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!

Silaging

 

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

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



Bull Pulling!

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

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

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!