Calf table

Did I wake up Thursday morning thinking I would buy a calf table?  Nope.
Did I even know I wanted a calf table?  No.
Did I even know what a calf table was?  No.

But I knew my friend Tim wanted a calf table.   Thursday afternoon I saw in the Mountain Trader two calf tables for sale for $100 each.   I called Tim but he was in South Dakota.  He was really interested in a calf table and asked if I would check it out for him.  I called and learned the tables were still available and were in Pablo, Montana, about 70 miles away.

Donna was up for a road trip so she came with me to look at the calf tables.  While Donna wasn't familiar with calf tables, me not knowing what to expect a second opinion would be useful.

The place where the tables were located was a shambles with junk, old tractors only good as scrap iron, and pieces of machinery everywhere.  What did I get myself into?  Donna wasn't sure she wanted to get out of the pickup.  She thought would have nightmares that night about the junky place.

This was far from the worst of it.

While the owner, Zon, was 85 years old, he looked and acted ten to fifteen years younger. He had about 150 head of cattle. He knew about cattle.  We talked de-horning methods, cattle and calf nutrition, prices, and about a cow he had that hadn't gotten rid of all her placenta after giving birth for the first time.  He tied a weight to the placenta thinking that would help pull the placenta out but the cow went crazy so he took the weight off and penned the cow and calf to keep an eye on them for potential problems.

He had two calf tables, one he has used before buying a newer one, and a spare he never had to use.  Both calf tables worked.  They were different.

I preferred the calf table he has used regularly. I carefully drove into the corral to load the calf table.

Here is a 3 second video of Zon lifting the table.  I didn't have time to take a longer video as I had to grab the calf table to make it stop spinning and swaying and to guide it into my pickup's bed.  When Zon first started to lower the table into the pickup bed the loader dropped suddenly.  The rest of the lowering went slower and smoother.   I held onto the table as I had visions of it swinging into my pickup window.

The tractor is an old "put-put" tractor: https://youtu.be/rDIMGnPdXh0

The other calf table I left for Tim.  Zon will hold it for Tim until he gets back from South Dakota in  week.


On the way home Donna and I ate at the Hot Spot Restaurant in Polson, Montana. It is a Thai restaurant. Yum!  I had:

The portion was so big I didn't eat it all. I took some home to eat later.  The spice level was perfect for me.  Spicy enough for flavor but not too spicy, although if I rushed eating the curry the spice level would increase.


Once home my next challenge was unloading the calf table.  I was able to move it by hand, but I didn't want to slide it out of the pickup and drop it to the ground.  On Friday I asked Wyatt and he lifted it out of the pickup with his tractor. 

I put the calf table in the loading corral for now.

The front "V" section is a head gate to hold the calf in place.

Then you can see one side can be moved in to hold the calf's body.

Why it is called a calf "table".   The whole unit swivels on its side.

The view from the back.

What I like is the "ribs".  Once can give shots through the openings.  Each rib can be opening for more access. For example if you want to brand the calf.   The bottom wood section flips down for easy access to the hoofs and lower legs.

What a useful piece of equipment.  And to think that before Thursday I didn't know that I could use one.

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Buddy and fence

This afternoon Buddy was taking interest in the cows across the fence.  One may be coming into heat.  I couldn't tell which one.

This cow is not in heat; she was in heat last week.  Is that smile on the cow's face?   Buddy... what are you doing?!

Buddy has some big balls.

You looking at me?

For a while Buddy stood next to the fence and me.  I scratched his head and around his ears.  Then I moved to his neck and side to his front shoulders.  Some of his winter fur easily was scratched off.   Buddy liked it.  After a bit he turned around so I could scratch his other side.


If you look at the first photo you will notice no wire on the top part of the fence.  Too reach the cows Buddy turned his head sideways and stuck his had through the opening.  The fence post is not the most solid and I was concerned Buddy would get too excited and carried away and the fence would break. It didn't, but I added wire to the top part to prevent him from getting his head through the fence in the future.

Calves and hay

Since the cattle eat a large bale of hay in three days instead of five days now that they are always in the corral, I need three more bales of hay that I planned to get me to the end of the month.  Johnny had hay left even though he has sold a lot since I was there last week.  Donna rode with me to get the hay.  The trip was uneventful.


Here are 18 calf photos from April and May so far: https://plus.google.com/photos/109566462412251958234/albums/6148221212697924545?authkey=CJSzubqeyYj76gE


Here is a 16 second video of a cow licking her calf: https://youtu.be/sl-Cnse8gnM

Cow in heat

I was concerned about this happening.  That is, the cows and heifers coming into heat while in the corral with Buddy in the next part of the corral just across the fence.

Late this afternoon I noticed several heifers and cows mounting and bothering another cow while she ate hay.  Number 7, who gave birth five weeks ago, was in standing heat.  Donna said that cows will start cycling into heat about six weeks after giving birth.

Buddy seemed attentive on his side of the corral but relaxed.  A short time later he was next to the gate by the water trough.  He was mooing in a low tone he seldom uses.   It must be his bedroom voice as the cow walked from the hay feeder over the gate.  A heifer was right with her.  This heifer may be coming in to heat soon as she was unusually attentive to the cow in heat.

The cow in heat turned around and Buddy tried to reach her through the gate to take a sniff.  I went in and broke it up before Buddy got too excited.

I tried to herd the cow into the loading corral to put some distance between the two.  She didn't want to go into the loading corral even though I herded her right to the gate.  The heifer following her didn't help matters.

The cow was getting agitated due to my herding her and the next I knew Mama was getting agitated and walking towards me.

Time for Plan B.  I called Donna for help.  She came over and after a little effort we herded the cow into the loading corral.  Then I wanted to get her calf into the loading corral with her mother.  I tried to grab the calf to walk it into the corral.  I had a hold of the calf but the next I knew Mama was charging me.  Mama had been relaxed the past few weeks as I have not bothered her or any other calves.  This calf wasn't her calf but Mama was concerned, and unlike the other cows, was going to take action.

It took a little more effort but I herded the calf into the corral with her mother without other cattle coming in along with her.  Donna put that down to luck and not skill on my part.  At one time I had to warn Donna as Mama started walking towards her and not me.

I'll let the cow out tomorrow once she is past standing heat.  Buddy is a little calmer this evening but he does moan a little as he can smell the cow in heat even if the cow is not immediately on the other side of the fence.  I told Buddy he needs to wait a month before 'getting with' the cows but I don't think he wants to wait.  It has been around nine months since he last got some action.

I wonder if the other twelve cows and heifers will be similar when they come into heat?

Calf in feeder

Sunday the hay in the feeder was almost all eaten.  One calf took the opportunity to crawl into the feeder.

Mama, her calf from this year, and Rose, Mama's calf from last year are all at the feeder.

Donna and her daughter stopped by in the afternoon to see the baby calves.  Donna helped me bring in another large bale for the feeder.  Since Donna was here the enterprise went smoothly and the bale did not fall off the pallet as I pulled it into the corral.

Buddy checking

Even though Buddy is in one part of the corral and the cows in another part, whenever he can he tries to check the cows to see if they are ready for some 'Buddy Loving'.

Hey ladies!  The 'Bud-miester' is here.

Hey there Big Boy!  Aren't you a handsome one!

Yearling rubbing

I have a yearling steer that likes to rub his head against my leg whenever he can.  He can rub pretty hard sometimes.

40 second video: https://youtu.be/3yjM82jzw8M

Corral manure

Now that all the cows have given birth it was time to keep them in the corral for the month of May to allow the grass to grow.  First I wanted to clean most of the manure out of the corral.

I had already raked the manure out of the loafing shed into a large pile.  Other than removing/raking the manure from a few other areas of the corral the main area left was where I had placed the hay feeder at the beginning of the year and had fed four large bales.  While the corral was dry due a dry Spring, the hay feeder area was still a mucky slightly wet area.

I estimated I would haul out three maybe four pickup loads of manure and I could get it done one evening.  Wrong.   I hauled out five and a half loads (six if you count a half a load from the bull/yearling side of the corral).  It took me several days.  Once I got to the hay feeder area I really had to dig hard to shovel out the mixture of hay and manure.  Underneath the top layer it was wet.

I unloaded four pickup loads around my fruit trees.  The rest of the manure was unloaded along the small trees in the NE pasture.  Each pickup load took almost two hours to load then unload as I has to shovel the manure out of the pickup and spread it around.  I wish I had a tractor with a bucket.  It would have been so much quicker and easier.

Does this look like 5 1/2 pickup loads to you?

One pickup load

Wet.  Took a day to surface dry.

Daisy was happy I was working in the corral.  That meant she could supervise.

Daisy giving directions on where to drive to unload the manure.

Buddy the bull and one steer had to supervise when I got a half a load of manure from their part of the corral.

Bicycle repair

The bottom bracket (crank) on my bicycle needed work for some weeks now.  For a while I would occasionally hear metal scratching inside the bottom bracket as I pedaled.  Not good.  The last week the crank has had a lot of play.

I finally decided to take my bicycle to a shop to be fixed.  I've fixed the crank in the past, and planned to do it this time, but I've got a lot to do and time was passing by.

Spring is not the time to get a bicycle fixed as everyone is getting their bicycle out and tuned up and it is a busy time at the shops.  Sportsman, which sells the Cannondale brand, said it would take at least ten days as they had forty bicycles ahead of me.  The employee's attitude reminded me of a snooty maitre d.

I went to Wheatons bicycle shop.  They were busy but thought they could get my bicycle fixed in two days.  The mechanic easily convinced me to replace my crank with a sealed unit.  Due to the occasional scratching metal noise I was sure the crank was damaged.

The mechanic also chided me for a very dirty drivetrain.  The chain, freewheel, one ring on the front chain ring, and the derailleur all were worn out.  I already have a new chain and plan to fix the rest later.

I took my bicycle to the shop on Wednesday.  Wednesday night I felt out of sorts not having my bicycle here.  Thursday Wheatons called and told me they had already fixed my bicycle.  It took only one day and not two even though they were busy and I saw lots of bicycles in the shop to be fixed or tuned up.

I rode a few miles Thursday night.  The crank felt solid and it felt good to be back on my bicycle.

Wood chips

Today I hauled wood chips for Jan.  It had been 14 years since Bob and Jan put wood chips down around some of their shrubs and the chips had all disintegrated.

At the landscape place nearby they loaded four buckets of chips into my pickup.  Jan thought it may be enough but I told her the pile looks bigger in a pickup box than spread out on the ground.  I know as I recently underestimated how many pickup loads I would need to haul manure from my corral.  She got a fifth bucket of chips.

Not enough chips.   By a long shot.

The pickup box holds six bucket loads and the next time we got six.

Still not enough.  Another four bucket loads of chips and we finally had enough chips.

I shoveled the chips from the pickup and Jan and her daughter spread them out around the shrubs and trees.

My Uncle Curt is a great landscaper and I thought of him while shoveling the wood chips.

The chips were medium sized and cost $45 a cubic yard.   I think the landscaper said 3 bucket loads was a cubic yard.

Five bucket loads of chips

More big hay bales

The other day when I got more hay for the cattle it hit me that I was short of hay.  The cattle had been eating it faster than I realized.  I had one big bale left along with about 50 small bales.  Not quite enough to last until I let that cattle out to pasture the end of May.

Tim had no more hay so I turned to Johnny.   He had a large number of large bales weighing about 1200 lbs for $80 each.  Even though I thought I would need four or five bales I bought six.  In the past I have underestimated the amount of hay I would need fairly consistently.  Besides two trailers loads would equal six bales.

I borrowed Dan's trailer and got the hay today.

When securing the bales with my ratchet and strap Johnny helped me.  He showed me what I had done wrong the last time when the ratchet jammed.  I hadn't taken up the slack correctly before ratcheting the strap tight.

The bales were flat on the bottom from sitting since last Summer.  To get the bales off the trailer I needed help from my neighbor, and with great effort, we rolled them off the trailer.  For the second load of bales I had Johnny turn them slightly so the flat part was not the bottom.  It was good I had this done as my neighbor was gone when I came home with the second load of bales.  I was able to roll the bales off the trailer myself.  The middle bale was difficult to roll as the bale was near its flat part and the trailer tilted up in the back from the weight of the bale in the front of the trailer.  I made sure to roll the third bale to the middle before rolling the second bale completely off the trailer.  I dropped all the bales from the trailer onto wooden pallets for easier movement later.

Ready to roll the first bale off the trailer by myself.

Notice the flat part on the left bale sitting on the pallet.

The first bale now rolled off the trailer onto the pallet.

Box Elder blossoms

We've had a few warm days and some trees are starting to leaf out.

Willow tree is in the background.

Buddy into the corral

This morning I looked out and saw Buddy in the middle pasture.   After noon I checked the fence and did not find any broken wires. It is a 3 strand fence but I doubt as large as Buddy is that he slipped through the fence. The fence is only about four feet tall so maybe he jumped the fence. Again, as large as Buddy is that would be some sight.

When Buddy was near the middle pasture gate I opened it and he sauntered through it, taking his time.  The rest of the cows saw I had opened the gate and were quickly coming over.  I got Buddy through the gate and it closed by the time they reached the gate.  They were not happy and mooed their displeasure.

Buddy walked into the corral to get a drink of water.  I decided it was time for him to be in the corral until breeding season begins the end of June.

I had to play a shell game.  The yearling heifers are old enough to come into heat, but I am not ready to have them bred them yet.   A few days ago Rose went into heat.  At 7 am I heard lots of mooing and it didn't sound like the usual mooing.  I got out of bed and went outside.  Rose was running around the corral in circles and then standing and looking out towards the bull and mooing like crazy. I seen it before.  She was in heat, and it hit her hard.  Fortunately the worse part was over in 6 to 8 hours, and not 24 hours.

Back to the shell game.  I closed the corral gate.  I got Buddy into the loading corral.  Then I then let the heifers and one steer out of their part of the coral.  He was the biggest steer and the one who often mooed in a loud tone when he wanted out to be with the rest of the cows.  I left the smallest steer, and the steer with one horn left, in that part of the corral to keep Buddy company.

I opened the corral gate but half the herd came in instead of ,the yearlings leaving the corral.  Rose decided she wanted to drink milk from several cows.  That resulted in fights as the cows were having none of that.  Later Rose tried to drink from her mother out in that pasture but her mother fought Rose off.

The yearlings were excited to be let out of the corral and ran, and ran jumping and kicking, around the pasture.

Once the cattle left the corral (with a little encouragement from me to the stragglers) , I let Buddy out of the corral and herded him to the part of the corral with the two steers.  So far he has adjusted to his new home.

The two yearling steers waiting for Buddy.

Buddy taking his time walking over to his new digs.

Oreo and mother

Oreo's mother, Panda, and Oreo

Here is a 3:47 long video of Rose fighting and ending with Oreo's mother washing Oreo: https://youtu.be/ETNtyaRTpPU

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Tall Pines Bull Riding

Donna likes to watch bull riding. The other day Donna suggested I get on Buddy and ride him.  I compromised. I sat on Buddy... lightly.  Buddy didn't mind.  I didn't push my luck to try to straddle him.

Hey Buddy... is it okay if I sit on you?

Little man.  Big bull.

Dehorning, one horn off

Monday, after we banded/castrated the latest calf, Donna noticed the steer with horns was acting strange.  I looked and saw blood on the side of his face.  It came from his left horn.  A small circle of blood was around the horn near the band.  The horn looked like it had been knocked against something and may be cracked or loosened at the band.

No more blood was flowing.  The steer looked like he had a headache.  Every so often he would shake his head.

I called and spoke with the local cattle vet. He had no experience with banding to remove horns or knew of anyone who had done it.  "Let me know how it turns out."  The vet did suggest giving the steer a tetanus antitoxin shot (http://www.drugs.com/vet/tetanus-antitoxin.html) due to the open wound.

I kept an eye on the steer during the day.  No more blood.  I saw him drink water but mainly he wanted to stay by himself.  In the evening I saw him eat hay from the feeder and he looked better.  I put some hay in the wooden feeder as that has a larger area for the cattle to move their head around as they eat.  I suspect the steer caught/hit his head on part of the metal feeder and cracked his horn.  In the evening I noticed the horn was drooping down a little bit.


Tuesday I bought a dose of the tetanus antitoxin serum.  Late afternoon Donna helped me give the shot.  We herded the steer into the loading corral ramp area.  He didn't want to go into the head gate so we added a few boards to the ramp area to box him in.  I never gave a shot before so I screwed up.  I forgot to take the cap off the needle and lost 2 to 3 ml of the 5 ml of serum when I squeezed the syringe.

I went to the vet's office and got there just before they closed.  The serum cost almost twice as much ($7.70) than at CHS ($3.99) but I had it.  I was able to give the steer an additional 5 ml serum.  The vet said a few extra mls of serum wouldn't hurt the steer.

The steer had bumped against the loading ramp's fence and it appears he had loosened his horn some more.

I decided to completely remove the horn.  I had a hacksaw but first I tried to grab and pull the horn off.  On my second try I got a better grip and pulled it off fast.

The steer made no cries when I pulled his horn off.  He didn't cry when I gave him his shot earlier.  Both times though he tried to move away when I touched him.

The horn area was bloody but no new blood flowed. I then decided to clean the wound with warm water with Epsom salt and a rag.  The steer moved his head about to evade me.  Finally he decided to go forward and then got trapped in the head gate.  He mostly stood still as I cleaned the blood from the horn and his face.  When touching his horn he made no movement or cries indicating he felt pain.

Once I had a good amount of blood cleaned off I released him to join the others.

As you can see, no open hole where the horn used to be.

One horn off, one horn to go.

The remaining horn and rubber band.

The 'circle' in the following photos is the rubber band I had placed on the horn originally.