The Adventures of Gate Girl

Preg check time!

We are pregnancy checking our cows today! This is a make or break day for a cow herd. A low breed back rate can signal disease, poor nutrition or bull problems. It also means a huge financial loss. I didn’t sleep well last night just thinking about it. This is how the day went.

7 am – We are out the door to gather the cows. The weather is not nice! A high of 28 and a couple inches of snow on the ground! Mitch pulled all 310 in a 10 acre pasture next to the pens yesterday with the tractor and hay. Today he hits the siren on the feed truck and most of the cows come running while I follow on the four wheeler. After we penned the good cows there is still 50 head out. It’s mostly older cows who have been through this before. Older females are just smarter. We take two four wheelers and start working them in. They keep trying to get away, but they finally go in!

They were easy to pull out of the big pasture with hay because of the snow, but that’s the only thing good about it!

8:30 am – We are gathering up meds and getting everything set. The cows will get a shot of Guardian, a vaccination that gives scour protection to the calves the cows are carrying. They will also be dewormed with Cydectin pour-on.

9 am – The vet, Dr. Melissa DePriest and the three guys who will help today pull in. We spend a little time getting the ultrasound machine set up. Ready to start!

Mitch runs the chute, Adam gives the shot and pours right after the doctor calls bred or open, I keep track of breds/opens and write new ear tags to replace the faded ones.

Cody and Luke feed us cows in a steady line.

It’s a dirty job, but that’s the life of a large animal vet.

The ultrasound is amazing. Take a close look at this picture. It is a calf’s head. You can see the eye socket and the nose!

11:30 am – We have done 160 cows with only a few of the usual problems, a cow that thinks if she crawls through the chute we won’t see her, the one who goes in really slow then takes off like a runaway train so you miss her head and the one who tries to push through the head gate until she chokes herself. Nothing unusual. Time for lunch. I’ve got a pot of hot beef stew and sandwiches in the warm house!

12:15 pm – Back outside. It was kind of hard to leave the warm house. My toes had just started to thaw!

4 pm – We are done! It looks good. I have kept a rough count, but now it’s time to take a better look.

26 open out of 310. That’s a 92% breed back! We are very pleased with that result!

Everything is cleaned up, cattle turned out and hay unrolled. Time to go in and warm up!

Until next time!

Don’t forget to close the gate.

What is a gate girl?

Gate girls aren’t super-heroes. We are ranch women. Also know as the “hired-hand”, “the right-hand” and a few other names that pop out in high stress situations!

We don’t get to wear a cool cape or mask, unless you count the camo face mask I wear when the wind chill is negative 10.

We unchain, unwire, untie, swing, drag or carry gates so that trucks, tractors and livestock can go through them.

It doesn’t matter if the dust is blowing, the rain falling or the snow flying. It doesn’t matter if the mud is so deep you lose your boots or the ice is so thick that you have to beat the gate chain loose with a hammer. The work has to be done. The livestock is waiting…for you.

We take care of babies, we feed the hungry and we nurse the sick. Fur, feathers or skin…it doesn’t matter. We care for all of them. We are there at 2 am when a calf has to be pulled, we are knee deep in ice cold water helping repair water-gaps and we are there bright and early waiting for the door to unlock at the parts store. We help build fence, repair machinery and bale hay. We are that second pair of hands that everyone wishes for sometimes. We also do the laundry, pay the bills and keep the books. We clean up mud, blood, manure and oil. And then we clean some more.

Hmmm, maybe we are superheroes.

Is it worth it? Sometimes it’s hard to remember when you are checking cows at 2:00 in the morning and it’s 15 degrees with blowing snow, but it is all worth it.

And grandchildren playing in the water!

Yup, it’s definitely worth it.

Until next time.

Don’t forget to close the gate!

Thanksgiving

So much food! Thanksgiving is all about family and food. We had lots of both! Our three out-of-state kids and their families made it home for the holiday so the house was overflowing. Now the house is quiet and the refrigerator is full of leftovers. That refrigerator made me think about the abundance of food we have in this country so I did some looking at agriculture numbers.

Thanksgiving Dinner Numbers

46 million Thanksgiving turkeys
40 million green bean casseroles
50 million pumpkin pies
250 million pounds of potatoes (all varieties)
142 million pounds of cranberries
Average cost of a 2019 Thanksgiving dinner for 10 people $48.91 – 4.89/person

Food accounts for 12% of a. U.S. household monthly expenses. Compare that to France at 25%, Germany at 22%, U.K. 27%, Turkey 36% and Spain 31%. We truly have a lot to be thankful for!

Plates full of food! Tables covered with pies and cakes. This is my parents house full of family! This is what happens when you have eight children, 25 grandchildren, 7 great-grandchildren then add in spouses. Not much elbow room at the dinner table! 53 people came to dinner and no one left hungry!

Agriculture is a big part of our economy. In 2018 exported ag products added up to 139.6 billion dollars. Cattle, corn and soybeans are the top exports. Farming accounts for 1% of the U.S. GDP. When you add all ag and related industries (timber, food processing/service, textiles, leather and stores selling ag goods) that amounts to 11% of U.S. employment – 21.6 million people.

Family farms produce 87% of all ag products sold in the U.S.
98% of all farms/ranches in the U.S. are owned by families and family partnerships/corporations.
The average American farmer feeds 166 people!
There has been a 34% decrease in soil erosion since 1982.
There has been a 40% decline in the amount of feed it takes to produce 100 pounds of milk in the last 40 years.
Corn yield per acre has increased 360% since 1950.
More than 1/2 of American farmers intentionally provide habitat for wildlife.
56% of all farms have at least 1 female decision maker and the number of Hispanic and African American farmers continues to increase each year.
The number of beginning farmers, less than 10 years experience, has increased to 25%, but their average age is 46 years old. 1/3 of all farmers/ranchers are over the age of 65.

Agriculture has a lot to be proud of, but I also found some disturbing numbers.

In 2018 15 cents of every dollar spent by consumers on food went back to the farmer/rancher. The balance of that dollar went to processing, marketing, transportation and distribution.

In 1980 farmers and ranchers received 31 cents of every dollar.

The small family farm and ranch will disappear if we continue to see those margins decrease. The shift to larger operations simply reflects the economies of scale. You have to get bigger to survive.

Currently less than 2% of the U.S. population is connected to agriculture. Misunderstandings are a common problem between the agriculture community and the 98% non-ag population.

You can find more interesting and thought provoking stats on the USDA and American Farm Bureau Foundation sites.

Take a good look in your refrigerator and pantry and be thankful for the men and women who struggle 365 days a year with the weather, low markets and high inputs. Stand up for the American farmer and rancher when someone criticizes agriculture. These guys work hard to feed you and the world!

Until next time.

Don’t forget to shut the gate.

Young Ladies

It cost the same amount to keep a bad cow as it does to keep a good one. The difference between the two is what is left in your pocket after you, hopefully, sell her calf. With that thought in mind we constantly work to improve the genetics of our herd. Bred heifers are an important part of that continued improvement.

Each year at weaning we start taking notes on the heifer calves. We cull hard for disposition. We want calm, easy to handle heifers. We can’t climb fences as fast as we did twenty years ago, but honestly no one should have to climb a fence when you work cattle. We also look at her birth date, her dam & sire and her general appearance.

The 2019 young ladies. They will be next year’s bred heifers.

The heifers spend the winter on pasture. We want them to age and add frame, but not put on a lot of extra weight. The goal is to be positioned so that when the grass greens up the heifers start packing on pounds(a gaining plane) and are ready to breed.

Most years in May we AI(artificially inseminate) heifers and then turn in clean up bulls. We choose bulls that produce calves that are easy to give birth to and carry the kind of genetics we want to add to the herd. The heifers are vaccinated in the spring for Vibrio and Lepto including hardjo-bovis. These diseases cause abortions and infertility. They are spread during breeding by the bulls or an infected fetus. Several years ago we had an outbreak of Lepto hardjo-bovis that resulted in a preg check rate of only 68% on a set of cows! Don’t make the assumption that what you have been using forever is the best current vaccine for your area. Check with your vet! The heifers are dewormed with Long Range. This year the heifers spent the summer in the Kansas Flint Hills on bluestem. All the breeding was done natural service by bulls put in on May 9th.

The 2018 girls – this year’s bred heifers. They start calving on Feb. 15th.

We hauled the heifers home in August and pregnancy checked them using a blood test. We had 91 heifers bred in 56 days (92%). Now they are turned out on pasture here in Missouri, growing everyday, becoming mama cows instead of heifer calves.

The 2017 heifers. They have now weaned their first calf and are carrying their second.

The 2017 heifers are now young cows. We weaned their first calves in Sept. Now they are gaining weight as we head into winter and getting ready to have that second calf.

Heifer 7410 and heifer 7021 both raised nice steer calves. We hope they do as well with their second calves!

Until next time.

Don’t forget to close the gate!

Kindergarten Calves-Weaning Time

Cool nights, warm days, colorful leaves, spider webs, stick-tights and bawling calves. Fall is definitely here. It’s time to wean.
Weaning is stressful to cows, calves and caretakers. We do everything we can to make it easy on everyone.
First the calves have to be separated from the cows, loaded on trailers and hauled home from the pastures they spent their summer on. This is done as calmly and quietly as possible so no one including the caretakers lose it. It doesn’t always work out that way but we try.IMG_0961 Calves walking off the trailer.
The bawling mamas walk in and out of the pen where they last saw their calves for several days then they go back to grazing and totally forget they ever had a calf. Weaning the calf means the cow doesn’t have to give milk so she can gain weight on the good fall grass and go into winter in good shape. That makes the calf she is carrying healthier and lets her breed back early next summer.
The calves go in a pipe corral where they pace and bawl for three or four days. We have to sleep with the windows closed because it is so loud!
It’s a lot like sending a child off to kindergarten.

A crying calf or kindergartner, they are both unhappy that mom isn’t there and they’re frightened of all the new sights and sounds.

A bus/trailer ride, eating different food at a cafeteria table/feed bunk surrounded by kids/calves they don’t know, they have to come when the whistle/siren blows and they have to be vaccinated!

Just like kindergarten!

After the calves have settled down for 4 or 5 days we vaccinate them with a modified live IBR/BVD/PI3 with pasteurella and a combination blackleg/pinkeye. We also deworm with a pour-on. The calves will get a booster in about 21 days.

Within a week the calves are out in a big pasture, eating hay, coming to the call of the siren and very happy!

Now we can relax, too!

One last thing, don’t stress out about crying kindergarten children. That little boy in the picture that cried everyday for a week as he got on the bus to kindergarten, he is now a college professor. I think it’s safe to say he got over his fear of school!

Until next time.
Don’t forget to shut the gate!