Calving Facilities

[randiliana]

Here's some shots of our outdoor calving and newborn areas. Of course, we have 2 barns with 10 stalls for use when we need them too. And we have a camera both inside and outside the main barn too.

The calving area, or most of it.

Looking up the hill in the calving pen. You can kinda see the fence on top that we finally got smart enough to build. Always seem to be able to get a cow up there, but not always into the corral, that makes things a lot easier!

From the other side of the windbreak.

The pasture that the newborns are put once they get their legs under them

The sheltered area for the newborns. Amazing the things you can use a feeder panel for....

Here's and older photo of the same area, we added a calf shelter and feeder panel to the left side .

A pretty safe area for the new babies to go, where they can get away from the cows in bad weather.

The barns

The barn and you can see the camera up there too. As you can also see, it will be a little while before we can use the chute again....

 

[southernblues]

Hotel de Casa! Nice!

 

[FB-Maines94]

First off, those facilities are something to be proud of. Very nice!

Is that a fullblood Maine in the third photo?

 

[randiliana]

Thanks!
FB, she is purebred Shorthorn.

 

[HOSS]

And I was complaining that it was only 65 deg F here.........I was chilly in the breeze. Very nice set-up

 

[E in PA]

Very nice set up. Love the camera system. Often thought about one on cold nights when I didn't want to go to the barn. Of course you have many more of those than I do.

 

[cow pollinater]

Looking up the hill in the calving pen.

Thanks for sharing. It's a different world up there and I like to see pictures of it . If I tried to hold up cows to calve where I could watch like that I'd likely have one new hole in the fence for every cow that I tried to hold up and never see one calve. That hill is flatter than anything most of my cows have ever seen including the corals.

 

[randiliana]

Thanks! To me a setup like this is a necessity if you are going to calve when the weather can be pretty nasty. O for sure you could calve out on the pasture, but it makes life a lot more difficult if you need to bring something (or all of them) in because of the weather or calving problems.

CP, they don't mind being in there, they get fed pretty good, and well, the other options right now aren't so good as far as food goes.

 

[tom4018]

I see the hay stacked in one pic, do you stack without tarping it?

 

[Lucky_P]

Tom,
Took a trip to Colorado several years back, in January. One of the things I remember was big stacks of square bales, just sitting out, uncovered.
That'd be nothing but a big pile of rotten junk here, but I guess in that country, they don't get much RAIN; just dry snow.

 

[tom4018]

Tom,
Took a trip to Colorado several years back, in January. One of the things I remember was big stacks of square bales, just sitting out, uncovered.
That'd be nothing but a big pile of rotten junk here, but I guess in that country, they don't get much RAIN; just dry snow.

Guess I never thought about it being all frozen precip. Goes to show how different areas make things work different.

 

[randiliana]

We don't usually cover hay up here either. Mind you the vast majority of the bales are round and stacked properly they shed a lot of water. Squares aren't quite so good, if you don't cover the stack, the top row of bales will be compost by the next spring.

 

[Workinonit Farm]

Very nice Randi! I like your set up. That's quite the haystack you've got there.

Katherine

 

[jedstivers]

Nice setup. Ours have to use a tree.

 

[randiliana]

Katherine, that stack had about 300 bales in it last fall. About 50 on the end were/are straw. Just a drop in the bucket of what we use. It makes a good windbreak too.

Jed, I imagine that that tree is usually all they need down there....There aren't too many trees up here, unless they were planted...

 

[jedstivers]

I did notice they'd have to walk awhile to find one.

 

[randiliana]

We have 720 acres that is one of our summer pastures. It has 1 tree on it...