Calving has begun

Our first heifer has calved and she did not do too bad...meet Mopsy's son.

As far as the rest of the heifers, I am ready for them to be DONE!! I know we just got started but after a week of 0 degree nights and wind chills of anywhere from -10 to -20 degrees I am DONE! It has not been all bad I guess. It is pretty easy to go and check them. I told Brad that I did not know how to check heifers without a warm pick-up and Terri to talk to. He told me I would learn. So far we are 25% done and Brad has over 100% calving success...we had a set of twins. The heifers are doing very well delivering as well. You never see a bag of water or anything. You see them walking around, you bring them in and then about an hour later you have a calf. Brad has pulled 2, only one of which really needed help.



Brad feeding "One of Two" This was one of our Twin calves.







I have also discovered that even though Brad and I are doing so much better working together we still can not seem to work cattle together without screaming at each other at least once. I told him yesterday that since I apparently did not know what I was doing then he should try and find someone else that did. Emotions were a little high though considering a cow had just tried to kill him!! In my husband's defense he had a right to be a little upset, however I have not had a lot of experience with the type of cow that wants you dead. I'm getting ahead of myself though so I will start at the beginning...


The morning started out ok, if you consider 0 degrees with a nice breeze to be ok. I was in the barn feeding Tri-pod and Brad was walking through the heifers. He found one that was starting and tried to bring her in. I could see him out there running back and forth and I could hear him talking "nicely" to her trying to get her to go through the gate. I stopped feeding the calf and headed out to help him. My husband has what I refer to as "John Wayne" syndrome. There is no way he is going to let a heifer beat him, even if it means breaking his neck, leg or back. Our corral right now is a skating rink so you slide everywhere. After a while Brad decides that the "cow" (not the word he used) can just stay out there and hopefully die! I follow him back into the barn where he decides that he needs to get one heifer to let her calf suck so he proceeds to put her in the head catch. The cow in the other pen is a little nervous with all the noise and cussing that was flying around. "John Wayne" doesn't care and goes into the pen with her. She looks at him for maybe 30 seconds and then decides that he needs to die and charges him. Pinning him against the head catch. My seemingly non-athletic husband jumps into the chute with the other cow. She was not real impressed so Brad tries to balance between the two. I yell out and ask "What do you want me to do?!!" Now I know some of you are thinking like Brad...DUHH! Get the cow out of the pen. As far as I was concerned I just wanted to get the cow off of my husband so I am thinking I need to hit her or something. Brad screams at me to "OPEN the $%# Damn- Mother %&$#*% Gate!!!" To at which I did and he was able to climb down off of the chute. When all is said and done the cow ends up jumping over a panel into another pen and Brad and I continue to scream at each other for a couple minutes. We finally calmed down and were able to go about our day. Brad was even able to laugh (at me) about it later. He finds it funny when I get so mad that I start acting like him and screaming and cussing like he does. I told him the difference was that I only scream and yell at him where he screams and yells at everything ;o)

For those of you who may be wondering about the cow she now has a new respect for my husband. While out checking on her calf tonight she thought that she would again show Brad who was boss. This time however Brad had what we refer to as the Beating Stick. She came running up there to Brad this time and instead of "John Wayne" my husband turned into "Sammy Soosa" and cracked her acrossed the head. She spun around, shook her head a few times and decided that it was ok if he checked out her calf after all.






Me and my helper waiting for Brad to load us up to go and feed.




I have been trying to help Brad out more this past week because I know how tiring heifers are. So Jake and I have been driving the feed wagon for a while in the mornings. I took a bunch of pictures this morning that I thought I would share with all of you. Ellen you may have to show Mike how to see this because Brad wanted him to see the picture of Gluten.




This is Gluten. It is a byproduct of the corn used to create the Flex-fuel. The cows love it!

I love this invention...I call it the automatic gate opener ;o)

I wonder if this is the view a snow truck plower sees?? Only instead of white...