Started out at +54F with a light rain at about 5:00 AM it's now 10:30 AM and +40F with steady rain.
Calving is 1/3 over and everyone seems to be doing great! I kept telling my wife last year that the bull was jumping the fence to visit the girls every night and would be back in for feeding in the morning. She thought I was crazy and told me the time I caught him was an isolated incendent. The pen he was in was about 50' X 100' and was all livestock panels on the back side of a barn. He could clear then with out running and did not touch them! The time I caught him I was up a little early and he was coming back to his pen. I opened the gate and he just walked in like nothing ever happened
Well I turned him in with them on June 10th and by my math the calves should not be here yet. I ended up selling the bull in early August as while he would stay in a hot wire he would jump a wovenwire fence and never touch it. Great problem to have ( early healthy calves ). He went over and ran a neighbors short horn bull in the barn and decided he was the king there. It was time for him to go to a new home!
I told the person who bought the bull he would clear a 48" fence. He was a 6 year old ( Smokey ) bull and weighed 2,240# when sold. He had 50 cows he wanted bread for fall calves and he had bought the calves from this bull the last couple of years and ran them up on others who got them when he didn't. To load the bull I grabbed a flake of hay and told him to come on, walked up to the trailer and tossed it in. The man who bought him is a local trader and feels the bull will be kept on cows year around for a couple more years. He was going to hang a chain from his nose, said that would stop all jumping!
I kept back one of his sons that I will use this year. He was born 15 April last year at about 75# to 80# ( I don't have any small scales ) and at weaning went 640# in October - - - does not know what grain is but has always been in pasture that was 6" or higher untill weaning and has had free choice alfalfa round bales but still gets one or two small flakes of square baled alfalfa to keep him coming when I want. I have not loaded him up lately but feel he is around 950# to 1,000# now. He should be ready come June.
I feel I only have one 2nd calf hiefer that might come in the next day and it is supposed to go on down to about +30F with a chance of freezing rain or possibly 1" to 2" of snow. I will pen her tonight if she has not already calved. A nice dry bed out of the wind should beat freezing rain in the woods!
You guy's and your livestock are sure more hardy than I want to be. I think I'll just hole up in the shop and clean equipment and the shop floor.