Extended corral

In my previous post I mentioned that yesterday I put up some temporary corral panels to make the coral larger until I let the cattle out on green grass June 1.  Here are a few photos.

Here are a couple of photos of calf 110.  Calf 110 was the calf I had to teach the mother to accept and let drink from her.  Calf 110 is not afraid of me, unlike the other calves.  Usually calf 110 will come up to me and then rub his head against my legs.  Sometimes hard; so I have to be careful he doesn't knock me off balance or hurt me especially if he starts to rub against my knees.  He will also let me pet/rub his head and neck.  The other calves stand and stare at calf 110 rubbing against me.  They don't know what is going on, or why he is so brave around me.

Harrowing done

Yesterday I finished all my harrowing of the property.   It went quicker this year than other years.  Only four days of work.  I concentrated more this year and didn't have as many distractions and could spend more time each day.  Also, getting rid of a number of tree stumps last year helped as I had less obstacles to go around and around.

I am happy to be done.  I worked yesterday until dark before I was done.  I wanted to get done yesterday as today I planned to put up temporary corral panels to enlarge the corral area until the grass gets growing good.  Other years I had to leave the harrows in the north pasture until I took the corral panels down,  This year I was able to get the harrows back to the NE pasture where I store them.  And this morning I even unexpectedly got the harrows all taken apart and put away.  So that job is done.

Of course once again the harrows took a beating when I harrowed the pastures.  Some trees have roots at ground level.  Yesterday at the start I had to redo the harrow sections as several harrows were starting to break apart.   In the end over half of the harrows didn't look anything close the the follow photo.  Several harrows were in pieces at the end.

I even harrowed part of the corral.

Starting to harrow the hayfield.

In the south pasture I still have a few piles of dead tree branches.

This is way taller than it looks like in this photo.

The next two photos are of the same view.  The first was taken from near the south pasture south fence.  The second is looking back across the south pasture from the north fence in the south pasture.

Another view in the south pasture.

Pasture cleanup

A few days ago I finally finished cleaning the pastures.  It took some time as some of the photos when I started cleaning still had snow on the ground.  The large windstorm in January, and then another wind event a few weeks ago, broke off a number of tree branches.  Entire branches.  Quite a number of parts of branches, from less than a foot, to two feet or three feet.  These smaller branches then flew quite a ways across the pasture before reaching the ground.  Those were a lot of effort to gather and remove.

I used a wheelbarrow to clean the branches in the south pasture as most of those branches were smaller branches.  Many wheelbarrows were filled over a number of days.  In the middle pasture not as many wheelbarrow loads (just seven) as that pasture had more large branches, and branches from a fallen tree.  I filled three pickup loads to remove those branches.

I also have a couple of areas in the middle pasture where smaller trees are growing.  They are growing too close to one another.  So for the past few years I have been thinning them by removing some of the trees.  I do this over time as in the past when I removed all the trees except the one or two I want a strong would would break the remaining trees.  Going slow in the removal gives the remaining trees a chance to get use to the wind so they won't break off as easily.

Here is a photo of some of the smaller trees I cut into logs.  When dry I use them in my woodstove to heat my house.

Really small trees don't make it.  The cattle eat them until there are no needles left and the trees die.

Then it was on to removing the large broken branches still on a large tree.  This is a massive tree and many branches were larger than the small trees I had earlier cut down.  It may not look high in the photo, but I had to completely extend an extension ladder to reach the higher broken branches.  Even then I had to climb off the ladder and climb on and stand on other branches to reach a few more broken branches.   To cut the branches I used a handsaw as I didn't want to use a chainsaw standing way up high.  So it took me a number of days to cut and remove the branches.

There was an old dead branch that had been somehow hanging on.  The branch hung straight down.  At the high point I had climbed (still only a third of the way up the tree) I could reach the end of the branch.  I moved the branch back and forth in an effort to get it to finally break off the tree.  Over and over.  Nothing.  Then I twisted the branch a little bit and finally after some twisting the branch came down.  The problem was the branch did not fall straight down.  The branch turned slightly.  I was standing on some branches and holding on to other branches as the tree trunk was too large to reach around to hold on to.  The falling branch hit one of my hands holding on to another branch.  Ouch!!!  This happened some weeks ago so my hand is now healed.  But it was very sore earlier.  Fortunately nothing was broken in my hand.

Some other broken branches fell on to other branches and it took some effort to get the broken branches down to the ground.  But I did it.  I didn't fall out of the tree.  And I prevented the ladder from being knocked over a few times as a falling branch decided to fall a way I didn't think it would.

Yup.  The January windstorm broke all these branches on the tree.

I cut up the branches to later use a firewood.  As you can see they were large branches.

This branch broke off on another tree during our less severe March windstorm.  I had already cleaned the January broken branches from under this tree before the March windstorm.  To reach this branch I had to stand in my pickup and use a rake to barely reach the branch to pull it down to fall to the ground.

Once the broken branches were finally cleaned from the pastures, I also clean/removed one of my old branch piles.  This is one of my oldest piles of old branches.  It was from a tree that blew over many years ago.  Back then when I cut off the tree trunk's branches I would pile them on part of the tree trunk as I planned to clean everything up a short time later.  I don't remember what distracted me / took time away from me doing the final clean up.  When I started the pasture clean up many weeks ago I had used the chainsaw to cut up some of the fallen trees.  After I did so I took the time to also cut up and remove the tree trunks under this and one other branch pile.  So in this photo that is why the branch pile now has this funny looking spot in the middle of the pile.  That was where the old tree trunk formerly was.  This took two pickup loads to haul away.

This pickup load has part of the tree trunk from the fallen tree in the north pasture, and the tree trunk from the tree that last year fell over on top of one of my apple trees.  (Here is a link to photos of that tree:  https://tallpinesranch.blogspot.com/2020/06/tree-work-corral-work.html)

My log pile.  You can tell which of the tree branches and logs I recently cleaned from the pastures and which are old tree logs I had placed in the pile and had not yet gotten around to splitting.  I have enough firewood for years. And this is one one of three piles of cut logs.  This pile is the size of the other two log piles put together.  And I already have enough split firewood for a year or two of burning in my woodstove.

So my pastures are finally clean and now I could start harrowing them.

By the way, I caught the second pocket gopher today.

First pocket gopher of the year

Today I trapped my first pocket gopher of the year.  I was harrowing the hayfield yesterday when I noticed a few fresh dirt mounds.  I set a trap at noon today and by late afternoon I caught the big fat pocket gopher.   Today I saw a fresh dirt mound in the south pasture so I moved the trap over there after I caught the first pocket gopher.  I'll see if I catch another pocket gopher tomorrow.

Testicle and gate

Donna daughter. Kari, came to visit Donna this weekend.  They both came over Saturday to help me with the two calves that need to be banded.   Kari was a great help as she calmed the calves as Donna and I checked them for banding. So therefore the calves didn't do as much of trying to kick as we checked their testicles. The calves are getting bigger and can run fast.  And their mothers are in the mix trying to protect the calves.  I caught  one calf in the south corral.  The other calf we had to herd it into the loading ramp area as that area is smaller and then I could catch the calf.   Still only one testicle in each of the calves.  In fact, the one calf who had two testicles but the one testicle wouldn't go down far enough that we could band it, now we could only find one testicle in that calf.

So the waiting game continues.  Hopefully someday both testicles will drop in the calves.

While I checked and made sure the loading ramp area gate was closed properly, I didn't check one of the south corral gates.  This morning when I out to check on the cattle, I found the cattle that was in the south corral were in the main corral.  The cattle figured out I hadn't completely closed that one gate and they pushed it open.  Fortunately I do keep the main corral gate to the pasture closed so the cattle weren't able to join the rest of the cattle in the north pasture.  I herded the cattle back into the south corral and then made sure the gate was completely closed.

 

Ditch burning again

Late this afternoon and this evening I burned the rest of my ditches.  It has been a dry week, but too windy each day.  I am very cautious when burning and want a little wind to move the fire along but not too much wind.  And I want the wind to blow a certain direction.  Late this afternoon the wind died mostly down and the wind direction was correct.  And the forecast is for a chance of rain tomorrow and for a few days.  So now was the prefect time to burn.

Everything went smooth and I was done by sundown.  I had to check some of the wood fence posts.  Some of the posts are old and can catch fire.  None caught fire, but a handful of posts had embers and were smoldering.  That is why I also have a pail of water along with me when I burn.

Stump removal

I want to harrow the pastures so I am trying to clean the fallen trees and the broken branches due to the large windstorm this past January.  It is taking longer than I expected but I am getting close to being done.  One thing that slowed me down was a tree stump I got rid of.  When cleaning the south pasture I noticed what looked like a tree root in an area where I had burned a tree stump to remove it a few years ago.  But it wasn't a tree root near the top of the ground.  I had to dig and found part of the tree stump I had burnt a few years ago.  I had burnt and burnt that tree stump and I thought I had gotten rid of all of the stump.  Nope. 

So this time I dug around the rest of the stump and used an axe to chop it so I didn't have to burn the stump again.  I filled a wheelbarrow with what I removed.

The grass hadn't completely grown back after I had burnt the stump a few years ago, so you can see how large the stump originally was as the stump had been in the area from the hole to the lower left corner of the photo.

Calf eating hay

Some calves are now eating hay in addition to drinking from their mother.   This calf was the first calf born this year.  She was born on January 30.

Calf 11 - Little Beulah's

Last Wednesday, the day 110's calf was born, Little Beulah's calf was born.  110's calf was born in the morning, Little's Beulah's calf was born in the afternoon.  It is a heifer calf.  Wednesday was a cold and wet day.  So I waited to ear tag the calf until Thursday  So I kept Little Beulah and her calf in the corral, along with 110 and her calf.  

The next day, after the calf got her ear tag, I let them out to the north pasture to be with the other cattle.  As you can see, once the calf got dried off, the next day she was more of a light gray.

Still no testicle

Today Donna, my neighbor Ty, and I checked the bull calves' testicles in an attempt to band / castrate them.  Ty helped because now after a week the calves can run fast, and Ty has had experience castrating calves in the past.

Around and around the corral Ty and I went as the calves and mothers ran from me. I caught one calf. Ty and I were holding the calf down, and I was checking the calf, when Donna arrived.  Donna worked and worked but couldn't keep both testicles in the scrotum long enough to band them.  Eventually we quit.

Then it was on to the next calf.  Around and around we went.  At the east end of the corral I was able to somewhat catch the calf.  Down I went into the nearby gate.  I ended up underneath the calf and was holding on to it so the calf wouldn't get away before Ty and Donna reached us.  Ty then grabbed on to the calf and I was able to get out from underneath the calf.  I didn't want it to be me getting castrated as I was on the bottom.

We checked and checked and could only find one testicle.  So we quit.   Neither calf was different from the last time Donna and I checked last Tuesday.  I'll have to give the calves more time before trying again.  Hopefully the calves will drop both testicles so we can get this done.  So, for now they will remain in the corral.  If the calves were in the pasture... good luck in trying to catch them.

Toby and a post

Toby... Toby... Toby... what am I gonna do with you?

After I let the cattle out of the corral late this afternoon so they could go and eat from the hay bale I had just put out in the north pasture, I looked over to the part of the corral where Toby, Red, Little Red, and their calves are, and I saw that one of the posts that hold up the roof over the area next to the barn was leaning.

While you can't tell from the photos, part of the top of the post is cut so that the roof boards rest on the post.  The roof boards were nailed to the post by two long big nails.  Toby pushed the post away from the roof and nails.

I had to use the tractor to lift the roof up so that I could put the post under the roof and re-nail the post to the roof.  I used two more long large nails in addition to the two other nails.

I had to keep an eye on Toby while I worked on fixing the post as he was acting up.  I don't know if his behavior was because a cow was in heat and now that they went to the pasture to eat hay, Toby was now jumping around and checking things out.  He started to rub on the tractor; first the tires, then the loader arm.

I got into the tractor cab since Toby was acting up.

Then Toby went round and began to use the hay bale spear to scratch his back.

Here is a 43 second video of Toby scratching against the bale spear: https://youtu.be/G-c1ghSZPiE

Getting the tractor out of the corral was time consuming.  Toby kept following and occasionally rubbing on the tractor.  So I had to wait a while until he lost interest and walked away.  Then I could open the gate and drive out of the corral.

Calf 10 - 110's

Calf number 10 was born Wednesday morning between 9 am and a little after 10 am.  The cattle were in the corral as I fed them there in the morning as I planned on putting a large hay bale out for them that afternoon.  At 8 am in the morning all the cattle, except for 110, were waiting outside the corral for me to put some small hay bales out for them to eat.  110 was at the west end of the pasture.  She preferred to be alone and wasn't real hungry.  She was acting like she was going to calve later that day.  I herd to herd 110 to the corral.  When she got close to the corral and saw the other cattle already eating she then ran to the corral.

So I checked on 110 again after 10 am and found her standing over her calf in the middle of the corral.  The calf was still fairly wet.  110 is known as the "bad mother" as she initially rejects her newborn calf every year.  I have to put her in the loading corral runway and then put some boards around her so she can't headbutt her calf or kick it as the calf drinks from 110.  After a time or two of nursing the calf then 110 bonds with her calf and will accept it and become a good mother.

Once again 110 was acting as a bad mother.  In the corral she would lick the calf or sniff it, then would push it with her head.  Usually I keep the calf and 110 in the loading ramp area so they could bond.  But this day was cold, rainy, and windy.  So once the calf drank and got his - he is a male - fill of milk, I put some straw in one section of the loafing shed.  I put up a couple corral panels and then put the calf in there to lay on the straw to be dry and warm.  The corral panels were to stop the rest of the cattle in the corral from taking over the straw area and kicking the calf out.  And it prevented the mother from the calf.  I  had another matter going on for the afternoon so I couldn't keep an eye on the mother and calf for a few hours.  I didn't want the mother to headbutt or push the calf around.  When I let 110 out of the loading ramp area she spent the time at the opposite end of the corral, away from her calf.

So bonding took longer this time.  At 5 pm I put 110 and her calf in the loading ramp area so her calf could drink again.  I also put out a new large hay bale and let the cows out of the corral to go eat.  But not 110 and her calf.  I kept them in the corral to bond and so I could keep an eye on them.  I took the corral panels down so now 110 could be with her calf.  I had put hay out in the feeder by the barn and 110 preferred to go over and eat hay and had no interest in her calf.  It was a mix of rain and snow by now so the calf was warm and dry in the loafing shed.

At 7 pm I checked on them again.  110 was standing in the loafing shed but not near her calf.  110 was mooing at the world, and not to her calf.  I put 110 and her calf in the loading ramp area.  110 was not keen on letting her calf drink so I put 110 in the area with boards so her calf could drink again.  110 would moo and moo.  She looked around.  It seemed like she wanted to go join the other cattle.  Nope.  You two are going to stay in the corral together overnight.  You need to bond.

At midnight they both were in the loafing shed.  They were close together.  It didn't seem like the calf was hungry, so I let them be.  In the morning after 7 am I checked.  The rain had quit.  Both 110 and her calf were standing right next to one another in another part of the corral.  110 seemed protective.  The calf wasn't hungry.  By early afternoon they were still close to one another and this time I saw the calf drink from 110.

Since they bonded, I let them out of the corral so they could go join the rest of the herd at the feeder.  Off they went together.  And they have been together ever since.

The calf before he could stand or drink.  I had to carry him to get him here from the other part of the corral, which was dirty.

Once the calf drank his fill of milk, I put him in the loafing shed and on fresh straw.

Donna dried the calf off since the mother hadn't completely licked the calf clean after birth.

The second go around at 5 pm for the calf to drink again.

Belly full again after his second drink of milk.  And now ear tagged and banded.  And back in a dry area as it was raining lightly.  What a little cutie.

Here is a 45 second video of the calf after he finally learned how to get milk from his mother: https://youtu.be/G0iU6uTHeTA