Spring Roundup

Last Saturday was spring roundup at the old Busted Handle calf factory.  Amy, Kathy and I were joined by Jeff and Krista, Ed Kearn, and Lauren and Kyle Trodden to gather and treat 27 cows, 20  baby calves and 1 bull.  It was a beautiful day, cool but sunny, and we started with a nutritious breakfast of Texas-shaped waffles.

Breakfast

Then we went outside and called them into the pens.  With the extra help it went pretty smoothly, and we separated the calves to work first.  They each got an ear tag, matching tattoo and one shot.  Jeff started tagging and tattoing, Amy giving shots and bossing people around, and everybody else opening gates and keeping the chute loaded.  Kyle soon picked up tagging and tattooing, giving Jeff's knees a rest.  There was so much I help I didn't have to do much and we finished the calves pretty quickly and took a water break before starting on the cows.

Lauren and Ed move calves

Tagging and tattooing calves

The cows each got 3 shots and a pour-on anti-parasitic, as well as a quick general health evaluation.  Kyle started as the pour-on moron but moved up to wrangler, allowing Lauren to move into a skill position.  She, Krista and Amy gave shots and Kathy kept the records.

Krista comforts a calf

Don't drink it, Lauren

We replaced our new Angus bull's ear tags with some custom Heyroth Ranch ones and gave him 2 shots.  We heard him introducing himself to a few of the cows through the fence and making some dates for breeding season.

Tagging the bull

New tags

It was a great day.  Sunny enough to get sunburned but cool enough to not stress the animals--bovines or humans.  We all got nice and dirty, a little tired, a little burned and had a lot of fun and followed up with good BBQ brisket sandwiches.  The cows and calves are back contentedly grazing in the oat field.  I'll catch them once more soon to separate them into breeding herds, put the bulls in and let nature take its course.

Thanks to everybody for your help.  You're all invited back for weaning in the fall.  Come join us and we'll put you to work too.

Baseball Again...Finally

Enhanced Truckage

Apparently some varmint saw his shadow and gave us one last (I hope) winter blast.  This one brought a tiny bit of rain (.4") which was welcome, and some hail which wasn't because...

...I'd just brought home a new truck.  I traded in the Ford which wasn't a bad truck, but was limited by its payload/hauling capacity and its V-6 engine.  This one is a big Dodge 4x4 and can haul or pull most anything.  I imagine Paul is pleased to know it even has power windows.  Now our fleet consists of the new one and the '94 Chevy which still runs good, or at least as good as it ever did.  I have gooseneck hitches in both so we can haul round bales, cows or whatever we need to.  I put a toolbox in the bed of the Chevy so the seats can be a little more accessible to humans.  It blocks the view of the hitch, so I'll have to figure out a system for hooking up.  You can't see the hitch in the new one from the front seat anyway, so I might as well put a toolbox in it too.  I'll probably miss the Ford at the gas pump.

This pose of the fleet reminds me of 2 old friends of Gonzo's who had been known to howl at the moon occasionally.  They both bought new 4WD pickups, one a Ford and the other a Chevy, and the trash talk began immediately.  They decided to settle it one night at the Hog's Breath Saloon, backed them up to each other in the gravel parking lot, and hooked the bumper hitches together with a log chain.  Within seconds they destroyed both bumpers, tailgates and every tail light assembly, mirror and back window in both trucks and dug a set of trenches in the parking lot a World War I field marshal would have been proud of.  Asked later if they had settled anything one of them, known for his ability to see the silver lining, said "Naw, but we've got the only log chain in Harris County you can push."  I heard they told their wives they were minding their own business, duck hunting over at Anahuac, when this big hailstorm came out of nowhere...

Life is good.  Come see us and go for a truck ride.

Bulls

Morgan, Wyatt and Virgil

We keep 2 or 3 Polled Hereford bulls each year to sell locally.  Someday maybe all the little calves around the countryside will have the white faces they deserve.  We sold the first one this year, almost exactly on his first birthday.  He's the one in the middle in this picture, and he was humming "You sexy thing" as he went to get fertility tested and meet his new girlfriends.

We're up to 15 calves now, with  1 heifer and 3 bulls from Lambert, so the quality of bulls for sale next year should be excellent.

Calves

We're 3 weeks into the calving season, a little earlier in the year than usual.  Since I was worried about Lambert feeling bad in warm weather due to his case of pneumonia last year, I put him and the Angus bull in with their respective cows a month earlier than usual.  We have 10 calves on the ground which is about half--we expect 21 total--and everything looks good so far.  Three weeks is enough time for all the cows to have a heat cycle, so perfect results would be that they all bred back on their first heat and all the calves would be here by now.  But putting the bulls in a month early put a month of pressure on the cows' breeding back and, although I think their general health and body condition were fine, their nutrition might not have been ideal due to the ongoing drouth and probable lower quality of the hay we were feeding them.  We'll have that concern this spring too.  Lambert appears to have done his job, with one Polled Hereford in the picture there and several of his other dams looking very close to calving, and he's feeling fine, gaining weight and looking forward to the next breeding season.  We had a cold front and freezing rain yesterday, which often seems to cause some births, so we'll be down there today counting noses and looking for new ones.  Come see us and help us count.

Baggie Commercial

I keep the outdoor temperature sensor on the kitchen window sill, sealed in a baggie to protect its electronics from rain and dew.  Apparently the wind from Saturday night's norther blew it off the window sill and it fell in the dogs' water bowl, where it froze solid as temperatures dropped into the 20's.  I took a picture before chopping it loose this morning, but I guess I didn't save it.  I think you can get the idea from the hole in the ice and the still-trapped baggie.

The baggie did its job, though, as the sensor bravely reported a temperature of 21 degrees at the bottom of the frozen water bowl before I rescued it.

Never underestimate the power of a baggie.

Wonder Woman

On Saturday Amy got up, fed dogs and cats and let the chickens out.  Then she gathered the cows, sorted off the ones we want to keep at the house and helped me weigh them (OK, I helped her),  and returned the others to the big pasture.  Then we got the chainsaw out and I taught her to use it, and she cut us several days' supply of firewood and stacked it on the back porch in preparation for the night's forecast cold front.  Later we fed cubes in the pasture to make sure the herd had gotten home safely and we picked up some old stumps and crooks from the brush piles there, which she stacked on the firewood rack when we got home.  Having a little daylight left, she went out and gave Cowtown some attention and training.

As we discussed her accomplishments I discovered that, "Yep, all in a day's work" weren't the words of affirmation and appreciation she was seeking, and had to grovel a little to get back on her good side.  That, and buying her lunch at El Jardin after church on Sunday, did the trick and she was willing to drive the tractor to take hay to the bulls at the Gamblin place and the cows in the pasture before settling in front of a warm fire to watch football the rest of the day.  I really am in pretty good hands.