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Jan 4, 2021 | 21:42
61
 Originally Posted by Blaithin
I don’t mind horns. Although it would be nicer if the whole herd was horned, some of the polled girls are at a bit of a disadvantage.
That said, Stella is the herd matriarch despite being polled and 600lbs lighter than the Limo. She’s a year older and they grew up together and Stella just refuses to not be boss. Even if she loses a fight, in her mind she still wins. Very rarely is there even a fight. Odd how herd hierarchy can work. There’s no question, even though the two of them spend the entire winter not with the dairy girls, that they are the bosses.
I’ve read some papers on the balance horns give the animals (maybe it was biodynamic but for some reason I’m thinking no?). Kind of like reiki in people, if you dehorn an animal it upsets their chakras. It’s been a while but I think it was regarding milk production and how animals that kept their horns were more productive than their de horned counterparts? Something along those lines. Irrelevant in regards to polled breeds since they haven’t lost anything they had to begin with, but an interesting concept none the less. We know horns play a role in heating and cooling in large horned breeds, what else could they be doing. Lots of times I’ve heard the analogy of being dehorned like losing a finger. Well if I lost a finger I’d be a bit out of whack. I’ll see if I can find what I read again. Maybe it’s lost it’s shine over the years and sounds better in my memory!
Ummmm ............ all the steers here have lost a package of something............ I better ask them tomorrow if it has thrown their balance or “reiki” off. I’ll have to ask them what the latter is too.
I think they’ll be more concerned whether the feed truck is coming for them or not though👍
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Jan 4, 2021 | 22:07
62
Originally Posted by woodland
Ummmm ............ all the steers here have lost a package of something............ I better ask them tomorrow if it has thrown their balance or “reiki” off. I’ll have to ask them what the latter is too.
I think they’ll be more concerned whether the feed truck is coming for them or not though👍
Well that’s easy enough to hypothesize.
How do you think you would feel if you lost that package? 😂😂
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Mar 9, 2021 | 21:03
63
One of the Flecks is due in the next week or two. Took advantage of some days off work to drive up to Ponoka dairyland today and pick up a calf. He’s a Jersey x Belgian Blue.
BBs are popular crosses over dairy in the UK so when I seen a dairy advertising them I thought it would be neat to try. The full BBs are ugly as shit but the crosses seem to be more normal looking.
He tested out the calf cab. Worked well! Couldn’t haul a much bigger calf though...
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Mar 12, 2021 | 12:26
64
Looking like baby day today or tomorrow. Good calving weather for them to drop weeks apart 😂
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Mar 18, 2021 | 13:18
65
Pretty heifer calf on the ground.
Heifers are getting close to calving. I hate heifers....
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Mar 31, 2021 | 13:48
66
Well the heifers laughed in my face. Both spit out 80lb calves like they do it every week. Third heifer is a ways off still but not feeling nearly as much stress about her now!
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Apr 1, 2021 | 12:42
67
👍
Nothing cuter than a roan calf running except it needs to be black😉
Beautiful calving weather compared to last year.
April 1 2020 
Good luck everyone. A couple weeks till we start here. 🍀
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Apr 1, 2021 | 15:13
68
Blaithin - those are nice calf weights for first time calvers! Good luck with the 3rd one.
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Apr 1, 2021 | 17:54
69
She’s black, with roan 😜
Thanks littledoggie. I’m quite impressed with how easy they both calved considering what the calves taped. There was no diddling around from either of them. It was pretty much a water bag and out within half an hour. Some heifers are just painful with their stalling.
If all calved as easy as these two, I wouldn’t care so much about calving out heifers 😂
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Apr 7, 2021 | 17:15
70
Last one for at least a month (that last, lagging, heifer)
I’m going to go out on a limb and say she got bred before she made it to the pasture with the Hereford bull 😂 Tall black heifer for her, and a Simmental steer to graft on.
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Apr 7, 2021 | 22:10
71
I don’t have an edit button to add to that post 🤔
354 days between calves for her. The singles both landed at 365 days but the girl that raised 2 calves moved up. She has the best breed back out of any of my nurse cows.
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Apr 20, 2021 | 07:55
72
Moved the fish to another trough this morning. The one they were in is the busy trough and I’m not convinced it would still have water in it when I get home from work! So I moved them to the one they shouldn’t die in.... 🤞🏻😂
They’re getting big. Have to be at least 3 or 4 years old now.
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Apr 20, 2021 | 16:10
73
Do they keep the green slime off in the summer?
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Apr 21, 2021 | 07:31
74
Originally Posted by shtferbrains
Do they keep the green slime off in the summer?
Yes, they seem to keep a handle on it. On really warm days algae can still make an appearance. I may add a couple more fish this summer. 3 just might not have been able to eat that much algae!
They’re also very good at eating any mosquitoe larva that ends up in the water.
If you don’t want to deal with fish though, barley straw is supposed to help prevent algae.
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Sep 15, 2021 | 12:07
75
One of the sets of calves from this year. These guys are 6 months old and easily over, 500 lbs. The photo is making me think they're over 600 so I'll have to do an eyeball to scale on something when I'm back over there! Baker (the cow) is working to pay off her feed bill for the winter.
The only issue I tend to run into with multiples is less than great breed back. Everyone is getting a blood draw preg check when they get back home, before weaning. Anyone open that can is going to get another calf to raise. For that matter a couple may get another calf anyway. A larger portion of their winter feed than normal is probably going to be grain so I won't want them to be dry too long.
Years like this make it even nicer to have two calves come in off one cow. If Baker weans off 1200+ lbs of calf she will more than pay for even expensive feed. She's going to help support the feed of the heifers who only have singles on them this year.
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Oct 17, 2021 | 10:06
77
Originally Posted by Blaithin
Woodland I hope you peak in to read this.
I sold 1, 2, 4, & 5 to the same guy that buys calves from me every year. He picked them up in June so they’d have been 15 months at that point in time.
He’s now saying #5 is a bull.
Now obviously we didn’t band it, since we thought it was a heifer 😂
I can’t find any photos to confirm she’s really a dangly he. I can’t think I’d miss danglers for 15 months, even if there was confusion at birth. Since you said you think she’d make a nice replacement I figured I’d pick on you for obviously misjudging it as a heifer as well! Haha
Here’s the photo again.
I’m highly skeptical. The photos of the bull he’s sending aren’t clearly the same animal.
A flip of the tail would tell for sure😉
I’ve been wrong on this count twice before. My cousin who used to be a vet was preg testing heifers for us stuck his arm in a critter and promptly looked up and asked us who the wise azz was. We never noticed there was a steer in the bunch but he did.
A different time we had a vet out ultrasounding and there was a steer in the bunch but we left him in as a test. He got called open but never got noticed otherwise. 😉
We tag heifers in the left ear and steers in the right to make sorting easier now. Shouldn’t the buyer have noticed earlier and be happy to have a male instead of a female? Last I checked the male accessory package adds at least a crisp brown hundy bill to the value………….
I told our cattle broker last year that our heifers now identify as steers since they’re tired of being discriminated against………….. He laughed and the inequality still continues 😎
Good luck with your “warranty claim”🍀
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Oct 17, 2021 | 10:18
78
He doesn’t seem mad about it. But I did mention he should get the heifers aborted and the balls taken care of or they're going to be having a calving season next spring. (He said he was jumping everyone all summer but has been quiet for a couple months 😂)
These are the photos he’s sent me. I really can’t say I’m convinced that’s the same animal but he says he has none there that aren’t mine. I don’t tag and in no other pictures does it look like he’s dehorned or tagged anybody else so I don’t know how my horned, tagless heifer has turned into a tagged, polled, bull, who suspiciously looks like he has a rib brand in a photo. Plus that calf sure gained a lot in 4 months! What growth.
If he were to start putting up a stink I’d just go down and physically look at it and see instead of rely on photos. I was more curious because I felt bad that we missed a nut banding or something. Now it seems such a stretch I’m not feeling so guilty haha
Last edited by Blaithin; Oct 17, 2021 at 10:20.
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Oct 17, 2021 | 10:53
79
Might be a neighbor's bull.
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Oct 17, 2021 | 11:09
80
Originally Posted by shtferbrains
Might be a neighbor's bull.
Could be. He says there’s only been the 8 animals he bought from me though so timing would have to be for the heifer to run away and the bull to show up. Which probably isn’t that impossible 😂
Guess if a neighbour shows up sometime soon looking for a bull with a mystery horny heifer… lol You’d think someone would miss a bull before 3.5 months passed.
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Oct 17, 2021 | 17:42
81
Funny…….. your picture has a white mark on the top of the head but his is solid red……………
I think he’s confuzzled or musical yearlings played a switcharoo……….
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Nov 11, 2021 | 10:08
82
Drew blood for preg checks on Tuesday. Got results back Wednesday. Nothing surprising although wish we’d been wrong about Gwen 😂 She was getting some action on the weekend so I’ll test her again in the next run.
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Nov 13, 2021 | 20:27
83
I didnt realize anybody preg checks with blood tests. How pricey is that? Will the vets sell you the tubes or do they have to draw it? Must be easier than getting them to pee on a stick!
Always seems to be the favorite ones that end up open. The wild crazy cows never seem to earn their trip to town.
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Nov 13, 2021 | 21:25
84
Originally Posted by GDR
I didnt realize anybody preg checks with blood tests. How pricey is that? Will the vets sell you the tubes or do they have to draw it? Must be easier than getting them to pee on a stick!
Always seems to be the favorite ones that end up open. The wild crazy cows never seem to earn their trip to town.
$4.50 a sample plus shipping. This round was $28 and $18 for express. Think the vet charges $20 a head plus mileage so it works out for me. Even she didn’t fault it 😂
They sell me the tubes and needles, or sometimes just give them to me if I don’t need much and the right person is working. I draw the blood myself. Not the quickest but it works. Have never asked the lab but lots of times they’ll send out the supplies as well.
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