The Adventures of Gate Girl

Headed to Town

These girls are headed to town. We made a major decision to downsize our herd. So, on January 18th all 180 of our young cows – bred heifers to the 6 year olds are going to be at Kingsville’s cow sale. This was one of the hardest decisions we have every made. We have held heifers back from our best cows for years to create this herd.

These cows are the daughters and granddaughters of the old cows we are keeping. All cows and heifers got Scourguard, Ultrabac 7 blackleg, and ViraShield 6VL5HB vaccinations when we preg checked in November. They were de-wormed with Safeguard drench and Ivermectin pour-on also. The heifers got their 2nd dose of Scourguard on Jan. 2nd. Everything had Virashield 6VL5HB, an autogenous pinkeye vaccine from Benton County Vet Clinic, and Long Range de-wormer in the spring. All of these cows were PI BVD tested as calves.

We will still have 140 older (7-yr-old to 13-yr-old) cows to keep us busy. Here are some pics of the old cows.

This cow is 13 years old. Her number is 2206. She was born in 2012. Her dam was 206, a 10-year-old cow when she was born. Several of her daughters and granddaughters are among the cows we are selling. This will be calf number 11 for her.

I’m hoping she has a heifer calf this year.

Here are a few more of the old cows we are keeping. You will see several cows and heifers with 117 in their tag number. The problem we ran into with our tagging system is that unless you want an 8-digit number you have to be creative sometimes. For example, 1717 and 1117 are both 4- yr-olds from the 117 bloodline.

These are some of the bred heifers. They just let me walk around and take pictures!

We have four questions we ask when we make a decision to keep a heifer to breed. Is her momma a cow we want to keep a heifer from? Does she have a good disposition? Does she have an early birthday? Does she have the size and the looks we want in a cow? The next test is pre-breeding check. We don’t keep anything with a pelvic measurement under 170. We start with app. 150 heifer calves and cut and cull until we have the 50 heifers we want to keep as cows for the next ten years.

We really hate to say good-bye to these ladies, but someone will be getting great cows that we have put a lot of time and effort into.

Until next time.

Don’t forget to shut the gate.

When the water goes down…

I took a walk on the creek with the grandkids. It wasn’t quite what they expected. There wasn’t enough water to swim or skip rocks, but we spotted these interesting shapes in the bedrock.

These rock formations have always been covered with water.

Everyone had a theory. It made for some interesting conversation!

The guesses ranged from petrified trees to formations created by water currents to aliens.

After some internet searching Landon came back with an answer for our puzzle. These are called stromatolites. They are considered the world’s oldest fossil at 1.9 billion years old. The formation is created by colonies of bacteria that lived and died in an ancient ocean, leaving behind their petrified remains. They start out dome-shaped and erode over time to expose the rings.

Actual living stromatolites can be found in Australia, Florida and elsewhere. There is a lot of interesting information about stromatolites online.

So, we were standing on fossils 1.9 billion years old. How cool is that?

Until next time.

Don’t forget to shut the gate

D-R-O-U-G-H-T

This is the most terrifying word in a farmer/rancher’s vocabulary. Floods, storms with tornados, hail or lightning, blizzards, extreme cold, early frost or late frost; all these weather extremes happen routinely. They last from minutes to days, and then you deal with the aftermath.

But a drought, that is something else entirely. A drought starts slow. You watch the sky. You think it has to rain soon. You listen to the weatherman. Good chance of rain tomorrow, but it doesn’t happen. You look at the sky. You pray for rain. You check the radar. The grass crackles and crunches as you walk across it. You look at the sky. It gets drier and drier. The ponds get lower. The creeks run sluggishly. It rains, a little, it soaks into the hungry ground and disappears. Dust hangs in the air.

You watch the sky.

A true drought-not a dry spell – lasts for months and even years. This is a drought.

In 2023 the hay field made 28 bales. A two-digit number. Total.

In 2022 the hayfield made 212 bales.

Hang on to your hats. It’s going to be a rough year.

Until next time.

Don’t forget to shut the gate!

It is coming.

I know it’s hard to believe on a day when the thermometer reads 100 degrees and you could fry an egg on the hood of the tractor, but winter is coming.

So, what do we do to prepare? We bale hay, of course. From June to August, we get ready for winter.

Mowing

Raking

Jayce raked and I subbed in when necessary. It’s not a bad job in an air-conditioned tractor. The rake picks up a row of hay 27 foot wide (1 round for 3 of the mower) and throws it into a windrow about 3 foot wide for the baler.

Baling

Baling is the most complicated job, even with all the bells and whistles on balers now. The baler is set to wrap a 5-foot-wide and 5-foot-tall bale weighing about 1200 lbs. In a perfect world, you could make your windrows 5 feet wide and just drive in a straight line, but our world and our hayfields aren’t perfect. So, Mitch has to go back and forth to keep the bale the same size from one side to the other.

There are disadvantages and advantages to everything. The main disadvantage of a net-wrapped bale is the time it takes to remove and dispose of the netting. The benefits are the bale “keeps” better and longer (there is a lot less waste due to water damage on the outside of the bale-a significant savings) And the speed of baling – the baler only spins the bale 2.5 turns with net wrap versus app. 40 turns with string-tied bales.

Enjoy the heat. Winter will be here before you know it.

Until next time.

Don’t forget to shut the gate!

Total Confusion

Sometimes cows just make me scratch my head in confusion! Here is the story of one such time.

Cow #635 is a nice black motley-face 6-year-old cow. She had a pretty little heifer calf that looked just like her on Feb. 17th. Everything seemed to be fine.

Cow #5546 is a good black 7-year-old cow that has never been a problem. She had a nice black bull calf on Feb. 17th also. We tagged him shortly after he was born. They both walked off together when we were done.

This is #8804. She is a 4-year-old cow whose 14-year-old mom is still in the herd producing good calves. A long line of good mommas. #8804 had black heifer calf on 2/16/22.

2/21/22 – Making my rounds while Mitch fed hay, I noticed cow #8804 running around bawling like she had lost her calf. I looked for and found her heifer calf in the hay with everyone else. She didn’t seem upset at all. I chalked it up to 8804 getting confused about where she had left her calf and headed back to the house after looking through everything.

2/22/22 – Cow #8804 still seems upset. I pushed her to her calf. She seemed satisfied, even though the calf didn’t seem to care at all. Odd, very odd.

Hmmm, it isn’t unusual for cows to let other calves nurse, but this caught my eye because I remembered her motley-face heifer. I wasn’t worried about it. Little did I know what the next day would look like!

2/23/22 – I found heifer calf #635 trying to nurse from every cow she came to and bawling like she was lost. It happens, so I pushed her to her mama. She ignored the calf, even going so far as to push her away. Not normal at all. Mitch and I put the cow and calf together in the pen at the house. They both went to separate corners and bawled their heads off! What was going on???? We made the decision to pull the calf and put her on a nurse cow. We let #635 back out with the other cows to see what would happen. If she isn’t going to raise a calf she is headed to town!

Poor baby! Her mama doesn’t want her, so she gets stuck in a pen with a bunch of other calves and a cow that comes in twice a day to feed her but doesn’t love her.

#635 headed straight back to calf #5546. Hmmm, wonder what cow #5546 thinks about this?

She doesn’t seem upset at all. Because she has swiped cow #8804’s calf! What a mixed-up mess!

End of the story – #5546 is raising calf #8804, #635 is raising calf #5546, cow #8804 doesn’t have a calf and calf #635 is in the orphanage on a nurse cow! My head is still spinning!

I would love to know who started this. Was it #635? Did she decide she wanted a solid black calf (guess she hasn’t looked in a mirror)? Did #5546 think that #8804’s calf smelled better than her calf? I will never know what prompted the switch, but I know the losers are cow #8804 and calf # 635.

And I’m still scratching my head!

Until next time!

Don’t forget to shut the gate!

Spring Colors

Green has always been one of my favorite colors. But saying everything is green again is such an understatement. There are so many shades of green in the new leaves and the growing grass.

Sycamores – white with new green leaves. The dark green of cedars in the background.

Shades of green in the treetops with bright green grass at their feet.

And then you look closer and see the other colors starting to pop.

I do love spring. I hope you can get out and enjoy the spring colors.

Until next time!

Don’t forget to shut the gate!

Empty

Spring is really here. The place is empty, well, almost empty. The only cattle left are the bulls, the nurse cows and a few odds and ends. We spent the day moving the pairs to their summer pastures. Five guys with stock trailers made 5 trips each to get everything moved into 3 different pastures. In between loads Mitch, the boys and I continued sorting cows and calves or bringing in the next set to load. The biggest concern is always making sure we have the right cows with the right calves going to the right place! It was a long day.

Cows and calves have to be hauled separately, so the calves don’t get stepped on.

We haul the cows first because they can’t crawl out of the pen as easily as calves.

It is extremely loud as cows bawl for their babies and the calves cry for mom.

It never fails to amaze me that the mamas and babies can pick each other out in a pen full of bawling cows and calves, but somehow, they do. We leave them in the pen for about an hour, so everyone can settle down before kicking them into the pasture.

The place will be empty until fall when we start bringing everything back home again. The cycle continues – spring, summer, fall and winter. The cows are all happy to be out on grass and we are happy not to feed hay every day!

Until next time.

Don’t forget to shut the gate!

Wading through calves

Calves don’t know how to drive. You have to literally push them sometimes.

Spring is finally here. The cows and calves have to go through the chute to be “worked” before turn-out.

Bringing the cows up the alley and into the tub.

First the cows and calves have to be separated into different pens. Then we start on the cows.

Each cow goes through the tub and alley system into the chute. She is vaccinated with a pre-breeding dose of ViraShield 6 VL5HB to prevent Vibrio, 5 strains of Lepto, L. HarjoBovis, BVD, PI3, and BRSV. She is also dewormed with Long Range, vaccinated for pinkeye, and given a dose of MultiMin.

Then it’s on to the calves.

Lane watches the big boys push calves up to the calf table. He can’t wait until he is big enough to help them.

Calves received their vaccinations. They get 20/20 Vision 7 which covers pinkeye and 7 strains of Clostridium (blackleg), and they get Pyramid 5 plus Presponse which covers IBR, BVD, PI3, BRSV and 2 strains of pasteurella . Calves are also dewormed with Long Range. We band the bull calves and vaccinate for tetanus. All calves are ear notched and the notch is tested to identify Persistently Infected BVD calves (PI).

The boys took a break from pushing calves and worked the chute.

Jayce and Drake learned to band the bull calves and Tayten gives vaccinations.

Brandi stopped by and Justine put her to work notching the calves.

Relaxing on the fence. Notice the phone in Jayce’s hand. Can’t get away from the phones!

Worked and headed back out. In a week or two, depending on the weather, we will haul them out to their summer pastures.

Until next time!

Don’t forget to shut the gate!

Spring Burn

It’s that time of year. We burn several hundred acres of pasture, timber and glades to promote native grass and control brush every spring-weather permitting. It looked like it might be dry enough Sunday to get it done – if we could gather a crew and those clouds didn’t bring in showers. It was a questionable start but turned out to be a perfect burn day.

Lane manned the radio in the ranger with Brylee and Jayce. In an area with questionable cell service the radios make big difference.

Dustin is packing 3 gallons of water on his back and Carter has the four-wheeler with a sprayer.

Tim, Pam, Zac and a drip torch – ready to light things up.

Lunch is a sandwich while we keep burning.

The first thing we do is get a 1.5 mile perimeter burn done. Once that line is laid in we light the center up.

Jayce and Drake walk with the drip torch while Brylee follows to pick them up when they finish lighting up this area.

We had three big sprayers on the UTVS, backpack sprayers, shovels and rakes (Mitch had one in his hand the entire day). You might think 3 sprayers were a little much, but they all had to make trips back to the house for refills. Having enough people and equipment is a must for this kind of project.

The flames and the smoke make some amazing photos.

Sunlight trying to come through the smoke.

We finished the day exhausted, with aching feet, gritty eyes and smelling like smoke, but it was a fun day and a good burn.

Until next time.

Don’t forget to shut the gate.

Goodbye Winter!

Spring is right around the corner! Time for sunshine, warm days, green grass, gardening, and cookouts! But before I get too carried away here is a look back at winter 2021-22.

Enjoying the summer’s work on a cold day.

There is a lot of beauty in a Missouri winter.

Until next time.

Don’t forget to shut the gate!