Thursday eve.... Temps were 60 overnight and up to 66 today... light sprinkles... little bits of wet but not much... nothing like what they were predicting. It has gotten very windy, really gusty blow you over windy. The bird feeder I treated myself to back awhile ago, that was on special... in the shape of a barn, is swinging in the wind like a loose sail on the ocean... High wind warning through midnight. But it is a warm wind, so I guess there's that...
Went to chiropractor, and came home and then met DS at 3 to go to look at the bull... It was a done deal pretty much, and he is a nice bull... a little short... but this farmer feeds grass and hay... and they stay fat...he is nice... 2 yrs old... no papers but we have his pedigree... and only 3800... which I really expected more since the cattle prices and all, that are so high right now... We visited for a bit since we don't see them that often.. they run 60-80 cows and since they no longer raise purebred registered bulls for sale, we don't run into them as often. Their son is an extension agent now and see him at many of the cattle meetings and such...
So, brought him home and put out in the bull field... he was semen tested so should be good to go...
Came home and went up to feed calves... most of the other ones came in to eat grain... including the twin holstein heifers... so that was good. Did not have to go after them, they came up the hill and came in... fed the bottle calves, they are doing okay. Last night one didn't want to eat very good, but today they are doing okay.
DS and I talked about shipping the couple of cull cows; the 2 of mine at the nurse cow field with the 2 calves that are not growing, and the one at the barn that had the dead calf... plus the biggest holstein bull calf, at least...... but he did not commit to when... We did talk about maybe trying to buy 5-10 heifers off this farmer to raise up for cows since they are "grass genetics" to the nth degree... they do not even feed any silage, or even much grain to anyone... mostly when they first wean them to get them bunk broke and such. They would be some nice ones... get them at 8+ month weaning... breed the following year and calve out at 24 months since their growth rate is so good. Replace some of the mediocre older cows we have... some already sold, some that need to go... They would be worth about 1500/head more or less...at today's prices.... but they would be good ones to raise up... DS even said maybe we could buy a few of their "cull cows" , get one or 2 more calves out of them.... because they would still be pretty good ones... improve the quality of calves we are getting. Get those "grass genetics" bred into our cattle more...
So, I am done, in the house... Dreading looking out there tomorrow to see what is blown where...Gusts are really really bad....