Prepping the cattle

Before I let the cattle out of the corral to the pasture I had to first prep them. I did so on Monday morning.  For the cows and yearling heifers I sprayed their backs with Ivermectin to control worms and other parasites. Donna helped me as I separated the cows and heifers from the calves in the loading corral.  We ran the cattle through the loading ramp where they had to stand still so I could spray them.  We were done with the spraying in a half hour.

Now that the cows and heifers were done, we left them in the corral as we started to work on the calves.  Or tried to.   The cows were in a cranky mood.  Mama and the red cow started fighting.  Really fighting. Both were going around and around in circles trying to reach each other's udder.  I tried to break them up by whacking each of them with my sorting stick but they ignored me and kept fighting.  Usually a couple whacks and they break off.   Donna went and closed the yard gate to the road and we then let the cattle out into the yard to eat grass.  Once Mama and the red cow saw everyone leave for the grass they finally quit fighting and ran to eat grass too.
 
The next thing to do was to give the calves each an Ultrabac 8-way shot.  See here for a description of what it guards against.  It was only $7 for 10 doses.  And it gave me a reason to try out my new calf table.

How do you like that?  One calf is already in the calf table.

That didn't last as the calf backed out once we entered the corral.  I ended up placing corral panels to divide the loading corral. We didn't want calves who had shots to mix with calves who did not have shots yet.  It would have gotten too confusing remembering who got what.  I also placed two panels on each side of the table's entrance to act as a chute to guide the calves to the table.

Donna and I chased a calf into the two gates and then Donna followed/pushed the calf to the table.  Usually the calf would balk at entering the table and Donna would push it in.  Once the calf was in I pulled on the lever to squeeze the side with the bars against metal side thereby pinning the calf.  Donna got kicked a few times by a calf.

I had the head gate at the end of the calf table but only one or two calves put their head into the gate.  Usually they tried to slip out the side through the bars as seen below.  So later I would quickly squeeze the side before the calf could try to put its head through the bars.

Once the calf was held tight I had time to fill the syringe, find a loose bit of skin to pinch together (usually on the side of the neck), and then give the shot under the skin.  Once we were done I opened the head gate wide and release the squeezed sides.  The calf then would invariably try to back up instead of moving forward.  Donna would block the calf and we would give a push to get the calf to think of moving forward, which it then would do.

As we worked the mother cows would occasionally come into the corral and bellow at us in response to their calves mooing. So after a few calves had shots I would release them out of the loading corral to join their mothers.  As time went on we had less visits from mother cows - and less bellowing.

After administering the first shot I accidentally pricked my hand with the empty needle. I was more careful after that, and also got the hang of how to fill the syringe and to give the shots.

The calf table worked great and was well worth the hundred dollars I paid for it.


Yesterday I let the cows and their calves into the middle pasture. Today I let the yearling heifers into the NE pasture.  I kept the heifers an extra day as I had to place some wire around the new trees I had planted in the NE pasture.  It rained most of yesterday so I didn't get the trees protected until today.

Even though they had plenty of hay for themselves, the heifers were not happy at being kept in the corral away from the cows and calves.  Plenty of mooing.  They were happier once I let them into the pasture.  For a while.  Once their bellies were full and when they were at the west side of the pasture and could see the cows off in the middle pasture, their mooing began again for a while.

Buddy is not happy.  First the cows and calves left for the middle pasture.  Now the heifers left for the NE pasture.  Lots of mooing by Buddy today.  Off towards the middle pasture, then off towards the NE pasture.  He wants his girls nearby.

Why did I separate the cows and yearlings?  When I release Buddy to be with the cattle, I want him to get the cows pregnant first.  Then he can be with the yearlings.  This will give the yearlings two to three more weeks to grow and age before getting pregnant.  And I would prefer to have them calve last as they may need assistance and I would prefer to do that at the end of the calving cycle and not at the beginning or when other cows are giving birth.  I am fine with having the yearlings have May calves while the cows have April calves.

Released into the NE pasture.