Before and After

[CattleAnnie]

Just wanted to give this darn Photobucket another go here (yeah, I know I'm stubborn). Anyway, here's a couple of images of some of the calves. First one was one branding day this spring. Second one was yesterday while we were sorting pens of steers for shipping. Little white calf in the foreground was my maverick...born in the pasture late this summer and too young to ship so he was off-sorted.

Crossing my fingers that the check is going to pay off a few bills. Will know by late this afternoon how it went, as Honey went down with one of the liners and will bring home our cheques.

Take care.

What a pain. I had accidently posted the same image twice, and I could see them. After I editted the post and submitted the proper second image, I am now unable to see either of them!!!! Macon, help! What's going on here???

 

[txag]

i can see them. good lookin' group.

you may be having the same problem as me, Annie. i have to leave the page open for a while & give it plenty of time to load. everything else is there except the pics but they eventually fill in, too.

 

[CattleAnnie]

Tried your suggestion, txaggie. Still just text and no images. Thanks though for the advice. It was worth a try.

Take care.

 

[Kelly]

Very nice looking group of calves you have there. Boy, do I hate seeing that white stuff you have there. I know we will be seeing it in the near future here too, I am just not quite ready!

 

[CattleAnnie]

The steers we just shipped looked a lot better before the snowfall. The way their haircoats dry make 'em look kind of bedraggled, but what can you do? Sure as heck not going out there with grooming kit.

I hate seeing the white stuff as well, Kelly. The problem with not looking at it is that you'll probably brain yourself on something, so sadly that option is out. ;-) Personally, I'm never ready to see it because it stays too darn long. Nice at Christmas when all the lights are reflected off of it, but that's about all.

Take care.

 

[Cattle Rack Rancher]

CattleAnnie:
Wish you all the best on selling your calves. Good looking bunch.

 

[frenchie]

Cattle Annie

Good looking set of calves. good luck at the mart.

 

[Jake]

nice set of calves. They look like good growers.
hope you do alright with them.

 

[la4angus]

Good looking set of calves, Annie. Best of luck to you at the auction today.
Looks like they will do good for someone.

 

[SPRINGER FARMS MURRAY GRE]

Annie good luck! Let us know how you came out at the auction. :cboy:

 

[kjerckie]

Good pictures, great calves. Good luck selling.

 

[txshowmom]

Nice looking set of calves. I'd say you probably will be able to pay a few bills with em.

 

[D.R. Cattle]

Ooooof. Snow!

 

[cattle_gal]

Looking Good

I see you have the snow bug happening there also.

 

[ollie]

Annie that Canadian grassland fattens calves better than Iowa corn.

 

[CattleAnnie]

Thanks for all the well wishes, everyone! They aren't a top notch group of calves, but I've been trying to improve on my females every year in the hopes that someday (should I live long enough) I'll have the high sellers at the sales. Oh well, gotta keep on improving, eh? They are actually quite a mismatched bunch...due to BSE I kept quite a few late calving cows that I otherwise would have culled, but giving away a bred cow for a few hundred bucks just kind of burns, and it showed in my average weights this year. Back in the day of a decent paycheck for the calves, my weaning weights on the steers were in the low to mid sixes. This year those late calves dragged the average down to the low fives. But at least they were full of pee and vinegar to take to the market, right?

Cattle-gal, I surely do wish that snowbug would just bug right off. On the plus side, we had a nice chinook blow in this morning and the snow is really settling and melting in a hurry. Good thing. Tomorrow afternoon I've got the vet lined up to preg test the cows. Will vaccinate and deworm them as long as they're handy, then if all goes well and the warm spell holds will try kicking them back out onto the hayfield regrowth. Sure don't have the feed to spare around here to be rolling out bales already.

Ollie, up here the only folks that creep are a few purebred breeders pushing their calves in prep for the spring yearling sales. The majority of us start feeding in November at the absolute latest and in our own situation we're still feeding hay till spring turnout in early June. To pour creep to the calves would be too cost prohibitive to the operation as a whole. The plus side is that due to our long daylight hours in the summer months (it never really gets too dark to see outside near summer solstice - just dusky) plants grow at an incredible rate....all that was lacking for the last couple of years was our usual abundance of water(that is until the end of haying season and then we were hit with almost thirty days of rain or drizzle). So in answer to your question, yep - grass and momma's milk and lots of both make for fat calves (which of course doesn't discount a whole herd health program and using the best animals in your herd that you can afford).

How do the rest of you manage your pairs? Would it be too nosey to inquire as to average weaning weights in your areas? Up here we figure that with March calving the least a decent cow should do is raise a five hundred pound weaning weight on a calf...and that would put her on the bubble for culling as a poor milker.

Take care.

 

[Jake]

we hold back all our calves and background them out to #700, average weaning is between 450-525, there are a few that are up there and a few that are smaller but that's about average. Which with the grass available that's not bad.

 

[Arnold Ziffle]

Annie --- is that 6 x 6 in your freezer yet?

 

[cattle_gal]

A chinook. Lucky you. We got over a foot of really wet snow yesterday. Hoping it will melt part of the way at least again.