Vaccinating cows, February 7th

[Soapweed]

Saddletramp trailing cows

Cows poking along

Peach Blossom and Clavinova in action

Heading for the corral

King of the hill, and a good weathervane

Our state of the art working facilities

Peach Blossom poking the cow

Completed cows in the corral. The three of us ran through 286 head
in an hour and forty-five minutes. Peach Blossom gave each cow
a shot of Scourgard. Saddletramp kept them coming, and filled
the alleyway each time with seven cows. I caught the lead cow
of each draft in the head-catch, and replaced any ear tags that
were missing. I probably put in about fifteen new tags during
the course of the proceedings.

[Sagebrush]

It was a good day to work cows. We did our 2 and 3 yr olds today. Soapweed what is the brand name of the red chute you are using?

[Soapweed]

It is a Palco, which later became Stronghold, and I think it is back to being Palco again now. We have always really liked the headcatch and the "airplane hanger" type of drop gates. It has a scale also, but that has never worked. They even traded with us and brought a second one, but the scale never worked on it either. Guess we just weren't meant to keep "individual records". The older I get, the finer that is by me. As long as the calves weigh good going through the sale barn, that is all that really matters.

[Rowdy Ranch]

Thanks for sharing with us the beauty of your days. The cattle are sure in great shape. When do you start calving? Hope all goes well and have a great day!

[Soapweed]

It is on our schedule to start calving about the 20th of February.

[efb]

I really enjoy your pictures. I usually have one of them as my desktop background. It looks like your cows are red angus, black angus with a few black baldies. What kind of bulls do you use on them? I have pretty much quit vaccinating my cows when they get 4 - 5 years old. We are pretty much a closed herd and 100% A.I. , do you think I'll get in trouble doing that? It looks like your grass was good this year and I see a lot of hay rolls . Wish I had some of that down here. Everyone here is way short of hay and hauling in alfalfa from Kansas that is costing $165 a ton delivered.
Thanks.
efb

[Soapweed]

We use pretty much straight Angus bulls on the black and black baldy cows, and red Simmental bulls on the red and red baldy cows.

Sorry to hear that hay is so expensive and hard to come by in northeast Texas. It is very dry here at the moment, but we had a very good summer last year with more than normal rain. A good hay crop was had all across the Sandhills and South Dakota. The last rains came in mid August, and we've had but very little moisture since.

[HAY MAKER]

Those pastures look to be in good shape,you wont see that around here,its been mighty dry,if we dont get a wet spring TX is gonna be in bad shape..........good luck

[George]

I don't see anything wrong with your facilities - - - when I first came home from the Marines my "facilities " consisted of a gate wired in the corner of the barn.

When I look back it's a wonder any of us lived more than one season.