Working for a Living

[randiliana]

So after I got finished catering luncheon, I went out to check on the working girls...(notice, no boys out here.... ;-)

It's a rough life..

Working for your living

Hard to keep that svelte body shape...

Some of the new girls thought maybe I brought something for them..

But when it became apparent that I hadn't, they gave up and went back to work

I think that they thought it really wasn't fair...

Some of the pre-existing herd seemed to share that opinion..

And they turned their noses up at me

And then went back to what they had been doing before

Some seem to be fenced into a corner, or perhaps afraid to step across the icy creek, and I think that they may have to go back the way that they came...

 

[M5farm]

very nice! I still don't quite understand how yall northerners keep cows in the condition you do.

 

[Named'em Tamed'em]

Nice, Thanks for sharing!

 

[Celtic Cowman]

Great looking easy keepers. Are you liking the brisket tags?

 

[Nesikep]

Nice pictures and they do look in good shape.
My cows are liberal too.. always looking for handouts, and only work when forced to. They certainly have a union too, and all share the same opinion of their working conditions

 

[jasonleonard]

Randi...please tell us about the brisket tags. The university owned cows near me have them. What benefits are there (over a plain eartag)?

 

[Aaron]

Pretty sure that all those cows with the brisket tags are ones they bought in. Don't know that Randi uses them, pretty much a Y-Tex herd.

 

[randiliana]

Aaron is right. The brisket tags were in some of the cows that we bought. We use Y-Tex eartags. I was going to remove them but DH wanted to leave them in so we could tell easily which cows were in which group.

Having said that, when I was younger I worked for my aunt and uncle and they used brisket tags. Personally I like them, but DH is dead set against them, (one of those things not worth the fight....) The best thing about them is that they are very close to permanent. Once in, it is very, very rare for a cow to lose one. But, they are a PITA to put in. You have to tie the cow's head up and around (might not be so bad with one of the neck extenders that are out now) then you punch a hole in her brisket, put the wire through that, slide the tag onto the wire and bend the ends of the wire. Ear tags are pretty darn easy to apply compared to all that.

Brisket tags have other problems as well. While working for my aunt and uncle, he used blue tags with black printing, and for a group of cows they managed for her mother, they used red tags with white printing. The blue tags were actually pretty amazing, the printing stood up really, really good, and I knew of numerous 10-12 year old cows that had the same tag that they were given as yearlings. Those tags were an opaque colour. But, the red tags which were more translucent sucked IMO, the white printing didn't last, and on numerous occasions they broke in half when it got really cold out. But I don't think I can remember a cow EVER losing one. As well, they are harder to see than an ear tag. With an ear tag, so long as she looks at you, you can usually read it, with the bock-loc tags, you need to be in front of her to see the number, and it can be hard to read them when the cows are laying down.

This bunch of cows, 9 head, have yellow tags with black printing, and I would say half of the tags are unreadable. None are broken. And the cows are only 3-5 years old. But, really I don't think that is terrible either, when you consider ear tags with pre-printed numbers. However, compared to my ear tags, which I use the Y-Tex liquid ink on, that is pretty pathetic. I have cows in the herd that will be 14 next summer and they have the same tag they were tagged with as yearlings, and it is still readable.

 

[jasonleonard]

Randi...thank you for that class on brisket tags....and, as always, your pictures are great! Are you a photographer at your day-job?

 

[bigbull338]

you have a nice looking herd there.

 

[Caustic Burno]

Neat pictures.
My Brimmer girls would have been tryin to get in the truck and turn the heater on high.

 

[denvermartinfarms]

Good pictures, thanks.

 

[jedstivers]

Great pictures but I'm not sure who would die first, me or my cattle.

 

[Caustic Burno]

Great pictures but I'm not sure who would die first, me or my cattle.

Got that right looks like they require white camo to go deer hunting.
I have a 40 deg rule if it is under 40 I am not going unless to one of my
heated stands.

 

[jedstivers]

Great pictures but I'm not sure who would die first, me or my cattle.

Got that right looks like they require white camo to go deer hunting.
I have a 40 deg rule if it is under 40 I am not going unless to one of my
heated stands.

We'd get along good. I get cold from 65 down.