Where Corn Grows and Cattle Graze

January 27, 2012

Farm Foto Friday

Calf 149 sporting his new EID tag - (the yellow 1)

Nebraska Sun Set

Feed wagon mixing a load of feed for the calves

Mark loading the feed wagon - He even stopped and let me take the picture!!

January 26, 2012

It seems like every time we turn around it is time to vaccinate more cattle at our place. I have talked about the importance in developing a good immune system in the calves through giving 3 rounds of vaccine before they leave our farm. We also vaccinate the cow to help prevent certain disease in both the cows and their un-born calves. Our cows are now half way through the 3rd trimester of their pregnancy and for the heifers they are about 30 days away from being 1st time moms. Over the past couple of weekends we gave our cows and bred heifers their pre-calving vaccines. We moved the cows to the last corn field before they come home to calve. The great part about the last field is that it is only 2 miles away and they can walk those 2 miles!! The bred heifers are definately showing signs that they are getting a little uncomfortable with being "very" pregnant. We have started supplementing them with some distillers grain, and for a group of heifers that use to beat us to the bunk it sure does take them a long time waddle their way to the bunk now. It won't be long and there will be new calves playing in the evenings as the sun sets at our place again.
Saturday we bangs vaccinated about 80 head of heifers. Brucellosis is a disease that use to be very prevelent in the US. It causes cows to abort or go into preterm labor. Due to an industry wide attempt Brucellosis has been nearly wiped out of most of the US. In 2007 the US had almost eradicated the disease from the US cow herd with only 0.0001% of the cows being infected with Brucellosis. The problem with 100% eradication is that wildlife such as bison and elk can transmit the disease to cattle. According to the USDA the elk and bison living in the Greater Yellowstone Area are the last know focus of brucellosis eradiction, however the management of wildlife causes great challenges of complete elimination and increases the chance of brucellosis occuring in the US cow herd. Breeding cattle shipped between states have to be bangs vaccinated prior to shipment. Heifers must be vaccinated prior to their 1st birthday.

The heifer in the right corner has her clip
tag that has shows she has been bangs
vaccinated, she has a tattoo in the same
ear with the same number as the clip tag

Aout of the 80 heifers we bangs vaccinated part of them are the keeping heifers for ourselves, part we are selling, and the remainder belong to the neighbor that we have been taking care of since November. One of these days soon those heifers will be sold and our pens will be emptied out just in time for calving. Even though we don't calve in the pens we do use some of them to water the cows, they have automatic water tanks with heaters so no ice to chop (unless a heater breaks).

January 23, 2012

Farm Foto Friday

Cows waiting patiently waiting their turn to be moved to the next field

Taking a quick look around as they walk off my trailer

Mark unloading another load of cows.

Slowing heading out to find their other friends

Cow have been moved to the last corn field away from home before they make the last move home in about 1 month. The good thing is they are now only 2 miles away from the house and they can walk those last 2 miles. They got all the vaccinations!!! We are T-53 days before the old cows start calving! Heifers are T-38 days, calving time and stress are just around the corner!

January 13, 2012

Ag in the Class Room

Last fall I was working on getting involved with the Nebraska Ag in the Classroom program. Agriculture in the Classroom (AITC) is a nation wide program that works on education children about agriculture and where their food and fiber comes from. The program provides teachers with education and tool about agriculture so that they can provide a hands on learning experience for their students. One of the programs that is available is the Pen Pal Program. This program links a class of students to a real life farmer/rancher in the state. The farmers/ranchers are to write to the classroom about how food is produced and moved from the farm to the table. The classroom and the farmer/rancher are suppose to exchange 3 letters each throughout the school year (6 total letters) and the farmer/rancher can send pictures, video or samples to help educate the students on what really goes on at the farm. My opinion is that this is a great way to get our future customers knowledge and in touch with where their food comes from. The last time I checked the milk and cheese were made from the milk the cow gave not the made by magic in the back of the grocery store. Any time we have the opportunity to share our story - THE REAL STORY- we are 1 step closer to building a strong relationship with our customer a relationship in where they trust that we are taking good care of the resources that we have been given.
We were put on a waiting list this year and were put on the list for next school year as all the spots were already filled. I got an email yesterday saying that there was a classroom that needed a farmer/rancher and we were asked if we were still willing to participate. Of course I jumped at the invitation, and didn't have to be asked twice. Today we found which class in the state that we will be sending letters to and that they didn't get their fall letter and the winter letter is due soon! So I have a lot of writing and picture arranging to do to get 2 educational letter out in a short amount of time. I needed another project about as much as I need another hole in my head but this is important and I am told you always find time in life to do the important things!!

December 23, 2011

Shipping Calves

Shipping calves to the feedlot seems like such an easy task. Shipping our calves to the feedlot is a little more complex than loading them on the trailer, driving to the feedlot, unloading them, getting our check and driving to the bank. The whole process of delivering our steers actually started in August when we contracted them to the feedlot. The cattle buyer/feedlot rep came out looked at the calves in July when they were still with their moms and grazing the green pastures. We sat at the kitchen table and went through the vaccination, mineral, and feed the calves would have recieved by the time they enter the feedlot in December. We provide the feeder with all the informantion of the calf from the time they are born till the time they walk off the trailer including birth dates, vaccination/wormer and dates given, breed of the calves, what they will weigh in Dec (estimate), and brand or other identification of the calf. We sign the contract saying that we are providing correct and accurate information and that we can be held accountable if we did not do what we said we did with out notification to the buyer. We will negotiate a price for the calves based on the info provided and keep up our end of the bargain till we deliver the calves. When we set up our delivery date in August we designated a 10 day window when we can deliver the calves. When we get close to the window the cattle rep calls and we decide on a date based on our needs and the feedlot needs. This allows us to avoid shipping during blizzards and gives the feedlot time to plan on having a pen ready for our calves.
The day we ship we MUST have the calves brand inspected by a state brand inspector. He verifies that this group of calves is in fact our calves, they have our brand on them in a desigated area on the calf and that they are not stollen and gives the new owner proof that they now own the calves. We pay for this inspection to be done along with the beef check off. The beef check off is a producer run program that charges beef producers $1 for every bovine sold. This money goes to fund research, marketing of beef (you've heard the commercials with Sam Elliots voice or now Mathew McConaughey) and other programs that support the beef industry. Once the inspector gives us the brand release that signifies that we provided proof of ownership of the calves and we give him a couple of checks the calves are loaded and transported to the feedlot. We are lucky in that we live on the boarder of 2 counties that are in the top 10 in Nebraska in feedlot capacity and numbers. Our calves don't spend long hours traveling to their destination. In fact they will be on the trailer for about 1 hour only about 40 miles. They get weighed, unloaded, and moved to pen for processing. Even though they have 3 rounds of vaccine before leaving the ranch it common practice to give them another booster to help their immunity as they are acclimated to eating a diet high in corn and corn bi-product (distillers), mixed with other calves from different ranches, and moved to a new home. Because we have already done a lot of the work at the ranch our calves have a lower risk of getting sick and do a better job of handling the stress of moving to a new home. It is kind of like the first day of school, you mix a whole bunch of kids that have been in their own environment for the summer together and week into the new school year 75% of the students have a cold or the flu. Our goal is to prevent this through building the calves immune system from birth to harvest. The stress of this move will be minimal as we have already acclimated the calves to alot of the things they will experience in the feedlot. They know that feed now comes from a truck or wagon and it is all mixed together. They know how to drink from automatic water tanks and are use to living in a pen and know that when the weather turns bad and pens get wet the manure pile is the dry place to sleep. We will turn in all the paper work with the feedlot collect our check and head home. We don't just forget about them once we drive away. We will get data back on the calves in the summer after they have been harvested and that data helps us make better management decisions for future calves.

The last trailer load standing in the barn waiting
to get their turn.

Yesterday morning we woke up to a skiff of snow but under that snow was a sheet of ice. This always makes travel difficult and more stressful, but add a trailer and 13000 lbs of calves and it becomes even more stressful. By the 2nd trip the sun was out, the county and state had been out and salted the really bad spots. This year we were blessed with the effects of the feed and management changes we have made in the last 18 months being positive and also great weather. We blew our target weight out of the water by 72 lbs!! As we continue to improve the performance and production of the herd we will continue to learn and get better at predicting "normal". I think we were all excited to see the calves perform up to the standard that we are holding them to. They should perform well in the feedlot and we definately look forward to getting the data back and know exactly how they did.

Unloaded and ready to be moved to their new pen.

December 19, 2011

Counting Down the Days

There are many count downs in life....count down to the new year, count down to the day we graduate....count down to our wedding day.... and the list is endless. It seems we have a tendency to count down to all of those days and moments in our lives that mean something to us. On our farm it is no different we have days and moments we look forward to and some that we dread and some that are bitter sweet. This next week is going to be 1 of those bitter sweet count downs as we will ship our steers to the feedlot on Thursday morning. This past weekend we sorted and picked out which ones that were going to begin the next step in their life and move 1 step closer to proving the next high quality protein source for someone in the world. We also picked out the heifers that will stay at the farm and become the future baby raisers.
Thursday will be a one of those bittersweet days. We will be happy that we did our job to provide the feedlot with the best set of feeding steers that we could and that we gave the these calves the best care that they deserved. Not to mention we will get paid so that we can continue to provide for the next generation of calves that will be born in a few short months. Even though we will be happy that they have left our farm we will still be sad to see them go. Most of them look alike solid black calf with a white ear tag. Not much differentiates them from each other but there are a few that do have nick-names and a few that stand out for an experience we had with them and a few that have a personality that sticks out but there are some that just blend in. Sometimes it is good to blend in, those are the calves that didn't get sick, didn't get out of the pen, didn't have to have help being born or beginning their lives. So it is good to blend in. Here are some pictures that tell the stories of some our calves lives.

#354 Warming up and Drying in the garage off after a little assistance being born. I gave him a nice clean rug to lay on but as you can see he prefered the slick concrete and cardboard.

#G11 warming up under the heater in the blazer. He was born on a very brisk morning and Mom was a little confused on which calf was her's. After spending a little 1 on 1 time

#G11 a few days after getting to ride in the blazer.

90% of our calves are solid black but the other 10% of them will have some white on their face. #6 has a very identifiable dot on his forehead. It almost looked like a nike swoosh!

#009 doing what she does best being my shadow. She didn't make sorting very easy as the only way to get her to go out the right gate was for me to walk out and let her follow! She will definately add a great dispostion to our herd!