September Pictures

[creekdrive]

Time is sure flying by this year! Hard to believe September is nearly half over already... Been wet the past week or so (had another 2" & 8 tenths of rain a week ago) I can't remember a September that things have been so green! It's beautiful to look at and should really help stretch our pastures till weaning time. It's been too wet to combine or do any baling so spent the day checking cows. Got around to all but two pastures.

First pasture was the home quarter.

This girl stayed home because her calf had a broken leg this spring (right above the hoof on the back leg). Can't tell anymore unless your looking really close. Gelbvieh sired calf. Not quite sure where the blaze face came from. The cow is solid red except for her bag.

bought this girl this spring - limo x cow with angus sired heifer calf.

The babies - red heifer born August 3rd and black bull born August 18th. Both Gelbvieh sired. Their moms had better pick it up this next year or they will find themselves on a truck...

Next pasture - purebred RA cows (the cows in the background, behind the fence line, are the neighbours)

on to the next one - mostly purebred BA cows, with a few commercial cows.

2nd calver doing a good job.

love it when calves have 'milk face'

another 2nd calver with her bull calf.

a commercial 2nd calver with her heifer calf.

Next pasture - commercial red & tan cows

tan calves are Gelbvieh sired. Red steer in the centre is BA out of a tan cow, red steer on the right is RA sired.

2nd calver with Gelbvieh sired heifer calf.

another Gelbvieh sired heifer calf with her dam - coming 10 yr old sim x angus cow. She's probably one of the best cows on the place.

after that I went and checked another pasture of purebred reds, but only took 1 picture

bull calf getting behind his ears washed out by mom

The next pasture I went to takes the longest to check. it's 4 quarters, lots of hills & bush. If the cows don't want to come out and see you, you could drive all day and not find them. There's roughly 60 commercial red & black pairs there.

fancy brockle faced heifer

full sister with her 1st calf.

steer calf out of a first calver. His dam is sired by our Gelbvieh bull. We kept 4 of his daughters the first year and none of them are anything special to look at - too much leg and not enough body for my taste. All 4 were bred back to Red Angus for their first calf and they all have pretty nice looking calves. Quite happy with the job they are doing so far and excited to see how they do on their next calf.

will probably keep this heifer...

The sun was starting to go down by the time I got to the last pasture. This picture doesn't show much - other than the beautiful green grass!

I have tons more but I will stop there!

 

[Nesikep]

Sorry I forgot about you as another Canadian in my thread :hide:

Calves look really good!

 

[creekdrive]

Thanks Nesi and no worries about the other thread, I'll be the first to admit I don't contribute much to this board, other than pictures haha. I'm a very shy person in real life and it carries over onto the internet too. Lots of times I'll type something up as a reply and then re-read it and delete it, I either think it sounds dumb or I'm just repeating what someone else has already said...

 

[Nesikep]

I really enjoy the pics... I can't upload pics to photobucket from home so I don't post too many

 

[gizmom]

I love looking at your pictures you have some beautiful cattle. I also love seeing a calf with milk face! Tell me more about the brisket tag on the one cow. I have heard about them but have no experience with using a brisket tag.

gizmom

 

[Supa Dexta]

Do you still have any bulls out with the cows? Or just the calves

 

[Workinonit Farm]

Very nice. Nice looking groups of cows, pretty country up there. Nice pictures! Thanks for sharing.

 

[creekdrive]

Thanks everyone. I'm just glad to have a place to share some of my pictures.

I love looking at your pictures you have some beautiful cattle. I also love seeing a calf with milk face! Tell me more about the brisket tag on the one cow. I have heard about them but have no experience with using a brisket tag.

gizmom

Thank you! We bought that cow at the auction this past winter. She's the only one in the herd with a brisket tag. I'm sure they have their advantages but I don't like them. Unless she's looking right at you, you can't read it. In her case being the only one with one she's identifiable easy enough but our regular tags are marked front & back and unless it's an animal with real hairy ears I can read them from a long ways away. The purebreds also get a metal clip with a number that is recorded so if even if they do lose their tag we can tell who they are for sure.

Do you still have any bulls out with the cows? Or just the calves

The bulls are all still out with the cows, with the exception of one who we hauled home this past week with a sore leg/foot. He's headed to the auction in the next couple of weeks. We end up with the odd late bred cow, but not usually more than a handful and with the price of calves a couple small ones don't hurt too bad. And so long as she makes up time the next year (I pretty much expect 2 months) doesn't seem to hurt anything. Usually we will pull the bulls at the same time we wean the purebred bull calves, which will be roughly in another month or so. I don't post too many pictures of the bulls as I'm lot pickier about the photos of them...nobody really cares how a cow looks so long as she's got a nice big calf on her side!

like this picture I took the other day would've been really good had his back legs been reversed...

 

[Nesikep]

He looks alright to me anyhow

 

[Supa Dexta]

My bulls have been at a few april heifer calves the last week or so, saw them try and jump one yesterday and drive her into the dirt - so gonna pull them today likely.

Calves were selling for 2k+ around here yesterday, cant have bulls hurting one of them.

 

[Nesikep]

I'm selling my calves in 2 days, I figure I should break $2k on the big steers.

I've found that about 180 days seems to be right around the time I really gotta watch for the heifers coming into heat

 

[creekdrive]

So far we've been lucky... since I've been here (9 years) we haven't had any of the mature herd bulls hurt a heifer, but it is definitely a possibility. Hopefully - knock on wood - we won't have any problems this year either. We will wait until the crops are at least off so we have someplace to stick the bulls - not sticking 10 herd bulls in any of our corrals for them to have their annual fall war. When we pull them we throw them on a whole quarter section and let them have at it. They wreck less and seem to hurt themselves less too.

Hope your calves sell great Nesikep!

 

[Supa Dexta]

Yeah mine are coming in heat at 150-160 days and its a pain in the butt

 

[Nesikep]

a few years back I had 3 of them come into heat between 180 and 181 days.. 2 of them were my replacements, and thankfully away from the bull, the other got bred, but was growing wheels anyhow.. When they come into heat too early it really is a pain.. and if you don't notice and lute them, them uh-oh calves are never good for the heifers.


Now that breeding season is over, the 2 bulls I have get along like best buddies.. they each had their own herd to take care of during the season so there were never any wars. Springtime is when my bulls get nervous and can hurt each other.. had a young bull get a broken rib once, but at the time they were right across the fence from the cows in heat, mounting each other, and it was driving them batty. Now they're in a gully well away from the cows and they stay buddies.. Marko, the young one is halter broke and I can lead him to his herd, it's a real change from some of the wild SOB's we've had.

 

[ALACOWMAN]

Nice..

 

[boondocks]

Thanks Nesi and no worries about the other thread, I'll be the first to admit I don't contribute much to this board, other than pictures haha. I'm a very shy person in real life and it carries over onto the internet too. Lots of times I'll type something up as a reply and then re-read it and delete it, I either think it sounds dumb or I'm just repeating what someone else has already said...

Hey Creek, it's actually a good mix to have a few gentler souls around (in real life and also on the interwebs!). Plus, I'd be willing to bet you're not into taking "selfies", so you're ok in my book!
;-)

Beautiful country, beautiful cattle. Lots of length.

 

[Backbone Ranch]

I really like your bull and many of your females. They have great phenotypes, udders, and appear to be raising some very nice calves!

 

[creekdrive]

Hey Creek, it's actually a good mix to have a few gentler souls around (in real life and also on the interwebs!). Plus, I'd be willing to bet you're not into taking "selfies", so you're ok in my book!
;-)

Beautiful country, beautiful cattle. Lots of length.

Thanks boondocks - and you're right selfies aren't really my thing, in fact I'd rather not have any pictures of myself period, I prefer to stay behind the camera. ;-)

I really like your bull and many of your females. They have great phenotypes, udders, and appear to be raising some very nice calves!

Thanks - the bull is 2 1/2 yrs old. Bought him 4 weeks into breeding season last year when one of our bulls died. At that time of year we weren't expecting to end up with anything too great, just needed something to get the cows bred. We were quite surprised to find a bull that looked as good as him. His calves came easy this spring (the 5 bull calves averaged 75 lb bw) and are growing good so far. Quite pleased with him. Appreciate the comments on the cows as well - they might not be anything spectacular, they wouldn't win in a show ring, the calves weaning weights wouldn't blow anyone away, but for the most part they do a good job and require very little assistance from us.

While I'm here and since it's raining and dreary outside again and I have nothing better to do, here's a couple more pictures from the other day:

the 'meats' - 5 animals we are feeding for butcher (3 yearling bulls, 2 steers)

butt shot

the other meat! I love my piggies

the pup - "Oats"

what a bonehead, haha

sunset over the creek, crappy cell phone picture