Lots of pictures (warning!)Pics of bull added

[donnaIL]

I was not sure where to put this..but we are commercial breeds and sooo.....We culled a few cows this year and kept the calves, so some of our girls are doing extra duty.

This was our prototype, Lucy, we bought her in March 2000 at 550lbs so Im guessing she is pushing 9, she has had 6 bull calves and expect another next May, she is currently feeding 2 calves, didn't get that picture tho

We kept a bull from Lucy and the calves are out of him. We did come close to repeating her making her better:

Here is my imbalancer, doing her job, this is our smallest cow with her 2nd calf and and extra (the red one) she is feeding, July calves

One of our first calf heifers doing her job, calf was born 5/27, momma probably weighs 1200lbs

A group of our cows:

This is the sick calf I had this spring born in April:

His FAT momma

Some calves:

what color would you like?

getting ready for winter here, took some shots when the sun was shining donna

edited to fix picture links & to change title on the first calf heifer

 

[CPL]

Are you the one that bought an angus bull at the IPT Bull Sale last year or the year before? If so do you have any current pictures of him. Are the cows being worked overtime fed any supplementation? It looks like you have a pretty good set of cows with some nice calves.

 

[Keren]

Donna, those are some great photos of top cows doing their job well, big sappy calves lookin fat n happy, and a manager doing a brilliant job managing the farm system!

I love Lucy (no pun intended)

 

[angus9259]

I'm interested in culling some cows after calving this coming spring. How'd that work for you? How old were the calves when you did it? What process did you use to put the orphaned calf and new momma together?

 

[donnaIL]

CPL:

Are you the one that bought an angus bull at the IPT Bull Sale last year or the year before? If so do you have any current pictures of him. Are the cows being worked overtime fed any supplementation? It looks like you have a pretty good set of cows with some nice calves.

Yes bought the bull in Feb 08, he will be 2 years in January, he has grown quite a bit I'd estimate him at 1600lbs, not the gain I had hoped, he lets everyone kick him out of the food bowl..expect his calves out of these cows & a couple heifers retained from last year in the spring. He did not cooperate with picture taking yesterday, I have one bad picture (zoomed in from 200 ft down a hill etc). I will see I can get one today.

Yes we supplement with a corn/purina 32 mix because of limited/poor forage for the past few years and if I didn't they would not keep BCS. They get approximately 4-5lbs each, I do not seperate cows, calves or the bull so probably the cows get 6lbs, the calves 2lbs. We will be weaning this week, a little late this year had calves spread out, will wean all (5-8 month old) except the 3 young ones in last photo. When they are weaned they will start getting their fair share of feed.

Keren:

I love Lucy (no pun intended)

Thanks for your kind words, she is a great cow!

angus9295

I'm interested in culling some cows after calving this coming spring. How'd that work for you? How old were the calves when you did it? What process did you use to put the orphaned calf and new momma together?

One calf was 4 months the red calf was 7 1/2 weeks (I was a little worried about that one), I didn't do anything, the cows volunteered. Lucy was actually feeding 3 calves a couple of months ago (the sick calf)...she had lots and lots of milk so I don't think she minds. Also my "imbalancer", I think she might be a jersey/angus cross..something about her looks jersey to me, she doesn't have a huge udder, but appear to make plent of good milk cz her calves grow good.

donna

 

[grannysoo]

Nice pics of good looking cows. Thanks!

 

[Limomike]

They all look like they are well fed!

 

[Beefy]

hey Donna. great cows and calves. youve come a long way since the days of Lucy and the mean limo heifer. lol. i didnt realize you had so many cows now. your imbalancer looks to have some muscle in the hind end that a jersey x angus would lack.

 

[ALACOWMAN]

how was the calf sick? .............moma's nice and slick with a poor udder

 

[donnaIL]

I would say you are better off waiting until spring. I just culled one here a couple weeks ago. She weighed 1195 and brought 28 cents per pound. I lost my butt on that one but I can count it as a tax write off.

I'm glad I culled when I did, got 72 cents per pound.

how was the calf sick? .............moma's nice and slick with a poor udder

The calf was born in April, a month of temperature swings and excessive rain (actually we had record rainfall/prec all year). We still had the cows penned up because the soil was so soggy to walk on it would have torn up the pasture. He had tempature for almost 3 wks before he came around, thought was pnemonia and at the end even though maybe navel ill...treated him with draxxin, baytril, banadine and 1 shot of penicillin. Yes her udder isn't pretty but she does have enough milk to grow them. I wanted to get rid of her but she seems to be an easy keeper (a little grain makes her obese) & would be nice to have some animals that keep condition with out feed. Her calves seem to get the trait,the bad thing is she is a huge cow, and wicked when she first has her calf. Her first heifer calf broke her leg, so we ended up eating her (delicious!), her heifer from 2006 should calf as a 2 yr in June. Anyway her calves make good sides of beef so she stays for now.

 

[donnaIL]

CPL: Are you the one that bought an angus bull at the IPT Bull Sale last year or the year before? If so do you have any current pictures of him. Are the cows being worked overtime fed any supplementation? It looks like you have a pretty good set of cows with some nice calves.

Here are some pics of him today. RRR Rito 703. He will be 2 yrs in Jan. I know alot of you guys didn't particulary care for him last Feb & prob still don't. I'm hoping he will do what I want him to do in our program--reduce frame size, more IMF, and i'm thinking he will make them black, baldies even better. He is hard to photograph & I'm not the best, he's always to close or in the sun. He'd look better if I could get him seperated and feed him alittle more, but he knows how to get in/out of weaner/feeder pen, I guess he jumps?

edited to fix 2nd pic

 

[bigbull338]

those are some nice looking cows an calves.