spraying

Cows sorted

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Well I seem to be a couple of weeks behind recently on the blog. After a solid weekend working I am having trouble taking the time on Sunday night to crank out a couple of blog posts. Now that we are onto daylight savings times we are doing more little stuff outside after work therefore cutting into my blog time. I will attempt to keep up, just like I say every time!

Last weekend was the great swap! We needed to move all the animals around to get ready for spring. All of the cows needed to come into the corral so we can sort off last years yearlings and calves. Our cow should be having babies in April. We calve when the weather is warmer as the Dexters do better when you are not calving in the cold. Plus, we needed to count the cows as I can never remember how many we have. The cows of course were split and we ended up having to walk all the way to the end of field one to push them down toward the corral. We blocked off field #2 and field #4A so that no cows could get into either one. We will hay field #2 but #4A is so that the weanling calves cannot reach the momma cows. They will nurse the calves through the fence unless you put some distance between them. The mommas need all of their energy and milk for the calves that are coming next month. So Mr Rainman and I walked all over the farm moving cows.

When we were moving cows through field #3 we noticed something new. There is a spring head that comes out of the ground and has been for years. It just seeped out of the dirt in a ten foot area and had several faucet sized streams. That has changed! There is now a 12” diameter hole in the ground spouting water. The water volume is about double what it used to be and the water is moving fast enough that it is starting to dig down into the ditch. It lowered the ditch water level another 18 inches since last fall. We have a pretty soft muddy area up there that is around 50’ wide already. We may have to slow the water down and let it make a bigger softer area to keep the water from running away as fast. At a bare minimum we need to get a fence around the spring outlet so nothing falls in it. We could not see the bottom.

Sorting the cows was fairly anticlimactic. Once we pushed them down behind the barn we just starting sorting them 1-2 at a time as they ran through the gate. I only got hit once in the face with the gate when trying to push a calf into the chute. Both of them got out and we had to try again. Nothing got broken and I did not even get a bruise so all was good. Once we sorted off the 13 (or 14) heifers (all but 2 pregnant maybe) we pushed them up into field #4B so they were contained then pushed all of now weaned and last years calves up to field #3. There was a lot of bellowing and hollering by all parties due to the split. We isolated the alleyway to let it grow also. I was able to use Chance to move the cows back out to the field. By the end of it she was able to work the cows without the lead. She listens fairly well but does lay down when I ask. The dogs just don’t like the words “right” “left”. It takes me longer to train them with hand signals which is usually what they respond to. I must need to come up with two new words, I just thought of them “port” & “starboard”. I may have to give it a try.

Once that was done we moved both rams into the sheep herd. We need those two to do their job! Within minutes of them entering the herd they were sniffing pee and trying to mount the ewes. Annmarie and I have decided that they get two months in with the ewes and then we are removing them. Any ewe that doesn’t get pregnant gets an ear knocked and we will work on culling the herd until we only have a bunch of calm good mother hussies. We are not going to lamb for four months any more.

Mr Rainman went out to spread solid fertilizer onto fields #1, 2, triangle and down by the schoolhouse. I worked on rewiring the entire sprayer on the Kubota tractor. The wires and switch had been getting very hot to the touch and burned the switch up. We are not sure why as the sprayer worked fine all last year. I wired the pump up with the old wire from a previous inline switch from the manufacturer. This was the quickest fix. The switch welded closed the next day and Mr Rainman had to manually pull the wires apart at a connection to turn off the pump. I have since rewired the assembly with 10g wire and installed a new switch and made a PVC switch holder from PVC pipe fittings. This lasted about 4 hours before this switch welded shut. I have since replaced the switch and ordered two 30A waterproof switches. I am hoping this 3rd fix works and the extra switches are just insurance. I have learned to have parts on hand to just be able to do the fix real time without going to the store.

The daughter says I don’t take enough pictures of myself so I decided to take a farmer selfie, enjoy!

Predators 13/Farm 1

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Last week was another kick in the teeth and yet super productive. Mr Rainman came out and spread grass seed on field #1 and the triangle. He then proceeded to mow field #2 then sprayed Rejuvra on field #2, 3, 4A. We are going to try Rejuvra it was designed for CRP and grasslands. It creates a 3/4” deep barrier that kills newly germinated cheatgrass. So as the cheatgrass seeds germinate they are killed. Since the seeds can sit around for years this process is essential to remove the weed seed. This is a fairly new product. Our cheat grass was so bad this year that we are willing to just spray it on and see what happens. We didn’t get to hay or use the fields until after we mowed because the cheat grass was horrible. I need to buy one more quart of it to spray the lower fields. The joy of this is that it lets the preexisting grasses thrive and grow through the chemical barrier. As long as they spread by root propagation they can continue to grow and thicken while the cheatgrass is choked out. This was great and he just kept after it until it was done.

The kick in the teeth came when he went down to the lower schoolhouse field. It needed to be mowed to get ready for the spray. As he was driving the tractor around the field he found two more dead ewes! One had just been killed that day or the day before. It looks like something grabbed it by the throat and it bled out. The other one had obviously died earlier as there was nothing left but a skeleton. There is no question that the coyotes are winning this year. We have had a serious coyote hunter out here all last week. He had in around 24 hours combined for the week and on the last day spotted a coyote running up the creek bottom. He did not get a shot off. I have another hunter who came out today with a call and to get shown around the property. He did wonder if he could come out at night with a thermal scope and hunt coyotes. I of course agreed to this! I have another hunter coming on Sunday to be shown around. I am hoping that between them they can figure out how to kill several coyotes. There is no way we have one coyote killing this many sheep. We have not lost a single cow. My mother-in-law is losing kittens and cats quickly. We think the coyotes are eating the cats also. This is a stupid problem.

I will say the 300K lumen light I now use when going out at night combined with a green laser and silencer on a 22 pistol is amazing. Unfortunately, this setup is not helping me with the coyotes. If they are howling and just over the hill I remove the silencer and pop off a few rounds into the ground to scare them away. Let me just say that a guard dog would cost us around $1500-2000 annually for seven years. We are not even close to having lost enough sheep to justify that expense. Now that the barn is open the sheep can hole up in the barn every night and we have never ever had a predator kill anything in our barn.

Today I had to take our only cow left and two sheep in for butchering. I got the six feeder cows into the corral and managed to separate off the large one going to slaughter. The cows are crazy! I ended up spending almost an hour and half chasing them all over the fields until I managed to corral them by just shutting every gate the closer we got to the barn lot so there was only one place they could run. I locked the sheep into the little spot in front of the barn. I figured I could just wade in and catch two whethers. Man, I needed way more coffee this morning before engaging with the animals. The steer was crazy! He ran into the stock trailer. But I had to get in the trailer to release the dividing door, he ran at me and I had to scrunch up in the corner while he ran out. I released the door then went and chased him back in and again had to get into the trailer with him. I managed to slam the door closed before he jumped back out again. He raised hell while I went to get the sheep. Nope, they would not go into the barn. I finally had to go get Chance (border collie teenager), put her on the lead and then we walked the sheep right into the barn. I shut the barn door then tried to catch a whether. Nope, they were too fast. So I made a pen with a 2’ entrance, pushed all of the sheep into it then bum rushed the sheep from one end. They form a mob before they try to squirt past me on all sides. That is time to grab your victim and drag them to the back door of the barn. The first one had horns which make great handholds. The second one I had to drag out by its head and it almost got away a couple of times. I ran them into the corral and then down the chute. They jumped right into the trailer, but after the cow fiasco I rushed down the alley to get to the outer door. Nope, dame sheep took a leap at my head trying to get out. I had to toss a 90# sheep back into the trailer twice! I imagine it feels like being a hockey goalie. I managed to get the slider door shut and the animals transported with no other incidents. Once unloaded the cow did try and get at me through their pen. I don’t know if it was saying goodbye or using my name in vain as it tried to get at me, either way the outcome was the same and someone is going to eat good.

When I got back I went to the barn and fixed the lights in the barn and finished that last string. It was not my splicing connection. One of the lights had a bad connector and I had to cut off the first two connectors I had used and after replacing them they worked perfectly. We now have lights in the barn! This is going to be great, I just know it. More to come as it starts getting dark and we have to start feeding.

Predators 7 / Farm 1

Steve Hardin2 Comments

Mr Rainman came out today and sprayed the orchard. We have to use the backpack sprayer so the trees don’t get damaged and it took two sprayers full to get the entire area done. Once that was done he went out to mow the fields. I asked that he started close to the house and work his way outwards. I figured this was as good a plan as any. If the mower starts a fire at least the short grass will be near our house. There is a water fire extinguisher tank strapped to the forks on the front of the tractor. I don’t anticipate any problems with fire but its better to be safe.

He was in field four when he found the first lamb. It had just been killed, still soft. It had its throat torn and intestines opened up. Most likely a coyote did it. As he kept mowing he discovered a second corpse. All bones and a little hide with an ear tag. Two more sheep dead! This is just the other side of the barn lot. I know the sheep are in every night next to the barn because I keep getting up in the middle of the night when the puppy is barking. I see both groups of sheep as a sea of eyes when I am searching the area for predators. The tractor proceeded to overheat due to the dust filling up the radiator and then he saw only one quail baby. I finally messaged him and asked for some good news and he sent me a picture of a tape measure he found out in the middle of the field while mowing the cheat grass!

The dead sheep are still not enough loss to justify extreme circumstances or the expense of a guard dog, but it is a principle thing. I will be getting up at 0400 on weekends for a while and going up to the pasture and attempting to call in the coyotes. I purchased an electronic call that can be triggered from up to 200 yards away. I can stick the speaker into a patch of blackberries and back off about a 100 yards. I will be able to spot the far hillside, its within 400-500 yards. Not ideal with a 243 but not unreasonable and the whole point of the call is to be patient and let it come closer. I don’t believe we have a den of coyotes on the place this time. Usually, those become self evident when the pups start coming out, they are easy to spot. This one is very cagey and has only been spotted twice on the farm and in different places and not for very long.

I have not managed to spot any more raccoons, possums or skunks during my nightly excursions. I did manage to get some serious uninterrupted sleep this last night. I was so tired after two nights of broken sleep from night patrols that I heard nothing. There was a harvest moon the other night and it was amazingly bright outside.

Is that twin calves?

Steve Hardin2 Comments

Well, we may get some calves yet. We were not sure the bull was able to do his duty with the bum front foot he had but we have had one stillbirth and we now have twins! This is our first set of live twins, I think? Maybe? I may have to get spousal input on this determination but she is taking a nap so I am just gonna run with it for now. Mr Rainman said he spotted twins but I had only seen a single twice so did not believe him. Last night when we were rounding up the sheep to go back into the barn lot, Annmarie spotted the twins with a brown cow. So now we have a set of brown twins and two black single calves. I looked at the cows today and spotted at least two maybe three more pregnant females. So it looks like we will get at least five calves this year.

Today I went out and sprayed all of the stinging nettle from our house all the way up to field one. The stuff is everywhere! It has definitely been multiplying. Two of the upper fields are half cheat grass. We bought some new spray that is supposed to suppress the cheat grass but it is fairly new and not commonly used around our region. We are going to figure it out and use it on those two fields. I am just going to fix the fence, mow the grass and let the cows and sheep eat on it. We will work on fixing the fields down by the schoolhouse with good orchard grass. So we graze the upper fields and hay the lower fields. This was Annmarie’s plan all along. Amazing how the wife’s ideas are usually right.

I looked at the spot for the yurt today. There is a nice totally secluded spot on the other side of the bluff but the view is only in one direction due to being surrounded by about 210 degrees of rock bluff. I don’t like it as well as our original spot. I had time to look around as I was spraying weeds today. I may spend a couple of evenings exploring the bluff edge with the tractor. I don’t think people realize how noisy it is out here! The wind blows in the evenings. The cows holler, the sheep holler, the alpaca fight, the birds are incredibly noisy, the grass makes noise, the running water makes noise, the coyotes are incredibly noisy at night. There is a constant cacophony of wild sounds 24/7.

I put plastic owls in the machine shed in an attempt to slow down the birds nesting in there in the spring and summer. If you look above and to the right of the owl you will see a bird’s nest. They know the owls are plastic! I may try the little silver strings but the birds seem fairly smart when they are not harassed.

Moving cows is never easy, no matter what

Steve Hardin1 Comment

Mr Rainman came out this week and finished spraying all the major fields. He has been backpack spraying the difficult to reach areas and still has more of this to do but I think he can be done in less than two days and will have gotten most of the farm, even the difficult to reach areas.

I came home early on Wednesday so that we could sort cows for butchering. It turned into sorting off six month old calves, sorting out 5 kill size cows and moving the old bull. This was going fairly smooth. I say that loosely as sorting any live animal does have its challenges. Mr Rainman is not a cow person, even really an animal and every time I got in the corral to walk around and sort out 12 jumpy horned cows he would squeal and get nervous. All was going well, I had placed Chance (1 year old border collie) on a 30’ lead and she was doing well. We are working on “down” command at any time and “left” and “right” commands. We only use “circle around”, “to Me”, “guard”(creates dog gate), “away”. “Stay” and “easy”. Those are the main ones, we do realize there are a lot more commands but over the years these are the ones we use. The only other thing is they have to learn to work in the barn with mommas and babies and to stay and allow the lambs to pass or sniff at them.

Once we had the cows in the barn lot, I tied Chance to the gate so the cows would not try and push on it and then we proceeded to push them into the corral for sorting. Everything was going smoothly (first indicator you are about to be in trouble) when one of the slaughter size cows reached the corner gate chain and lifted it off its anchor slot and pushed the gate open and got back in with the main herd. We finished sorting all the rest of the cows and even moved the weanlings off to the third holding pen so we could still use the main two and chute. We tried to push the herd back into the corral and they did not want to go especially the one we wanted. So I grabbed Chance and we pushed them into the corral. She got rolled twice by the cows, but she just jumped up and got right back at it. We pushed the cows in and I ran our target into the chute after he tried to climb the five foot corral fence. I failed to notice that I had left the sheep ramp in the chute. It is for running the sheep into the back of the pickup. It was leaning on the exit gate with about a 60 degree angle and the steer ran right up that ramp and jumped off it from five feet in the air. So we spent 30 minutes getting him back into the pen and in with the four sale cows. We never could have done this without Chance. We sorted off one steer (not crazy one) for someone to come pickup on Saturday morning (next warning sign). We would keep him in the corral for a couple of days until he could be picked up. The bull went into the corral to spend the night. He is so placid you literally have to go up and nudge him in the direction you want him to go.

I get up bright and early so I can be in Lagrande by 0730. Annmarie comes out to help me, the first four just go right into our livestock trailer. I try and run the bull through the chute but he keeps dragging his horns and having to turn his head. He is 13 or 14 years old and has a very large head and decent horns. So we let him back into the corral and Annmarie suggests just backing the trailer into the pen, opening the entire back and getting him to just walk into it by himself. We do this and he is coaxed in under five minutes. He is so calm.

I am off early around 0530, I adjust the trailer brakes and start the trip. I am going 55 mph and it feels fine. I get on the freeway and keep it at 55 mph, I can feel the animals moving around in the trailer. I creep up Cabbage hill at 45 mph. Honestly, except for my nervousness it is going well until I start coming down the hill on the backside. The whole rig starts shaking every time I hit the brakes over 50 mph. It did not do this on the flats. So more white knuckled driving and I pull in to Hines meat. I was there before the place was open. The guy comes out, compliments the bull on how good looking he is and we try and unload them. We got them unloaded but of course they did not want to comply.

When Hines called back this weekend to give weights on the cows they said there was one “surly” cow that gave them some trouble. Wanna guess who that was? Due to the small stature of a Dexter cow you get a lean meat and much smaller steaks. The carcass weights came in at 327#, 332#, 320#, 313# and the bull at 673#. The bull went to all hamburger. We are charging $3.50/lb hanging weight now. The average for our area is around $4-4.50/lb hanging weight.

On the trailer trip home I just dropped the horse trailer off at the tire place and asked them to balance all tires, check brakes and pack wheel bearings. The lights worked great!