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Friends in areas effected by the storms

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And the picture of the day comes from Alliance, NE. Cows got out of a ranchers field and were roaming the city during the snow storm. Home owners were finding calves and keeping them in their garages until the rancher could pick them up!
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An interesting picture the Northern Ag Network had on today..
 
They were probably tryin to get into the state brand office. It's located in Alliance.
 
Spent a good part of the day helping a neighbor retrieve two groups of cows that drifted away from trees, and a bale windbreak in the cornstalks. He had a calf get in a tank at his calving corrals, and we found two dead calves and one cow. Picked up three chilly calves, one for sure will make it... No idea on headcounts yet, but under these drifts who knows.
Monday at noon we were 64 degrees F, Tuesday morning I had more frozen pipes than I ever have had at once. Windchills forecast around 20 below, out of the northeast, heck of a way to start the grass, but we'll gratefully take it.
 
We probably received about 15 inches of snow. The moisture is great, but it's sure easy to get stuck in moisture. :wink: Our efforts on Monday of "battening down the hatches" paid off. The cattle all rode out the storm protected from the wind by various tree shelter-belts, or behind man-made windbreaks. They came through in good shape, and we filled them up on hay and water today. The calves are bucking and playing, so survived the ordeal none the worse for wear. We are thankful to have done the majority of our calving during the stupid dead of winter instead of counting on sunshine with gentle spring breezes in April. :)
 
Soapweed said:
We probably received about 15 inches of snow. The moisture is great, but it's sure easy to get stuck in moisture. :wink: Our efforts on Monday of "battening down the hatches" paid off. The cattle all rode out the storm protected from the wind by various tree shelter-belts, or behind man-made windbreaks. They came through in good shape, and we filled them up on hay and water today. The calves are bucking and playing, so survived the ordeal none the worse for wear. We are thankful to have done the majority of our calving during the stupid dead of winter instead of counting on sunshine with gentle spring breezes in April. :)
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Good stockmen are usually ahead of the game. Good for you, Soap. Good
that you got them into the protected places. Same for everyone that
were able to get their cattle into some protection.

Talked to our daughter and she got a lot of snow too. I asked her if she
thought the storm was a 'calf killer' there, and she said it depended on how
well cared for the cattle were. She was worried about the ones that weren't
fed much this winter because it was such an open winter. They probably
didn't fare too well. That's a sad deal. She watches cows get thinner and
thinner on her way to work each day. She said one bunch they finally
started feeding some hay, but it was too little, too late. :cry:

We didn't get much here in SE Montana. Maybe 2-3". It was wet and
blew around some--of course... :? And it was cold.

I guess I-90 all across SD was closed today. We had a load of mineral
delivered and the truck had to come on I-12. He said that road was okay, but south of there was bad and it was still snowing this morning.
 
I hope this storm brought moisture to the drought areas it was so desperately needed and more to come
We may never know how much this drought effected just the cattle industry
And it's sure not over for awhile. It's going to take a long time to get back to normal Several places are out of business and the land may take years to recover
 
We didn't get all that much snow, but we've got plenty of ice and we've been without electricity for two days. I'm also thankful that we were ¾ done calving before this hit. It was probably the worst storm of the winter/spring here.
 
I was right in the middle of calving my syncronized heifers. We've been getting 10-12 a day for the last week. It's been a lot of work. The only casualty we had was one that was four days old that may have got stepped on? We had 85 on the ground before I had to pull one yesterday.

These storms remind me why I shouldn't be calving this time of year. :? :lol:
 
Old man winter just isn't going to give up its grip on things yet....I woke up to 2" of wet snow...And now they are predicting a weekend storm of 3-6" new snow and freezing temps again...

With all the fog we had I knew this was going to be a wet spring- but if I had my druthers, I'd druther it came in rain...
 
Big Swede said:
I was right in the middle of calving my syncronized heifers. We've been getting 10-12 a day for the last week. It's been a lot of work. The only casualty we had was one that was four days old that may have got stepped on? We had 85 on the ground before I had to pull one yesterday.

These storms remind me why I shouldn't be calving this time of year. :? :lol:
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Me, too. :) :)

I hope you don't regret selling that hay. My biggest regret at the moment is that we didn't feed up our far away hay first. It's pretty hard to get it hauled home through the snow drifts right now. :?
 
Just a cold rain here in Central Iowa, received several inches though, so thankful for that.

Family in SD though, got rocked. Sioux Falls looks like a battle zone :(
 
Been a long two days for us. We too spend the majority of Monday getting cattle moved around. We knew we didn't want all our calves together so we sorted and branded 121 calves last weekend and moved them to what we now call Katrina's trees. It's kinda a inside joke. :lol: And then we sorted more younger ones that weekend to put down at another place. So that here at home we didn't have any calves in the calving lot. Our two pen calving barn that we seldom used has been packed with hiefiers and calves. And as they get older we have an old lean too we put a panel only calves can get through to that and let the hiefiers into there. We had one die there from an old cow that didn't milk to well. I had been bottle feeding on the side so guess it just had a death wish. We did move a calving barn into the V as soon as the ground was thawed enough on the north side this March. It has twelved pens whitch has been full untill this morning. We had two mixups..(Herefords) but all is well there. I had four calves in my utility room and all survived and back with there moms. We had one calving death. And the calves down to my trees are doing the best. Like soap's bucking and running. We lost one calf dwon to the other place, once again a questionable mom. But we have grasshopper, who prolly is a whopping 50 pounds and he did great down there. Hubby and #2 are pushing up snow and putting down straw and feeding all and we are turning them out of there lots today. We have 12+ of snow and the wind....We did really well I think for an old mom and pop show. And sorts the men from the boys, sorta speaking. Also my hunt seat prospect was put down last Monday. He got hurt and get progressively went from bad to unsalvageable. I am crushed over this so have a heavy heart. I am trying to find solace in the fact that one of my favorite cows had twins... She is raising them both just fine and is so loving. I know God has a plan.... It's just seems so........ Gotta run stay safe everyone..
 
We are in the Soapweed and Katrina Club on this storm. Started getting ready about last Friday, moving some cattle into better, closer to home situations, tho we were not supposed to get any calves before late next week, i believe. synchronized hiefers started with the snow, and are doing ok. One calf born in pasture died, most likely from getting trampled by his dams curious herdmates......on a feedground in a BIG pasture!

New lot (rebuilt after flooding a couple of years ago) are working great, with a couple more windbreaks and also down on a creek bottom with hills protecting it. a bit from wind.

We got over a foot of snow, but very little wind....YET!

We also got a little freezing mist to start things off with. Sure feel for the folks in the Sioux Falls area. Pictures on TV are awful, and probably don't do it justice, at that.

Moisture appears to be pretty good, and we darn sure needed it. We have had about a half inch of moisture since before the first of the year.....not enough, especially considering we got less than half of normal all of last year and 'normal' (not sure I believe there is such a thing) is maybe 15 inches. Most of it usually comes during the growing season, if we are having a 'good' year.

Fortunately, we have a good crew of sons and grandsons, and a grand daughnter in law who is a very good hand when someone is available to watch our little sixth generation girl. They do work together when a pickup can be used, sorta like Peach does. Ours will be one year old early in May, and loves to be out and about and on the horse, too. I'd love to be able to fill in on the babysitting, but have to get my back and an ankle fixed before carrying a 20 pound baby is anything but a danger to her. Soon, I hope!!!

Best wishes to all of you battling even worse weather and conditions!

mrj
 
Snowfall extremes across the state so far this season! Billings is at 37.9 inches; the 15th least snowiest season (so far). Billings averages 55 inches in a season, while Glasgow averages 36 inches.




Believe it or not, Glasgow's 52.3" of snow this season is the 7th highest snow total on record (Still well below 108.6" from 2010-11)!
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Interesting- that we have the 7th snowiest season on record- but never had any major snow problems down here on the river...Altho we got snow early and kept getting it- it was such a mild winter that most kept settling down or melting into the ground- and we stayed open much of the winter... More ice problems than snow problems...
I just commented to the neighbor the other day- this was one winter neither he or I didn't have to dig out/plow out anything with the tractor... KNOCK ON WOOD!

Weather boys are saying this weekend could bring 2-4 inches locally- and 6-9 inches up in Big Muddy's country...
 
We got at least fifteen inches of snow out of this last storm. Getting around is a bit challenging, as we are completely out of practice. It's been years since we've had this much snow at one time.
 
Soapweed said:
We got at least fifteen inches of snow out of this last storm. Getting around is a bit challenging, as we are completely out of practice. It's been years since we've had this much snow at one time.
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I went to a bull sale today and there were a lot of smiling faces thinking about the grass that's coming... When- it comes :???: They are predicting temps with highs in the 30's for next week...
 

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