Home Forums Miscellaneous Topics Rural Living It's Coming

Not soon enough.

LOL

Got the first about a month again. Several hard freezes and skiffs of snow since.

Something between rain to 2” of snow tomorrow.

It is already here,the last several days

Five inches of snow last morning, broke a bunch of power lines and trees around the county.


Good times!

Years ago, we would always have some frost by this time in October. But, that's not the case anymore. It will probably be November before we see any. Have been shooting the cows with a Vet Gun, using the fly control balls, but it's wearing off and the flies are returning, so a good frost would be helpful.

We'd normally have seen a frost before now, but the last 6 weeks have been crazy warm here. It's consistenly been 10-20° above average since early September... 88° Sunday afternoon, and 71° before sunrise this morning

We haven't had a sub-50 degree reading since June 😕 The mosquitoes and those dang stink beetles have been an absolute menace the past couple weeks.

Every year those ladybug look alikes have come out in force about now, this year is no different. Hate them little buggers.

Is the Vet gun balls effective? Been using rub rope here and does not seem to help much

We've had somewhat mixed results out of it. The first gun we bought had a gas leak right of the bat, and we returned it for another one. That one worked ok the first time we used it, although the fly control was not what I expected, lasting only a short time. We used it again about a month later, and the gun experienced another gas leak. Sent it back to the manufacturer as it was under warranty, and the sent us a replacement unit. That one worked and the fly control was much better that time, probably because we used a different kind of ball.

So, I'm not all that impressed with what I've seen so far. However, I must have just gotten some bad guns, as some of my neighbors that have them seem to like them. There are several different types of the balls, with differing kinds of fly control drugs, giving a choice as to what works the best.

The cows sure don't like being hit with that balls, that's for sure. We're going to have to tweak our system some as far as that part goes.

My cows are pretty gentle.

I put out a bag of cubes and spray them with Permethrin from a hand sprayer. Keeps the flies off a good while, unless we get a heavy rain. Kills ear ticks too.

https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/p...livestock-and-premise-spray?cm_vc=-10005

Barry, that's what I was doing, but with the above average rain we've started having the past several years, the Permethrin just wasn't lasting. That was the main reason for buying a Vet Gun.

I bet it has more oil base to keep the control on the cattle longer.

When I use Ivermectin our on, I watch the forecast pretty good too. Expensive stuff to just get washed off.

I'd have to go hunt up and find the fly control balls, and see what it is they use to control flies. But, it is like the Ivermectin, in that it is absorbed into the animals body, and works that way. There are several different formulations, allowing you to switch drugs, and I believe one even has some parasite control in it, in addition to fly control.

The Vet Gun is pretty cool to use, especially if you like shooting things. I usually drive the UTV, and my son gets to do the shooting.