how often do you check your cows

[plbcattle]

do any of you have your cattle at a ranch that you have to travel to see your animals. My ranch is about a 25 minute drive from my home. I try to tend to the cattle 5-6 days a week and everyday during calving season. just curious about how far you guys have to go and how often. thanks

 

[certherfbeef]

I have to go out my front door and about 200 yards to the barn. Then another 20 feet to the horse stall.

Calving and breeding season, I check 4 times a day. Maybe more if needed. Any other time twice a day. Morning and night. The horse needs exercising!
I don't know how you folks do it that have to drive to see your cattle.

 

[Campground Cattle]

I have to go out my front door and about 200 yards to the barn. Then another 20 feet to the horse stall.

Calving and breeding season, I check 4 times a day. Maybe more if needed. Any other time twice a day. Morning and night. The horse needs exercising!
I don't know how you folks do it that have to drive to see your cattle.

Sometime I don't see mine for a week

 

[TxCoUnTrYbOy]

Since my bull is my FFA project and kept in a pen, I check him 2 times a day, before school and after work. After work I spend about 2 hours working with him. Long hours and hard work, but I enjoy it.

 

[CattleAnnie]

It depends on the time of the year. During calving season if the weather is below -15Celcius or we have a windchill factor of -15Celcius (or lower in both cases) or if there is a storm rolling in, we check up to 20 minutes apart.

During haying season when the cattle are up on the mountain pastures, it can be over a week between checks, but then there are no breds in those areas, just wolves and bears. ;-)

Frankly, by the time they go out onto grass I'm so tired of looking at cows backsides and worrying about calves that I'm content to have them out of my sight for a few days.

Once they're rounded up and driven home in the fall, it's usually twice a day checking...once during morning feeding and once after supper for a final lookabout.

Take care.

 

[J Baxter]

My cows aren't but a couple of miles from my house. I've got fall calvers and a couple of them are springing real heavy. I check them at 7 a.m., 6 p.m. and usually around 10 p.m. My brother works nights so he checks them before he goes to work around 2 p.m. and again when he gets in around 1 a.m. When there isn't any calving going on I usually check them right after light and right before dark.

JB

 

[Craig-TX]

We see the cattle on the place where I live every other day on average but that doesn't really count as checking them. We try to check them, and the cattle on other places, about once a week most of the year. During winter we try to feed/cake them every two or three days, more often or extra if a norther is on the way.

The way we operate, checking cattle is not complicated – as long as nothing's wrong. Ha. I try to get a good count, always lay eyes on the bulls, look for limps/sickness/injuries/etc, check any new calves and so forth. Also check the fences every now and then, especially if we're short somebody or we have a visitor.

Craig-TX

 

[txshowmom]

We have several pastures that are within a few miles of the house and they are check 3-4 times a wekks. We also have a couple of pastures that are about 200 miles from the house and they are checked every other month or so. We put commercial cows that never have calving problems over there.

 

[D.R. Cattle]

During calving season, two or more times per day. Otherwise, between one and three days depending on how busy the alternate schedules are.

 

[Running Arrow Bill]

Just walk out front door and we're there! Check several times a day. Someone always here.... Important with our cattle, horses, dogs, etc. Never get tired of looking at our animals....

 

[TLCfromARK]

I work about 7 hours away from the farm ( shift work ) so I'm home about every two weeks. My brother takes care of things while I'm away and then when I'm home I take care of the cows and he gets a break. We run our cows on a pasture we own together that joins some other acreage that we own.

During the summer ( when the living is easy ) we try to check every couple of days, our cows are about 3 miles off the main hiway. In the fall if we've got any that are getting close to calving we check every day, sometimes twice, morning & evening. We put our heifers up in a small pasture for a couple of weeks before calving to keep a close eye on them.

During the winter we feed hay every day and do a head count then. Our winters are pretty mild, it seldom stays below freezing for more than a few days at a time.

;-)

 

[dun]

When we had to travel a little to check the cows it seems like we checked them more. Made a special point of checking on them at least twice a day, sometimes 3. Now that they're all around me I never check them per se. I just observe them every time I look out the window or pass by the pasture.

dun

 

[sidney411]

I wish we lived where our cattle are - but alas, I must live closer to civilization so I can go work in a office building during the week so we can afford to mess with the few cows we have. My dream is to one day own a large ranch with enough cows to get by without having to work an 8-5 job. The ranch is an hour from our house. We are running 2 seperate herds there. I call them up and count them each weekend, look for new calves, injuries, ect. We look at the road fence at least once a month and all other perimeter fences when we move the cattle around. I have one place that is 20 mins from our house that we use to keep heifers on. When heifers are due to calve I try to look at them every day. When I see them springing I make it a point to go there every day and try to get someone else to look at them once a day also.

I think we wouldn't have lost a few calves that we have lost if we were there to look at the cows every day. A calf can be alive and well one weekend and dead the next. It is tough, and I don't think it is the best way to do things but for right now it is the only way we can do it.

 

[Tod Dague]

We have some cattle here that I like to look at all the time. We have a commercial herd about half an hour from home. We check those once a week and feed them something in the pens to keep them coming up. Plus if some one needs to be looked we close the gate behind them and work them up. We have another small group about 45 min. to an hour away. We put out lower milking, fat, easy going cows out there so we don't have to worry about them needing to be feed as often and check them every 2 - 3 weeks.

 

[TheBullLady]

For years we had cattle at two places, 25 minutes apart. We kept my show heifers and open heifers there, and a few older cows. Still had to drive there every day.. major pain in the butt. I convinced hubby to sell that place in February, so everything is on the home place now. We have SO MUCH more free time to be doing other things that weren't getting done before (ie: spraying fence lines, shredding, taking care of mesquite) that is was well worth having to shave down the cow herd.

Now I check them every couple of days, and anything that's close to calving comes up in the pasture near the yard.

 

[Cattle Rack Rancher]

As long as the weather is not too bad, I check my cattle everyday. I'm away from home working about 11 hours a day five days a week at an office job and the mile and a half walk out and back to check the cows is just good motivation to get some exercise.

 

[hillbilly]

As long as the weather is not too bad, I check my cattle everyday. I'm away from home working about 11 hours a day five days a week at an office job and the mile and a half walk out and back to check the cows is just good motivation to get some exercise.

You need a 4 wheeler!

 

[frenchie]

We try and check our stock on the homeplace everyday.On our other pastures , we hire someone close to check for us on a daily basis.

In the bush we have a trick that allows us to see all the cows without walking through the bush .Trying to find them.

We don,t feed salt on a continual basis , we limit feed it 3 times ,s a week.Those old cows come a running when, they hear that old truck a coming.They know that they are going to get a treat.( salt). Also makes them easy to count and easy to see if there is anything that needs attention.

 

[Cattle Rack Rancher]

Cattle Rack Rancher wrote:
As long as the weather is not too bad, I check my cattle everyday. I'm away from home working about 11 hours a day five days a week at an office job and the mile and a half walk out and back to check the cows is just good motivation to get some exercise.



You need a 4 wheeler!

I've thought about that but then I wouldn'y get any exercise. I sit behind a desk 9 1/2 hours a day. I rarely get out of the office even for lunch or coffee breaks. Its nice to be able to take a walk at the end of the day and actually see the great outdoors.

 

[TERM101]

I check my cattle around 4 times a day. Usually before I go to work or out somewhere, also around 3-4 times before I pack it up for the night.
I walk right out my backdoor and about 150 yds to the barn, but I can see most of my cattle from the backyard.

~TERM~