Cattle Working

Please note that I wrote another post this morning called, "Victor" which is underneath the "Prayer request" post. It was saved as a draft which I just completed this morning.

Working calves on a farm is something that most people typically dread. It's a LOOONG day for everyone involved and most years somebody ends up getting hurt because it's just tough to deal with so many large animals and have no bumps or scrapes. This year, praise God, we were accident free and the animals were very cooperative.

I suppose that I'll never be able to "Prove" that the Reiki that I did throughout the day had anything to do with the rather pain free experience, but then I couldn't disprove it either. That being the case, I will say that many times throughout the day, I felt the Lord urging me to do the decreasing energy part of Reiki to calm both people and critters down. One time Andrew came up to me chuckling and said, "So are you doing it the right way, Mom?" I laughed and said, "Yes Andrew, I am DECREASING their energy!" Animals get worked up when you start moving them around and especially when you take their babies from them. A little cooling down seemed to come in handy for them and US!!!

Things went pretty well all morning and we had 25 of them worked by the time that Jerome came to help us. Then I went in and made lunch and the guys, plus Cora, had half of the stock calves worked before they stopped for lunch. This is a picture of the operation. In the closest pen are the calves needing to be worked yet and to the left are the ones already worked. Back by the tractor is the head gate that they all had to get caught in so that we could give them their shots; ear tag the later born ones; and band the scrotums of the bull calves. The heifer calves got off easy but they yelled loud enough too when they got caught in the head gate. Isn't that like a girl. :)

A closer view of the calves waiting to be worked. When we started back in cattle about a decade ago, the buyers seemed to want the big boned cattle so we went into Charlais which are white. Then slowly over time, the buyers switched to wanting Angus cattle which are black, so we switched too. We still have quite a few of the light colored calves but are moving towards black as all of our bulls are Angus now. I noticed that when Robert culled the cows, he culled more whites than blacks so in a few years you'll see far fewer white calves in the mix. I like that we have a few red Angus cows too as it seems more colorful to have a variety. :) I can just imagine Robert's comment about that statement! It would go something like this, "As if I breed my cattle just for color!" :) I am entitled to my opinion, am I not?

Jacob had many jobs throughout the day. He kept the big bander filled with bands and he kept the syringes full. He handed us syringes and his dad the bander. Here he's loading the big bander which we use on the bigger calves.

Cora had many responsibilities too. She made the ear tags; put them in the calves' ears if nobody else was doing it; and covered the calves eyes while we gave the shots. We learned this trick from Jerome years ago. If a critter has their eyes covered, they settle right down and you can give them a shot without breaking your needle OR SYRINGE!!

Here Andrew is putting the ear tag in the calves' ear. That is something that I have never learned to do as it just galls me somehow. I can give shots or do the banding with the small bander and I even think that I could do the dehorning if I absolutely HAD to do it, but for some reason it just seems so awful to do the ear tag. One time I saw someone do it and they hit the vein and the calf bled something awful. I suppose that's why I gladly step aside here and let somebody else take the ear tagger in hand. Goodness, even Jacob has given his calves ear tags--come on, Mom, get with it. :)

Good job Andrew--not a drop of blood and he is now identifiable.

One of my jobs, which I learned as a girl at home on my dad's farm, is to keep a steady eye on the worked calves. One time then, I had noticed that a calf wasn't moving and I told my dad and brothers about it but they ignored me until it was too late. That calf had died because of a reaction to the shot and then they yelled at ME. ): One time about 10 years ago when Robert, the children, and I were working our calves the same thing had happened. Then I quickly put a large pinch of cayenne pepper in it's nose and mouth and it shocked his system so much that it brought him out of anaphalaxis. To this day, I keep cayenne pepper around when we work the calves just in case. So what would you think if you came up to this critter who had just had it's shots?

Well, he was ok and he stirred as soon as I got close enough to check to see if he was still breathing. I decided to take his picture to show you how they lay down after the banding is done. They're kind of stiff for a few hours to several days but then they're back at running.

We keep track of what we do with each animal and I am the official record keeper. Cora had the chart all ready to go for me so that was nice. :) We record the tag number; gender; color; size; presence of horns, and anything unusual about the calf. Maybe you can see that I was literally surrounded by animals all around me which I just love. I have always loved animals so I am so glad that I am a farmer/rancher.

Cora covering another calves' eyes so that he would calm down enough for us to do what needed to be done.

Andrew has been our official head gate operator for many years. In my opinion, this is the very WORST job of them all. He must slam the head gate shut at EXACTLY THE RIGHT MOMENT. Too soon of a slam and the calf backs out and slams into Robert who has just brought him up from the back--not greatly appreciated. Too late of a slam and the calf gets out the front without being worked--even worse. One ALMOST escaped but Jerome ran up and caught the calf. Robert and I grabbed the syringes; Cora put in the ear tag; and being it was a heifer (Praise the Lord); she was released in record time. GOOD JOB, ANDREW, for your excellent work on the head gate!!!!!!!!!!!

Here Jerome and Andrew are giving the shots; Jacob is handing the bander to Robert who is in the shoot ready to band this bull calf; and Cora is up in front holding the calves' eyes shut. After I recorded the details, I recorded the moment with Cora's camera.

Did I mention that the Lord gave us an absolutely gorgeous day? I was bent out of shape lots of times because it just wasn't coming together to get these calves worked earlier. We usually do it around the middle of September--not the middle of November!!! But the weather was absolutely wonderful with bright sunshine and NO WIND--a truly miraculous combination in North Dakota!!! Thanks Lord!!!!!!!

I kept trying to get a picture of Robert doing the banding inside the shoot but this was the best that I could get. Basically he slips the big band over the calves' scrotum; gives the bander a push which pinches the band together; then tightens the bander which puts only a little pressure on the skin; and cuts the band off of the bander. Over time this slight pressure cuts off the blood supply to the scrotum. Over a period of 2 months, the scrotum dries up and falls off of the body. This is soooooooooo much nicer than the way we did it when I was a girl. At that time, my dad would take a knife; cut open the scrotum; take out the testicles; squeeze the wound for a few seconds to stop the bleeding; put on some iodine solution; and release the calf. Now THAT was gross but there is no bleeding with the big bander so it makes the whole deal bloodless and much more pleasant. Of course, Robert is the one back there who could get kicked by the calf so Andrew squeezes the shoot so the calf can't kick and Robert squeezes himself into the shoot behind the calf. It's a good thing that he's on the slender side or it would be tough to get in there to do the dastardly job. :)

I kept trying to get a good picture of a calf coming out of the shoot but they're pretty fast which makes for blurry pictures. Here's the best one that I got.

This is a picture of my whole family. Andrew and Cora are working on the front end of the calf and Robert and Jacob on the back end.

Late in the day we finished with the stock calves. It was a happy moment when we were able to release all of the calves back into their mother's care. There was lots of bellering all day while the pairs were separated but there was TONS of bellering when we let the calves out as they all went in search of their mothers. It doesn't matter that some of these calves were half the size of their moms, it was a trying ordeal for them all and THEY WANTED THEIR MAMAS!!!

Note the size of this baby as he comforted himself with a little drink from mom.

After we turned the stock calves loose, we got the baby Holsteins out of the barn. They'd been cooped up inside all day, so that they wouldn't get run over and they were VERY happy to get outside again. I'm not sure if you would call them actually "Happy" to be run into the shoot, but after dealing with wild stock calves all day, they were a pleasant change for us. Here Robert and Jerome were giving a calf it's shots.

Here Jacob is leading one of the Holsteins back to it's pen. When we raise these calves on the bottle, they're just like pets. They would follow a person all over the place so it's an easy task to lead them. Trying to get behind and chase a calf like this is a disaster because he will just turn around and try to follow you and then you're going in the wrong direction. :) Jacob has always loved the baby calves on our farm. He was pointing out to Jerome his various calves. "That's John Wayne over there," he told Jerome. I added, "Yes, but Roy Rogers died." That's the facts of life--we lose some of the animals that God gives to us but most of them are very happy that they came to live at our farm. How do I know? because they wag their tails a lot. :)

We all chuckled when we switched to the Holsteins and Andrew asked Robert, "Say dad, do you mind switching to the front now? I'll do the back end." What this meant was that Andrew didn't mind doing the little calves banding now that dehorning was being done in the front. Typically stock calves are bred to be polled (hornless) whereas almost all Holstein calves have horns which need to be cut off. After Robert dehorned the calves, he put some blood stop powder on the spots on the head where the horns had been. This stuff is gross--if you even happen to be breathing nearby it, you'll be coughing for a few minutes.

Well, that's our calf working day in review. It was a wonderful day in the fresh air and sunshine working with my family and extended family (Jerome). I hope that you enjoyed the pictures and learned just a little bit about what it takes to work calves on a farm.

I thought I'd also mention, before I close, that yesterday I was in Bismarck and was with my dad when they discharged him from the hospital. I took him to his sister Dee's home and got him settled in for a visit there. He'll stay with her until after Thanksgiving. I'm thankful for that as his sister is a nurse, so he'll be in good hands. We're trying to make plans for dad's 80th birthday which is on December 1st too, so there's never a dull moment around here. Sharel and I decided that it will have to be something simple as Dad's not very strong yet.

Oh yes, I should say that he had an infection in the gall bladder area and Dee said that it was most likely in the area where the stints were in his surgery this summer. He looked very weak and tired but he was VERY glad to be out of the hospital. Somehow it seems that farmers don't take too well to being cooped up inside. :)

Blessings,

Dawn