Duke

In case you haven't met Duke, the Angus bull.  He's an October 2012 model, sire of this year's calf crop which looks good, and in the process of creating next year's...

Spring Update 2

Cattle, continued
Completing the previous status, I got them sorted into breeding pastures and put the Angus bull in with his girls yesterday.  He had a big smile on his face today.  Lambert still has to wait on the result of one test, but speaks lovingly to the cows (and heifers--his daughters!) who come up to visit.  He probably has another week to wait.

Austin's and Travis's cows are 2 of the old ones I need to sell, so here are the 2014 heifers that now wear the green and orange.






Weather

Over the weekend there were 2 nights where strong storm fronts lined up all the way from south Texas into Oklahoma or Kansas, moved through threateningly, and we got nearly no rain.  Last night, for a change, a relatively small storm system (left) had us squarely in its sights (right) and we got 2.7" in a heavy 2-hour downpour.

The tanks are nearly full, Sycamore creek roared for a while, and people are walking around smiling.  It's not a drouth-buster but it's a welcome prelude to summer.








Chickens

The chickens continue to thrive and their winter-diminished egg production is ramping back up.  We originally ordered 10 Rhode Island Red hens as day-old chicks in April 2013, figuring we'd surely have some loss to disease, dogs, varmints and mysterious causes.  I celebrated their 2-year birthday today by feeding them--all 10 of them!--their favorite snack, a big bunch of grapes.

We could undoubtedly go to the store and buy eggs for less money and less effort than these birds cost us, but their urgent clucks when I let their feeder run low and their joyful noise and excitement when chasing grasshoppers (or grapes) are priceless.

The eggs are just a bonus.

Life is good.  Come on down and we'll have steak and eggs for breakfast.

Spring Update

When I let enough time go by between posts, it's a daunting job to consider an update.  Just about the time I was considering abandoning the blog, possibly in favor of Facebook, Pete complained that he missed the blog posts and motivated me to write a Spring status.  There's a lot to write so I'll do reports from the various farm enterprises, starting off with...

Cattle

Spring calving is complete.  We had 21 of 22 planned 2015 calves, all in a 60-day calving period except for one outlier (by 3 weeks) and one very old cow who tested open.  The bulls were our Polled Hereford from Kansas, Lambert, and a new Angus bull we bought last year in Meridian.  Both did their jobs and the calf crop looks good.  One heifer required assistance, probably due to being a little bit small and a little bit young.  I should have held her back, but she and the calf are fine.  Considering the number of heifers we're keeping we're doing very well.  We sold Lambert in November since this Spring his first daughters are of breeding age.  It was a year too soon, actually, and since I hadn't found a replacement and his new owner's cows are all bred, we borrowed him back for one more season.  In the next couple of days we'll separate the cows and put them in their breeding pastures, get the bulls' Breeding Soundness Evaluation results, and let the romance begin.

Lambert

 We have some old cows to sell at weaning this summer so, since I was replacing both bulls, we kept nine 2014 heifers to replace them.  A couple of them might still be a little small so I'm toying with the idea of breeding them for Fall 2016 calving, possibly using Artificial Insemination since I've learned the new vet will help us get it done.  Our number of cows to calve should start creeping back up toward 30 if pasture conditions stay good.  If it starts to dry up, we can sell a couple of the bred heifers and just slow down our buildup.

They look good, lying in grass tall enough to hide the calves.  These shots are taken in the grass above the oat field.  The oats started to head out at a pretty short height and we have lots of hay left, so we decided to graze them.  All the cows have been here at the house, rotating themselves daily between the oats and the grass pastures, since we vaccinated calves on March 28.  The grass in the big pasture is enjoying the rest, and we'll move the Baldie herd down there this week.

We have 4 young (14 months) bulls for sale.  People would like to have them 18 months when they put them out to breed, which is one of the reasons I'm considering Fall calving a few cows, but I'm confident they'll sell eventually.  We're shopping for a Polled Hereford bull ourselves, to replace Lambert and sire some more replacement females.  Good bulls in general are at a premium and ones with the genetics we want are pretty scarce.

I'll report on the other activities soon.  Life is good.  Come on down and cowboy with us.