A jacket to check the heifers yesterday morning was a new experience. I found some things in the pockets that were lost since last spring! A pair of gloves that are so wadded up I may never be able to get them on, my good pliers that I accused the offspring of losing and some seeds that had sprouted and died in the dirt in the seam!
Of course, I lost the jacket pretty quick but the air was so crisp and nice that I was singing old trail songs and grinning! Not that I don’t sing in the summertime, but cool days after the swelter make a man sure enough happy!
I hope my close relative gets the urge to bake something with apples, namely a pie, or even a cake full of apples and pecans!
The cattle are beginning to spring heavily! That means, to you who might not know, that it is time for calves to start hitting the ground. The heifers are my main concern when they start, and I know one or twowill begin tonight. I wish we had started feeding them in the evenings so they would calve in the mornings, or so I have heard. I can’t prove that rumor but I wish we had tried it out because I do not enjoy being up at all hours to deliver backward or big-hipped calves.
I was extra careful when deciding what bulls to use for the heifers this year. We AI-ed all of them to bulls with very low birth weights according to their stats. I am convinced that heifers carry the genetics to produce as big and as good as any old cow, but they usually need just a tad more care. I intend to give that extra in scheduled deworming, about a pound of grain daily per head and a diligent eye out for trouble.
The offspring are dividing the cows into two groups so each of them can work out the kinks in the specific bunch. I have already been warned that the ski lodges are almost open and that the dang old hides had better not interfere with the fun!
I sure do enjoy looking at the calves produced by the bulls we own. I like all the calf crop each year, but seeing that a bull picked out by yourself has performed like you want is icing on the cake. A good bull is 50 percent of the herd, can improve in one season or completely devastate a herd.
It is expensive to AI or own, either way costs more every year, but cattle get better every year too. What are we old cattlemen gonna do with the cash anyway? You all know we don’t do much, and travel to Europe is out of the question! I have seen pictures and watch Rick Stevens on TV!
It is my opinion, and everyone has one, watching your herd improve is like a vacation to all of us who love our occupation! I know many who calve in the spring and they mostly agree with that thought. Those of us who choose to calve in the fall would lots rather be putting out hay in a warm truck than flying down a mountainside on the bone chilling snow!
As I said, it is just my opinion; yours might be different, as are the offsprings’ around here!
Bill is a pen name used by the Gravette author of this weekly column.
Opinion, Pages 6 on 09/14/2011