Hooves and sunset

Some weeks ago I found part of a hoof out in the hayfield.  I think it may be from Momma.  I never noticed her limping, but her hoofs were long this Summer and this hoof looks to be the size and color as Momma's hoofs.

This past week cow #40 started to limp after the cattle were let back into the corral.  I first noticed it Tuesday night when Dan and I separated the calves for weaning.  It was somewhat dark to see why she was limping.  I watched during the week.  First it seemed like her back left leg was a little swollen between her hoof and the first joint.  Then it seemed like she was favoring her front left foot.

This morning I got a little better look and she is definitely favoring her front left hoof.  Dan stopped by at noon and we looked.  She won't let us grab her leg to look but from a little distance away nothing seems caught in her hoof.  For now we are thinking she stepped on some frozen something (manure piles?) in the corral and that made her hoof tender.   She was near a gate so we herded her in the corral with the calves.  She was the only cow not to have a calf so this will work.  This part of the corral is a little smoother and she doesn't have to walk as much to eat and drink.  That should help her heal.

Is this going to be an annual event each Fall?  A cow with an injured hoof?

I got a couple of old bad hay/straw bales and spread them under the barn lean to.  This will provide a little protection / warmth for the calves and injured cow to lay on on these cold days and nights as the overnight temps are below zero F.

As you can see the calves fur has gotten thicker and the snow has not completely melted off their backs.


During the storm I had been feeding small bales to the cows three times a day.  With the injured cow out of the way I could herd the others out of the corral temporarily so I could pull another large bale into the corral.  The pallet had froze to the ground so I had to jerk it several times with the pickup before it broke free and began to move.


It was so cold my livestock well froze!  Actually... what froze was the short garden hose from the hydrant to the water trough.  The hose doesn't go straight down but at an angle.  The temperature was cold enough the water froze in the hose before completely draining.  *sigh*  I took the hose off and thawed it in the house.


The wind and snow had quit by morning as the storm moved on.  Still cold.  Snow had blown everywhere. Inside the barn, under the pole shed and tool shed even though those openings were away from the wind. It seemed like the wind swirled in addition to blowing at gale force.

It started to clear at sunset.  The mountains looked nice.

After dark Daisy went outside.  At first she wanted to go until I opened the door and she felt how cold it was.  She then complained to me about the weather.   A short time later she saw something outside and was meowing at one window and pawing at another window.  This time she went outside when I opened the door for her.  She wasn't outside too long before coming back in.  No more meowing or pawing... she is laying by the wood stove.

Winter storm

I want global warming back!  This is the second winter storm this season and it is still only November.

In front of the storm we had above normal temperatures for a few days, and rain.  Friday I pushed a lot of water off the tarp where it had pooled. I should have let it freeze.  By midnight the wind switched from the south to the north and the temperature started to drop.  Sometime in the morning the wind picked up.  At 2 am Daisy wanted to go outside.  That didn't last long.  At 7 am she again wanted outside.  By then the wind was howling and the snow was blowing.  I opened the door and she looked, wrinkled her nose and turned away.  She meowed to complain about the weather but there was nothing I could do.  So she ended up using her litter box inside the house.

The house windows this morning...

In regards to the cattle, the timing of the storm sucked.  By the end of Friday the cows had eaten down their big hay bale in the feeder, and if there was no storm I would have pulled a new bale into the corral today.  Before midnight I put out a small bale of hay each for the calves and the cows.  In the morning the calves still had plenty of hay but the cows needed more hay.  So I got them a couple of small bales and put the bales in the two wooden feeders.

The wind was howling and the snow was thick.  The temperature was 4 F and the ground was hard and a little slick due to the frozen water and mud.  The 6 inches of snow from earlier in the week?  The warm up Thursday and Friday melted all the snow. (So much for my two days of shoveling the driveway and yard!)  The melted snow and frozen ground meant water standing everywhere.   As I put the first bale of hay in the feeder the cattle quickly came over.  One cow slipped and fell down.  It took several tries before her feet stopped slipping and she could stand back up.

A few days ago another cow developed a limp. I first noticed it the night I separated the calves into the other part of the corral.  I don't see a reason for the limp and am watching her.  I suspect another cow may have rammed her and she twisted her leg.  This cow slowly limped over for the hay.

The calves had plenty of hay but they and all the cows were covered in snow.

The storm is supposed to move out tonight and cold - below zero - temperatures settle in after the storm leaves.

The strong wind blew back the tarp.  The old railroad rails and some of the other metal posts were blown off the tarp.  The rest of the boards, pipes and water on the tarp held the rest of the tarp in place.  Maybe I should have left all the water on the tarp.

And lastly...  (I'm old enough the remember all these - and other - pronouncements.)

Lots of crying

When Dan stopped by Tuesday night to pick up his branding iron I asked him to help me separate the calves into the south part of the corral so I can wean them.  The sorting process ended up being more of me herding the cows and bull out of the south part of the corral and leaving the calves.  It was tricky to herd Buddy the bull out.  He was standing and intently watching and trying to figure out what was going on.  Not a good thing to try to herd him along right then.  What made herding tricky is the cows would go stand by him when I was herding the cows.  Eventually the cows would amble towards the gate which Dan was managing.  Finally Buddy followed the last cow to leave.

Within minutes the calves figured out what had happened and were getting anxious.  I put out a fresh bale of hay in the feeder I built south of the barn to distract them.

The next morning lots of crying and calling.  Some of it was by the mother cows; mainly Momma and one or two other cows.  Beulah and the other cows seemed fine without their calves demanding milk.

So the day was filled with mooing, bellowing, crying and calling. I got to hear it over and over and over as I shoveled snow.  Each one has their own sound.  One calf varied between sounding like an elephant trumpeting or a bull elk calling a female.  He and another calf have piercing cries.

Rose was handling it better than the others.  Momma was more upset than Rose was.  The cattle can stick their heads through an area above the water trough.  When Rose was drinking water Momma put her head through the opening and briefly licked Rose's neck and head.

Last year thoee calves barely made a fuss when separated for weaning.  This year... it's going to be a long few days before they get over calling.

They get interested when I run the water from the pump.

As you can see, and I just found out today, this little steer calf is growing horns.  One can either cut them off, or put bands on them to make them fall off.  Once he is weaned I will try to remove his horns.  Not only can the horns be dangerous, the price one gets is reduced if they have horns.

Here is a video of the calves, then of Momma.  Of course when I took the video they were fairly quiet.  Later when I didn't have the camera the calves all started calling at the same time.

http://youtu.be/_w1_DtnPQO4
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Some snow and cattle

We had a little snow last night with more forecast this week. You can see the recent clouds trying to slip over the mountain tops this morning.

The cattle had been eating in the pasture the past week, but this morning I allowed them back into the corral and the hay.

This is Beulah's calf from last year.  Being a little smaller she got hay on her back from eating at the large bale.

Tarp and ice

A side effect of placing a tarp over the large hay bales is that water collects in the low areas.  Then freezes into blocks of ice.  This makes it harder to get new bales as I need to remove the tarp from the bale before moving it.  For the last bale I moved it was a challenge to get several sections of ice off the tarp as the ice froze to the tarp.

Saturday the temperature got above freezing so I spent a few hours removing more ice blocks.  I had almost 20 ice blocks to remove.  I got all but two removed.   Some areas where the water pooled was shallow and the ice easily removed.  Other areas were quite large and difficult.

After I got the ice off the tarp I removed the chunks from near the bales.  I didn't want them to freeze to the ground preventing me from dragging a bale and pallet to the corral.  Some chunks were so large I had to slide them across the ground as they were too heavy to lift.  I moved the largest blocks near my little pine trees.

The final two pieces of ice.

 
Saturday when I removed the ice from the tarp Daisy was inside the house sleeping.   Sunday morning I went out to take photos of the ice and Daisy was running around outside.  Of course she saw me outside and came over to 'help' me.

Hey!  What are you up to?

I'm coming to 'help' you.

Climbing up on top of the large bales: not a problem for Daisy.  She jumped up the side of the bale and hooked her claws into the hay.  Then she 'rock climbed' quickly to the top to join me.

Then Daisy walked around the tarp and found a few tiny pools of water.  To help me remove the water she licked it up.  Of course, her love of water outside her water dish had nothing to do with her helping me.

Any more water over there?

Nope.  No water over there.

Odd bird

The other morning I noticed this bird out in the hayfield.  It was out there for quite a while just standing there.  Daisy, who was in and out of the house that morning, never noticed it.  Or maybe the bird's size gave her pause about going after it.

Final miscellaneous fence build stuff

After more than a week of temperatures that have stayed below freezing it looks like my fence rebuilding is over for the year.  The ground is definitely frozen solid.

All told, for my various fence re-buildings in 2014, I put in 41 railroad ties as posts.  I swapped two gates with two different gates and put in four more gates. I rebuilt 600 ft of the fence along the road, and about 132 ft along the southern border when I put the corner posts and gate in that fence.


I used a good number of my salvaged boards on my corral rebuild.  I collected these boards over the years and the piles were a mish-mash of lengths, widths and thicknesses. I spent a fair amount of time looking for the right boards - no sense cutting boards to length when I may have the right sized board in a pile somewhere.

As you can see I have also accumulated lots of barb wire.  My old fences were 3 or 4 strands and my rebuilt fences are 6 strands so I have need of barb wire for the extra strands and to replace the strands that are old, rusted and brittle.

Daisy 'helped' me with many of the railroad ties.  What a cat!

There is plenty of fence to rebuild next year!

Split corral fence rebuild

Once I finished rebuilding the corral's perimeter fence I started rebuilding the fence that splits the corral.  As you can see below the fence needed a lot of work.

I only got a little of the fence done before other chores/events took me away from fence work.  I did get the hard part of the fence done as I put in two gates, one at each end.  The old fence between the barn and the west corral fence did not have any gates. The only way between the two sides of the corral was via a gate east of the barn.  Now, with three gates herding the cattle between the two sides is so much easier.  Especially when the cattle want to stay on the west side of the corral.

I had hoped to get back to completing the fence this year but the recent cold weather put an end to that as the ground is frozen very solid.  In the meantime I am using corral panels to make a fence for the 60 ft I have left to fence.

In the time between completing the south corral fence and starting this fence, I got a few more log cuttings from the timber framing company.  I wish I had more of these exact log cuttings as, even though Tammy didn't like them, I think they look so cool.

The back side of the log cuttings.

I put in a gate at the west side of the fence.

When I took apart the old fence I had a few nails that were very hard to get out of the post.

Here you see why these nails were so hard to remove: long and ribbed.

South corral fence rebuild

This past Spring, after I completed the west corral fence rebuild, I continued on and rebuilt the south corral fence.  This was a longer section of fence with 17 railroad ties and a gate.  The old south corral fence fence was straighter than the west corral fence so I ended up taking the old fence down as I rebuilt the new fence.  I kept the cattle on the north side of the corral so I didn't have to deal with them as I rebuilt the fence. 

I didn't have any log-like boards left to make my fence look "ghetto".  Tammy actually came out several afternoons and kept me company as I built the fence, and usually helped me when I needed an extra hand with longer boards.  Of course Daisy 'helped' me too every day.

While I had fixed this section of the fence earlier, it is an example of why I needed to upgrade my fence.

How the old fence looked when I started the rebuild.

 After the rebuild. A more solid fence.

Before...

After...

This fence should last a long time.


The yellow rope kept my fence straight.

When digging holes for railroad ties I dug up an old chain.

I also dug up the remnants of an old tree stump.  Western Larch tree.

I put a gate in the fence.  Here I am drilling a hole in the railroad tie for the gate's latch.

The gate and the hole for the latch.

Beulah's newborn calf decided to lay nearby while I gathered railroad ties for the fence.  This made Beulah nervous which made me nervous.

When moving the railroad ties a mouse jumped out and ran under the pile of ties. I called for Daisy and she ran over. The mouse got away.

But then Daisy found the nest the mouse had built out of grass and cattle hair. Daisy started to pounce up and down on the nest and tearing at it.  Huh?   Then she uncovered baby mice.  They didn't survive.

Tammy sat in the chair a few days to watch me work on the fence.  Sometimes Daisy sat in the red feeder to watch me.