Life in the Ag Industry

So It Begins!

2012-01-31T20:19:00.000-08:00

Well, I made it back from an amazing trip to Switzerland and now the calving season has begun! It is my favourite time of the year, and even though we are not supposed to officially start until the 5th of February, yesterday we had our first calf, a bull calf, LBH 1Z. Even though we are not supposed to start for another few days, I guess it has technically begun! Today, we got all the straw stacked to put in the calving stalls ready for use. It is going to be a busy few months, with all the synchronising we did, we could technically get upwards of like fifty in a day, but that is not likely going to happen, they do spread out pretty good. Non the less, we should average probably about twenty a day for a good couple of weeks! Dad also built six more calving stalls in preparation of those very possibly busy days!!

I hope to get some pictures up of the little ones in this large world, as well as to talk about this wonderful time a bit more! As for now though, we did gain an addition to the family last Saturday in the form of a border collie puppy, he is quite the handful but non the less very adorable making it very hard to ever be mad at him!

Campbell :D

Merry Christmas!!

2011-12-24T08:36:00.000-08:00

Here is our Christmas tree that my brother,
cousins and Uncle decorated!

I'm not very good at this anymore, it's been a while since I blogged! Time as flown by the fall 2011 semester is already over and Christmas is already here! This year is a very exciting Christmas for myself, on Monday, December 19th, I arrived in Zürich Switzerland with my mom and brother! And yesterday my dad and sister came, it's the first time in five years that my whole family has been here together for Christmas! Today is Christmas Eve, and tonight our whole family of fifteen will come together and celebrate this wonderful holiday! I am pretty excited, I love Christmas and I love this country, I have had a wonderful time so far with everyone!

I will try to blog a bit when I'm here, but no guarantees, however when I do get back home we will just be about ready to start calving season, which I hope to talk or at least post pictures about quite a bit, as it is one of my favourite times of the year so until then, I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!! May the season be filled with love and joy!!

Merry Christmas!!!

Time Flies!

2011-10-31T20:18:00.000-07:00

Wow! I'm pretty sure that it was yesterday that I was just about to start my third year of university and I blogged last, but it's actually already the end of October, crazy how time flies! Anyway, it's been forever but not much has really gone on in the last two months besides lots and lots of school work!!

I am currently in my third year at the University of Lethbridge continuing my pre-vet! It is going alright, this semester is much better than my previous ones, I have no labs this semester which makes the world of difference! So, besides immersing myself in some biology, biochemistry, religion and economics of agriculture, I have made it home a couple of weekends! Each time I noticed the continued and mostly finishing of the fall harvest. Harvesting is one thing that we don't do at home, we harvested many years ago but we don't anymore just for the simple fact that it makes for a long year, and it is never ending! During harvest is usually a time for us to catch up on everything were behind on and taking a little break before the big calving season starts! The other weekend I made it home was for Thanksgiving, where we weaned our 500 calves. It was high time for that and we had wonderful luck with it raining a few days before, which kept the dust down which is exactly what you want when weaning calves cause then there's a less likely chance that they get sick from it being so dry. It was a wonderful weekend spent with family and processing calves, one of my most favorite things to do!

It has been an unbelievably fast two months, the first semester of school is already half over..... CRAZY! It has been a good few months though, my going home visits, the purchase of my first car and learning what seems like very useless things in school! I hope all of your life's are going well, no matter what your doing! I hope to blog more often but that hasn't gone well so far, but I will try when I have the time! Until next time!

Oh, and Happy Halloween!!

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Is She Pregnant?

2011-09-03T21:12:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've blogged, life's been busy and the days are very quickly disappearing until I have to go back to school and this thought does not excite me all that much. A few weeks ago now we performed one of my favorite jobs to do on the ranch which included preg testing our cows and heifers! We spent the better part of four days checking if our 612 females are going to have a baby next year, with 450 being cows and 162 heifers.

It was a busy few days but a few years ago we would preg test all our females in one day when the vet did it. Now, that day was long, it would start at about six in the morning and end late that night. When our vet however retired from preg testing cows, my dad and neighbor teamed together and bought an ultrasound machine to preg test with. So, we have been using it for the past few years, so we are in no rush to finish preg testing in a day, with the machine it also takes a few less people. When the vet came we would have a couple people on quads going to get the next group of cows because we didn't have time to lose waiting for cows whereas now it's not such a big deal to have them their right away.

Screen, big circle on bottom left is 91 days, small is 63
and circle on right is 77 days pregnant.

The machine is a simple probe with a camera on the end that will show a picture of the fetus. With the settings on the screen you can see how long the cow has been pregnant for my measuring the fetus and comparing it to the circle on the screen. Some people preg test to simply find out if the cow is pregnant or not, we however want to find out about what time she is going to calf, so we measure the baby. The time taken varies for each cow, some are done in a second, others take a while longer. It's easy to see if a cow is pregnant but it's the open ones (open meaning not pregnant) that can be hard to decipher.

With my dad preg testing, we usually had our hired hand on the head gate catching the cows in when they came in, my brother was in the back keeping the chute full of cows, continually chasing them in and I had the wonderful job of paperwork. This includes writing down the weight of the cow and the number of days pregnant. I also had to make sure I payed attention because on some of the cows we had AI dates, or some also had seen bred dates, if they had any of these I had to make sure that I told dad the date because a lot of the time that was the date that the cow got pregnant and instead of having to come up with a number of days, I could just highlight that date if it was the one.

Paper looks like this, with cows number followed by the AI date/Sire, Exposure date/Sire/Seen Bred When,
Second Exposure Date, days pregnant and weight.

It is quite a process, but a fairly enjoyable one and the equipment has worked real well for us over the years, it's nice cause we have the leisure to preg test whenever we want and I think it's more comfortable on the cows too, when a vet preg tests the cows will walk around with their tales up for a bit whereas with the probe they hardly notice and just walk out of the chute like nothing ever happened. Definitely one of my favorite times of the year and I just can't wait until winter when all those little babies are born into this world!

If you have any questions about preg testing or anything please don't hesitate to ask!

Silaging

2011-08-26T20:31:00.000-07:00

Chopper

After the Hardisty field day which was another wonderful and good day we came home and plowed full swing into silaging! We silaged for four days and covered the pit on Wednesday morning. It makes for a busy few days from about eight in the morning to ten or eleven at night and is a very important time as silage is what we feed in the winter months to our cattle and are their main food.

This year we had a very large silage pit, we silaged more crop than we usually do because we got a bunch of winter kill on the alfalfa so it didn't come in very well so instead of haying it we silaged it. Silaging is also a process that takes a few people to successfully complete it. Every year we get together with our neighbors and we help them silage their crop and they help us silage ours. Most of the time you need:

1 person swathing a bit ahead of the chopper
1 person running the chopper
1 person on a tractor packing down the pit and moving the silage up
3 or 4 people driving trucks depending on the distance of the field.

Pit

Now once the silaging is complete we have to cover the pit so that it doesn't get any air or moisture so then it doesn't rot. There are a couple ways to cover pits. Lots of people cover pits with old tires onto the plastic, it is a lot of work to move tires and cover the pit. We used tires back when we would bag the silage and you would just have to do the ends of the silage bag. When we starting putting the silage in a pit however we have covered the pit with big round bales. We find this works wonderful, it gives the pit a good seal and we haven't ever had issues with the silage spoiling. It is also less strenuous on the people, we have a couple people in tractors moving bales and then three our four on the ground holding the plastic down. The ground people don't have to do any heavy lifting or anything and it is much nicer. I have covered silage with both tires and bales and I must say I prefer bales much more than tires.

This is the amount of silage above the pit edge.

So, we successfully got another crop of silage of the ground and by the looks of the pit it should be more than enough to feed our cows during the winter. I also got to smell the sweet aroma of fresh silage for a couple days, a smell that I quite enjoy. Some people don't like the smell as much, but I quite enjoy it now anyway, not so much when it's older.

Complete

Boy from Girl

2011-08-17T21:07:00.000-07:00

Headed Home

A little while ago we sorted all four hundred and some of our cows, we do this every year around this time when we have a spare minute. We sort the bull calves from the heifer calves or boy from girl for one simple reason, to prevent any 'teenage pregnancies' so to speak. It is more than likely not going to happen, but because we have so many cows we can sort them apart and its just a precautionary measure and much safer. The bull calves will also ride the cows if their in heat, they can't really hurt the cows. But the bull calves will also sometimes ride the heifer calves which could injure them so we sort them annually.

Once we sort them girl from boy, we go through our bull calves again and sort out the better ones and put them in a separate group. Dad finds this works great if someone stops in to look at cattle and they only have a few minutes, we will take them to the group of better bull calves. Around this time of year we also attend field days, which is a day where breeders bring bull calves and they are judged in a ring openly. These are the kinds of shows my dad loves, not very much work all you do is bull your calves of the pasture load them on the trailer and take them to a field day for the day. This year we sorted out 24 good bull calves for two field days and 12 heifer calves which are split into pens of three and judged by the people at the field day.

The north western field day was last week in Cut Knife, Saskatchewan. It was a wicked long day, it takes about six and a half hours of straight driving to get there, so we left here at 4:45 in the morning and got home at about 2:30 in the morning the next day, so all in all it was a long day for us and the calves who were very happy to see mommy. It was our first time to the North Western field day and we ended up with Champion Senior Bull Calf and third in the pens of heifer calves. So, it was worth it and it is a great way to see people in the Hereford business and their cattle. I thoroughly enjoy field days. Unfortunately I did forget my camera so I don't have any pictures but I hope to take some for this Thursdays field day in Hardisty, Alberta (a little closer to home, about 4 hours).

Our sorting of boy from girl lets us kill two birds with one stone when we pick calves for the field days and it is a precautionary measure to prevent stuff we don't want to happen!

A crazy month!

2011-08-04T19:04:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it's already August, as I get older it seems the days just go by faster and faster! Although I think I have to owe most of July going by real fast by how busy I was, in July pretty much two out of the four weeks was spent away from home, spending most of my time in a barn with a bunch of cattle!

From July 12-17 was Summer Synergy in Olds Alberta. We headed up to Olds with our five head of cattle around noon on the 12th and got them settled into their tie out pens and everything set up for the week! Throughout the week along with feeding, watering, washing and bedding our cattle so they were nice and comfortable I participated in a variety of different competitions such as multi judging, show team judging, and showmanship during the week. And then Friday was the big show day, where all the kids in all beef breeds, dairy and sheep showed the animals they worked hard to prepare for the show. All the competitions during the week and the conformation show we got points on how well we did and those points got accumulated for the chance to win a scholarship at the end of the week. There was also a marketing component that counted, consisting of making a blog which is how this whole blog got started in the first place and thanks to all of you for reading, following and viewing I was one of the 27 who received a scholarship and was recognized at the Calgary Stampede grandstand on Saturday!

It was a crazy, exhausting week but totally worth it in the end, walking across the grandstand in front of thousands of people was an experience that I am not soon going to forget! It was an excellent week and I would encourage anyone between the age of 9-21 to come to Summer Synergy in the future, it is a great week and a wonderful opportunity to meet new people and a great way to make get some scholarship money!

Well, after that fulfilling week in Olds, I came home to catch up on some sleep, relax a bit and get ready for the week after for our trip up to Saskatoon Saskatchewan for the 2011Canadian Junior Hereford Bonanza July 26-31. Every year this show is hosted by a different province and this year it was a huge success with our highest numbers ever. My siblings and I took eight head on the long almost seven hour drive to Saskatoon. It is quite similar to Summer Synergy with different activities like showmanship, judging, grooming and team competitions happening throughout the week with the big open show at the end! I did alright in the show this year with my yearling heifer placing third in the class and the 2 year old bull 40W, featured here received the honor of reserve champion senior bull!

Bonanza is probably one of my favorite parts of summer, I have been going since 2008 when Alberta hosted it in Medicine Hat and I have loved it ever since. It is another great way to meet fellow junior members that love to show and raise the Hereford breed! Again I encourage any Hereford enthusiasts under the age of 21 to come out and have fun with us, it is another great opportunity for scholarship money, free semen through the semen donation program and the chance to win money for a heifer through the heifer lottery, all you have to do is become a Canadian Junior Hereford Member.

It has been a great month, quite an exhausting one and I'm still catching up on sleep but it has totally been worth it.

Team Alberta

Bull Pulling!

2011-07-11T23:41:00.000-07:00

Well, it has been an extremely busy last few days! The big thing this weekend was that the breeding season at our place is officially over, except for the commercial heifers. So, the better part of Friday and Saturday in between baling hay was spent pulling bulls and moving cows. The way we do this is by pulling the bulls from each place separately and then locking them up in a pen of some sort alone also. Once we have all of them rounded up from the pastures, which was done over a two day time span this year we chase them out to a field separately too. We have this one fairly large pasture that is just across the road from our house, it has a slue in the middle, and it gives the bulls lots of room to spread out. We chase them out separately so that they aren't fighting in the process of chasing them out!

We send them all out separately but at the same time so that they can all get used to each other at once. If you have a group of bulls and then you just add another one sometime later sometimes they will gang up on the bull that is new. So, our herd bulls spent the first day or so fighting to see who would be the boss of them all, it's just what they do and is quite natural. But, after a while they do settle down and that is why they are also in a big field so they can spread out if they have to and close to home so that we can check on the regularly to make sure no one gets injured or sick in the chaos. We also moved some cows together, as it is a whole lot easier to check eight or nine bunches of cows rather than seventeen of them, and now with the bulls gone we can put more of them together.

So, that was the big deal this weekend, another breeding season is over and new life's are growing. Sunday was spent with the extended family celebrating a Birthday and Graduation but he rest of the weekend and Monday was mostly spent haying and getting ready for the big Summer Synergy Show. It's been a busy couple of days but not as busy as the rest of the week is going to be!

A Day of Golf

2011-07-08T22:59:00.000-07:00

I spent Wednesday and Thursday up in the town of Hanna at the Keith Gilmore Foundation Annual Golf Tournament! We headed up on Wednesday for the Alberta Hereford Association Annual meeting which my dad was part off, and we enjoyed either a steak or broil lobster supper. The country girl that I am, I stuck with the steak, but I did try a little piece of the lobster and it was edible and from what I heard some of the best lobster people had ever had!

Thursday consisted of the big day with the golf tournament. I golfed for the third time in my life, now the first time I golfed was when I was about six and I don't remember it much, and the second time was in grade twelve, glow ball golfing and that was pretty much just whacking the ball around all over. So this was my first time golfing for real, a full game and I must admit I quite enjoyed myself. I learned a few things, I suck at driving the golf ball, however I am a pretty good putter and golf is funner to play then it is to watch on TV, although it is still not my first pick of a sport but it's fun every once in a while! The day was ended with a wonderful steak supper and a live auction with all proceeds going to the foundation!

Daniel was practically a pro at golfing.

The golf tournament is a fundraiser for the Keith Gilmore Foundation, which is a foundation that gives up to ten scholarships to post secondary students in Canada that are in the fields of agriculture, veterinary medicine, and agriculture journalism. I was one of the recipients last year, so I was asked to give a little speech about myself this year, so I had to go up their anyway so I decided may as well do a little golf. It is a great day spent with friends having a little fun golfing, and for a very worthy cause.

For more information on the Keith Gilmore Foundation go here and if you are a Canadian student taking post secondary in agriculture apply for the scholarship, every student likes scholarship money!

Invention Monday - BBQ

2011-07-04T19:16:00.000-07:00

This little invention doesn't really help make life on the ranch faster but it sure does help with social life and getting together with people to visit and have a good time! My relatives invented a large stainless steel barbecue that can roast a whole pig or sheep. Many years ago we would have a pig or lamb roast, where we would roast a lamb or pig in the BBQ, we usually did a lamb because we used to have sheep. So, we roast a lamb and invite all our neighbors, friends, relatives over for a big gathering with lots of talk and lots of delicious food!

We haven't used it for years but it hasn't just been sitting around the last little while. The BBQ has roasted pigs for a couple weddings and has been borrowed for a couple other occasions to all withing the last year or so. A few features of the BBQ are:

The heat comes from the side not the bottom therefore doing a better job of roasting the animal.
There is a pan that slopes at the bottom of the BBQ so that the grease from the animal drains rather than flare up the BBQ.
It is not a whole BBQ but can be dismantled and put back together for easier management.

They made a plywood frame to go around so then we are not losing much heat in our windy country. We have roasted a 56 pound lamb to a 140 pound pig with the meat being absolutely delicious and very tasty. I miss those days, they were a lot of fun and hopefully we will put this great invention to use again soon like we used to!

Gophers!

2011-06-29T20:39:00.000-07:00

There is a little rodent that runs around called a Richardson Ground Squirrel but I are most commonly referred to as gophers. They cause havoc and are a bit of a problem in the agriculture industry. We have thousands and thousands of gophers in our pastures and we do have to do something about it to control them. Some of you may not agree with killing them but I have to give you my side of this problem. Gophers do two things that cause problems:

Gophers dig holes - They dig them everywhere, making mounds of dirt and tearing up grass. This is an issue in the well being of our cattle, they can hurt themselves if they walk in a gopher hole. It becomes more of an issue during breeding season when they ride each other, it's easier to hurt themselves if they step in a hole while riding.
Gophers eat grass - They eat grass and pasture land, basically what our cows eat. Now one little gopher doesn't make much of a difference, but all together they do. A gopher weighs about a quarter of a pound, and will eat about seventy-five percent of their body weight. So, 0.25*0.75=0.1875 pounds a day. If their is just 1000 gophers together they are eating 0.1875*1000=187.5 pounds of grass. Now cows will eat about 1.4-4.0% of their body weight a day depending on the quality of food. So a 1200 pound cow would eat between 17-48 pounds of dry basis feed. So, just a thousand gophers, are eating about 11 or so cows feed a day! That is a lot!!

Image

So, we do get rid of those annoying creatures, and there are a whole lot more than just 1000 of them, we have one field this year that is really bad, with thousands and thousands of them. And it doesn't seem to matter how many we get rid of, next year there is always another million of them. They are like a never ending problem in our area that we try to take care of as best we can!

A little Supplementation!

2011-06-28T22:20:00.000-07:00

As I've mentioned before all our cows are out on pasture for the breeding season and they have been keeping us busy with regular checks. Checking everyone on a regular basis is very important to make sure all animals are healthy and making sure they have pasture, moving them when they run out.

Salt (red) and seven way

On a regular basis we also fill up tubs with mineral and salt as a supplementation and is very important to the cattle's diet. We have three different types of mineral that we give the cows:

Our soil is extremely low in cooper and zinc so we feed them a hi-boot cooper and zinc salt that supplies them with the loss in the feed they eat. It also has traces of magnesium which is also a deficiency in cattle.
The mineral we feed with the salt is an ALT-GEN 17-17 Beef and Range Mineral which contains mainly calcium and phosphorus for the cattle's diet.
Some of our pastures contain alfalfa which is a legume plant that grows purple flowers and will grow several times during the summer if grazed down. One problem that alfalfa can cause though is bloat in animals, which is when the stomach becomes overstretched by excess gas content and if not caught and treated quickly the animal will usually die. So to prevent this cows in alfalfa pastures get seven way mineral which contains vitamins and minerals that prevent bloat.

These supplements are very important to a cows diet, especially during summer pasture and when lactating milk to raise their calves. So, it is very important to make sure that they have a constant supply of salt and mineral. And luckily the cattle absolutely love the stuff, it is usually a mad dash when giving them mineral to get to the tub first!

Invention Monday - Shredder

2011-06-27T15:32:00.000-07:00

A truck with a mounted bale shredder that we bought because the prototype that they built took to long to iron out so we went ahead and bought a Brandt Bale Processor for the back of the truck. This wonderful truck has three uses, we can feed grain out of the box in front of the shredder, it can be used to feed hay to the cattle and it shreds straw which is what we probably use it for the most. Pretty much all winter long someone is shredding straw into the pens.

Another sweet feature that my relatives came up with is they added a fork to the front of the truck so that there can be three straw bales loaded on at once, one in the shredder, one at the back and one at the front. This tends to safe quite a bit of time, so then you don't have to drive to the stack yard and get another bale every time you run out but simply push a lever and the next straw bale goes into the shredder.

This invention is one that saves a fair about of time and one that we use a lot. I have never had the privlege of driving this big truck, I have however had the honor of opening gates in cold weather for the person in the shredder so that it would save even more time. Unfortunatly the shredder has been in the shop for a while now getting fixed, hopefully it willwork again soon because it is a pretty important part of the ranch, especially come winter time so the wonderful cows and calves don't freeze! Here is a little video of the truck in action.

For more info on this great machine go here.

Numbers Galore

2011-06-26T16:58:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I did a blog on ultrasounding carcass traits in animals and had mentioned EPD's, today I will go into a little more depth on EPD's.

EPD stands for expected progeny differences. Here is an example of EPD's for an animal. To some of you this may look like just a bunch of numbers, I will do my very best to explain what the numbers are and mean.

Calving Ease - is an EPD that has a multitude of factors that impact calving ease from gestation period, feed, climate, cow size to breed. Calving ease is how well a cow will calf, we want calving ease to be higher so that most of them will be unassisted.
Birth Weight is the EPD that gets calculated using the birth weights of the bulls and cows progeny as well as the calves birth weight. The lower the number the better. This bull for example has a birth weight EPD of +3.6 and he is used on cows. Our one heifer bull has a birth weight EPD of -1.1 which is low and part of the reason he is used on heifers because you want heifer's calves to have low birthweights so that they can easily calf and don't need assistance.
Weaning weight is based on the weight of the calf's and its parents weight at weaning (when we take the calves away from the moms). In this case it is the higher the number the better. For example if another bull at an EPD of 0.0 this bull with the weaning weight of +55.8 will sire offspring with an average of 55.8 pounds heavier at weaning then the bull with an EPD of 0.0.
Yearling weight is the same as weaning only it applies to when the animal is a year old.
Milk is another one of those EPD's that you want higher numbers. You can't have a cow that doesn't produce any milk so you want high EPD's, it is a measure of the amount of pre-weaning performance gained by calves which can be attributed to the milking ability of a bull's/cow's daughters. The EPD is expressed in pounds of calf.
Total Maternal is half the weaning weight plus the milk of the mother.
Maternal Calving Ease is the calving ease of the mother.
Scrotal Circumference is determined and adjusted from the yearling scrotal circumference of a bull's or cow's progeny, in centimeters and again the higher the EPD the bigger the better.
Cow Weight is the EPD of the cow weight.
Stayability is the probability that a bulls daughters will stay in the herd for so many years.
MPI is maternal productivity index.
FMI is feedlot merit index
Fat is determined from the ultrasound measurements and the lower the number the less fat the animal has and the better.
REA is the rib eye area EPD also from ultrasound, higher numbers mean larger rib eyes.
MARB is the marbling of the animal also determined from the ultrasound with higher EPD numbers also meaning more marbling.

The middle row is the accuracy of the EPD's and is very important when looking at the EPD's. For example the calving ease EPD is seven percent accurate.
The row at the bottom is the average EPD's of all the calves born in 2009 of the Hereford breed. An average is made every year of the calves and is used as a guideline to compare an animal to the average. EPD's of different breeds cannot be compared because each breed has their own methods of calculating EPD's and they are simply not comparable.

EPD's showed graphically in percentiles.

EPD's are a lot of numbers but are very useful in choosing herd sires to breed cows to. Through EPD's breeders can also increase the productivity and characteristics of their herd. They are also used to decide which cows to put with which bulls, for example if one cow has a low milking EPD, then we would stick her with a bull that has an above average, high milking EPD and the calf should average out and increase in milking EPD. EPD's are useful in herd management and are starting to be used more by breeders in their herd and in selecting bulls. Please comment and let me know if you have any questions!

Credits: http://www.hereford.ca/performance.asp
http://www.hereford.ca/association_member/PDFs/forms/calving_ease.pdf

"The Selecta Belle"

2011-06-24T21:38:00.000-07:00

Recently we received a very large stack of old Canadian Hereford Digests and I was looking through a couple of them today and I came across a little story that I found to be very cute and funny from the 1985 Digest that I would like to share with you.

The Selecta Belle

By: Delita Belle

About mid morning Max appeared in the doorway.... "Could you help me sort some bulls?" he asked.... I was up to my elbows in bread dough, but the thought of leaving the house for a few minutes seemed very attractive... Quickly I finished punching the bread, slipped into my coveralls and rubber boots and, like an obedient little dog, I followed Max out to the corral.

Sorting the bulls was always an exciting time... This was when we selected those animals that qualified for the 'Bull Market.' The 'Culls' were sold for beef... Max always made me feel as if he valued my opinion. As he extolled the merits of every animal, preparing me for a decision, I tried to point out some of the qualities I liked. Max listened politely, pausing briefly as he waited for me to finish, hen he would explain to me that maybe those long eyelashes and cute little curls in the bulls tail weren't so important in selecting a bull....

I really began to wonder why he had asked me for my valued opinion. Maybe he was felling sorry for me, since the last selection I had made turned out to be a fizzle... He was probably giving me one more chance to shape up... My thoughts turned to that fateful day.

The Five Star Sale was on and Max was having one of those days when the vet calls and the calving problems in our own pasture had put the cap on any chance of his leaving the territory for a production sale.... He must have looked me over and decided my inefficiency would perhaps be less noticeable at the sale...

So... armed with a list of careful instructions on how to select a female, I drove off to choose a heifer at the sale... I was so pleased that Max had such confidence in me. I was really going to make him proud of me...

After spending a glowing hour or so, visiting with other breeders and their wives, looking over a large selection of beautiful females from the herds of five breeders, I stuffed myself with delicious roast beef, apple pie and confidence... I felt I was well prepared for the important selection of a female for our herd...

I was filled with so much excitement and importance as I sat in the stand beside my friend, Doreen. We had so much news to exchange about the activities of our unbelievable kids.... We really missed seeing the first dozen or so females pass through the ring...

A scurry in the show ring suddenly snapped us to attention. One very nervous heifer had decided she had enough of the poking, tugging, and pushing, and was making her wishes known. At the moment her wish was to have everyone out of the ring.... Everyone! As the last man scrambled over the fence she snorted furiously and whipped around a few times to make sure no one was sneaking back...

"Well, now! There's a spirited princess for you!" bawled the auctioneer. "Isn't she a sweet, lively thing?" And as she stood their in the middle of the ring, her head high, her eyes bright with anger, her body in rigid defiance, I felt a kinship with her.... Yes! She was a sweet, lively thing!... And as her eyes met mine a spark of sympathy seemed to light between us... "What am I bid for this beauty?" begged the auctioneer. "Do I hear five? Make it ten?" Up went my catalogue and Princess was mine!

I drove home on cloud nine with Princess churning around and around in the back of my truck... Max met me at the loading chute. He peered anxiously into the back, not saying a word... Silently he opened the back gate and Princess tore out of the box like a nipped hound and never stopped until she hit the fence...

"What on earth did you buy that for?" whispered Max unbelievably. As my delight in my purchase faded and the weight of Max's disappointment settled heavily upon me, my mind darted around for an excuse...

"She had such beautiful eyelashes!" I whispered weakly...

Ultrasounding

2011-06-22T18:17:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday was a little bit of a unique one, we had two men from Kazakstan come to our place for an ultrasound demonstration! It was pretty exciting to have them over and to hear their language, it was my first time and it's very neat. They came over to Canada to learn about ultrasounding and how to do it because they want to introduce ultrasound for carcass traits, mainly marbling into their herd! I will do my best to explain the ultrasounding process in this blog post!

We have been ultrasounding for carcass traits in our herd for about the last ten years, every year we have an ultrasound technician come out to our place and ultrasound all our yearling heifers and bulls, about two hundred and twenty head making for quite a long day!

The ultrasound measures and estimate of marbling, rib-eye area, back fat and rump fat at three locations on the animal, as shown in the diagram:

Is where the percent of intramuscular fat is measured and is used mainly to measure the marbling in an animal. Marbling is the little specks of fat that is found in a steak and is what adds flavor to the meat. Marbling is also the measurement that will vary the most in an animal, marbling is what they will lose first if their living conditions deteriorate or they get sick.
Is rib-eye area and back fat. Rib-eye is an estimate of the amount of muscle and lean product in the animal. Back fat is an estimate of the external fat on the animal.
Is the rump measurement and is an additional measurement of the external fat on the animal.

Carcass traits measured through ultrasound are highly heritable and will be transferred to the offspring. Over the years we have found that the animals with extremely big rib-eye areas tend to be larger and suitable for terminal sire use, whereas the animals with extreme marbling tend to be a bit on the shallow side and maybe a little bit harder doing. For this reason we look for a balance in our carcass EPDs. It is also seen that if an animal has a huge rib-eye area their marbling usually is not good and vice versa which is another good reason to aim for balanced carcass traits with no major extremes.

Ultrasounding is a very useful technique that is becoming more popular, more buyers are starting to look at carcass traits when they purchase animals. It is also getting to be known around the world as is proof by the Kazakhstanians coming to learn about ultrasound, I know they did and I hope you did too! If you have any questions or comments about it please don't hesitate to ask.

Rump Picture

Rib-Eye Picture

Monitor

Ultrasounding

Credit:

http://www.caes.uga.edu/publications/pubDetail.cfm?pk_ID=7742#Measurements

The Cattleman October 2010

Invention Monday - Gate Latch

2011-06-20T22:44:00.000-07:00

Closed

Today's invention is a fairly simple one. We have a lot of land which means we have a lot of gates and my wonderful family inventors came up with a very simple and easy way to open gates. We do have three types of gates, some have a simple chain around it which is a real pain sometimes to close as the chain will hook onto the barbwire fence. The newer gates are wire gates that has three handles to hook. But most of them are the gate latches!

When the latch is open it makes the gate loose so that it's easy to lift off and open the gate, no use of a wirer puller or to much strength, and then when it's closed the gate is tight. One of those simple inventions that makes gate opening easier and faster to do. For more info on how it was built and with what go here.

Open

Wire Gate

Chain

Happy Father's Day!

2011-06-19T16:30:00.000-07:00

I am so happy that many years ago my dad was born in the little country of Switzerland and had a childhood dream of ranching and being part of the agriculture world because otherwise I would not have grown up in the industry with the most amazing father ever being their everyday and doing so much.

So, he came to Canada and worked for my mom's dad on the ranch and became an integral part of the place and now is in charge of the amazing ranch. He has always been here for us kids as we grew up and then in our 4-H years he was on the end of the halter tying them up until we were old enough, rising bright and early to help us load for our Achievement Days and summer cattle shows.

I am so thankful for my great dad and what he has done for me over the years, always here giving the best of advice. An amazing dad, who deserves the best! So, a very Happy Father's Day to all the great dad's out their, you all deserve the absolute best!

Twine

2011-06-17T22:19:00.000-07:00

Net wrap and Twine (blue is twine rest is wrap)

Quite some time ago, I did a blog post on one of the jobs that I don't really enjoy doing, well today the second lovely job of pulling twine that I could live without took place! I had been putting it off for quite a while, but dad decided it needed to be done, so I had help. There as four of us on the ground and one in the tractor cleaning the stack yards after us and within two and a half hours we had two stack yards free of twine! I must say I was very happy for the help because without them it would have taken me four times as long.

In the summer we do a lot of haying and we have four stack yards where we store the hay bales. The irrigation hay gets wrapped with net wrap and the dry land hay gets wrapped with twine. I personally prefer picking twine so you don't always have to tear up the whole ground to get the stuff out. In the winter months we feed the hay and when you lift the bales off the ground and they are frozen to the ground so when they get pulled away some twine and net wrap stay behind.

Daniel never ceases to amaze me, there he was yanking on
twine with all his might

So, we pick up the twine and net wrap in our stack yards for a few reasons. Twine can get caught in wheel bearings of vehicles, sometimes cattle, calves especially like to experiment and chew on things that they shouldn't chew on so they will sometimes chew on twine and it's not very good for them. It also keeps the stack yards clean and nice when people come to visit! It is one of those other jobs in the agriculture industry that isn't very fun but has to be done.

After

Before

Road Trip!

2011-06-16T19:15:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I took a road trip with my dad to deliver four bulls to three different places. Being in the agriculture business selling bulls involves a bit of traveling and a lot of visiting! We were delivering bulls down to the beautiful cypress hills country in Alberta and Saskatchewan. Of course when delivering bulls one doesn't usually drop the bull off and leave again, a lengthy conversation is usually held. And yesterdays topics consisted of the crazy bizarre weather, the industry, market, the happenings in each others country, cows and what problems have come about, it even consisted of talking about the hockey game last night, to many more topics. I love to sit and listen to conversations like these most of the time, it's a great place to learn about many different things and hear thoughts of other people in this great industry on topics of all sorts.

These four bulls were sold sight unseen meaning the buyers have only seen pictures but haven't seen the bull in real life before buying him, yesterday was the first time! So, we have never met them before and it's wonderful how we were invited into their home and started chatting as if we had known each other for years. And I think that just goes to show what an amazing industry agriculture is and how wonderful the people are in the industry!

It was a wonderful and long day but totally worth it, I love taking road trips to see other breeder's and country side. I forgot to take pictures of the glorious country side until it was dark so I snapped a quick one of the creek!

Tattooing!

2011-06-14T22:33:00.000-07:00

Plier

As ranchers around the country complete the branding of their calves as the weather prevented some from getting it finished when they wanted to and it is why I'm glad we don't brand. We have never found it necessary to brand our cattle, their not on extremely wide range pastures and we are the only place with Hereford cattle for quite aways besides my Uncle but his cattle have red tags and horns so it wouldn't be that hard to tell them apart! We simply tattoo our calves for identification and I am going to share with you a little bit more of that process.

LBH

We tattoo our calves when they are at least three weeks old, so we end up tattooing about three, four times in the year. It takes about four people, one person tattooing, one changing numbers in the pliers, one behind calves pushing them forward and vaccinating in chute and one person out pack putting them into the alley.

One part of the tattoo which is placed in the top of the right ear is the herd prefix letters, so for example Lilybrook Herefords cattle are tattooed with LBH meaning they are a Lilybrook Hereford calf, my calves have the prefix LBHR, and my two siblings are LBHM and LBHD. And the at the bottom of the ear we put the number of the calf and the year letter, this year being Y. After the tattoos have been put in, we rub black tattoo ink into the holes, so that it will be easily readable!

Numbers

It is also at tattooing time that we vaccinate our calves by giving them three shots to protect them from various diseases and viruses.

RFID Tag

The final thing that we do while the calves are in for tattooing is insert an RFID tag that can be read by scanning machines showing the person the calves information and can be used to identify cattle.

Tattooing is a simple straight forward process that makes it easy to identify our animals if they ever lose a tag or something else happens! If you have any questions on the process please don't hesitate to ask.

A few pictures from past tattooing days!

Invention Monday - Chute

2011-06-13T21:16:00.000-07:00

I'm always surprised and confused when there are other people at our place and they don't know how to run the head gate. I think that everyone has one like we do because we have never had a different one for as long as I can remember! But it is another invention that my wonderful relatives came up with.

Now, the thing that sparked this invention was the fact that all our cattle used to be horned, we started dehorning heifer calves in 2001 but all our bulls still have horns, so we needed to come up with something that would open wide enough for the horns to make it through. With the scissor head gate we can catch anything from a very large bull to a little calf.

With a simple pull on the rope the head gate opens and you can control how far you want it to open and then it is closed by yanking on the longer rope, which is long enough to move behind the animal so that it will come into the chute better.

We have three of these chutes, one in each location that we use quite regularly for processing cattle, the green one is used the most and connected to our cattle handling system out back along with being located in a shed, it also has a lever that adjusts the width of the chute, if an animal is a little bit high strung and jumps around a lot we can tighten it so she can't move so much. It also has a little man gate at the back that once they are in the head gate we can open and go behind the cow to preg test, or for semen testing on the bulls.

We have had them for many years now, and they are still in good shape and have worked wonderfully! Every once in a while an animal will get away if the person on the rope isn't fast enough but it doesn't happen very often, it's a great system that makes little noise and allows us to process any size of animal, horns or no horns!

If you have any questions, comments or what type of chute your using, I would love to hear from you!

http://www.lilybrookherefords.com/headgate.htm

Happy Farmers Day!

2011-06-10T15:26:00.000-07:00

As many of you may know today is a special day, it's Farmers Day. A day set out just like Family day or Victoria day to honor all the wonderful farmers and ranchers around that feed the world.

I am very happy that there is a day to celebrate farmers and all the hard work that they do, celebrations were held in many places, even the little town of Claresholm had a hamburger lunch, music, games, wagon rides, petting zoo, farmer's market and machinery displays at the local UFA. Farmer's don't get enough recognition for all they do, from helping a cow calf in the middle of the night to harvesting crops.

So, thank a farmer for all they do in this world, even though there is a day to celebrate farmers, they are working all the time, not eight hours a day but many more and sometimes at all hours of the day. So, to all the farmers and ranchers out their thank you for everything you do. Don't forget to thank a farmer today!

Happy Farmer's Day!

A trip down memory lane!

2011-06-08T23:02:00.000-07:00

Daniel with his Heifer

Yesterday was a very long and wonderful day, it was the Willow Creek District 4-H Achievement Day, I got the honor of watching my sister's last 4-H Achievement Day and my little brother's first one, I spent most of the day taking pictures of the two of them and their cattle!

Michelle and her Heifer

Being at Achievement Day also brought back memories of my eight years in the Claresholm 4-H Beef Club! 4-H is an amazing program that absolutely changed my life. Throughout the 4-H year the club has monthly meetings to plan events, along with fundraisers, community service and activities. There is also a public speaking competition that every member has to participate in to finish of the year. The public speaking was a huge part of my 4-H years, at the beginning I was very scared of speaking in front of people and I cried during my first speech I was so scared, but over the years I got better and if it wasn't for that first step and 4-H, I have no idea what I would be doing today. Anyway, as a 4-H member you also need to do a record book for your project which records rate of gain and what we feed them and expenses of everything.

Daniel showing his steer

Well, after a year of hard work and preparation it comes down to Achievement Day, the big day where everyone shows and sells their steer after a year of hard work, and it is the day that I miss the most! In our district we always had the choice to have a steer and then females which could consist of a yearling heifer, a two year old cow/calf pair, a three year old cow/calf pair and a mature cow/calf pair which is a cow that is at least four years old. All the females have to be 4-H females, so for example a two year old cow would have had to be shown as a heifer in the previous year to be shown as a two year old. Then we have the option of entering in the Breeder's Herd class, which is at least three animals, usually members will do a cow/calf pair and their heifer for Breeder's Herd!

At the end of the day, the members sell their 4-H steers and thanks to all the support from buyers and the community the clubs do very well. Members get a fair amount more than market value which is always nice. My siblings and I never did get the full pay cheque at the end of the year, we always had to pay our dad for the feed, the animal and everything else that went with it. But I wouldn't have it any other way, through it I learned that life isn't free and it costs money, but I did make a little money over the years, and now I have a small herd of cattle that have been making me some money to.

Achievement Day was always a very busy day, especially as I got older I would have one of everything, a steer, heifer, two year old, three year old and mature cow calf/pair which made for a lot of work but was so totally worth it!

Headed to the Ring

I had an amazing time in my eight years of 4-H and I learned so much, from public speaking, responsibility and a little about life, the market and showing. 4-H is a great program and I am so thankful I could be a part of it, and sometimes I miss it but I also love to be on the other side watching the show, it was great to see my sister in her last 4-H, she did such an amazing job and it was also wonderful to see my brother's first 4-H Achievement Day and he has a lot more ahead of him so I can't wait to see him grow into an amazing young man.

Invention Monday - Quad Ramp

2011-06-06T20:17:00.000-07:00

Another Monday, another invention, I think this is probably my favorite invention that my father and mom's cousin came up with! They built two ramps over the fence for the quads to drive over without having to open any gates.

This ramp has saved us a lot of time and it is used primarily during calving season, once over both of them you are in the calving area where the cows are to check during the night. It makes it nice and a lot easier to get up at three in the morning in -30 degree Celsius weather not having to get off and open gates.

It is very convenient and safe to use, we built the rail on the sides so that the we can't drive the quad over the edge. It has been used a countless number of times and has saved a lot of time.

If you have any questions or comments please ask or for more information on how it was built you can go to http://www.lilybrookherefords.com/QuadRamp.htm.

A little joke!

2011-06-04T17:55:00.000-07:00

In my agriculture experience I have came across a few rank animals but not very many, and I have learned that if someone says watch that one you listen and keep an eye on the animal! I found this joke where the person didn't listen to him and I got quite a laugh out of it, I hope you do too!

Agriculture Rep
A cocky Department of Agriculture representative stopped at a farm and talked with the old farmer - "I need to inspect your farm."
The old farmer said: "OK, but you better not go in that field."
In a wise-arse tone the Ag. Representative said, "I have the authority of the U. S. Government with me. See this card..?"
He stuck a plastic-coated card in the farmer's face.
"This card says I can go wherever I want to on agricultural land."
The old farmer shrugged and went about his farm chores. Later, he heard loud screams and saw the Department of Agriculture rep running for the fence.
Close behind was the farmer's prize bull, Geronimo.
Geronimo was madder than a nest full of hornets and he was gaining on the Ag Rep with every angry snort.
The farmer shouted, "Show him your card !"

Credit http://miteshasher.blogspot.com/2007/08/really-funny-jokes-agricultural-rep.html

Dust Regulation.... Really?

2011-06-03T19:59:00.000-07:00

I was searching the Internet for agriculture news and something to blog about, and I came across this which gave me a bit of a laugh at how ridiculous this is and I can't believe they would waste time on this regulation!

In the States the Environmental Protection Agency wants to regulate farm dust. Now, I'm not American but I do have to say that regulation is ridiculous and if it does pass it will affect the agriculture industry. We don't really have a control over the dust that gets produced from driving on gravel roads or combining and working in the fields. The only way we could control dust is go places and work in the fields after it has rained, and that does not happen all that often, ninety five percent of the time when you drive on a gravel road their is dust billowing behind you!

This regulation will cause problems for many farmers and ranchers if they get fined, it is already hard enough sometimes staying a float in the business with out having to worry about dust regulations.

For the States sake, I hope enough people complain and the regulation does not pull through and if this comes up to Canada, I know I'll be revolting, I'm sure we have other pollution problems to worry about then a little dust on country roads!

This is a funny little video on the dust regulation!

Any thoughts, comments?

Credit http://www.farms.com/FarmsPages/Commentary/DetailedCommentary/tabid/192/Default.aspx?NewsId=41548

"Life's a Dance"

2011-06-02T21:47:00.000-07:00

I am a very big fan of country music, I find they usually tell a story and can be relevant to life! So, as I was mowing the lawn today, I was thinking about some of these songs. One of the songs that I absolutely love and I think it has a lot of truth to it is "Life's a Dance," by John Michael Montgomery.

Life's a Dance

I think every one's life is a dance in different ways, sometimes we lead, sometimes we follow. And were always learning. The agriculture world is also a dance, it's ever changing but we continue to learn as life goes on. This song reminds me of my life and all I've learned and what I'm going to continue learning in my life dance!

Keep dancing!

Harrowing

2011-06-01T21:45:00.000-07:00

As it has finally stopped raining and dried up quite well over the last few days we have been busy getting the rest of our seed in for this summer's silage and hay! I spent most of the day sitting in a tractor harrowing the fields after they were seeded.

We don't normally harrow the soil after seeding but we did the one field today to break up the clumps and smooth out the field a bit. The teeth of the machine gently drag through the soil, evening it out and breaking up big clumps.

So, now the fields are mostly seeded, I think there is one left, and looking good, now a little sun and moisture, the crops will be shooting up!

Harrow

Harrow folded up, on the way home

The future - My wonderful brother!

2011-05-31T21:00:00.000-07:00

Daniel with his first heifer "Miss Diamond" when he was four.

When I was ten years old my little brother, Daniel was born. Life changed that day, I remember it being a very exciting time and in no time I was feeding, changing diapers and rocking my baby brother to sleep! He taught me a lot, mainly a whole lot of patience but I cannot imagine my life without him and he is a large part of Lilybrook Herefords and probably the future of this place.

It became quite apparent from a very early age that the world of agriculture is in Daniel's blood. He was chasing cows almost before he could walk. Daniel would cover the living room floor with pens made of blocks and the cows he put in these pens were anywhere from a real toy cow to marbles, even to old tags that he spent hours washing. And if one of my family members even dared to knock over a cow or a block we were in trouble! I am told that my dad did the same thing back in Switzerland when he was a boy, setting up his farm and getting mad if people wrecked it.

Daniel and Miss Ribstone

So, over the past few years Daniel has become a big part in the operation, always eager to work with cattle. Not to mention he is very good at it, he stole my spot as the "gate man" probably when he was about six or seven, I remember being a little bit mad but I've gotten used to it and he does just as good if not better than I ever did. Daniel is a fabulous cattleman and may someday be better than my dad, when we're not sorting, Daniel can usually be found behind running the animals into the alleyway of the chute. It is wonderful to watch him work the cows, and sometimes even a bit scary but it gets better, the cows have learned to respect the young man!

We didn't hesitate to get Daniel started early, so he entered the show ring and had his first heifer when he was four, now he is almost ten and had five calves this calving season. So, he's being showing since he was four and now he is nine in his first year of 4-H.

I asked Daniel what his favorite thing to do and on the ranch is and he simply said, "sorting cows." His favorite time of the year for working with cows is the time that we preg test (check if the cows are pregnant) all our cows.

In Daniel's words, "washing my steer for the first time by myself."

Daniel is the most amazing little brother anyone could ask for and he has a passion for agriculture that hopefully will continue to grow over the years as he becomes more involved in the industry and continues through the 4-H program, he is part of the future!

Having a little rest

Chinook Junior Stock Show 2011

Invention Monday - Cattle Handling System

2011-05-30T20:30:00.000-07:00

I am going to try starting a new feature on Monday's, my dad and my mom's cousin who works here part time each have a very creative mind and over the years have come up with many inventions to make the ranch life run a little smoother. My dad figured I should do a blog on our cattle handling system that they invented and built so I thought about it and decided that I would bring you one of our inventions weekly until I run out of them.

The cattle handling system we built we use quite regularly in processing cattle such as during preg testing, tattooing, ultra-sounding, weaning, etc.

Our cattle go up into the chute extremely well, they cannot see the end of the system so they therefore keep moving forward. It doesn't take much to get the cows into the alley, it makes it easier for the cows, as they just flow forward and the person that is running the cows in don't have to make their voice hoarse getting them in!

Adjustable wall

A very useful feature that they added to the system, is the ability to adjust the width of the alleyway. We can make it smaller for the calves to go in and not be able to turn around up to making it wide enough for the cows. If a cow or calf goes down in the alleyway and gets stuck we can easily unlatch the back and move it fully out of the way so that the cow can be freed and able to get back up.

Cows in the crowding top and alleyway

Calves in the alleyway made smaller

It is a wonderful system that has made our ranch life easier since we built it along with making it easier on the cattle, I uploaded a video of the handling system being used, it is hard to explain all the details of it but hopefully the video will make it easier to understand just how simple it is.

Credit http://www.lilybrookherefords.com/

Glorious Sun!

2011-05-29T18:01:00.000-07:00

My spirits definitely brightened this morning when I woke up this morning to the wonderful sun finally coming out!! After about five days of dreary dark days, it's wonderful to see that glorious sun!

Wonderful Sun

Now as long as it stays around for a while, enough so that fields will dry up so the farmers can get the rest of their seed in. It is quite critical that we get the seed in the ground sooner rather than later, Southern Alberta's growing season is already short enough.

The cows and calves I'm sure are also a lot happier with the sun shining on their back keeping them dry, as they graze in the green pasture.

Happy Cows

The cattle however were not the only one's enjoying the weather, with a gorgeous afternoon I took the liberty of going outside and throwing the football around with my little brother.

Daniel throwing the football

Hopefully the sun will stick around for a bit although they are calling for more rain next week, keeping fingers crossed that there wrong.... or at least until seed is all in the ground for sure! And it's Southern Alberta, weather changes practically by the minute so we just learn to take it as it comes.

Breeding Season!

2011-05-26T19:24:00.000-07:00

Well, it's official the last 23 cows of our 234 AI (artificial insemination) cows went out to the bull yesterday! After we AI our cows we wait three weeks before sending them out to the bull so that way when they calf next year we know if the calf is sired by the AI bull or the natural bull! Now the 2011 breeding season is in full swing with 409 purebred cows with 11 Hereford bulls. Along with about 165 heifers with 4 bulls.

A cow cannot just go with any bull so it is a process to decide who goes with who. So, my dad will sit down and look at the cows mother and father to make sure she doesn't go with a bull that is related to her, we will also look at the calves the cow has had in the past, usually not putting her with the bull that produced the poorest calf, but if she had one exceptionally good calf then she will go to the same bull.The bulls are now out with anywhere from 25 females to 50 females.

LBH 157K RIBSTONE 40W

This is 40W a two year old bull who is the future and that may very well be the best bull that has ever walked our soil. We have used him very heavy, last year as a yearling we AI'd a bunch to him and put him with about 40 cows, this year we AI'd 60 to him and right now he has 50 females. His first calf crop is looking absolutely amazing and I look forward to his future calf crops along with what his sons and daughters will do for us in the near future.

LBH 73L STANDARD 268P

One other bull that also has 50 cows this year is 268P. He is seven years old and has produced countless sons and daughters. Every year he seems to be the bull that leaves the fewest open, he does the job and very well!

CC 77J STERLING 39T

One of our Heifer Bulls. The bulls that we put on heifers are ones that have light birth weights, for calving ease. Heifers are smaller than a full grown cow and they can have difficulties calving out a heavy calf so light birth weight bulls are used to keep the birth weight down, and this bull 39T keeps the birth weights extremely light, some of them are almost to light. But we rarely help one calf because of size.

The other 12 of our prestigious sires:

MVF 237K STD BRIT LAD 75S

LBH 157K RIBSTONE 66T

SGC 129P SUPER LAD 102T

LBH 268P STANDARD 106T

LBH 268P STANDARD 168T

LBH 157K RIBSTONE 198T

LBH 157K RIBSTONE 236U

BP 144P STANDARD LAD 147W

LBH 39T STERLING 162W

LBH 102T SUPER RIB 47X

MCCOY 58G JACKPOT ET 105X

LBH 236U RIBSTONE 217X

These bulls will be out with the cows until the beginning of July, throughout the summer they will keep us busy by having to regularly move them to a new pasture as needed when they run out of grass, along with being constantly checked, to make sure nothing is wrong with any of the cattle.

If you have any questions on our breeding program or these sires please feel free to ask. If you want more information on the selective breeding of these bulls you can check out my sisters blog post on selective breeding http://justatypicalfarmgirl.blogspot.com/2011/05/selective-breeding.html.

Registration after Registration!

2011-05-24T22:10:00.000-07:00

RIt was a little bit of a rainy day so I spent the majority of the afternoon completing the registration of our calves. Being part of the purebred Hereford industry, every year we register our purebred calves. The registration is done on the computer through an online system, thank goodness, I could not imagine doing 458 calves by hand like my grandpa used to do back in the day when Internet didn't exist, however he wasn't registering quite as many.

This is a completed page with the necessary information of the calf. In this case the sire is
a Ribstone so the calf will become LBH 40W RIBSTONE 49Y. If it was a female then
"MISS" would be inserted in front of RIBSTONE.

It is a simple process, the dam is already on record so all we do is enter her calf. By entering the sire of the calf, and then through the sire the calf also gets a name, it's birth date and birth weight. The calve will then get a registration number and will end up with a pedigree that shows the animals name along with there parents, birth date and ownership!

The pedigrees can then be viewed online through the Canadian Hereford Website. Here is a link to one online with all the information of the calf, http://abri.une.edu.au/online/cgi-bin/i4.dll?1=2021292A&2=2420&3=56&5=2B3C2B3C3A&6=5958595B5A24252F23&9=525C595E

This is the official pedigree that we receive from the Hereford Office for our records.

A perfect Sunday afternoon

2011-05-22T19:11:00.000-07:00

We spent the afternoon tying up the bulls that we have entered for Bonanza and Summer Synergy shows this summer. The shows are still quite along way away but it was a test to make sure that we would be able to handle him as we expected that he would have a little bit of a temper!

When we tie up our animals for the first few times we use these metal ring halters! It is just a simple metal ring with a chain that goes around the ears. We find that the rings work really well, when they pull the ring digs into their skin and it hurts so as a result it does not take them very long before they stop pulling. Whereas we find with the rope halters they pull for a lot longer, a whole afternoon at least compared to the hour or so with the metal halter.

It was a lovely afternoon to tie up bulls and it went very well with the one bull entered and the spare that we may have to sub in for the high tempered one, only time will tell if he will be good enough to go, although after this afternoon it doesn't look very promising!

Full of Life!

2011-05-21T12:16:00.000-07:00

Calving season is one of my favorite times of the year, it is so full of life and it's the time I really wish I didn't have school so I could be more involved. I'm going to run through a typical day during calving season and how we run things.

Calving Stalls

We have a field that we call the "calving field," it directly connects to the barn and calving pens, the cows are out in the pasture for the day and at night we run them all in and lock them up so we can check them easily throughout the night. We have sixteen calving stalls down close to the calving pasture and then another six stalls up in the barn where we bring cows if they need help and where they stay when we need to graft calves onto other cows! When a cow is calving we bring her into one of the stalls away from the rest of the cows for her to finish calving. Pretty much once the calve has had there first drink we kick them out to a bigger kick out pen, when you get an average of 15-20 calves a day they are moved and stalls cleaned ready for the next one.

When a calve is born we write it in a calving book like this one.

From the left we have

The first number is the calves number, we increase in a numerical order as they are born.
Next is the day they were born.
The dam (mother of the calve)
The sire (father of the calve)
Sex (M-male, F-female)
Birth weight of the calve
This is if the cow was AI'ed of we saw her get breed it shows how many days she is over or under! For example +1 means she is one days overdue, -2 means she is two days early, and then ND stands for no date, showing we don't know when she got bred for sure.
And on the far right, there is a variety of different letters and numbers.

CBH stands for calved by herself, EP stands for easy pull and then usually the reason why they needed help, like being BKW (backwards), one leg down, breach or stretched out.
On the males most of them have RT which stands for red testicle, on the females they have a number such as 4 or 5, some 6 which is the number of tits that they have.
The RN on some of the calves is short for red neck.
And finally the numbers like 95/90, E(short for 100)/50, GE/GE etc. is the pigment that the calves have around their eyes. Pigment is basically red around there eyes. So a 95/90 means one eye is 95% pigmented around and the other 90%. The E/50 is a 100% and 50%. And then when GE/GE at all shows up that means that they have a goggle eye which is like a whole patch of red. For example the calve in the middle of the two cows in this picture has goggle eyes, large ones. the cow to his left has one goggle eye and the other can't really tell how much pigment she has from a distance.

Some buyers want red necks, and most want red testicles, and pigment so with this information recorded it is easy to look up if someone would like to know which calves have what before they see them.

When the babies are born we weigh them with a calve scale like this one shown above.

The calves will all get a tag so we can identify them and because we have horned Hereford's, all the heifer calves get de-horned along with all the bull calves that are over 109 pounds because anything over is just to heavy of a birth weight so they will end up as steers in the end.

We engrave the numbers into the tag, the bottom number is the calves number (276Y), the middle number is the calves mom's number (30W) and the top number along with on the back of the tag is the dad (39T)! This is the tag they will always wear, they are never changed.

And that is a typical calving day through the months of February 1st to the end of April. Three months filled with life and with out a doubt the most amazing time of the year!

A lesson learned!

2011-05-18T20:20:00.000-07:00

It seems that we are constantly learning lessons and sometimes we even learn them the hard way, a couple days ago I was helping my dad fill the freezer with beef and as I was doing that I thought about what happened for the meat to end up in the freezer, I'm going to share the lesson that we learned with you.

Trimming Table

The animal that ended up in the freezer was a two year old herd bull, 243W that we used on cows last year and were going to this year but that didn't turn out as planned. His feet were getting a bit long so we were going to trim them on our table. When 243W stepped out of the chute to enter the trimming table, he dropped down and died!

Scissor type head gate.

Now we were puzzled on what could have happened, we have a scissor head gate and it is possible for an animal to go down in the head gate and then they pinch their necks, the jugular vein and then they can die, we have never had that happen before, if they do go down we release them immediately, so it didn't seem right for that being the cause of his death because it hasn't happened before and he was just standing there normal, no strain or anything!

So, we still needed an explanation for this unfortunate event. Now the trimming table is run on hydraulics and it was running, and it turns out there was a shortage in the cord somewhere and when that bull stepped out of the chute into the trimming table he was electrocuted! The interesting thing is that my dad stuck his hand a foot into the dirt and didn't feel a thing, which goes to show the senses of cattle and how the difference in weight makes such a big difference.

This was one of those incidents that you don't really hear of ever happening and if they do it's not very often, it was one of those very unfortunate events that you don't want to happen, but you learn that sometimes bad stuff happens and there's not much you can do about it!

We were able to get the bull packaged for meat and he filled a whole freezer. It was one of those sad situations that came about and needless to say we learned from it and now cords will be checked and hopefully it will never happen again!

Off they go!

2011-05-16T22:34:00.000-07:00

It was an earlier morning then usual as a liner came to load thirty cow/calf pairs and one bull to be exported down into Colorado! It is wonderful that we are able to send cattle down across the border, but the preparation to get them ready and the paperwork is quite extensive.

The vet had to come out a couple of times, they needed to be TB tested, which stands for tuberculosis. It's just tested by giving them a shot of tuberculin under the tail head and then a couple days later the check for bumps where they injected, if there are bumps they test positive for TB and have tuberculosis.
The vet also had to brand the bull, cows and calves on the right hip with a CV(upside down)N brand!

We made a smaller sized brand (half the size) for the calves, for the reason that on a three week old calf the 2-1/4inch by 9-inch brand is not going to be a hip brand anymore once those calves grow up. So we had to get written permission to use the brand. We also had to tattoo the calves with the C upside down N brand because the smaller brand wasn't allowed to get into Colorado. The tattoo goes in the ear.

They were then ready to go across the border after the paperwork was filled out. The numbers, birth dates of calves and sex had to be included along with all animals RFID tag (radio frequency IDentification). The bull also needed a statement of virginity.

It is a lot of work to export cattle but it is worth it, during BSE no animal crossed the border and it hurt the industry and the producers! After BSE was over it was slow moving them across and now it is much better. It's picking up, prizes for animals are better and the industry is looking up, I believe the future is bright!

It took some organization and work but those 30 pairs and 1 bull are on their way to Colorado where I think their hair coat will be an added bonus for the weather!

Please don't Steal my Boot!

2011-05-14T23:15:00.000-07:00

Here in Southern Alberta with our very sandy soil we don't usually complain about moisture, it usually can be used, but sometimes it can cause problems and a little extra work. This year it left us with a fast majority of mud in the corals, making it difficult to walk and sort cows without losing your boot! The calves also struggled a bit, as they are up to their bellies in mud, we even lost a calve that got stuck in the mud and wasn't found fast enough!

We had to pile up the mud in most all of the pens because there was to much of it for the cattle to move around in and needless to say you had to be careful when walking to not get stuck or step into a place that was pretty much bottomless! It made sorting cows for AI'ing and various things more difficult, who new walking in mud could be so tiring but we managed to get it done and not lose our boots!

These are a couple of the piles that were made in the corals

One spot by the water trough that you don't dare walk in as cows sink to there belly which is why we let them go a different place for water.... they didn't like it here much!

But there always is a bright side to things and in this case, there is a lot of manure to spread on the fields for fertilizer and the last couple weeks with the beautiful sun is drying the corals up nicely and before long it will all be dust! There is never a dull moment out here, and those days of boot stealing defiantly kept you awake and on your toes! :)

Embryo Transfer

2011-05-13T19:14:00.000-07:00

Not only can we artificially inseminate female cattle with semen from bulls, we can transplant embryos from donor cows into recipient cows. There are exceptional bulls in the industry that have had semen drawn and sold all over the world, but only have of a calves genes come from the sire. There are also some amazing cows around! One cow only produces one offspring a year but through embryo transfer they can produce more than one just like bulls!

Embryo transplant is a similar process to artificial insemination only the opposite and slightly more complicated. Embryos are flushed from a donor cow, fertilized and then either inserted directly into the recipient cow or frozen and transferred later when the recipient cows are in heat.

Here is a video I found with a little bit more information on Embryo Transfer and the process

Transplant is a process that ranchers will use with some of there best cows and embryos can also be sold to other countries. We transplanted about twenty today, hopefully we will get a few good calves from exceptional cows for the 2012 World Hereford Conference!

I also found this article that goes through the process of embryo transfer in more detail with all the steps from selection of the donor cow to transfer of the embryos. http://www.brangusworld.com/documents/Estrus%20Sinchonization.pdf. It may be of interest to some of you that want more information otherwise you can always comment with questions or email me at ruthschuepbach@hotmail.com.

Rocks and more Rocks!

2011-05-10T20:00:00.000-07:00

In agriculture there is a variety of different jobs that need to be done, and while most of them are fairly pleasant to do, there are two jobs that I wish I didn't have to do!

One of these tasks that I did today is rock picking! It is important to pick up the rocks in fields or our lawn because when machinery goes in there to seed or mow the lawn, the rocks could wreck the machine by breaking blades or throwing up rocks that break windows. Then you have to fix the machinery, which costs money and takes time, so it is just easier to pick them up before any of those things happen!

Today I was picking rocks up in our backyard, because last year we brought in some manure to act as fertilizer for a section of our lawn that wasn't growing very well, and when they did they brought in a pile of rocks! But now the rocks are all picked and the grass is coming up wonderfully (amazing what a little manure will do) and now the lawn mower won't break or any windows for that matter!

So, even though I didn't really enjoy picking rocks, it is important and somebody has to do it! You just have to look at on the bright side, picking those rocks, probably saved time and money in the future, so it was worth it! As for the second job I don't really enjoy, I wasn't able to get a start on it, but I will very soon, so stay tuned to see what it's going to be!

Feel free to comment with stories or any suggestions you may have!

Semen Testing!

2011-05-09T21:48:00.000-07:00

Today the vet came out to our place to semen test the rest of our two year old bulls that still need to be sold. Semen testing is the process of taking a sample of the bulls semen and analyzing it's motility, density and percent alive. It is very important for bulls to be fertile with viable sperm in all areas. To take bulls to bull sales such as Calgary and Medicine Hat they need to be semen tested and they need to pass!

The process of semen testing involves inserting the probe of a electroejaculator into the rectum. The bull is stimulated through mild electric stimulation that stimulates sympathetic and parasympathetic nerves to cause ejaculation. The semen is collected and put under the microscope immediatly to see if the swimmers are good. The vet will also measure the testicles to make sure they are large enough and both the same size along with no swelling or hardness. They will finish analyzing the semen at the clinic and then make an evaluation report.

This is the electoejaculator system, the probe which is inserted into the rectum

This is an example of the evaulation report the vet prepares.

Semen testing very important for selling bulls and must be done to make sure that bulls will be able to breed cows and that they have no problems so they can go out into the industry and produce progeny! Through semen testing we make sure they will do the job before they go out to the cows so that we know they won't end up leaving all the cows open.

If you have any questions about the process or the evaulation sheet please let me know, I would be happy to answer any questions you may have!

We do it nearly everyday!

2011-05-07T20:44:00.000-07:00

This morning I had a little flashback to my 4-H years at District Judging days only this time I was on the other side; listening to reason's rather then giving them! Judging is one of those many things I learned through the 4-H program and something that I never really enjoyed, but have found that it is a big part of the agriculture industry and everyday life!

Everytime we go to the store, we judge the products we buy, the shiny red apples get taken over the bruised dull ones! Or the banana's that the kid's judged today, the ripe nice looking banana was placed at the top whereas the mushy, brown banana was at the bottom, even though it will make delicious banana bread, for eating it's not so appetizing.

Just like picking an apple or a banana, being able to judge in the ag industry is very important. You can't keep every animal in your herd. So as farmers and ranchers we need to be able to go and pick the best animals that are going to bring you the most profit, have traits that you are looking for in your cow herd and animals that will produce the best offspring in the future! We go through the process of judging our cattle on a regular basis, chosing ones we want to keep, sell, show and poor one's that go to the auction market.

Judging can be done on so many different things and in so many different ways, and from simply picking an apple to selecting herd bulls, people judge on a regular basis!

It's AI'ing Time!

2011-05-06T21:39:00.000-07:00

It has been a very busy last few days at our place! We have been AI'ing (Artificial insemination) for the last week, however the last couple days have been the busiest. Yesterday we AI'd 65 and today we have done 36 so far with another 13 for sure to go! I thought I would share the process that we have gone through the last couple of days as I prepare the semen and my dad inseminates.

The first step and a step that can be difficult at times is to artificially inseminate the cow at the right time. When a cow comes into heat she will stand and let other cows mount her, this is seen by regurly checking them. Every cow varies, they can be in standing heat for a couple hours or many hours. On average it's about 12 hours after she's in standing heat. So, a good rule of thumb is if she's in heat in the morning, AI her that night, and if she's in heat in the evening, she's ready the next morning.

The semen that is used to inseminate the cows is stored in a tank filled with liquid nitrogen. To prepare the semen for insertion into the cow, the semen straw is removed from the tank and placed into warm water at a temperature of about 35 degrees celcius or 95 degrees farenheit, for about 30-45 seconds. The straw of semen must then be dried off as water is toxic to the sperm cells. Next the tip of the strand is cut with a cutter or scissors. Followed by the semen strand being snapped into a plastic tube and then put into the gun. Semen does not fair well to tempeature change, so the gun needs to be kept warm up until it's ready for insertion. This can be done by placing it under your arm or in my case sticking it into my jacket!

This is our semen tank where the semen is stored

Automatic water bath semen unthawing unit in which the semen straw is placed for 30 seconds.

The straw of semen is on the left with the name of the bull, registration number, the day the semen was collected and frozen, and the stud code.
On the right is a picture of the cutter we use, the straw of semen is insterted from the bottom up to the top stop point and then it is cut.

The bottom is the plastic tube of which the semen straw is snapped into the blue tip at the left.
The top of the picture is the gun which the plunger is drawn back first a couple inches and then the plastic tube is twisted on to the gun, ready for insertion.

The next and final step is inserting the semen into the cow, which is a process that does require training and practice! First is to make sure that the cow is cleaned well, with paper towel. The structure called the cervix is found and the semen is slowly injected over the tip of the cervix!

The insemination process is a little hard to explain so here is a video on how it's done

And there it is, the AI'ing process, and if all is successful about nine months from now a new baby will be born! And needless to say if all 100 we AI'ed in the last two days catch it will be a busy few days next year here at Lilybrook!

Please feel free to ask questions or leave comments!!

How it all began!

2011-05-04T19:12:00.000-07:00

It all began many years ago half way across the world in the little country of Switzerland where my grandparents were born! My grandpa (Han's Ulrich) first came to Canada in the 50's where he worked at a lumber factory in British Columbia. He then returned to Switzerland where he got an offer from a Dr.Amman to become a manager on the ranch that Dr.Amman owned in Canada. Grandpa then managed and ran Dr.Amman's Hereford Ranch for ten years. In 1968 he rented the ranch until he was able to purchase it in 1994. It was then known a Ulrich Hereford Ranch. During this time period he went back to Switzerland one more time to find his future wife Annette. They began a family on Ulrich Hereford Ranch east of Claresholm!

My dad was also born in Switzerland and he did his apprenticeship at two farms in Switzerland. The one man he did his apprenticeship for was my grandma Annette's brother. Her brother refered my dad to Grandpa and my dad then came to Canada to work for my Grandpa. This is where he met my mom and when they got married my dad became an integral part of the operation. I came along in 1991, followed by my sister (Michelle) two years later and my little brother Daniel in 2001.

In 2002 Ulrich Hereford Ranch was split into two operations, with my mom's brother contining to run Ulrich Hereford Ranch and we became Lilybrook Herefords. We now run and calve out about 500 hereford cows from the beginning of February to the end of April. About 100 of the calving cows are commercial with the rest being purebred! When cattle aren't keeping us busy for the majority of the year we silage and hay during the summer.

A sky view of my grandparents house where it all started!

A few of our cows headed out to pasture last summer.

Getting Started

2011-05-01T18:55:00.000-07:00

Well, this was the first day of my summer break as I just finished my last exam of my second year university and what a beautiful day it was! It is also the first day that of my blog and it's a new thing to me and I am still figuring things out. I hope you enjoy reading as I bring day to day events that are happening at Lilybrook along with showing my passion for cattle and the agriculture industry.
With that being said the first day of my break was spent sorting cows for the breeding season. Over the next few days we will be putting the bulls out with the cows along with breeding many of them through artificial insemination (AI). I will talk more about that as we do more of it. For now I hope you enjoy reading and bare with me as I figure things out!