Feeding at Night

My family, being relatively new to the beef cattle business, has had to take everything day-by-day. My parents had a cattle background, from their dairy farm, but the two types of cattle raising are completely different. As a family, we've learned most things through trial and error. Of course, we have always had a great group of neighbors to give us advice and, often times, hands-on instruction. But I'd like to think that being first- and second-generation ranchers, we have had an opportunity to find a new way to do things. It always helps to look at something from a new perspective. One major thing that has changed since most of the neighboring families started ranching: the internet was invented. At least once a week I find myself on Google looking up something farm and ranch related. One of the techniques that Google has provided my family with is feeding cattle at night during calving season. There's something about feeding at night that delays calving until morning. For the most part, that is. For example, this calving season, we have only had one calf born at night. This particular calf was a stillborn, so that leads me to believe something was probably wrong that caused the cow to start calving. Even so, I know a lot of the ranchers around here who feed their cattle early in the morning during calving season. It's the way they've always done it and the way they always will. I think it's easy to get caught up in traditions like that without thinking about how it effects other segments of the business. I know a lot of the methods used by my neighbors are tried and true, but I still can't help but think that sometimes it might benefit them to break tradition.

Here's a link to one of the articles I've found on the effects of night feeding: http://www.cattlenetwork.com/cattle-news/Night-time-versus-day-time-feeding-influences-time-of-calving-135874173.html

Quick Update

I went to Billings, MT yesterday and attended a Blake Shelton and Justin Moore concert. It was awesome! I'm going to do a longer post about it when I'm done recovering from the awesomeness. I even took pictures, so be prepared to see them soon.

The One-Eyed Dog

Our Australian Shepherd, Duke, recently got into a little trouble. One day a few weeks ago, he came limping back to the house. His left eye looked a little glazed over and his lip was torn. I don't know what happened for sure, but I have a sneaking suspicion he got cornered in the heifer pen and got stomped on a little bit. I thought the eye might get better, so I left it alone. His lip looked fine until I tried to super glue it back together. This is a trick I've used to avoid stitches for a minor cut on an animal. Unfortunately, at that point I realized the lip was torn all the way through and Duke would need stitches. It was too late to take him to the vet, so the next day I brought him in. Now, Duke has a small cataract in his right eye. So even though it only shows in one eye, he has glaucoma in both. The vet said that the trauma he received made the glaucoma in his left eye react, so he was now blind in that eye. She also said his lens was pushing to the front of his eye and causing him pain. That's when I found out that he had to have his eye removed. I almost cried. I realize I was probably overreacting but I felt so bad for him. This dog is the sweetest. He loves people so much. Today he even saved me from a heifer who tried to run me down! So anyway, the vet stitched his lip up and I scheduled an appointment to get his eye removed. I brought him in that morning and he had to be put under to have the surgery done. They thought he might have to stay the night, but by about 3:30 p.m. the vet clinic called and said I could come get him. He was not only loopier than a pet coon, but he had to wear a cone on his head to stop him from pawing his eye. He came out of the clinic rubbing his head on everything he could get to that might pull the cone off. No such luck. I brought him home and he's been on pain medicine and antibiotics. Everyday he would work his hardest to get the cone off until eventually it was too torn up to do any good, so I just took it off. He was pretty excited that day. Today we went in and Duke got all of his stitches removed. The vet said he's doing great. He's pretty well adjusted to life as a one-eyed dog, but he occasionally freaks out if something is in his face that he can't see. 

Duke and DJ. Duke's right foot is actually through the cone. Silly dog. 

All I can say is, I hope he learned his lesson. 

P.S. How do you like DJ's new collar?!

Babysitter Cows and Baby Calves

I'm not sure if every herd is like this, but we have certain cows who like to babysit the calves. The mamas of those calves graze further off and return to the calves to feed them. Then, we have cows who prefer to distance themselves and their calves from the herd. I guess its all in their parenting style, huh?

Two Babysitter Cows and a Few Calves

A Loner Cow and Her Calf. How cute are the little black baldies!?

A Mama, a Calf, and Two Soon-to-be Moms

A Mama Eating Hay and the Baby Relaxing

Bizarre Montana Laws

I have heard a lot about state, local, and city laws that are outdated or don't really make any sense. It turns out Montana has a lot of them, so I thought I'd share. I warn you that some are just crazy, while others might be considered offensive. This is just for fun, so I hope I don't offend anyone.

State of Montana
Prostitution is considered an offense against the family.
One may not pretend to abuse an animal in the presence of a minor.
It is illegal to have a sheep in the cab of your truck without a chaperone.
It is a felony for a wife to open her husband's mail.
It is a misdemeanor to show movies that depict acts of felonious crimes.
It is illegal for married women to go fishing alone on Sundays, and illegal for unmarried women to fish alone at all.
It is illegal for a man and woman to have sex in any other position than missionary.
Seven or more Indians is considered a war party and it is legal to shoot them.

Billings, Montana
No person shall raise pet rats.
Persons in possession of a "pea shooter" risk it being confiscated by the police.
It is illegal to bring a bomb or rocket to city council proceedings.
Bands who play in clubs where alcohol is served may not leave stage while performing.
It is illegal to use speed-dial in the city phone system.

So, there it is. A little bit of humor, I hope. I tried to verify them all, but I had a hard time finding what I consider factual sources. Anyway, my favorite is how it's apparently illegal for me to go fishing alone. Silly men. Anything you can do, we can do better, and alone. If you know of any wacky laws in your state, let me know! I love stuff like this.

Doing the Right Thing

I don't know if I've mentioned this, but my ranch is a commercial operation. We raise steers until they are around 6 months old and then sell them to a feed lot. Pretty soon we are also going to start selling first-cross Baldy bred heifers. I know there are some stigmas out there about commercial ranchers, and knowing some of the people I do, I can see where that comes from. The goal of my family, and especially me, is to give every animal on the ranch a happy, safe, healthy, and humane life. However short or long that life may be. I don't understand how you could work alongside livestock day after day and not develop an attachment to them. I can't help it, at least. If we have a sick or dying animal we always do everything we can to save it. If it can't be saved and it is in pain, we humanely end its life. We don't find any pleasure in this and every loss is an emotional and financial loss. There have been many times that we have lost a calf or a wonderful cow that I've cried. And don't get me wrong, the ranch is a business. We have a bottom dollar, but not at the expense of our livestock. One thing I've noticed is that when you treat your cows with kindness and work with them gently, they will be gentle and kind in return. I honestly take pride in the fact that I can walk out in the open pasture with the cows and they don't run away in fear. They stand there and continue eating. Some even come up to me to say hi. Of course, you will always have a crazy one, or two. That can't be changed. At the same time, I have neighbors who have all crazy cows. These cows aren't naturally crazy, they're afraid of what happens to them when they are worked or being moved or whatever. Some ranchers think that they can abuse their cattle and it doesn't make a difference. It does. A 1500 pound animal that is afraid is a lot more likely to cause problems than one that is content. There is a marked difference between the way our cattle behave compared to the more aggressive cattlemen. Even so, there are always times when you can't help but to be a little aggressive with the cows. I find that these times are usually when a cow could get hurt, like trying to push through a barbed wire fence to get to hay. In fact, one of my cows aborted this year not long after she jumped a hay pen fence. Now if I see a cow in a hay pen I get anxious. Once they get a taste of it, they keep wanting to go back for more, even if they almost kill themselves in the process. Anyway, I just got to thinking about how I honestly love ranching and if hurting the animals in any way would make me a million dollars, I still wouldn't do it.
"The truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do. The hard part is doing it." -General Normal Schwarzkopf

When All Else Fails, Use a Four Wheeler

I have yet another Michelle is the Bravest of Them All story for you. I know what you're thinking, could she possibly get anymore fearless? The answer is; heck yes. Yesterday, as my mom and I were on our afternoon walk, we discovered three renegade cows in one of our hay yards. The gate was wide open so I can only assume it was operator error on my brothers' parts. One of these particular cows belongs to me, so I assume that she probably started it all. She really loves alfalfa, can you blame a girl?! So, in pure determination to show those cows who is boss, I handed my water to my mom. With a steely gaze told her, "I got this." I marched into the hay pen with my ferocious cow dog, DJ at my side. I came around and started to push them out. My cow and another cooperated and started back out right away. The third cow, however is a little... skittish. Yea, that's the word. I'd say crazy, but she's really not. She just doesn't like people or dogs, especially not in close proximity to her. Especially when they are trying to chase her away from a perfectly good meal of alfalfa hay bales. As the other two cows are headed out, this one was looking me straight in the eye. All I could think is, she's more afraid of you than you are of her. That's what they always say anyway. I moved closer and she just stood there, looking at me with a menacing expression. So I moved closer again. This time I told my wickedly ferocious cattle dog to attack her. He just looked at me. Oh yea, I haven't gotten to that part of his training yet. Then I did what all cattlemen (cattlewomen?) do when they can't get a cow to move by sheer intimidation. I yelled at her! I told her to get her big old butt out of that pen before I came back with the four wheeler and chased her down! It worked. She ran like heck. You shoulda seen the look on her face. I was glad that I could finish my walk with some pride of a job well done. As I walked away from the pen though, I noticed that same cow go back to the pen and try to push through the barbed wire. So then I came back with the four wheeler and chased her down. Hey, I warned her.

The Foreman and the Night Shift

Everyone who has ever lived on a ranch has probably had the night shift of cow checking during calving season, unless they are very lucky. I have been doing it every single night, except three, since the end of February. Now, how did I get stuck with this job? Well, it's pretty simple. My mom, my two younger brothers, and myself all live on the ranch full-time. My sister is off at college still and my dad works out of town. My mom is an early to bed, early to rise type. It was obvious she was going to be early morning checker. Of my two brothers, one is in out of high school and the other is still in high school. The oldest of the younger brothers is neither a night owl or an early morning type. He's what I like to call a middle-of-the-dayer. So he gets the middle of the day until evening shift. Now, my baby brother is actually being home schooled right now by yours truly, but that's a whole other story. So the high schooler is out for basically any checking during the week. On the weekends however, he is the go-to man if my mom, brother, or I need a break. So that leaves me. I get stuck with the night shift. Can you say short end of the stick?! Sometimes I complain about this because we all know I'm the foreman of this here ranch! Unless my dad is home, then I allow him to have a little say. Just a little. The foreman part is basically true. My cousin from Minnesota even commented about how I "run this place". I take care of all the bills, handle the finances, do a lot of the cleaning and most of the cooking, always take care of any type of cattle work preparation, and then, of course, do just as much (or more) manual labor as those dang men around here. Pretty sure this whole operation would fall apart without me. I guess that's part of the reason I came home.

But, even the foreman has to make a few sacrifices, such as night calving. When dealing with the night shift, you need to figure out how you can do it best. Everyone is different, so everyone approaches it a different way. I know some people who like to sleep in between checks and set their alarm. I know people who just magically wake up when its time to check... or so they say *suspicious look*. Obviously, neither of these methods have ever, or will ever work for me. I am the type that needs to stay up the entire time. I just know the second my head hits that pillow for a little "nap" I will not be waking back up. So I just stay up and use the time I have alone to, well, be alone. For once. It's marvelous. Sometimes I get to watch TV, or I blog, or read a book. An actual book! Like I said, I'm busy. But, to be completely honest, I usually work on homework. Yea, I'm the crazy person getting a degree to work on a ranch. I'm also getting my real estate license. When will I ever have time to sell a dang house, or ranch, or anything? I have no idea. Maybe I'll just stop sleeping completely. I can sleep when I'm dead, right?

Distressed Cow Sounds

Well, tonight I was doing my cow checking thing as usual. When I walked out to check the heifers I heard a cow bellaring VERY loudly. It kind of scared me because I thought maybe a cow had gotten into the yard and was planning on attacking me, kung fu cow style. Okay, I realize I was being irrational, but I tend to get a little more irrational at one in the morning, in the dark. So I decided to just finish checking the heifers then try and figure out where the distressed cow was. There weren't any calves and the heifers weren't even trying to think about calving. They were all calmly munching hay. So that's good. Then I tried to listen and see where the sound of the cow was coming from. I couldn’t tell exactly, but all of the cows are in large pen behind the house. I decided to check them, in the safety of my vehicle. Ya know, just in case. I drove around the pen and found all of the cows calmly munching hay, just like the heifers. I rolled down my window to listen for the cow and could barely hear her, so I figured I was moving farther away. I then went back into the yard and listened a little more. The cow was being equally dramatic as before, and she sounded close, but I knew it wasn't one of ours at least. The weird part is the neighbors on the west side of the property line don't have cows anymore. All I can guess is that another neighbor had a renegade cow who jumped a few fences. She probably got lost and couldn't find her herd, hence the distressed cow sounds I was hearing. I just went out again a few minutes ago to check again, and she's quieted down a bit. This is a problem I'm leaving until morning. You know, when it's light out.

The Case of the Missing Calf

The other night I was checking cows as usual. Out of no where I heard a calf bellaring. Confused, I set out to find the calf and hopefully help it. I thought I heard the calf coming from the barn, so I head over that direction. And there, outside the barn, between the wall and the stock tank, was the little grafted twin calf, screaming bloody murder. He has been inside the barn with his new mama because she was having a hard time accepting him completely. The barn doesn't have a real door, we just close it with a swinging gate. So it appears that the calf somehow escaped his pen, crawled under the barn gate, then got himself stuck between the stock tank and the barn. So I crawled in next to him, lead him to the gate, and pushed him under the gate. Then I went around to the other door into the barn to investigate. By the time I went around and got into the barn, the little bugger had escaped under the gate again. So I went back out and ushered him back into the barn, again. This time I went through the gate so that he couldn't sneak past me, again. When I turned back to close the gate, my brother's horse was right in my face trying to see what was going on. He frightened me and I think I about had a heart attack. So I closed the gate and headed inside. All of the lights were off in the barn, which is strange because we usually leave them on at night if cows are in there. As I looked around, I realized that the calf's mama was also loose. Now, this cow isn't exactly the gentlest cow. To be frank, she scares the crap out of me. I tried to get the lights to work to no avail. Turns out all of the bulbs were burnt out. So there I was, in the pitch black, holding back an upset calf, and trying to avoid a crazy cow. Unfortunately, the rest of my family was sleeping so I knew I would have to safely get the cow and calf back into their pen alone. While standing over the calf so he wouldn't escape, I basically pushed the mother cow back into the pen. As soon as she got in she turned around and tried to come back out. The only way out would be over me, so I'm happy to say that she changed her mind. So then I pushed the little one into his pen with the cow. Do I know how they managed to open the gate to their pen? No idea. I guess I'll never know. Anyway, all was well again and I managed to do it all by myself. Last night I even got a break from night calving because my brothers said I deserved it for doing so well. So basically the moral of the story is: I rock.

The Case of the Grafted Calf

As you know, we had a set of twins the other day. Yesterday we began the process of grafting the smaller twin calf to a mama cow who had lost her calf. This particular cow is, to say the least, a little wild. I want to tell you that my family and I pride ourselves on having a ridiculously tame herd. You can literally feed at least half of our herd by hand. We achieve this by feeding out our heifer calves that we keep back for cows. From the time the heifer calves come home from pasture in the fall, until they go out to pasture in the summer, they are fed in a pen. Everyday someone goes out and feeds them some grain or cake. Eventually, they start to greet you at the gate to get their grain. They heifer calves grow into full-grown cows who will still come up to you and expect food. This year, we bought some first-year heifers to build our herd a little quicker. Some of these soon-to-be mother cows are very tame, but others, like the one I referred to before, are not. So, the wild cow was about to get a new baby. The first thing we did to graft the calf was put the cow in a head catch in the barn. We milked her and fed the little guy a few times yesterday and again once this morning, just to be sure he was getting enough to drink. Once the cow's milk made its way through the calf, he started smelling like his new mama. At this point, she started allowing him to drink on his own a little bit. Unfortunately, she's still a little wild. Every time we tried to check on her in the barn she would disregard the calf and start running around in a circle in her maternity pen. The only way we know he is getting anything to drink is pretty much because he's still alive. He would have starved to death by now if he wasn't getting milk. I'm glad to say we can call the grafting a success.

The little guy.

The new mama. Terrible picture, I know. I'll take another I promise. 

Twins on Super Tuesday

First, I'd like to say that I've been having problems posting consistently. I'm pretty busy. Honestly, haven't even opened my computer since the last time I posted. So, I'm making a commitment to do better. I think I'm going to post at least one day of the week. Probably on Wednesday, because its the middle of the week and just feels right. I will still randomly post other days. Hopefully this works better! :)

In the six years my family has been ranching in Southeastern Montana, we've only had two sets of calves. One set was born about four years ago. It was a fraternal pair, one heifer and one bull. Unfortunately, when opposite-sex twins are born, the heifer has a 92% likelihood of being sterile. This heifer is called a freemartin heifer. Our second set of twins was born today. It was two bulls and they were actually identical. Pretty cool, huh? They were born to one of our first-year heifers, which I thought was interesting. I've never really heard of it happening. I mean, they have a hard time with one calf!! The first little bull calf born was pulled by a calf puller and the other just kinda fell out. The mama cow (she's a cow now that she's had her first calf) won't be able to produce enough milk to support both calves. Eventually one of them, probably the little one, will be kicked off the cow and will starve to death. Strangely enough, three days ago we had a still born calf. The cow is still producing milk, so we are going to try to graft one of the calves to her. That will be tomorrow's adventure and hopefully it works. I went out and snapped pictures right away after the calves were born. I was proud of myself for thinking about it! I also took some more pictures when I went out to check cows tonight.

They were only minutes old in this picture. 

The mama was probably thinking something along the lines of "There's two of them!?"

I'm a terrible photographer... but here they are from late tonight. 

 In other news, it was Super Tuesday today. I didn't want this to be a political blog, but I think there are some things to be said. Personally, I'm not a huge fan of any of the candidates. I realize that no matter what, no person is perfect, which means that no candidate can be perfect. It looks like Romney took Virginia, Massachusetts, Vermont, Idaho, and probably Ohio. Santorum took North Dakota, Oklahoma, and Tennessee. Gingrich took Georgia. Wyoming and Alaska haven't been completely reported. That being said, I do feel like Americans are ready to head in a different direction. But, I'll leave it at that. I'm not one to stand on a soap box and preach about things that I'm not an expert on.

Caffeine Addict

I'll just come right out and say it, I come from a long line of addicts. Caffeine addicts, that is. We love caffeine. We love coffee. We love mountain dew. Ok, I love mountain dew, the rest of the clan likes it. Anyway, I think I can admit that we have a problem. Caffeine is drank at our house pretty much all day long, rain or shine. I know that my caffeine addiction started at a very early age. What? You say. Doesn't caffeine stunt growth? You say. Well, I can't say for sure but I stand a healthy 5'8" and I'm the shortest of the clan. Yes, even my baby brother is taller than me now. Darn it all! As I was saying, when I was younger I would always try to drink my grandpa's coffee. So one day he decided to fix me a bottle of coffee. I know, this all sounds so wrong. The bottle was about 90 percent milk, I'm sure, with maybe a dash of sugar. But, by golly, I was hooked. My early caffeine addiction was also helped along by the fact that my grandma always let me drink her Diet Pepsi. Lately I've been trying to cut down to one cup of coffee a day and one (or less) can of pop, aka mountain dew, cause that's the only kind worth drinking. (Except root beer with ice cream and coke with whiskey).It's been difficult to cut down because I start to get headaches at around 5 in the evening if I haven't had much caffeine that day. Not fun. Today I only had one cup of coffee and I feel pretty good, so I think my evil plan is working. Muahahaha!! Haha. Ha… Too much? Well, I better get off of cyberspace because I gotta go check some cows. Peace and Blessings.

P.S. Starbucks is overrated :)