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Thursday, November 15, 2012

Montana Farm Bureau Convention

This week I've been in Billings at the Montana Farm Bureau Convention. This was my first convention and I really enjoyed myself. The purpose of the convention is to get all of the counties together. The first day we did a few classes, but after that pretty much the rest of the time was dedicated to policy development. On the county level I had put through four pieces of policy. They were:

We support legislation that designates acquiring a job under false pretenses as an illegal activity.
We believe it is the responsibility of the state, federal, or local government to clearly mark all boundaries and fence lines surrounding public lands.
We support legislation requiring that any boundary or fence line not specifically marked as public land shall be presumed to be private land and illegal to enter without the consent of the owner(s).
We support legislation that requires any allegation of animal cruelty to be reported within 10 days of the incident.

As many land owners know, especially those in areas with good hunting, your land is very easily trespassed upon. A lot of people around here own section after section and they can't possibly keep an eye on everything. I was hoping to use the second and third resolutions as a way to punish trespassers more harshly as well as create responsibility for the federal government when it comes to clearly labeling public lands. Unfortunately, neither of those passed on the State level.

The other two resolutions were in regards to groups such as PETA and the Humane Society of the United States. Both of these animal rights groups and many others have began the practice of sending members to obtain jobs on farms and ranches in order to "catch" animal cruelty. They may video tape or take pictures of the farmers and ranchers working. Then they are known to photo shop the pictures or make new videos that can be easily misconstrued as  animal cruelty. In reality, these groups are not actually worried about the welfare of animals. They truly want to hurt agriculture, especially in the areas of dairy, meat, and eggs.

 Only the last piece of legislationg was passed on the State level. Mostly they disagreed with the wording of the policies, so I think I will put them through again next year with different wording. At the county meeting a few months ago I was actually voted on the Policy Development Committee as well as the Young Farmers & Ranchers Committee. At the convention I met some new people, learned a lot, and was given some great ideas on policy for next year.

Every year at convention, a few of our young farmers and ranchers compete in a discussion meet, which is basically an informal debate. They are given a topic, usually a problem facing agriculture, and they talk about the problem. The winner wins a trip to the National Convention to compete in a discussion meet with fellow state winners. I decided to be a spectator at the state discussion meet this year but I'm definitely going to compete next year.

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Preg Checking

Preg checking is, you guessed it, checking the cows to see if they are pregnant or not. You also look for late cows or early cows. An early cow could calve too early in the winter and lose her calf in snow. A late cow will have a smaller calf at shipping and the next year she will probably breed later again. Preg checking is something most, if not all, ranchers in Southeastern Montana do. Let's face it, we don't need anymore dead weight around here, especially with our drought-like conditions and all of the grazing lost to fire. Oh yea, we haven't talked about the fires yet, have we? Alright, that can wait for another day. Anyway, because we have a spring calving schedule, we preg check the cows and heifers in the late fall or early winter. This is the best time for the vet to get a good idea of due dates and for everyone not to freeze their butt off too much!

The first time I had the pleasure of preg checking this year was with my boyfriend's family. My boyfriend and I have been dating for about six months now and he comes from a ranching family too. Anyway, the first time we EVER worked cows together was actually about two weeks before we preg checked. We were helping his family pre-condition the calves that were to be sold. So let me tell you, my boyfriend has never even considered raising his voice to me- he's not that kind of guy. But.... let me tell you something else. His family apparently gets just a little crazy around cows. And yes, I know first hand about getting crazy around cows. I come from crazy family numero uno. We yell, we fight, we get over it. The thing is my brother can yell at me and I'm like "Oh duh, there's a cow right there trying to escape" or something. However, when my boyfriend yells at me I think in my head, "Is he talking to me? Why is he yelling at me? What am I doing wrong? HOW DARE HE YELL AT ME!!?!" So... as you can imagine, the first time any cattle-related yelling involved my boyfriend and I, one of us was just a teeny bit upset. *cough cough* In his defense a calf was trying to jump over the alley, and he was worried for my safety. Still, I was upset. And I may or may not have told him that I was never working cows with him again because he's mean and terrible. Okay I definitely told him that. Then I pouted for the rest of the day.

So when he told me his parents wanted help AGAIN my first reaction wasn't no, it was heck no. Then I reconsidered because I didn't really want to spend the day without him and he promised he would be nice and not terrible. So we did round 2, and there was the same amount of yelling, although less directed at me. Everything turned out alright, and we lived happily ever after. Or something like that ;) All in all, his parents' cows tested well. I think they had around 10 open from about 350 head. Those are good numbers on a normal year, and really great numbers for the dry year we've had.

A few weeks ago I preg checked with my parents. We used a tub, which is possibly the best invention, like, ever. A tub is basically a half-moon entrance into an alley with a swinging door. You open the door, push a few cows in, close to the door behind them and push them up into the alley and into the chute. BAM! Super efficient. It's a lot less stressful for the cows and it just goes so much smoother than a regular alley and chute. All in all the herd of my parent's that we check were good. We had a few lates and then maybe 5 opens out of 175 head. None of my cows have been checked yet, because they were in another pasture and we are doing them separately sometime this month. I hope they all check alright, but I'm a little worried that my coming 3 year-old might be open since she aborted after jumping the fence last year. I guess we will see huh? Well anyway, it's past my bedtime and I have about a kazillion things to do tomorrow.