Cattle into the hayfield, and heifers that were old

This morning I let the cattle into the hayfield.  The pastures are pretty much eaten down and the hayfield grew nicely after the second hay cutting.  The last week's overnight low temperatures have been in the mid to low 20s so the grass and alfalfa aren't really growing anymore.  And I won't be asked if I plan on doing a third hay cutting of my field. 

Before letting the cattle into the hayfield I gave them a bag of apples.  It is near the end of apples are most have fallen from the trees.

The two smaller animals in the back are the heifers I am keeping.

Now, into the hayfield.

My heifers were sold at auction on Friday.  I did better than I expected. They weighed 510 pounds each and sold for 2.97 a pound.  I got more for my heifers than I did for my steers.  That was a first for me.  And this was the most I ever got for heifers.   A handful of other sellers with heifers near my heifer's weight sold for a little over $3 a pound up to 3.16 a pound.  But I was near the high end of the market.

Barn painted

I finished repainting the barn.   The only time earlier I had put paint on the barn was back in 2009 when I had a little red paint left due to painting the house's trim red.

Here is text and photos from my blog post about this back in July 2009:

So I think I have finished painting the fascia on the house, garage and well pump shed. I still had paint left in the can so I decided to finish the can by painting the barn. I ended up painting two walls of the barn's addition. I had to do a little scraping of old paint off the bottom two boards of each wall.

Tammy picked out a pretty red, don't you think? Even though the white trim has not been repainted the red already makes it stand out.

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Last month when Kelly stopped by to check on deer hunting this year, and his deer stand, he also asked if I wanted some red paint.  Kelly has a business where he paints stuff for people.  He had two cans of paint he didn't want or need.   Red paint?  Sure.  I could paint something red.

Kelly gave me more paint than I expected.  Two five-gallon pails of paint. The red paint is in the black pails.  Ignore the paint in the grey pails.  That is the paint for the tool shed.

The red color is called "Cape Cod Red".

Originally I had planned on first re-painting the tool shed with other paint I have.  But I would have to pressure wash the tool shed to clean off the loose and flaky paint on it before painting it.  I decided to paint the barn instead.  It took me a number of weeks to paint the barn.  That is because I was also doing other things around the same time.  For over a week I only got 45 minutes to an hour of painting done each day.  So the barn painting was off to a slow start.

Then it got to time to start weaning the calves and they would be in the south corral.  To get that part of the barn done I picked up the pace and spent more time over a couple days to get that part of the barn painted before the calves came.

Due to the feeder I couldn't use the tall ladder to reach the peak of the barn.  I used a smaller ladder.  The feeder roof held up.  You can see how the shade from the roof overhang slowed the old paint from fading away.

Here is the finished south side of the barn.  The boards over the one window are because much of the six glass panes are broken.  Another day I will get a new larger single pane to replace the six missing smaller panes.  Year ago I did that to the window that is now under the feeder I later built.

While the barn addition had been painted back in 2009, the color faded over 15 years.  I decided to repaint the side in the south coral.

Then on the west side of the barn I got part of it painted.  I ran out of paint from the first five-gallon pail before I got the side doors painted.

From the second pail of paint I got the side doors painted even though the calves were now in the south corral.  Since I only had one five-gallon pail of paint left, and it didn't have to be painted now, I skipped painting the side of the barn under the side roof.

To get the part of the barn in south corral painted took an entire five-gallon pail of paint.  How much of the rest of the barn will get painted with the other five-gallon pail of paint?  For sure I wanted the north side of the barn painted.   As you can see the barn had two colors: red and brown. I'm sure the brown paint was due to my dad.  He probably got some discounted on-sale cheap paint.  I never liked the look.

The hay loft door needed work and paint.  On the barn and hay loft door the raised wood sections are used to cover the areas where the board pieces meet each other.  The barn most likely was built in 1940/1941 and I don't think 4 by 10 sheets of wood were available back then.  To cover the gaps at where the board pieces came together, a board was nailed over those areas.   The hay loft door had minor raised boards that most has deteriorated over time.  I replaced three of the four pieces.  Unlike the old raised pieces that had been painted white, I painted them red.  I left the frame as white.

I still had paint left.  On to the east side.  Let's see how much of this side I can paint.   Here you can see the new paint on the right. (When I took the photo the new paint already covered the brown paint.)  The old and faded paint on the left.  The brighter red was an area I had painted back in 2009 when I also painted the barn addition.

I was surprised that I was able to paint the entire east side.  And I painted the north side of the addition.  The last strokes to paint the addition were the last paint I had.  I had exactly the amount of paint needed to paint the barn (other than what was under the barn roof on the west side.)   Who would have thought?

Kelly said the red paint had primer as part of the paint.  I hadn't painted since 2009.  I found this paint to be more liquidly than the paint I knew before.  The paint flowed.  When I held the brush end of the brush up to paint, paint would flow down the handle of the brush.  My hands and arms got a good amount of paint on them.  And this paint was harder to remove off my hands and arms.  I think today after days of washing and scrubbing them of paint I got most all of it off me.  My clothes however.  That may remain forever.  Washing the clothes today appears to not remove much of any paint.

And I found my painting shoulder to be slightly sore each night when I went to bed as I used a hand brush to paint the barn.  The raised boards made using a roller to paint unworkable.

Well, this project is now done.  On to the next project.

Corral and loading corral

This afternoon I finally finished painting the barn.  More on that in another post once I get photos taken of the new paint job.

I had time left so I got the chainsaw and trimmed the railroad ties in front of the loading corral.  Some of the ties were a bit longer so I evened them out.  I have spikes in the ties and into the ground holding the ties in place, so I didn't trim the ties any shorter.   Next year I'll try to remember to move some dirt to make the other trailers be a little taller.

I had more time available and I got the lawnmower out and mowed the weeds down in the corral.  The cows earlier had eaten what they wanted off the weeds, then the weeds died.  The look did not appeal to me.

I used my rake to flip the manure in half the yard.  I need more time for the manure to completely dry before mowing to even out the grass height in the yard.  At least the yard looks better than the tall weeds did in the corral.

Heifer calves to auction

This morning I hauled my six heifer calves to the stockyards in Ronan so they could be taken to Ramsey, MT for the auction on Friday.   It is easier to do than before when I hauled cattle to the auction in Missoula.  I have less to drive and I can start loading the cattle later when it is light outside and not dark.

I had told Donna that I would start at 8:30 am.  But I woke up earlier and then started earlier.  The calves were very cooperative this morning and followed me from the south corral to the loading corral and then walked into the stock trailer.  I had the calves loaded and had just driven out of the corral when Donna and Rusty arrived.  I put a rachet strap around the back of the stock trailer to better hold that back gate in place and we were on our way.

At the stockyard I saw that it had improved it since I was last there in August.  A new unloading area.  They got rid of the wooden fencing and put in metal poles.  Much of the other parts of the corral were improved.  New fence boards.  New and more gates.  I didn't notice any bent gates.  A nice job was done and I no longer worry about a cattle breakout from the pens.

When unloading my calves I met a couple from Eureka for whom this was the first time here and they weren't sure what to do.  They initially thought I may be a worker who transports the cattle to the auction.  I explained what they had and should do and helped them unload their calves and place them in an empty pen.

Then I was off to back home.   I recently bought a pressure washer so I no longer have to borrow Donna's pressure washer.  I put mine together and used it to clean my stockyard.  It worked well.

Here is my loading corral.  I put the railroad ties outside the gate to make it easier for the cattle to step into the stock trailer.  My trailer is a touch higher so I can back up to the open gate.  Tony's and Leah's trailers were not as high and they could only back up to the railroad ties, and not over the ties.  With a little gap between their trailers and the gate I would stand a wooden pallet on one side and the other person would stand on the other side so they cattle wouldn't try to turn and squeeze through the gap instead of going into the trailer.

My trailer must be just above the railroad ties.  Today after I loaded the calves and went to drive away the trailer rubbed on the railroad ties and it took effort to drive away.  That never happened before.  The dirt may have gotten lower this year.  I may move some dirt here or maybe trim the railroad ties to be a bit shorter.

At the Ronan stockyard heading to their pen.

In their pen at the stockyard.

A larger view of the stockyard.  Other cattle were already there.

Flathead Lake during the drive home.

Now to see what my calves weigh and what I will get at the auction.  Hope for the best.

The steer calves are sold

Today I sold the 5 steer calves born this year.  Tony got his usual two calves and picked them up after 2 pm.

The other three calves... last year I had a call from a woman asking if I had any calves for sale.  Unfortunately she called the evening before I went to the livestock auction.   When I sell calves I want to weigh them so there is no misconception on how much they weigh.   My estimates, and many other people's estimates, are usually off.  So I didn't sell her any calves last year.  Besides several of the steer calves last year were on the smaller side as they were born later than normal.

After Tony picked his two calves yesterday I called Leah.  Yes, she was interested.  She came late yesterday and looked at them.  She was interested.  Especially as the calves were friendly to her, unlike the calves she bought last year.   But she was weighing on what to do.  My prices were based on what I could get at the auction.  500 to 600 pound calves sell in one price range, and 600 to 700 pound calves sell in another price range.  I picked a number at the lower end of each price range even though my calves usually sell in the upper half of the price range at the auctions.   So this morning I took the calves in to have them weighed.   Three trips. The first to weigh the empty truck and trailer.  The next to weigh her three calves.  The last to weigh Tony's calves.

Tony's calves weighed 630 pounds each, although the red calf looked a touch heavier than the black calf.  Of her calves, one was the same size as Tony's calves, the other two were a little smaller.  I went with 620 pounds for one and 550 pounds for the each of the other two calves.

Cattle prices are high, so this is lot of money for each calf, much more for two or three calves.  She said she needed up to three hours to think about it.  An hour later she called and said, yes, she wanted to buy all three calves.  She came over before 6 pm and I loaded the calves into her stock trailer.  I thought I had an old stock trailer.  I got her to temporarily modify the trailer's back gate to make it easier to load the calves.  And a suggestion to get a better rachet strap to hold the trailer's back gate in place so the cattle inside don't accidently push the back gate off and out.  Once the calves were loaded we were able to tie the back gate in place so she wouldn't have any problems during the drive home.

I only have heifer calves to sell.  That's tomorrow.

Fallen tree

Last Friday at 5:15 pm we had a strong front come through and it had strong winds.  I was checking pocket gopher traps near the river and was among smaller (hawthorn) trees.  Those trees cut down the wind in that area.  I could hear the wind and could see what I initially thought was rain coming.  But the "rain" turned out to be dirt blowing in the wind.   The wind was gusting up to 52 mph.

The next day I found a tree in the north pasture had been blown over.  Cutting up the tree and its branches is yet another thing to add to my "to-do" list.

Fixed corral fence

This morning I got around to fixing the corral fence board the cattle had broken when they were in the loading corral on Wednesday.  This cow is the one that reminded me that I needed to fix the board.

On to the next project.

Starting the wean

This afternoon I separated the cattle to start weaning calves.  First, I had to go hiking.  More on that in a post tomorrow on my hiking blog.  Before I went hiking I put all the cattle into the corral.  The yard was mostly eaten and I didn't want the cattle in the yard when I was gone.  Earlier I had forgotten to hook the chain on the loading coral gate and the cattle found that out in the morning and pushed the gate open.  Most of the cattle were in the loading corral eating the grass so getting the few that weren't in the corral was quick and easy.

The cattle weren't in the yard as long as in the Spring.  I had put protection up, but quickly and not as good as in the Spring.  So these cattle made a mess of some things.

The walnut tree that re-grew this year was eaten.  The cattle apparently got their tongues through the fence.

They knocked off part of the house's drainpipe, then stepped on it within the concrete block area.

Usually I had a tarp that I could tie to the well's pump house.  I couldn't find it so I tossed a couple of other tarps on the roof.  The cattle kept pulling the tarps off the roof.  Then they tore off part of the shingles.

I had some large plastic garbage bags in this crowded area.  The cattle reached in and found them and pulled them out and spread them across the yard.  Here are a couple of them.

After my hike was over Donna, Kari and Michael came over to help me sort the calves from the corral.

Before they arrived I discovered the cattle made a few problems in the loading corral.

A broken fence board.

The cattle popped the gate between the loading corral and the loading runway off its hinges.   That never happened before.

By the time Donna, Kari and Michael arrived I has separated the cows from the calves.  The cows out of the corral.  The calves into the south part of the corral.  Each wanted to go through a gate.  I just made sure only the cattle I wanted through that gate went through that gate.

Here are the calves in the south corral.

Some of the cows outside the corral.  Plus the two heifer calves I will keep as replacement cows next year.  Donna, Kari and Michael helped me sort the two heifers out of the corral.  Kari handling the gate. Michael helping me herd the heifers I wanted.

Two of the heifer calves lost their ear tags.  The first born lost her tag days after she was born.  I am keeping that heifer.  I will put in a new tag another day.   The heifer below I will sell next week.  Since she will go into the stockyards next week I want to made sure she had an ear tag so she didn't get mixed with someone else's cattle.   This was harder to do than expected.  Usually they get stuck in the head gate when they try to get through it.  On her first attempt she squeezed through the head gate. That never happened before.  On the second attempt I made sure the head gate wasn't open as wide and then she got stuck.

By evening the mooing by the mom's and the calves had started.