Any ongoing frustrations with your cattle?

[Nesikep]

Nesi,

I would have thought all the freezing, and thawing you have would remedy a compaction problem in two years minimum. Ofcourse, I've never seen the soil in your country.

the compaction we have is deep down as well as in the surface,... you notice the surface compaction when the fields get sod-bound, and nothing except the occasional surviving alfalfa has a root deeper than 4"... I have a subsoiler that I can sink down about 18", when I have that much dirt to work with. It helps, but not as much as I'd like. One spot in particular I had a lot of puddling water, I took that subsoiler through there repeatedly last fall when it was dry, to get as much action as I could out of it, I went lengthwise and then in both diagonals, very nice soil, but has a lot of very large (12") pebbles scattered in it. This spring I reseeded that field and was very very careful not to overwater it, but it still wants to puddle there. I think nothing short of a few sticks of dynamite drilled down 20 feet would loosen anything up enough.. Dynamite would have the added bonus of containing nitrogen! Our soil is a sandy loam, it's river bottom, but from eons ago (river is 300 vertical feet down now) so it has some fine silt in it that acts like concrete, it'll fill in spaces between larger particles and seal it off.

 

[inyati13]

Life's frustrations are going to hound you no matter what vocation you pursue. But that is not your topic. :D

I cannot say I have on-going "frustrations". I experience negative emotions from time to time: When one dies or when I part with them but I respond well to those issues.

My faults in the management of my cattle and 80 acre farm, I do not class those as "frustrations". Having said that, I have many of the "bad management" faults that others identified above.

Like Bigfoot, I probably take the award for being the lowest poundage producer in relationship to the resources I have. I had 30 acres of excellent pasture this year that went un-utilized.

Like Alan, I struggle with knowing what niche my operation should be. For example, I just lost about $650 dollars because I left a 7 1/2 month old male calf a bull too long. I sold him with some feeders and he weighed 770 pounds. Another steer I sold with him weighed 690 pounds and was younger, sold for $1500. So I left a lot of money on the table because of indecision. To me these are management issues - not frustrations.

 

[inyati13]

Nesi,

I would have thought all the freezing, and thawing you have would remedy a compaction problem in two years minimum. Ofcourse, I've never seen the soil in your country.

the compaction we have is deep down as well as in the surface,... you notice the surface compaction when the fields get sod-bound, and nothing except the occasional surviving alfalfa has a root deeper than 4"... I have a subsoiler that I can sink down about 18", when I have that much dirt to work with. It helps, but not as much as I'd like. One spot in particular I had a lot of puddling water, I took that subsoiler through there repeatedly last fall when it was dry, to get as much action as I could out of it, I went lengthwise and then in both diagonals, very nice soil, but has a lot of very large (12") pebbles scattered in it. This spring I reseeded that field and was very very careful not to overwater it, but it still wants to puddle there. I think nothing short of a few sticks of dynamite drilled down 20 feet would loosen anything up enough.. Dynamite would have the added bonus of containing nitrogen! Our soil is a sandy loam, it's river bottom, but from eons ago (river is 300 vertical feet down now) so it has some fine silt in it that acts like concrete, it'll fill in spaces between larger particles and seal it off.

You did a good job describing a geological process. Finer material over time will move to the interstitial space (between individual sand grains in the soil). Infact, componds in solution will move into the space and solidify into solids again. Forming a cemented mass that is impervious to water. This is common in soils originating from carbonate rocks.

 

[highgrit]

If it was easy everyone would be doing it. I'm frustrated every day, my want to is stronger than my can do. Last night by the fire my Dad gave me some good advice. I was wining about all stuff that I had to do. He said look at all the stuff that you've already done and be proud. You won't never see it all or get it all done. Just be happy with what you have.

 

[cowgirl8]

If it was easy everyone would be doing it. I'm frustrated every day, my want to is stronger than my can do. Last night by the fire my Dad gave me some good advice. I was wining about all stuff that I had to do. He said look at all the stuff that you've already done and be proud. You won't never see it all or get it all done. Just be happy with what you have.

So true.....

 

[kjonesel]

Heifers do require extra care. I grew up on a dairy farm where we calved in excess of 400 head a year and we made it a process to condition our stock to assist their calving along with the fact we were prepared to pull calves at the first sign of trouble. It was easy to carry it over into my small beef operation. With heifers I couldn't imagine not making sure they were mated to a proven easy calving sire. We used the Hanchon bull from Dr. Glenn Wehrner and he was by far our easiest calving sire. The fullblood Gelbvieh sires as a whole are easier that the purebred Gelbvieh and you wouldn't think there would be much difference. But my most frustrating experience the past few years would have to be having a healthy calf, checking on it, leaving for the day to go to work, and getting home to find it wouldn't suck, and then watching it die that evening.

 

[herofan]

I guess the best description of my frustrations is not things that present themselves daily, but things that linger and can't be fixed with a few day's work. It may sound strange for a farm, but our day-to-day operations go fairly smoothly. I'm sure there are a lot of things that I could be doing, as there always is on a farm. If nothing else, just cleaning up or making the fence look better, but it doesn't have an immediate impact on the operation or cause the cows to be healthier or bring more, and being that I have a public job, I have accepted things like that.

It's the things that are in bad shape that require time to fix. Like the cows not calving when we wanted. That's not just something that fixes itself in a day or two. I have to try to figure out what the problem is, make changes, then wait another year to see what happens. In the mean time, I'm seeing everyone else's pasture full of calves.

If we have a poor hay crop, that doesn't just fix itself overnight. We have to decide what to do, then wait another year to see if it does better. Then, what if it doesn't?
But, I guess things will work out in time.