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What are you guys going to do this year on the late ones?

We had some culls and drys that we sorted off today. Kinda makes me wish we did not sell the bred heifers so early.


My instinct is to cull hard this year. Fairly decent price.

We got caught in 2010 with a bunch of old cows and damn low prices. Had schitty hay that year too.

We ended up loosing like 50 head to the bad winter and hay that was full of nitrates. I still drive into the potholes of those mass graves once in a while during the winter.....

There was no hay for sale locally so we got some out of Billings for 150 delivered. Most of that hay was junk......[bleep] hay brokers. Never trust those guys.


Finally found some local 2nd cutting that was great hay. Stopped loosing cows after that.



Those old bred cows were selling for 250 bucks a piece that winter. Just a perfect storm!



Anymore I get really weary of old cows on the place. Especially when the market is not terrible.

Jim, we kept them and just marked them on the middle of the back as late.

The opens got dropped off at town on the way home from pasture.

Aren't they going to be pretty light if you have calving season in May?

Seems like MT would be pretty expensive to bring a calve up in size between "hay" and loss due to severe conditions.

Yes, if we sell them at this time of year.


Recently, light calves have been brings the same money as heavy calves. That is not always the case however. For years everyone worked hard to have the heaviest calves possible.

Early calving and late weaning.

If a person can get decent money for a lighter calf, it makes sense to sell them at a lighter weight.

We might sell them in the fall still, just be a bit lighter, or we can wean them and winter them to be ready for the markets in the first of the year.

Could sell them as yearlings or maybe sell them as grass fats.


This will be the first year so we will see.



Honestly though, a few neighbors have moved to May and even June calving and have not seen much of a weight penalty.

Our winters can be tough up here and a calf born in March has a lot of winter left to live through to make green grass. It takes a lot of feed for the cow when it is cold as well, especially if she is 8 months or has just calved.

Folks have found that calves born a month or a month and a half later while on green grass actually weigh about the same as the calves born in winter.

Jim,

not sure if I ever asked you. Anyone up in your area do fall calves? This is my first full fall up here (extreme NE CA) and I've been noticing some of the ranches have some little critters running around now. Seems like I saw some brand new ones about a month ago.

I don't know a damn thing about raising beef, I just have a fondness for fall calves as they are "cuter" than the spring ones.

I figure the cute ones will taste better on the plate.

I did inquire where I used to live in E WA about the falls, one person told me it was to be able to sell market weight beef earlier if the market was high. Winters up there are not nice, but usually not brutal either. Perhaps fall calving won't work in your area?

Anywhooo,

I hope the rest of your fall goes well before the snow flies for good.

Geno

Sorry, Geno!

No, no one really does the fall calving thing yet. Probably going to be a thing in the coming years though.

Got the cows moved out today.

Its a weird feeling.....moving them further from the homestead when its winter time.


With our switch to May calving, we are going to try to graze all winter...or at least as much as we can.


Moving out to the place where I made the straw bunches this fall. 10 miles out and 10 miles back. I would be lying if I said it was a pleasant day.



One neat thing today was we got to see an aerial refueling mission.

First plane to get fueled was a B52. That plane was followed by three B1B bombers. I think thats what they were anyway.


They flew in a great big circle until the whole lot was fueled.

Pretty cool.

Jim, is there less feed value in the winter grass? I'd guess it is dead.

I like that pic Jim.

And your highway sure beats ours regarding traffic....


You guys ultrasound when preg testing?

What is the start and cutoff date for your bred cows?


We'll be starting about the 3rd week of March and anything after early June or so gets marked open.


Just got back from running out to the grazing association to pick up another 3 pair. Still missing 5 pair but hopefully they will show up whenever we fly for strays.

Oh, sure, but not as little as you might think.


If we save grass for winter out here, and have good weather, we can graze all winter and not feed hay, or put out cake.


The fellows at the feed store will tell you that is impossible.....but we do it all the time.


We might keep a protein tub out in front of them...but that would be it.



Now that we are calving a lot later, the cows wont need as much nutrition as they would during Dec through March.

Winter grazing should work even better this year.

It was a different year for us Sam. We had never turned out the bulls so late, about the end of July.

When we preg tested anything that was late would have been marked dry. If they were bred, it was too early to tell.


Our start date will be the first of May, and anything bred to calve after the end of July would have been marked open.

Everything that was bred did breed up for the 6 week window we wanted, very few critters were bred for after about the middle of June.


Ideally we try for 6 weeks..no mark on those. Usually keep them up till 9 weeks marked late.

My buddy just asked us if we would fly him looking for strays too. Dad said he would....but try and find a nice day!

Oh, as far as the highway goes.....that is a state road going south to the Bear Paws from Chinook.


You could not beat me hard enough to trail down Highway 2!

Jim, I was wondering if the vet(or whoever tested) had any trouble checking for a fetus(development) given the much later bull turn out date.



The way this Fall is going you might have open range all Winter!

We should get another couple weeks of grazing down on the river bottom(where all of our cows are). Spread out a pallet of lick tubs last week but the cows aren't very interested.



It got too damn warm last week!

We had two sick calves up until that warm spell. Treated 8 in the last couple days....

Sam, our vet is young. It seems that the young folks coming out of vet school that started with a ultrasound machine are much better at it than the older guys that have been palpating since they started.

So far, he has been very accurate.

We will see how accurate he was next May, but I bet he will be right on the money.



Thats a good sign when the cows wont eat the tubs or any supplement.


What are you treating the sick ones with?

We turned our calves out on pasture here a few weeks ago. I have having calves pened up this time of year.

Jim, the old vets have it figured out over here. Anything open they check by hand and 99% of the time they call it open again.

LA 300, doctored a few more today. Luckily it's gonna cool off and they should do better.


Market was down the limit today!


Godddamn here we go....grin

Here it is Draxxin, $20 or more a pop. Dead caves are not worth much.

The old tank site before.....

Well, I had drug an old rotten steel tank out.

The after.

Got to build an enclosure and relocate the power yet, but the hard work is done.

Messed up the D8.




Old Cat mechanic says to put it back together and weld the everlovingpiss out of it.

That looks good so far Jim. I tell people, once the crop is out, then we go to work.