corral

Motivation or Anger?

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Yesterday, I made sure and put a strap across the lower portion of the entire back gate on the stock trailer before leaving moving the trailer. I kept it backed up to the corral while I installed it. I am still not sure it is necessary but after the previous evening I am taking no chances. I headed out and got about halfway down the driveway when I realized I had forgotten the cut sheets and had to go back. The puppy was going to spend the day with grandma so he got to go with me. I needed to stop at the feed store but they let you take dogs inside and he is still getting socialized to all things different so it will be good for him. When I got to the college I warned them that the cows were crazy. Unbeknownst to me, the middle divider gate had not gotten latched against the back wall so at some point when I was making a turn it flopped into place and the latch actually worked. So the three cows were trapped in the front of the trailer when I stopped. The bad part about this is I have to go into the trailer to open it. I did and luckily the cows ran past me and into the college pen system. The cut sheets were handed off and only one of them still had an ear tag. The damn cows are worse at ripping them off than the sheep are.

Milo and I shopped for some cable and eyelets for the Gazebo. We want to install a string of light inside with a dimmer and light sensing system. I have the lights and control plug ordered and they should be here next week. He does great with doors, people and confusion, a real trooper. It helps that he is calm and cute. After he was dropped off at Grandma’s I headed home to install the cable.

Nope, I let the sheep out of the barn and promptly got the tractor to pick up all the lumber needed to fix the corral. I am unsure if it was out of frustration and the desire to not repeat the experience or just leftover anger at having to chase the cows for an hour and a half! I picked up the last of the 2×8 rough cut tamarack boards I had purchased years ago for building Alcatraz. We had them and some 1x12x16’ boards stored in Alcatraz on the old concrete granary foundation. I need to dig a little more dirt out of the foundation. The damn rockchucks have been digging and living under the board pile. So they kicked up dirt and caused a couple of the bottom boards to rot. But for the most part the lumber is in good enough shape to fix the corral. The boards on top are pretty twisted but a heavy duty construction anchor bolt straightens that right out. I used the rest of the lag screws leftover from the Gazebo. I had bought a bucket of 500, half were used on the Gazebo and a quarter were used on the corral. I had a box of 50 six inch lags that I had to also use on the corral as some of the locations needed a longer screw to get to the good wood. I was only going to do a little bit of the corral but the longer I did it the further I needed to get to completion. I used every single board I had and the last one had to be spliced together, there was just enough.

Once I had the corral walls elevated it was fairly obvious that three of the gates would need to be raised. I am going to use the 1×12 boards for this. I will be sandwiching them on each side of the gate to form two uprights then bolting another board across the top. I decided that I needed to use bolts instead of lags and I did not have 32 5.5” lag bolts and assorted accoutrements. I went back to the hardware store to get all of the needed pieces but it was already evening and time for chores again. I put away all of my tools and finished the evening chores.

When I was taking pictures of the corral I realized that the day was quite stunning and took a few extra pictures. I love the old grain auger and am always trying different pictures. I also made it a point to go out and take a picture of the crazy psycho cow that must go to the abattoir. He is not getting out of it this time, #34 I have your number!

Psycho cows

Steve Hardin2 Comments

Where to even begin, it started almost like any other staycation day except I knew I had to sort cows in the evening. I am taking three in to become hamburger and steaks in the early morning. Last time we ran over the hillside for an hour until the everyone was exhausted before they would come in off the hillside. Since I was going to be doing it alone this time I figured to outsmart the cows. I brought a big bale of hay around and put it in the old ram pasture. I had to push the main herd of sheep out first. This will make it so I will need to push the momma/lambs into the barn first and then move the Y gate and push the rest of the sheep through the barn lot and into the barn. In the morning I will have to do that in reverse. Otherwise, I will get all of the sheep mixed together.

Once I had the large bale in there I opened the gates onto the hillside and waited for the cows to let themselves into the pasture! I did this at 0900 so I had a solid eight hours for them to figure out where the good eats were at.

In the afternoon I worked on getting the Gazebo wired for power. I had to drive in to town last evening and get more conduit parts. I did not have enough to make three corners. Luckily, I still had some cable lube so I could pull 12/2 wire through a half inch conduit. It does not like to make corners or 100’ without any slippery help. I was able to get all of the conduit glued and the wire pulled to a box inside the Gazebo. I still put a wet cover on the outlet box even though it’s inside the Gazebo. I have a double outlet all wired up and managed to get the rest of the ditch all filled in. I still have one outlet to wire at the brick box before I can flip the breaker back on. That won’t take very long tomorrow to get it done then there will be power out at the machine shed again.

The cows fell for my ploy! All the edible cows were in the ram pasture eating on the hay. I snuck around and locked the gates shut. The cows ran around crazily but did settle down after I left. Once I had the wiring done I hooked up the stock trailer and backed it up to the corral. I was all ready to go. I used to try and sort them and then leave them in the corral overnight. I have had a couple of escape artists in the past so I opted to wait until right before dark to sort and load them. I got them into the corral pretty easy. The five I wanted to sort off all had horns. There were ten of them and one was the largest. This is the one that jumped out of the corral last year and avoided a trip to the butcher. I was able to sort off two and then ran them into the trailer. I have a divided trailer so I shut the divider to keep them in. Next I managed to sort off the large one and two small ones. I got everyone else out of the corral and then sorted off the two small ones. The crazy big steer was in the wrong pen, it was in the further one where we had the horse trough. I tried to open the gate and get the cow to circle around and go into the chute. Damn thing bum rushed me and I had to jump into the chute myself and slam the gate closed. The cow just went crazy and jumped into the water trough and managed to get its front legs on top of the corral fence. It kept trying to climb the corral fence. I did lots of swearing and in about 30 seconds the cow got over the corral. By the time I grabbed the dog and jumped into the pickup the steer had jumped the fence again and was in the wheat field. The dog and I went to the far end of the field, she was following the pickup. It went down hill from there. The dog went for the cow and refused to be called off. We almost had the steer out of the wheat field when the dog got in front and turned it back away from the gate. I currently have a voice like a toad from hollering. Eventually, the dog went into the pickup with me but despite me trying several times to herd it back with the pickup I was unsuccessful and the steer ended up jumping the fence into the pasture with the mommas and calves.

I gave up and drove back to the house. I still had the rest of the edible cows in the back barn lot I just needed to sort off one more and I would have my three. This is exactly why I do not keep a rifle in the pickup. I was at the point where shooting the steer was a great option and fine choice. It is so infuriating. I parked the pickup and am headed to the corral to sort off one more when the two in the stock trailer start trying to jump the divider. I had not closed the back of the trailer as I still had one more cow to load. Yep, those bastards ended up pushing the gate open and running back out into the corral. It turns out that I need to fix the spring that is supposed to hold the bar that locks the closed gate in place. It is not working at all and the entire thing needs some lubricant so the spring can actually hold it closed not halfway.

At this point it is becoming a joke. I managed to sort off one more crazy horned cow and get all three into the corral. I opened the chute and got them to run down the chute into the trailer. It’s like I know what I am doing. I run down the chute following the cows so I can pull the gate closed. Nope, the last cows jumps in the trailer and then turns and tries to get out. I holler and end up having to jump out of the corral as all three cows come barreling out. I kept them in the corral and tried to get them back into the trailer. Not happening the lead cow keeps trying to climb the corral sides. I had a large stick and that just made the cow madder. I figured out that I could put the stick across the corral chute to prevent the cow from climbing out. This further enraged said cow. Finally, I just opened the gate, let everyone back into the corral then chased them back into the chute. This time I did not jump into the chute, I ran alongside it and as soon as the last cow went in I just slammed the door shut. I promptly got into the pickup and backed the trailer against the corral. There is absolutely no way to get out of the trailer now. We will leave at dark, early in the morning. I think I may have to put a strap across the back of the trailer in the morning before heading out. I think the stops at the bottom of the trailer may not be present but I cannot tell and honestly I need there to be no cows in the trailer before I explore that hypothesis.

Mr Rainman and I will be raising the corral walls another two feet next week so the crazy steer can be sorted off. This is a stupid problem to have. The horned cows we have are crazy! As soon as we wean off all the calves from this spring we are going to take most of the horned cows to the sale. It is not worth this much hassle and hazard. The polled cows we have are very mild and calm.

Lambs have begun!

Steve HardinLeave a comment

I am unsure what I did this last Friday. I know I was outside quite a bit, I did clean off the front porch like the wife wanted. I picked up trash around the farm and ended up working on the front gate latch. A board had to be added to the gate to get the latch in the right spot. It is still not quite in the right spot but it is working better than the piece of rope. So we are going to see how it does. It does look better than the piece of striped rope! We also cleaned out the old house, two more huge bags of trash out to the trash can full of construction debris. I managed to even do some cleanup around the machine shed. I remembered, we had to change a tire on the flat trailer and go pickup more wood for the office. We got the boards to build two slider doors and the wood for all of the trim work around the inside of the office. We had to unload it back into the old house as it was supposed to snow the next day. I did change the supplemental feed for the ewes from a molasses mix to alfalfa pellets. The pellets have a couple of percentage points more protein. The trouble with this is the sheep LOVE their molasses crack. They are not very impressed with the alfalfa. So I have had to mix in some crack in with the alfalfa pellets to get them interested in them. It is working. I had to take a dead ewe out to the bone yard.

Saturday was better organized as I wanted to really get the office floor done. I did not expect to finish it but if it is going to get done I need to make progress on it every day. I have PTO coming up next week and want to get the floor done. I would even like to get the walls done but with dry times for the floor I don’t see that really happening. Unless I can get the floor sanded and cleaned up in the first three to four days I have to wait 24 hours between coats of stain and polyurethane. I really need three coats of polyurethane so that eats up all the time needed to rub walls down with the wax/oil sealant I have purchased for them. It will take me a couple of days to get the walls rubbed down and then after the walls are done I can cut trim, rub it down and then install it. Once all of that is done I can get the office set up then I can work on making the two sliding doors. They will be the very last thing I do.

It did not take long to use up all the sand paper I had on hand. So I went to town to buy more and Mr Professional cut insulation for the attic. He had brought out a 21” sander and I had a 18” sander so I decided to buy sandpaper for both sizes. I went to two different stores and bought all of the course paper they had in both sizes and ended up picking up some kind of paint wheel that attaches to a drill. I was sure we would run out of paper and would not be able to remove any paint. The little device did work but the 21” sandpaper on a higher horse power rotary belt sander did a much better job of tearing up the old paint. We made great progress and I think we can get the last of the paint off in one day.

Sunday was not going to be another office day. I went out to open the barn doors and discovered that there was a screamer lamb in the midst of all the ewes. This always makes it hard to figure out who is going to claim said loud mouth. I got the ewes to leave the barn fairly slow and then there was only a lamb standing there hollering and a ewe at the far end of the barn. I walked down there and sure enough she had a twin all curled up sleeping in the straw quietly. So this meant putting up panels at the far end of the barn to create five creches. We then hung feeders, filled up buckets with water and alfalfa pellets. Now the barn is ready for Monday morning when Annmarie comes out to let the sheep out of the barn.

We needed to sort off nine sheep to get five loaded up for transport to the butcher on Sunday evening. The other four will go on Friday. Of course the animal trailer has a flat tire also. I cannot seem to find my cheap little 12V tire pump. So that meant getting the back of the pickup cleaned out so we can slip in the animal pen. Of course we used the tractor, it was easier but the animal pen needs some welding repairs and we had to keep it together with strategically placed straps. We did get it in and strapped down after cleaning out the pickup and tossing the stuff in trash, a little in machine shop and the rest on the burn pile. The next problem is to get the sheep to run up into the back of the pickup so we do not have to lift them up into the pickup like last time. There is a very old ramp on wheels that is bent and beaten up. We tried to straighten it out but got stopped by a very thick piece of angle iron. It was going to take way more time to straighten it out and fix it then I was was willing to invest. So after looking at the corral I decided that we could make a ramp! So three 2×4 and a bunch of scrap wood and screws later we had a 8.5’ ramp. We used a iron T-post to rest the ramp on and had to use a couple of pallets to keep the sheep from squirting out the sides. Next time we are just going to remove the tailgate from the pickup and we will be able to just back right up to the ramp. The only thing I need to do is to add a few more boards up the sides to block the view over the sides from the sheep. They could have just jumped off the ramp right over the sides of the corral while loading up if they had so desired.

I used the puppy on a 30’ lead line to herd the sheep. This was fairly productive, but there is no way the puppy can be let off lead and in with the sheep. Once we had the sheep in the corral I left the puppy in the yard. She kept sticking her head into the corral and trying to crawl into it with the sheep. I finally had to lock her in the back yard. She ran back and forth along the fence caterwauling because I would not let her at the sheep. She seemed quite determined, this is a good quality in a sheep dog!

I have been scraping the honeycomb and honey into a sieve trying to get the honey out. I did not want to set up the frame extractor for one frame only. This way is slow but I am getting honey!

Time to start getting ready for winter

Steve HardinLeave a comment

It’s been a long week at work and sometimes the farm is just what you need for a reset. This week was definitely a reset week. On Monday one of the calves got out again. Now I had already tooted my horn about the fence repairs from last weekend and told the wife no one was getting out. It took almost 24 hours for one of the calves to prove me wrong. She got it back into the lower fields by opening the gate and herding it in. It wanted to go see its mama. This left the dang water crossing that the bull beat up all last year. Annmarie told me that what I really needed was a culvert in the spot. I could then secure the fence to the culvert and the water and dirt would hold it down and prevent the bull from getting through or for that matter, any of the cows. I actually like this idea a lot! I have a four foot diameter culvert that could be cut in two to make two ten foot sections and one could be used here. The other one is for another crossing I am having trouble with. Pulling the eight foot trailer across the ten foot culvert when it is loaded and there is an eight foot drop on one side makes some people nervous. I need to add about 3-4 feet to this to prevent any mishaps from sloppy drivers. It was hot, I was just getting off work and not dressed to do any type of complex fencing. There happened to be a rats nest of fencing from the spring work laying around and I “installed” it in the fence to prevent anyone else from leaving. We have not had a single animal escape since my repair.

Friday I cleaned out the old big bales from the machine shop. They are light enough with some maneuvering I can get them about eight inches off the ground and carry them with the pallet forks using my new Kubota tractor. We will need to set up the full horse arena out by the grain bins to keep the alpaca away from the large hay bales we will have to store outside. I get about half in the machine shed and the rest outside. We feed the outside bales first so by the time the weather really gets bad we are feeding nice bales from the shed.

Our plan for the day was to work the cows and sheep. The rams needed to be pulled off of the sheep herd. Our house calendar says we should start lambing at the end of the month. This means the herd needs to be closer to the house. I am not sure that we are but that is what our calendar says. We still had two cows to tag and one to band. The upper five cows needed to be swapped with the lower cows. There is more feed above the house, there is also most likely a cougar. We lost four lambs again during this summer. A cougar has been spotted by several people but we have not seen it. Moving the fewer cows down below the house means they can work on the less available forage easier. The real problem with moving cows into field 2-4 is that we have to bring them in every night so we don’t lose any to a big cat. This choice has really been taken away since there is no rain. I noticed tonight that the running water that was going through all of field 4 is drying up about half way through the pasture. The most cows have to go to the most feed.

Annmarie, the child and Mr Professional all worked on animals. Mr I Need a Belt Bad was weeding the back garden then going out into the berry patch and doing more weeding. I do not believe that he would choose weeding as a primary task if he had a choice, but the weeding does need to get done. The thistles are trying to take over the berry patch. They went to get the cows while I moved the calf table in place and put up part of the horse movable arena around the calf table. We set it up so that we could just leave an open gate back into the corral and the calves would not run all over heck and gone. I used the new Kubota tractor with my pallet fork attachment, so amazing. Something that would have taken me an hour got done in 20 minutes. I am loving the pallet fork attachment, even if I can only lift 1100 pounds.

We put the sheep into the back barn lot Friday night so they were ready for us when we needed them Saturday. We pushed the upper sheep down and sorted off the steer/bull undescended testicle guy, we are not quite sure about his testicle status. Yes, a neutered cow,steer can still push out his penis. My record keeping skills are not the best in this area. We gave everyone pour over fly medicine and sorted the bull off and put him in Alcatraz with the other two bulls. We then moved all 16 cows from below into the corral. We did pour over on everyone and then tagged and banded two calves, one boy (our youngest) and tagged the “squirter” that got away last time. I had her in the chute with a lot of other cows and she was at the end. I just pushed her into more cows until she was pinned then reached over and tagged her. The calve we used the calf table and it went very smoothly. We will be using the portable fencing whenever we do this in the future. I had plans to build a permanent calve chute but honestly it was going to take forever and this is so much easier. After we pushed them up into field 4 (they can just walk into 2-3), we tried to push the four cows from the upper pasture through the yard into the orchard. This did not go well. Not well at all,as there was much yelling and dogs not cooperating or cows complying. Mr I Need a Belt bad left the gate into the garden open. We ended up with a five hundred pound cow jumping onto our elevated beds and watering system. There was a lot of screaming at him to get out of the berry patch and go shut the gate after the cow ran out. He was headed for that gate when more screaming ensued to make sure he had just latched the gate he had used to get into the yard as three cows were headed his way. He had latched it, he hurried with some prompting and got the gate closed. Later at quitting time we discussed the gate rule on a farm. Leave it in the position you found it unless told otherwise. You don’t need to know why just do it, there is a reason. We did get them down below where they belong.

We set up the barn so we could run the sheep down the chute then sort them on their way out. We only needed four sorted off to go into the orchard, two rams and two whethers. The sheep would not go down the chute. They bunched up in front of the opening and refused to go further. As we discussed options Annmarie noted that the boys were right in front of us. We just caught all four and pushed them into a pen. Our old ram is a gentle giant passive resistance is his greatest skill. He had to be pushed into the pen, they are all now in the orchard. We plan on letting the momma sheep work on the front hillside for a few days to clean it up.

There were quite a few disparaging remarks about the ability of the corral gates to open and to latch. We had some we could hardly get open and a couple that would not latch or you had to stand on the end of the gate to latch it. So Mr Professional and I spent a couple of hours and installed chains across the top of the corral chute and we did the same over some gates. We rehung four gates also to lift them out of the dirt. Not surprisingly the gates and corral work a lot better now than they did when we actually used them for animals. It was triple digit hot so we called it quits at 1500.

I had to go up with the tractor after dinner and put the cows in. They were already in field four but I did not want to have to go to the end of field four every morning to open the gate. I just pushed them into the back barn lot and in the morning we just need to open the connecting gate. It can stay open until the cows come back in again at dark. I figure in a few days they should have it down and will put themselves in every night. At least that is my fervent hope.

We need to use bull Alcatraz

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Annmarie called me on Wednesday, while I was at work to let me know that the bull was out. When I went to answer her call I noticed that I had a text on my phone from a neighbor saying our bull was out. Her call was that he was out and she had managed to get him into a neighbor’s corral and needed me to bring the horse trailer.

So I drove home and got Hoss to back up to the horse trailer. We have not used the trailer since we bought it two years ago. We knew it would be needed. Hoss and I had to unload the wood out of the trailer before we could use it. It had a flat tire and the spare was flat. Luckily, I knew there was a tire pump in the pickup we just needed to get there to use it.

We were able to back right up to the corral and use two panels to make an alleyway and the bull just went right into the trailer. Usually the bull pushes through a creek crossing or gets through the wires. Hoss will look at the fence line after they get the bull put away. I convinced Annmarie that we should put the bull up with the steers in the upper prime pasture as we just fixed that fence. I went back to work as they unloaded the bull.

Annmarie called me again at work in the early afternoon to say that the bull was out again!! This time he had gone the other way and headed up the creek. Annmarie headed up with the pickup and dogs to push him our way. I headed home early. I should have stopped at the house and change shoes, but I knew that Annmarie wanted to get done as our company had just arrived and she had left them alone at the house.

As I was driving up the gravel road looking for Annmarie I called her and she hollered stop I see you as I drove down the road. She had been with the uncooperative bull and the two deaf dogs for over 45 minutes. One would not know that she was to be ordained this week as a priest!! Mouse thought that the only way to move the bull was to grab his tail or bite his heels. I ended up having to walk up to the bull and take over the dogs as they had gotten ahead of Annmarie. I got him down to the road and let him out onto it. He started ambling home and I went and got my car. I could see Annmarie coming off the hill but the bull was going out of sight. Once Annmarie saw the car moving a steady stream of yelled comments began and I ended up stopping, getting out and chasing the bull on foot while Annmarie drove the car. The dogs, I and the car pushed him back to top of our property and he turned down and started headed home. We got him into the corral and locked him in. He will be staying there until Sunday so we don’t have to chase him down again. It took us two hours this time to get him.

The next day the bull had a pretty bad limp. He has a bad left front foot and when he walks too much it bothers him. He was not getting any sympathy from either one of us its his own fault.