2024: Calf 11 - 60's

This morning I found a new calf.  I've been watching cow 70 as she should have been next to have a calf, but cow 60 had her calf.  Last year cow 60 had her calf June 2.  I was expecting cow 60 to have her calf the first few days of May as cows can calve a month earlier than the previous year.  But I am fine with her having her calf a little earlier than expected.  The earlier the better.

The calf is a male.  Donna came over this afternoon and banded it and helped me put an ear tag in the calf's ear.  The calf's scrotum was larger than the other male calves born this year so it was easier for Donna to band the calf.  I had to switch from facing backwards to hold the calf's leg when banding was done to switching forward to put the ear tag on the calf.  The calf tried to get up and move away and I struggled to grab the calf's legs to stop it from getting away.  Apparently I also grabbed one of Donna's legs.  I kept the calf down and Donna was able to get up.

After banding the new calf I then looked at cow 70.  Her tail was swishing more today.  Her udder is a little bigger today.  And her rear end is puffier than usual.   Cow 70 is looking close to having her calf.  Any time now.   These photos of cow 70 is from a few days ago.

Harrowing the pastures is done

Monday I finished my harrowing for the year.   Well, all but where the extended corral is located.  When that is taken down in June that spot will be harrowed then.

Harrowing took some time this year.   First it was slow to start because I decided to fix one of the damaged harrow sections.  On the section shown below, one of the side (up and down) pieces was broken off.   I have lots of broken harrow section pieces from years past.  I got one of those side pieces for this harrow.   To put this piece on I had to straighten the top side-to-side piece.  When doing so half of the piece broke off.  Argh!!  So I had to replace the entire piece.  Also, the middle side-to-side piece was half broken.  So I replaced that piece also.

Making this repair work slow going was that I had to remove the teeth of the pieces to remove or add the side-to-side pieces from the up-and-down pieces holding them in place.  These harrow sections are old and the bolts holding things together were stuck and hard to remove.  I still must have some strength as some of the bolts twisted into two pieces when I tried to unscrew the bolt's nuts.  So I had to find replacement bolts and nuts.

But as you can see the 'rebuilt' harrow section looks good.  Now that harrowing is pretty much done, this piece held together.   But as usual the tree roots that sometimes run along the top of the ground did a number on a different harrow section.  

The middle section on the right side got damaged / partially broken up from the harrowing this year.  The following photo is before I started to do the harrowing.

At one point I had to move the large metal hay feeder sitting in the middle pasture.  After I did so, I completed the harrowing of the middle pasture.  Then at the end of the day I saw that I was missing a piece from my tractor's 3-point hitch.   The next day I looked and looked where I harrowed the field after moving the metal feeder.  (Moving the metal feeder had nothing to do with the loss of the piece.)  After a few go-rounds I finally found the piece. Here is where I found it.  I screwed it back onto the 3-point hitch.

Also slowing things down is that before harrowing the middle and north pastures I hand raked the manure next to and under the trees in the pastures away from the trees and the roots at ground level.  Lots of trees.

The pastures all now look good and the manure is all broken up.

Now on to other projects.

Time to separate Haynes

This morning Donna saw that Haynes was getting interested in one of my cows.  He tried to mount her but fortunately she wasn't in standing heat - yet.  The first cow to have a calf this year had her calf a month ago - 30 days ago.  The cow Haynes was trying to mount was the third cow to have a calf this year - on March 14 - not even 30 days ago.   Normally cows don't come into heat until 45-50 days later.  But in 2020 I had a cow come into heat 34 days after having her calf.  Guess what, she then had her next calf early - January 30, 2021.  I don't want that to happen again.  So Donna and I herded Haynes into the south part of the corral to be by himself until June 1.

Corral board and one calf breakout

Today I saw the cattle had pushed off again the one corral fence board they like to push off.

I re-nailed the board back to the railroad tie.  I added a couple more nails.   The railroad tie should be solid, but not as much anymore due to the nails going in and out of it.  I may have to find a big screw to fasten the board, or a bolt that goes all way through the railroad tie.  Another item for my 'to-do' list.

Later in the afternoon I heard another cow mooing.  Yup.  Another calf slid under the extended corral fence and was in the north pasture.  Little Buelah's calf this time.  A few back-and-forths and then the calf went through the gate and back to his mother.