Something Is Going Right

We finally finished calving the heifers yesterday. I had to pull the calf which is a little unusual, most of the time the final heifers to calve have it on their own. I don't know why, that's just the way it seems to work. It's really nice to not have to check the heifers at night anymore. I was really tired, literally, of the long hours and can now get a good nights sleep without worrying about them. I bred the heifers for 60 days and that's what it took to calve them out. It worked out real good this year. Sometimes I have a problem with the bulls getting back with the heifers and causing some late calves that I have to deal with but this year I didn't have that problem.<br />n<br />nThe cows are still calving right along but they are slowing down. we are only getting 5-6 new calves a day instead of the 10-20 we were getting during the storm. It's been sunny for two days now. That was sure nice to see after 10 straight days of cloudy, snowy weather. Snow fell here every day, from lots to just a little, 10 straight days around here. That was really tough on my mind I tell you. Watching and waiting for everything to come apart at the seams with the cows.<br />n<br />nTruthfully though, the cows and calves come through it fairly well. I have lost 6 calves that I would directly relate to the storm. That's a lot of money, but for the number of calves that were born during it and lived through it, it's not as bad as it sounds. I just hate to lose any. I have <u>yet</u>, don't want to jinx myself, to have a big scour problem. I have doctored about 10 for the problem but only one of them was I really worried about and he came right out of it fine. I had the few I mentioned with a respiratory ailment of some kind but that was just a few and all but one of them came through it all right too. I was really worried that the respiratory one was going to rip through the calves and really cause me a problem but it appears not to have happened. Luck was with me on that one I guess so i am happy.<br />n<br />nThere is still a lot of snow on the ground, the temperatures still have yet to get above 35 degrees to really melt it, so I am really having to throw the hay at the cattle which is really causing my hay piles to melt down faster than I am happy with but you have to feed them or it will cost you pounds this year, light calves due to lack of nutrition, and calves next year, rebreeding difficulties during the summer. I'm not sure the moisture is enough to make up the difference in the hay crop for what I am feeding now but that's something to worry about down the road.<br />n<br />nI did find a calf sucking hind teat yesterday so I brought him home to take care of him. He took to a bottle right away so it's going to be an easy to get him going. Sometimes bums don't like the bottle very well and they are hard to get going but it's not going to be the case here. I don't know what the story is but we now have our first Fred, I call all the bums Fred because it really makes the kids mad, I so enjoy tweaking their noses that way. There was another calf on the feedground that I was concerned might be motherless but I let him go another day to see. I hate to bring him home to soon so I will see. This is one of the late blooming, insidious problems I have when there is a late season storm like this that lasts for a long period of time. The cows staying bunched up on the feedground somehow lose track of their calves and I end up with a few bums. I don't know how it happens for sure but if the cow can't keep track of her calf she deserves to go down the road and since everything that doesn't have a calf sees the highway by late May the miscreant that lost track of her calf will be gone. Serves her right.<br />n<br />nThe only real bump in the road now is what is going to happen to the weather this week. The forecast is for rain/snow showers all week long with very much below normal temperatures. Just what I needed. Burn through those hay piles and keep the cows bunched up on the feedground. A recipe for trouble yet again. I'm ready for a period of warm Spring weather, aren't you?<br />n<br />n<strong>In the Spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours. Mark Twain</strong>