This is my best looking patch. It was planted 9/19/08. I posted a picture of it a while back. I started grazing it with 14 bred heifers on Christmas day. They get to graze several hours every other day.
Several of those heifers. They are due to start calving in March and April. These are some that I bought last May when I had an abundance of grass and wasn't planning to bale much hay. Plan was to resell them in November as bred hefiers but we all know what happened to that market. If it doesn't start raining more consistently soon I will have to hope their will be a better demand for them in the spring.
You would think oats would grow in a garden like weeds. Not this year.
Here are a few cows with a bunch of calves. Got em mixed up since the last time I posted pictures. Instead of being grouped by breed, they are now grouped as cows with calves, bred cows, and bred heifers.
This cow is a 5th generation that comes from the first roan bottle calf Dad bought for me back in 1967 I think it was. She would be 1/2 angus, 1/4 limousin, 1/8 Simmental, 1/16th Brangus, and 1/32 Hereford. The white face calf is not hers.
Half sister to my Hereford bull and her calf.
Couple calves.
Calf born 1/16/09 and his protector.
One of the water ponds. Could use a little water. Approaching 1996 level when it was dry from February - August.
Getting to the pastures. This is an Alica field that usually has volunteer ryegrass growing on it. I planted oats and arrowleaf clover on it in October this year but it didn't survive.
This used to be rowcrop land till Dad quit rowcropping. Then it was planted in oats up until 2005 when I planted Texas Tuff bermuda on it. I also pasture drilled oats and ball clover on it September 16, 2008. If you look carefully you can see a strip of green. Each time we get a bit of moisture that oats freshens up. Just not much of it left. I don't think the ball clover survived.
This is pasture looking over an oats patch fence looking down to the creek. These cows don't have calves yet or just weaned them recently. They just get good hay, salt and minerals and 18% all natural molasses tubs. Do have two that just had calves that will get moved to the oats group in a day or two.
This is pasture that is across the creek in the previous photo. This was woodland that Dad had cleared out in the mid '60s. He did sprig coastal on it but it was always used for pasture. Not much was ever done to it to keep it going. It is now mostly KR Bluestem and native grasses, some bahaia and coastal. Usually has a good mix of ryegrass and other native cool season grasses. I would save this for late spring grazing when the oats plays out and I need to close the cows off of the hay meadows.
More of the same. Anyone notice the abundance of cow patties in the pastures. They really show up whithout and grass to hide them or rain to wash them out.
This water leak proves we could have green pastures with rain.
One of the many cracks the ground still has.
And one of my feeding areas. I've already drug it out once. I don't feed on it anymore but the cows still have to pass thru from one oats patch to the new feeding area. Oh and the date on that photo, I had a mishap with the batteries and didn't realize I needed to reset the date. Somehow I didn't get it cropped out of the picture either.
Thanks for taking time to have a look. Hope you enjoyed and when you get a chance, send a little thought of rain my way. It will be appreciated.
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