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Hey northern ranchers, hey buddies!

Whitewing

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 4, 2009
Messages
5,855
Location
Venezuela
What's your busiest time of the year?

I've always imagined it'd be in the summer when the days are long and you're trying to put up hay and the like. But honestly, having never ranched anywhere in the US, I don't really have a clue.

Do you guys hole-up for the winter or is the workload much the same?
 
For me the winter days aren't as long work wise but I am here every day to feed. I background our calves over the winter so we wean them in October and feed from then on. The cows graze out as long as they can then go on a modified bale graze where I put bales out for a couple weeks at a time.
Spring calving is probably the longest days, haying is pretty busy depending on how good the crop is and the weather.
 
Daylight hours are at about 9.5-10 right now, by the time chores are done we don't have to be real creative to fill in the last couple of hours.

It seems we can make a full day's work regardless of month. Planning to haul 1000 fence logs that were cut last winter here shortly.
 
gcreekrch said:
Daylight hours are at about 9.5-10 right now, by the time chores are done we don't have to be real creative to fill in the last couple of hours.

It seems we can make a full day's work regardless of month. Planning to haul 1000 fence logs that were cut last winter here shortly.

Speaking of cutting fence logs, do you guys cut according to the moon phase? They swear by it here though I've never been sure there was any truth to it or if it was just a way to get out of cutting/hauling logs for a couple of weeks out of the month. :lol:
 
Whitewing said:
gcreekrch said:
Daylight hours are at about 9.5-10 right now, by the time chores are done we don't have to be real creative to fill in the last couple of hours.

It seems we can make a full day's work regardless of month. Planning to haul 1000 fence logs that were cut last winter here shortly.

Speaking of cutting fence logs, do you guys cut according to the moon phase? They swear by it here though I've never been sure there was any truth to it or if it was just a way to get out of cutting/hauling logs for a couple of weeks out of the month. :lol:

Winter when the sap is down is best for live trees. Fire killed pine is absolute best for fences, there is the odd fence around here that was built in the 1930's out of fire killed pine and the logs are still in remarkably good condition. Not sure if using bug killed trees is smart at all, the beetles leave some sort of fungus behind for the larvae to feed on that does a lot of different things to the wood.
 
Summer is irrigation as well as haying time here. Summer is almost around the clock busy. Now I only feed about 400 cattle and have some coffee shop time. We are headed out next week for a cruise and some time in south Texas before spring comes again. Mel
 
Our busiest times are spring and late fall. Spring has so many things all happening at once. We're fixing fence, building new fence almost every year, pigs are farrowing on pasture so we;re constantly moving them in portable pens to fresh pasture daily. Cows start calving 3rd week of May and pretty much take care of themselves, but we check once a day, and since they're usually at least a mile from home it takes a bit of time. I usually try to check them at dawn, then start my day with all the other stuff.

Fall always seems like I'm trying to do all the things I wanted to get done all summer. We put bales out for bale grazing and pull twines off while the weather is good, so that they are ready at any time if we need to feed the cows, otherwise the cows graze stockpiled pasture most of the winter. But there's always firewood to stack, straw to haul in, feed to bring in from neighbours for the pigs, etc, etc, etc.

And of course, we do all of our butchering for direct marketing in the fall. Grass finished 2yr old beeves and pastured pigs all go to slaughter from Sept. 1st until about mid-October. We deliver most of the meat to people's doors so it's hectic trying to coordinate all that with city folks.
 
Winter here is pretty slack. About 2 to 3 hours a week. We background our calves on bale grazing, and graze cows out until January or February. Don't start calving until May. June is busy as we are putting in swath grazing, calving and moving cows nearly every day to two days on rapidly growing grass. I agree with PC that fall is busy too as you try to get everything done before winter and never seem short of projects.

Summers are busy but don't seem that way since our workable daylight peaks at 18+ hours.
 
Other then the couple of days through out the year,i take to go fishing.I stay pretty busy year round.Never a shortage of work,and if there is,i'm just not looking very hard!!
 
We don't have a shop so winter tends to be pretty slack. Feed every second day (would put out more feed but the elk are a big problem), and putter with this and that but it's not very busy.
Once the frost leaves the ground it's pretty wide open until it freezes up again. So we go really hard for a few weeks :D
 

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