The first FULL day of summer and The Farmer has been in the hay field for two weeks now. He and Neighbor Dave (who is also a farmer and retired) began doing custom hay baling last year for other neighbors. There’s not a lot of money to be made (like all farming adventures), but it does keep them busy and gives them a reason to buy more toys …uh…equipment.
They have been (mostly) fortunate with the weather. It takes 3 good days to cut, dry, and bale hay; they have had almost two weeks of dry weather. Of course, now we need rain because the fields are drying up.
Can you imagine what the Lord thinks about us farmers? First we pray for rain so the crops and hay will grow, then we pray for no rain so we can get in the crops and hay. And then we complain because it gets too hot and too dry for too long. No wonder Missouri’s weather changes so often—all those farmers praying for different weather conditions to fit into their own schedules!
The thing I like about summer, besides the fact that there is no snow, is the opportunity to get outside. I don’t really go outside just to be outside, but I do enjoy sitting on the front porch, and swimming. Our home is right-smack-dab in the middle of our field, so the cows are always around, which is usually an enjoyable experience. However, when The Farmer and I sneak a little alone time on the front porch swing, or I’m floating in solitude around the edge of the pool, the aroma of cow manure wafting in the breeze is not a pleasant experience.
This phenomenon doesn’t usually occur when it’s been so dry, so I confronted The Farmer with the problem. He offhandedly remarked that the “aroma” seemed to be coming from the east, which isn’t the norm, but unfortunately meant that it was coming from our barn lot.
Not that The Farmer needed any confirmation that he was right, which is the norm, but I found it anyway. Today as I was surfing the Net, I ran across this folklore in the Farmer’s Almanac:
calves watching out by the pool
We’ll see if it’s true or not…meanwhile, I’m considering planting some honeysuckle on the east side of the house to see if that will mask the “aroma”.
March is the start of our spring calving season, and we have had six baby girls so far. Last year we had all bull calves, but this year looks like it’s going to be a heifer haven!
The Farmer has been wanting to get some new heifers to replace some of our old cows (we have a couple that are almost 14 years old). The problem of replacing old cows with new cows is that the ones we are wanting are twice as much as the ones we are selling.
But since it looks like we are going to have a bumper crop of heifers this year, we have decided to keep several heifer calves and replace one bull. Otis (our bull) has been a great addition to the farm. He throws some mighty nice calves, and he’s so gentle that the kids can walk up to him and pet him.
The other advantage of keeping calves from a bull that we have had on the farm for years is that we know the heritage of our breeding cows. Background tracibility in cattle is very important when selling processed beef.
During calving season, we are always watchful. Although most of our cows are all seasoned pros (some too seasoned, as one is 13 years old!), problems still may arise during the birthing process. A calf may be too big, or turned wrong, or a heifer (first time mama) may not tap into her natural instinct and take care of that little wet thing she suddenly finds laying on the ground next to her.
The first calf born this season was born to a mama that had already calved 3 other times. I consider her a pro, so there shouldn’t have been any problems. And there wasn’t when she had the calf, but later, as The Farmer watched, he noticed that the calf was still in the same place where it had been born and that mama was too far away for safety’s sake. Upon further investigation, the cow just didn’t seem to be responsible at all. In fact, another cow was watching over her baby closer than she was. When the calf would get up to nurse, the cow seemed impatient and uncaring, walking away and kicking at her baby to get him to stop. Fortunately, he was very persistent and seems to be doing well now.
In the short video below, The Farmer is tagging the calf. Usually, he is looking over his shoulder hoping not to get mauled by an overprotective “mama bear”. However, even after her precious bundle of joy runs across the fence into the neighbor’s woods, this unconcerned mama is more interested with chewing her cud than keeping watch over her helpless newborn.
The calf continued to run over the next hill and through the fence.
After waiting around until almost dark to see if mama assumes her responsibility, The Farmer finally decided to intervene. He crossed the fence and began “mawing” like a baby calf (he’s quite good at “maw” calls). Finally, mama’s interest awakened enough for her to investigate. She came to the “rescue” about the time The Farmer coaxed the calf close enough to the fence that he poked his head through. Mama and baby were reunited and walked away without so much as a “howdy-do” or a “thank you” to The Farmer.
As I watched this unfold, I thought about human moms in general (I always compare cow mamas to human mamas, you wouldn’t believe how much we are alike) 🙂 This was a sad comparison, though. I thought about how some mamas have children and then seem too eager to abandon them. Having a baby is easy (I should know), but the endeavor of the day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month, year-to-year labor of raising children is the most important part of parenting.
When I saw the cow look up from her grazing and ignore the situation until the calf crossed the fence I grumbled, “It’s too late to care, now”. Nonetheless, that’s how some parents are. They allow their children to run, to make their own decisions, to watch out for themselves, while they are busy with work, or play, or whatever takes them away from their job of being the adult authority figure, and only show interest when they’re child crosses the line–gets into trouble, leaves home, or causes embarrassment to the parent.
If God has allowed you to be a parent, then be a parent. Be vigilant, watchful, alert when it comes to your children. Guard them against danger, difficulties, and error. Don’t ignore them until they cross over the fence and someone else has to chase them back. If you have had a child placed into your custody, then be a PARENT.
Protect them from being harmed or damaged (physically and emotionally)
Arm them with the tools they need to succeed
Require them to be responsible
Earn their respect by being a good role model
Notice them; they need your time and attention on a daily basis
Transfer them to their own life (allow them to move away) when you have finished raising them, by preparing them along the way
The Farmer and the vet from Crawford County Veterinary Clinic
We worked the cattle on Saturday, but today we had a visit from the vet. He was here to do a preg check on all the fall breeding cows. As each one went through the chute, the vet would tell us if they were pregnant and give as an approximate point of how far along they are.
We had 16 cows that needed to be preg checked. Unfortunately, two were open (not pregnant) and one of them was #11, the crazy cow that jumped the fence on Saturday. She jumped it again today. So we don’t know if she is bred or not.
The Farmer is not happy. 🙁 And well he shouldn’t be. This cow knows exactly what to do to get out, and she’s not soon to forget it. Our choices are to build a higher fence, give her lead poison, or wait until she’s too old to jump. We can’t afford to build higher and lead is too scarce, so I guess we’ll just have to wait until she gets too old.
Working cattle is always a learning experience, and this year when we worked our herd we learned a lot.
We learned that it pays to be prepared and organized.
As each cow or calf comes through the alley, we have to be prepared with what we are going to do to them. They are all given a fly tag (to ward off flies), treated for lice, grubs and other unwanted parasites, vaccinated against pink eye, and various other infectious viruses, and then weighed. Our calves also get a shot to prevent respiratory problems and blackleg, which can actually wipe out a whole year of calves. Fortunately this disease is preventable with vaccination. So these shots and tags all have to be kept separated and organized.
We learned that sometimes it takes several hands to do one job.
Although the Farmer is very proficient in what he does, he just can’t be in three places at one time. As the cattle go through the alley way someone has to encourage them along, and someone else has to open the sliding gate and shut it behind each cow or calf, and then the Farmer shuts the head chute at just the right moment.
We learned that a 13 year-old farmer’s daughter is not a big enough threat to keep a 1500 lb. cow from going over the fence.
Usually a cow’s moo is worse than their bite, so we had Daughter #5 standing at the top of the gate to ward off any wayward cow that may have gotten a crazy idea of trying an escape while they were in the holding pen. And it worked. Although we had a crazy cow escape (#11), she didn’t go through the gate; she jumped over the fence! Well, she jumped on the fence, it broke, and then she went over. But still the same result. Several years ago we had a similar incident in a sort of make-shift lot that we used to work our cattle in. So when we built our existing lot, we purposefully built it high enough so a cow could not go over (or so we thought until this year). The crazy thing jumped a couple of times and then finally busted through the boards and went right over, like she was a trained horse or something. Whatever…she didn’t get a fly tag so I hope she gets bitten by a great big horse fly!
And the final thing we learned this year is working cattle in the rain is no fun at all!
Although the day started out a little nippy, the sun soon came out and we were plenty warm about a half hour into the process. Unfortunately, the sun was overtaken by some ominous looking rain clouds and it began to pour. It didn’t take long before we were all soaked and covered in mud, which wasn’t too bad because it washed away some of the manure that we were all covered in from working the silly cattle in the first place. They are so uncouth.
Son #4 setting up the scales so we can weigh the cattle. Our largest cow weighed 1550 lbs. and our largest fall calf weighed 732 lbs.
Daughter #5 still holding her post after the rain had let up a little. Notice she’s staring down one of the mama cows.
If you look closely, you can see Son #1 and the Farmer separating the spring cows and their babies from the fall calves.
All the cows and calves have been separated and will soon be back on the pasture.
The best thing about spring is seeing all the signs of the new life that is beginning to appear at this time of year.
Seeing the grass sprouting up through the cold ground, the new blossoms on the trees, the soft sounds of the wind, the chirping of the birds, the warmth of the sunshine—I could almost burst out into song! (You should be thankful there is no sound) 🙂
One of the greatest things about living on the farm is being able to see our calves being born. Unfortunately, three of our heifers did not
calf this spring so we are down from what we had expected. The birthing season has ended and we only have nine calves.
Although it was not the number we were expecting, we had a successful season. A couple of our calves were born during the frigid weather when winter would not turn loose of spring, and at times we wondered if they were going to make it. Seeing a brand new, wet, cold, shaking baby calf fall to the ground of a snow covered field is at times unsettling. However, the fortitude those babies have are nothing less than miraculous! It doesn’t take them long to nuzzle up to mamma and warm their little bodies.
Often the baby calves huddle together when laying out in the field. I tried to sneak up on them to take a picture, but they were too quick for me. As soon as they saw me coming they started getting up.
Oh well, I’ll get a closer picture next time. Once it gets a little hotter,
