Farmerjan's journal - Weather

Mini Horses

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Big ole Hereford ! Did she have a black calf? I know that black brings more there, so a lot of angus bulls used. Personally, I like the hereford coloring.

I see you're still getting too much "wet" also. However, if the temps would stay up our grasses would be awesome!! Some of mine is showing promise for early pasture cover. That would be nice.
 

farmerjan

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@Mini Horses the hereford actually has a hereford looking calf on her. It is a heifer, so will see how she grows out. Most here will run a black bull on rwf cows to get the bwf calves.... and have a neighbor that put a hereford bull in with his one group of black cows and has a bunch of bwf calves being born now. The "hybrid vigor" seems to really grow good and they sell pretty good too. Glad that the hereford calf is a heifer, as it would get even worse discounted at the sale, if a steer. If DS gives me any grief about it, I will pay for her and if the calf turns out good, keep it for a replacement.
He finally called me this morning and is on his way back from taking another trailer load of scrap metal that he had gotten loaded the last couple days. Then he is going to get the 2 cows/cfs. I had told him last night that I could go this morning if he wanted, just call me when he got off work.... he could have started the truck ....sometimes it doesn't start good since it needs the new battery, and it hasn't been started since the real cold when I took the beef that morning..... but when I just talked to him a few minutes ago, he made it out that he "had to get back to go get them and hoped he made it by 11".... you know the whole self sacrificing thing..."I have so much to HAVE to get done".... then got rather short when I said that I told him I would go get them if he had called me earlier..... SO WHATEVER.... he can go and I asked if he needed me to come to the barn to run them through the chute and he said he didn't know which house the shots were at, so he would call GF since they are going to work on the sheeps' feet in a little while..... AHH HAA.... the reason he is being short... he has plans with her and doesn't need me......

I didn't pack but a couple of boxes earlier because I wanted to get up here to go get or help with the cows. Wasted effort to hurry up here. I carried one out and a big dill pickle jar that was in a small deli store that I bought off them years ago.... the kind where they had the pickle jar on the counter and you could just buy a big ole fat dill pickle out of the jar... Reminds you of the old general stores type of thing. I could carry them out to the car at the house but was not going to try to carry much else with the wet, mud, and mess.
So I am going in to do some dish washing, have a couple of boxes I want to unpack, then get the vacuum canisters boxed until I need to use them as I get the "food stuff" all figured out.

We had about 2 inches of snow and then it must've changed to drizzle. The sun is trying to come out, and it was right at 30 when I came up the hill. Fog at the new house with that "transition" temp. Supposedly it was going to be cloudy and a little bit of showers all day.... then more real serious rain this evening. The snow that was on the tree branches is falling off/melting. Roads are fine but it does look like they may have put down some grit/salt last night in some places. Some snow on the one dirt road where it always takes forever to melt due to not getting much sun.

So, time to get in the other room and get something positive done. Will see how much standing I can take this morning.
 

farmerjan

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Just for anyone's info. Milk prices paid to the farmer dropped this last settlement check.... they get one early "partial payment" ( it is an estimate based on the previous months' shipments) and then a settlement (payment) for the rest of the actual milk shipped for the month. Prices went from 19.25 for the last couple of months DOWN to 16.85 .... per 100 lbs of milk. About 12 gallons (x8.5 lbs per gallon=102 lbs)..... and they are paying more for the hauling as of the first of the year....
We were getting 17.50/100 lbs back in 1989, on the farm I was milking full time on, when I had my bad car wreck. Fuel cost was half, parts and equipment cost half or a third of prices today.... they actually could make a living and have some money to put back for emergencies....the cows didn't milk as much as they do today, so they were shipping less milk.....but they weren't killing themselves to stay at the top end edge to just stay afloat.

And gas here went up to 2.45 and 2.49 at the 2 nearby stations and on road diesel is over 3.20/gal now.

I just got propane at the house. They got the new lines run and the tank set up with 25% in it on Thursday, and said they would come fill it in a day or 2. Found the slip in the door Friday aft.... 2.39/gal for propane. The fuel oil was 2.13 to fill the tank to have here....2 weeks ago.
 

Bruce

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And gas here went up to 2.45 and 2.49 at the 2 nearby stations and on road diesel is over 3.20/gal now.
Curious. I think gas here has now gone up to $2.69 (haven't bought any since the end of October) but it seems off road diesel is usually about the same price as gas. On road is a fair bit higher.
 

farmerjan

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Just got home from testing because the farmers wife asked if I would like to eat some dinner. Just scrambled eggs, ham and fried potatoes... but it was good, I didn't have to come home and find something or make a pbj sandwich.... they ask me a couple times a year. I'm gonna take them a chicken out of the freezer as a thanks. Then we did the computer entries, everything matched and that was it.
Talked to DS a couple minutes on the way home to see if he was going to help at the big 500+ cow herd next week.... it is a morning, and with so much going on, he said that if Geneva could do it that would be better. So I will text her tomorrow and see how her week looks.
DS is now wanting to get the cows out of the last pasture and get the steers sold.... this Friday if at all possible. We are supposed to get rain tonight and most of tomorrow into Monday morning... then a break, but now there is a 50% chance on Wednesday....:barnie:he:th:th:duc:rant:somad:hit:hit. I would also like to get the cattle out and get the steers sold.... and the cows preg checked. I told him that we needed to look at the heifers at the barn and any we don't like, need to go too, while the prices look pretty good.... and we needed to think about some of them getting bred in June/July for spring calves next year. I would prefer July so they have April or even May calves.
The one good thing is, is that we KNOW that our 2 bulls that are "easy calving" do throw nice smaller calves so they can get bred to calve at 24-25 months... which is a little younger than I usually calve them at.... but I want spring calves on these heifers. Anyway... he is in a push to get these animals out now since he talked to another of the guys at the stockyards (auctioneer) and he said that they were doing pretty good and it looked like prices were going to drop because of the grain prices continuing to climb. Of course, the fact that I have said that they need to go before they get too much bigger is not relevant.... :rolleyes::idunno:th. I'm just "mom"....

So, the plan is to get them out of pasture on Thursday if possible. Let's hope there is little or no rain on wed.... originally there was supposed to be a good 4 day dry stretch....
He did say that the 2 cow cf pairs I bought were good. The hereford is a BM (broken mouth) old cow, but the calf is doing okay. She will be getting silage now so should really do better. Oh, and @Mini Horses the calf is a bwf.... not rwf.... It is a dark reddish black but will shed out black I am sure. The black cow is more solid (full ) mouth. We will see about her. They both got a triangle 10HB vaccination and the calves got blackleg. Let them get some hay and silage in them and then when it comes time to move to pasture, can make a decision on the black pair. The big hereford unfortunately will be a one and done... but she s ehouldasily gain a couple hundred lbs.... she is not skinny at 1300 lbs but is lean. And she will have a good summer of plenty to eat and no aggravations.
So, I am going to go down the hill. got the "dolly" where I will trip over it so I can put it in the car and hopefully get the car close to the back door and then I can bring up some boxes tomorrow in the car (dry). Will see about getting the meters washed in the back of the truck if it is warmer and then they can get put away. Then I will drive it more.

I did get another small box emptied and stuff washed.... even at 1 at a time I will get them done and stuff more organized.
 

Baymule

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I'm glad the pairs you bought meet son's approval. I guess you did pretty good for a "mom" :lol: :lol:

I'm also glad that your son talked to the auctioneer who told him that now is a good time to sell. Good thing he has somebody to go to for advice besides "mom". :highfive: Now get those cows and steers rounded up, loaded and on their way to the sale. :hide
 

farmerjan

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Monday. late eve. Didn't get to sleep til way late so was late getting up. Came up to new house and packed the samples from Sat night. Took the snow/rain washed off, meters out of the back of the truck and got them in the storage box and all the hoses put where they should be. I try to keep them together by length so I don't have to go through50 hoses everytime I go somewhere to test. Parlors are different set ups, pipelines are different heights below the cows, brackets are in different places... so I need several different lengths. Anyway, got them all situated. Did some "work" computer work, and then took the samples down to drop off. Was going to the monday stock sale with DS but he couldn't get off work and he called and there weren't but about 30-40 head since it was so wet. DS talked to the owner, told him what we were looking for and gave a top limit of price.... and then I came back to the house to do some stuff. DS calls me about 3:30.... says that the owner wound up buying us some stuff, so we had to go get them. He asked if I wanted to ride along so I went. We were talking about the plans to get the cattle out on Thursday... he is getting 2 guys to help haul them out of there. Everything is coming out.... the steers that are going to the stockyard for Friday's sale will hopefully get hauled in Thursday afternoon. He also wants to haul in a bunch of heifers too. If we take in 50 head total, we also get a $5 per head discount on the selling fee.... so he wants to make 50 head. If we get that many out there will be alot less to feed and alot less to make a muddy mess too.
The mud is sooooo bad.
Then we will also have alot less animals there to have to shuffle around so we can get the 25+/- cows pregnancy checked. Any cows that are not bred will be going to the sale too. But they can all be taken in on Friday morning... they will all go on the ticket as far as the total is... but he had better plan on 50 head of feeder calves just to be sure.
So we are going to look over the heifers, and make some decisions who will stay and who will go.

2 of the ones that were bought today are heifers and one is pretty nice. She was well below what I think she was worth.... and we are contemplating keeping her to breed with the rest in June/July. The other one is not bad either but she seems to have a little bit of a stiff back leg.... don't know if it got bruised or injured, or if it is something wrong with it. Have to look at her a little bit more. There will still be a few more oddball calves that will be "sell" calves, so won't hurt her to stick around for a little bit longer. We are going to get the bulk of the calves out, and then the littler ones will have a chance to maybe get a little more feed and be ready to be sold in April when smaller "hobby type farmers" are looking for a few "grass calves".

Anyway, we came back to the barn and worked 8 bull calves in the 500-600 lb range through the chute and banded and gave tetanus shots to. A couple of them might very well match ours so we will see if the testicles will be ready to cut off by Thursday night. We use the "callicrate" brand bander..... it is a much stronger, larger, type band that you use a larger "tool" that cranks the elastic tight crimps it together with a metal piece,.... it cuts off the circulation FAST and they get numb very fast... I much prefer it over the little green "cheerios" even though we do use them too.... But this will cut off the circulation in like 1/2 an hour to where I have seen calves go back to eating like normal within an hour. The "sac" then will shrivel up but if the band does it's job, the sac is cold within 2 days and you know that it has worked right. You can then actually cut off the sac below the crimped band and that is the end of it. If you do cut them off, you don't have to wait for them to fall off and you do not get the smell from the decomposing tissue. The other thing about this is that you don't run the risk of having a retracted testicle because there is no way you can miss the size of these. So no chance of a "stag" animal. So we will see how they look and may or may not hold them over for a bit. They are pretty nice calves.

So that was my afternoon. Not at all productive at the house, but we did get a chance to kinda get on the same page on some of this stuff. I will not be able to help haul cattle thurs morning as I will be at the 500+ cow herd testing, with Geneva helping. Was going to do it tomorrow tues, but it didn't suit as well. Plus I have PT at 10:30 tues , so better I don't cancel. Then I can get the paperwork all together for the cattle, copies of what they will be moving so he can make sure he has all of them, and a list of all the calves so we know what belongs to whom Actually on the steers it isn't a problem as I am pretty sure I only have 1 in that group and it is a charolais cross so smokey grey colored. In the heifers I do need to get the list updated so that we know what we are looking at. I think that there are 2 or 3 in there that are mine. There are a couple of calves at the nurse cow field that can be sold, but they will not be going this Friday. They will be with the next group whenever they go. I have got to get them to start coming back in for feed.

The rain fizzled out about 9-10 a.m., thankfully. It was cloudy and grey all day but there was a wind so it was helping to dry it off a little. The proposed rain for wed looks like it will not happen now so he should be good to go if we get a little drying out . At least the snow is gone off the shaded side of the driveway. Turning around up there will be a PITA as they will not be wanting to get off the roadway most places.... but if I am not there then DS can't b#@#h at me for getting a truck stuck.
I will be back by 11 or so, and the one guy has to leave by 2... I think it will take them several hours to get all the cattle caught and then moved. So I will probably help haul a load to town late Thursday aft. It will take 3 trailers to haul all the ones he wants to sell, and he wants to take them to the sale so they are not out in the mud Thursday night if at all possible. I'm all in favor. If one of the 2 guys helping brings his trailer, and we have 2 then we can do it without the other guy who has to leave. If I was here Thurs morning, I would probably help haul too, but let them do it.
28-29 the next 3 nights then mid 20's the rest of the week at night. Days in the 40-50 range.... no precip for at least a week or more. :bow:bow:bow:thumbsup:celebrate:yesss::yesss::highfive::jumpy:clap:clap:clap:clap:celebrate
 

Baymule

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That sounds like a busy day coming up. Even better is that DS has help and it ain’t you! LOL LOL Good luck on the sale, hope y’all get good prices.
 
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