The pasture where I am feeding some to train the calves to come in through the creep gate, we moved all the heifers there recently and they are well trained to buckets so they come running. My son is 6-6 and so he has more size and muscle and is faster on his feet than I am since I had the ankle and knees replaced. When it is muddy, like
@Dave with the snow and ice, I am more concerned that they will just push and I will slip in the mud and not be able to get back on my feet fast enough.... There were about 8-10 cows there from earlier... a couple had spring calves, my nurse cow with 3 calves and some for fall calves because we had alot of grass there and wanted them closer. Then when he weaned off the heifers and some came home from a few pastures, needed a place to put them so they all got stuck here since there is no bull and none close by. Took 3 out with fall calves the other day to go another place with a bull... will take 5 to be preg checked since they had a chance to get bred before the bull came out in late June... they have calves on them... will pull them, take them to get preg checked and if so, will go with other spring calving cows and the calves will stay with the weaned ones. It's time to wean them anyway. 2 cows are last calf cows... one has some lameness, and she does a great job but we are afraid she might just get down... gotten bred back so fast the last 3 times and it's pushing our luck... her front teats were huge this time... enough reason for her to go... The other is a nurse cow that would not take any extra calves last time... her udder is shot, took a long time to rebreed, and she has some age... time to go.
Once I get the rest of the other cows out, there will only be 3 left there... the 3rd is my longhorn and she will stand there and wait for me to put grain down for her... no pushing or shoving or nothing... I feed her a little away from the rest so she doesn't get pushy at the bunk... and then the rest of the weaned calves won't be so bad...
I like the idea of the flag that
@Dave is using... is it a flag on a sorting stick? I just might get one to try it...
It is so wet and slick from the mud with the rain we had the other day, and the ground thawing...since the temps warmed up so much... NOT going to screw up these new knees since they are finally getting a bit more useable....