I decided to start weaning the calves this afternoon. At 1 pm Donna came and helped me sort the calves from the cows. First we moved cow #20 from the south corral to the loading corral so she would be out of the way. As Donna started to herd the #20, the cow began to jump and buck a little to move away from Donna, to her surprise. Donna now thinks the cow is 99.5% recovered from her broken leg. She also thought cow 20 was a little wild. Maybe it was because she was by herself for so long while recovering from her broken leg.
Then we let the cows and calves into the south corral. The cows went to the hay left by cow 20 and the Vitalix mineral tub. So it was fairly easy to get the calves into the north corral as the cows pushed them away from the goodies. Once the cows ate all the hay we moved them back to the hayfield. For now I will leave the cows in the hayfield instead of letting them into the north pasture. Instead of letting the cows eat the taller lusher grass, maybe they will stop producing milk sooner.
 |
| Waiting in the loading corral while we move cow 20 back to the south corral. |
 |
| Buster has lost one of this horns, the left one. The right horn still hasn't fallen off yet. |
When it came time to move cow 20 back to the south corral she got wild again. Instead of coming out of the loading ramp area after I opened the gate she tried to jump over another wooden gate. There was no need to do that as we weren't pushing her. She came down on top of the gate breaking it and then getting hung up on the gate. While we pondered on how we would get her off the broken gate she began to wiggle further breaking the gate and she was able to back off the gate. We then herded her into the south corral.
Great.
So much for my plans for the day. My long term goal was to replace the wooden gate some day, but now the cattle rearranged my plans once again.I happened to have a small metal gate that would work. I would prefer a green HW or a Powder River gate as they are heavier metal, but I think this gray gate will be strong enough.
To use this gate I had to add another post. The wooden gate had been four feet wide and this metal gate was only three feet wide so I couldn't place the gate on the railroad tie post.
I'm not confident the gate's little chain will hold the gate shut against pressure of the cattle. So I decided to add an extra board to help hold the gate shut as seen below.
I also decided to make the gate open to the right instead of the left like the wooden gate. Usually people helping me are outside the loading ramp to the right and this will make it easier for them to help push the gate closed from the outside.
Here is a 1 minute 31 second video of the calves this afternoon starting to call for their mothers.
https://youtu.be/MoQNDrLKeMY
The calling and mooing wasn't too bad when the video was taken. After I fixed the gate I finished working on a fence outside the corral. As time went on the cows and calves started mooing more and louder. Each was feeding off the other. At one point I heard wood and metal straining. I looked over and Beulah was trying to force her way through the middle/north pasture fence between the gate and the stack of logs. She couldn't get through, but give her time and she may break something and get through. I went over and chased her away from the opening she was trying to make. I added some temporary boards and eventually she went elsewhere.
I closed the gates on the driveway at the road in case the cattle decide to break into the yard to try to get closer to their calves overnight.
As the sun set the mooing got more intense. Even in the house with all the windows closed I can hear the cows and calves bellowing almost non-stop. It is going to be a long several days until they get past this and I can again think straight when working outside.
 |
| Sunset |
No comments:
Post a Comment