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.