Hay bale for the calves

This morning I put out another large hay bale for the calves in the corral.  They should be weaned by now, but to be on the safe side I'll continue to keep them separated from their mothers.  No sense having the calves around when their mothers have new calves and start producing milk again.

As you can see the curious calves have to check everything out and want to eat up the remaining hay in the feeder.  I herded the calves to the main corral and shut the gate to keep them out while I lower the large hay bale and then flipped the feeder back around the bale.  If I didn't get the calves away one of them could get hurt when I re-flip the feeder back to the ground.

The cows and bull are fed twice a day out in the pasture.  Here they are finishing up eating the morning feeding of hay.

Cattle photos on a sunny day

Here are a few cattle photos I took yesterday when it was so sunny.

The calves

Because I have a few more cattle than usual, and some cows do not want to eat next to some of the other cows, I also place some hay on the ground in addition to the wooden feeders.

Tomorrow I plan to put out a large hay bale so the cows can pig out and overeat for several days.

Nice weather

Yesterday it was very windy.  And warmer than normal as the high temperature reached 53 degrees.  Much of the snow melted.  Today it was sunny all day - which is unusual for us in the Wintertime.  Usually it is cloudy for weeks on end.

Some photos from today.  You can see how the snow melted into water and pooled as the frost still is in the ground.  This pool of water is much deeper than it looks.  One cannot drive a vehicle or tractor through the water without flooding the vehicle or tractor.  And other areas where the water is not so deep turned into ice.

These are all box elder trees.  They are either male or female.  The female tree still has seeds on it.  The female tree does not release the seeds until Spring when the new leaves start to come out, which then pushes the seeds off the branches.