looked healthy and would just drop over dead, I still can’t believe that the provincial veterinary office wasn’t getting ahold of all the ranchers, about 15 years ago I lost 5 calves in one day from water hemlock, extremely poisonous plant that is rare, I went and picked all of it and burned it, the provincial veterinary office phoned me and told me to buy salt blocks with added copper, I’ve been doing this ever since, the mineral from the co-op was always available to the cows they just didn’t eat enough

[Blaithin]

I started pushing Vitamin A on the cows a few years back. Put it in their water midwinter. When you look up what amounts they are theorized at using each day, and then look at how much the mineral mixes supply IF the cow eats the recommended amount, it still doesn’t come close to touching their requirements.

I think most minerals are alright if you don’t have a big deficiency but they are maintenance levels only. As soon as their food -or water- falls short for some reason, the minerals will never get them back up to sufficient levels. They’ll constantly fall into a bigger hole.

When I see farmers in places like the UK that supply topical iodine and copper boluses that release throughout the year… it makes me feel like our mineral options and understanding really might not be great in Western Canada. We’re just stuck in the status quo of the last 40 years.