Late January photos, 2011

[Soapweed]

Cows in the frosty fog

Pair of baldies

Politely waiting for the table to be set

Come and get it! I did throw it out. :?

Heifer calves farmed out for the winter. They are on a ration of ground hay and alfalfa, and about three pounds of corn.

In country just beyond the Sandhills

Our 2 and 3-year-old bulls, also farmed out for the winter at $1.40 per head per day. It's kind of worth it just having them out of our hair. :wink:

More of the same

Tagging, vaccinating, and year branding bred heifers

This heifer needed cleaned up and dignified a bit. A good way to eliminate these horns is to use obstetrical wire with a handle on each end.
This also serves as good aerobic exercise for an old fat cowboy. :wink:

At the Black Hills Stock Show horse sale

Always kind of a fun event to attend. This year was especially enjoyable, because I sat by and visited with Faster Horses and Mr. FH.

A bale hauler that looks intriguing. It is hydraulic operated with a 12 volt battery. It hauls two bales and rolls them out to feed.
It is manufactured by Prairie Industries, LLC from Vale, South Dakota, north of Sturgis. This company also makes a forecart
to use with a team of horses, which can be used to pull the bale hauler/feeder. Their webpage is: www.BaleWrangler.com

At the Klover Potter Family Singers supper show this past Friday evening.

They did a wonderful job singing music from the 50's and 60's. I would highly recommend this supper show if you are ever
in the Rapid City area on a week-end. The show is at the Beanery, located at the old Creamery Mall on Main Street.

 

[leanin' H]

Thanks for the pictures. Looks like winter is still with ya. It tempted us with a nice little January thaw out here, but has come back to normal tonight with -11 and a pretty good wind. Soap, I thought you sell all your bulls each year and start over each spring? But I have been mistaken more than once.

 

[Soapweed]

Thanks for the pictures. Looks like winter is still with ya. It tempted us with a nice little January thaw out here, but has come back to normal tonight with -11 and a pretty good wind. Soap, I thought you sell all your bulls each year and start over each spring? But I have been mistaken more than once.

That is my normal procedure, but the past couple years yearling bulls weren't selling too well in the fall, so I held some of them over. Yearling bulls usually sell fairly well as "cutting bulls," but the worst time to pound out a bull is when they are two years old. At that point in their life, they sell for "old bull" price but don't weigh enough to bring too much. After they are three, they weigh enough to dollar out pretty good again. Anyway, at the moment I have on hand yearling bulls, two-year-olds and three-year-olds. The way cattle prices have been going up, I'm glad to not have to start completely from scratch this spring. For several years I have bought from one supplier at the rate of $1400 per commercial bull at turn-out time. The new price this spring has gone to $1650, so I'm glad I didn't need as many as normal.

 

[Northern Rancher]

I wonder how good a skinner you'd need to be to back that up hooked to a forecart-I see it's made in Vale, South Dakota I've spent a night or two in that bustling metropolis at a friends place-maybe it's time for a roadtrip. A mixed age set of bulls usually spread out in a bunch of cows at breeding a bit better not quite as much fighting as a group all the same age-the older bulls get to breeding because everyu time there's a fight a yearling sneaks in like a thief in the night.

 

[Soapweed]

I wonder how good a skinner you'd need to be to back that up hooked to a forecart-I see it's made in Vale, South Dakota I've spent a night or two in that bustling metropolis at a friends place-maybe it's time for a roadtrip. A mixed age set of bulls usually spread out in a bunch of cows at breeding a bit better not quite as much fighting as a group all the same age-the older bulls get to breeding because everyu time there's a fight a yearling sneaks in like a thief in the night.

I'll bet it would be easier to get backed into place than a four-wheeled wagon. This could be turned pretty short if need be, more-so than a regular wagon. It looked like a pretty good deal to me. He said in warm weather, the battery can do close to fifty bales before it needed recharged. His suggestion was to just park it by a battery charger every night and put it on trickle charge. Heck, we are all used to doing that with our cell phones. :wink:

The price seemed fairly decent, also. The basic bale hauler/feeder with hydraulic battery-operated capability is $6200. A matching pretty green forecart is $1250. It wouldn't take too much $3.50 per gallon gasoline on motorized feeding equipment to justify the expense.

 

[Cedarcreek]

Soap did you buy any horses? I had intended on going down but the weather didn't cooperate so I could get away.

 

[RSL]

That Bale Wrangler looks exactly like it would work pretty well.

 

[Soapweed]

Soap did you buy any horses? I had intended on going down but the weather didn't cooperate so I could get away.

Nope, I was a good little boy and just sat on my hands. :wink:

 

[Northern Rancher]

You saved me a phone call Soap-my buddy just asked me what I thought it would cost and I guessed $7000 lol. My friend up here has an electric winch on his feeding sleigh I think he's got a solar panel rigged up to charge it.

 

[Soapweed]

Here are some photos of the Bale Wrangler in action pulled by horses.

http://www.balewrangler.com/Media/BaleWranglerPhotos/tabid/65/AlbumID/391-1/Default.aspx

 

[Hereford76]

i've always wondered from your pictures soapweed. it looks like those cows are always coming out of the cover of a shelterbelt of trees. at night do they congregate around your shelters pretty consistantly. its usually not a problem here cause on more normal winters the cows are just out grazing all winter - but winters like this and the last two when i have to feed them they bunch up at night in a couple places on the cultivated ground where i feed out of the wind and the manure really gets thick. i am already stressing about having to probably scrape some of it and spread it around.... something a guy doesn't really want to do bad because of wind erosion around here. just curious if those are sacrifice areas for you or if you have a trick.

man - i've always wanted to go to the black hills stock show!

looks you are getting into the black hereford business :wink:

 

[jodywy]

Soap did you buy any horses? I had intended on going down but the weather didn't cooperate so I could get away.

Nope, I was a good little boy and just sat on my hands. :wink:

what that buckskin bring?

 

[Faster horses]

It wasn't a buckskin, it was a grey mare, jody.
She was really nice, too. I think that's why Soap
took a photo of her. She was coming 7 and brought $7400.
I had Soaps catalog and wrote down the prices.
Can't remember if I returned the catalog, tho.


I heard the horses that sold on Saturday brought more
than the horses on Friday. A lady from our area bought
a stallion for $23,000, only I don't know what lot number
it was because we didn't go on Saturday.

 

[rowel]

soapweed ive cut the horns off of 2 head using wire , it is a work out and if you wear out and stop for a second its hard to get going again , but yeah its a good work out even for a middle aged ranch hand with a bit of a belly on him

 

[Soapweed]

i've always wondered from your pictures soapweed. it looks like those cows are always coming out of the cover of a shelterbelt of trees. at night do they congregate around your shelters pretty consistantly. its usually not a problem here cause on more normal winters the cows are just out grazing all winter - but winters like this and the last two when i have to feed them they bunch up at night in a couple places on the cultivated ground where i feed out of the wind and the manure really gets thick. i am already stressing about having to probably scrape some of it and spread it around.... something a guy doesn't really want to do bad because of wind erosion around here. just curious if those are sacrifice areas for you or if you have a trick.

man - i've always wanted to go to the black hills stock show!

looks you are getting into the black hereford business :wink:

On the nice days and nights, the cows stay out in the hills or on the meadows. It is only during storms and high winds when we feed them behind the trees. They do enjoy getting out of the wind. There is some manure that builds up, but I've never done anything about it in the 25 years we've lived on this ranch. We always hay these areas in the summertime, and they seem to produce quite a bit of volume. Sometimes if they look too weedy, I make sure to feed this hay to cows after they have calved rather than taking a chance on too high of nitrates causing pregnant cows to abort their calves.

soapweed ive cut the horns off of 2 head using wire , it is a work out and if you wear out and stop for a second its hard to get going again , but yeah its a good work out even for a middle aged ranch hand with a bit of a belly on him

One thing about cutting horns off with obstetrical wire, it tends to cauterize as it cuts. It seems to be a good method. Back about fifteen years ago, I took seven open cows to a salebarn in late March. One ranch had loaded up all their pregnant cows that hadn't yet calved and sold them that day. My open cows sold for an average of $365 per head. The bred black cows came through and brought $475. Then fourteen head of red and red baldy cows came through the ring. I only bid once, at the $415 per head figure, and no one else bid again. My sixteen foot bumper pull trailer could only haul seven cows at a time, but I hauled the fourteen cows home in two trips. The next day my hired hand and I put them through the chute, branded them, and cut off those unsightly horns with obstetrical wire. They looked plumb civilized when we were through, even though they were still wild as hoot owls. We just turned them out in the hills, and all fourteen cows had new baby calves within the next ten days. We ran them with our other red cows that were on the ranch at the time, and with careful handling they eventually tamed down quite a bit. I kept them for several years and sold them for more money than I paid. I think when it was all said and done, that obstetrical wire made me a tidy little bit of money.