So, last weekend we were hoping for an inch or two of rain
to wash all that expensive nitrogen fertilizer down to the corn roots. Well…we got 2 inches of rain plus 5
more! That was too much rain!!! We did feel lucky that they did not get that
much rain north of us and the rivers did not get out of their banks; however,
our friends to the south were not so lucky.
Some of our friends received 12 inches of rain. They had a lot of corn and wheat fields under
water and at least one had the creek running through his machine shed. Luckily, we did not get the hail or tornadoes
that were predicted.
Turning the bulls out with the cows was on the calendar last
week. With all the rain, the pastures
were pretty wet, so we tried not to get off the roads. Here is a picture of one of the boys looking
toward his new girlfriends.
When The Farmer’s
extended family was here for Easter they asked a lot of questions about the
cattle and the breeding program. I will
cover some of these questions along with some others I have heard.
1. How long does a cow live?
We love it when a cow lasts on our
operation for 10-15 years, but the truth is a lot of them don’t make it that
long. If a cow doesn’t breed back, she
is sold, because there is usually a health reason that she didn’t get
bred. Also, cows that have a calf die
are sold. My dad taught me that if a cow
loses one calf she will lose another.
Well, I had this cow that I showed.
She was awesome and I loved her! I said I would
never sell her and she would die on the place.
She had 3 calves die during her lifetime before she died of Bovine
Leukosis at 12 years of age (a form of leukemia) that affects older
cattle. Cows are the most productive and
produce the most milk when they are 4-9 years old.
2. How
long is a cow pregnant (or what is a cow’s gestation length)?
The average gestation length is 283 days
plus or minus 10 days. Just like humans,
each pregnancy is different. Some breeds
and even some cows have been shown to have longer or shorter gestation
lengths. I laughed when I was pregnant
with my oldest, the nurse had a wheel and she took my personal dates, lined up
the wheel and gave me my due date. I
laughed because we used the same type of wheel to predict due dates of my
cattle. We took the bulls to the pasture
on April 30, so we will expect the first calves to start arriving February 6,
plus or minus 10 days (if you are wanting to plan your vacation for a calving
season visit.)
3. How
often does a cow have a calf?
We like for our cows to have a calf every
year.
4. How
long do you have calves and how often do you have calves?
We turn our bulls out with the cows for
45-60 days. Cows are fertile every 21
days, so that would give them 2 or 3 times to get bred. This groups our calves together so they are
closer to the same age and reduces the amount of time we need extra labor for
the calving season.
Most of our calves are born in February and
March, but we have a small herd that calves in September and October. We try to have the cows calve when the grass
will be green and nutritious for the nursing mothers when the demand for milk
is the highest.
5. Do
you have to feed them well to get them to breed that often?
To get a mama cow to breed every year and
raise her baby, we work very hard to give them a balanced diet year round. In the winter, when most of the grass is
dormant and dry, we supplement both protein and energy to the cows. We balance the rations carefully so we aren’t
over or under feeding them. We also give
them mineral and vitamin supplements all year long. The grass when it is green has most of the
nutrition the cows need, but the supplements help them fulfill all the nutrient
requirements-just like expecting mamas take pre-natal vitamins and our kids
take Flintstone vitamins.
My
co-workers and I took the 4 wheeler out to a couple of pastures
that don’t have
good rock roads to them. To deliver
mineral and
check to make sure that we didn’t have a cow struck by lightning.
We didn’t find any cows or calves struck by
lightning, but we did
have a bull killed by the lightning. :(
6. Our
nursing cousin (who had a one month old at the time) felt sorry for the cows
with the big udders.
The calves on our
ranch at that time were 1-2 months old.
The calves were just like her son, only getting milk to eat for all
their nutrition and a 150 pound calf requires A LOT of milk. Cattle have a stomach with four
components. When calves are born, their stomach is very much like our human
stomach. As they grow older, the stomach
compartments change in proportion and they can begin to digest and utilize
grass when they are 2-3 months old. The
only calves that get formula on our farm are those whose mother’s would not
care for them and they rely on my boys to feed them. We have 2 bottle calves this year.
7.
How many bulls do you need for a group of cows?
Well, that depends on how old the bull is
and how many cows are in the herd. A one
year old bull can usually take care of 15-25 cows, but a mature bull can handle
40. If you give them too many to take
care of, they have a hard time taking care of all the girls they need to each
day and it really can wear them out. Our
bulls are expected to really work for the breeding season. (I know you thought they just enjoyed it.) Some of them will lose a considerable amount
of weight during the breeding season.
The bulls are also checked over thoroughly
before the breeding season to make sure they will breed the cows
efficiently. We had one bull that didn’t
check out perfectly a couple of weeks ago.
The bulls had not been used for a year, so their “system” had a bunch of
old “boys” swimming and dead taking up space.
We turned him out with a group of cows to “clean things out.” I took him back this week and everything was
wonderful and he is back at work in the pasture.
We have 2 bulls in
with this group of cows. Look how good
the calves are growing and all that beautiful green grass!
As you can see, there is science, luck and a bunch of
calculations mixed together to get a healthy calf crop next year. Sure hope the weather is good next February!
I also spent a considerable amount of time in the office
last week getting caught up on a mountain of paperwork. Planting, spraying and fertilizer records
needed put into the computer and I had to go back to the FSA offices to finish
up some paperwork for the government.
The wheat is rapidly turning golden which means harvest is coming
up.
We have a week of dry weather
predicted and we will probably be planting soybeans next week along with
helping to host the local Kindergarten Day on the Farm!
PS. I said that in the beginning that we were blessed to only get 7 inches of rain. One of my friends sent my some pictures of the crop damage due to 12 inches of rain a week ago. The bulk of the rain fell on Sunday and these pictures were taken on Friday. Thanks for the pictures, Anita!
Remember, this picture was taken 4 days after it stopped raining. This is someone's field not a duck pond, normally.
If you look closely at this picture, you can see there is golden wheat in the middle of the field and dark brown wheat on the outside. The golden wheat is dead, won't fill the grain kernels normally and won't yield much.
Water still standing in the field. The green wheat higher on the slope is what the wheat should look like right now. Again, the white wheat is dead and probably has no grain left in it.
This flood was very costly to our friends south of us. The Farmer spoke with one of our friend Saturday night and you could tell it was really working on him mentally. He had just finished replanting corn that had drowned out from smaller rains earlier in the month. Other corn was growing good and by the time the ground dries out, it may be too late to plant corn again this year. The wheat was so close to harvest and some fields were totally wiped out.
