Is She Pregnant?

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!

Boy from Girl

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!

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



Tattooing!

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!

The future - My wonderful brother!



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

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/