Pairing IN, rather than pairing out...

[theHiredMansWife]

Anyone try something like this?

The way we're set up, our cows winter on picked corn fields, and we calve out on the them, too. Since they only have so much feed value on them, they have to rotate.

This year, the lesser half decided he'd rotate sooner so that he could leave his pairs behind on the last pivot and move the heavies on to a new one. He just tried it today for the first time and it worked really slick. Especially since today was nice and windy and the calves were all hunkered down, not wanting to move. The heavies picked right up to move and the pairs just stayed where they were.

 

[Faster horses]

Around here, its "whatever works."

We work cattle the way they want to work the easiest. You might have something in mind and the cows will change if for you. My husband is not hard-headed in the least and he can sure do things a different way as long as what he wants done gets accomplished. (And with the least amount of dust.)

 

[theHiredMansWife]

Well that works to a certain extent, but they still have to end up where there's going to be feed to support them. :wink:

 

[Faster horses]

That is what I meant when I said as long as what he wants done gets accomplished. You have to get them where you want them to be, regardless of the path taken to get there. Funny how they want to work out one gate instead of another...that's an example of what I meant. We'd take them out the gate they wanted, instead of forcing them to go out what we had picked. Of course that gate has to get them where you want to go..

.whew, this is getting complicated. :wink:

"As long as you get the job done" perhaps would have been a better way of phrasing it.

 

[theHiredMansWife]

I see what you mean. And yeah, that's how we usually work 'em, too.
But most people pair out, in that they pull the pairs out of the heavies. Which makes sense, of course, since there's usually fewer pairs than there are heavies.

I was just curious how many people did it backward like this...

 

[Soapweed]

We do it "backwards" like this every evening. We calve out in a about a sixty acre lot in the daytime, and corral the heavies at night for easy watching. As we get in the heavies, we drop back the new calves born during the day along with their mommas. The next morning, we put out the heavies into a different similar daytime calving lot, dropping back the pairs in the corral. Then the new calves from the day before are tagged out in the pasture, and the new calves born during the night are tagged in the corral. By this time the new calves can walk, so the pairs are driven into another pasture which leaves the calving lot free again for the next day. Alternating daytime calving areas works quite well. We have several surrounding smaller-type pastures, so we can pair out about any direction, and no new calf has to walk too far.

 

[katrina]

We do it backwards too. Or foreward like FH says.

 

[greg]

Getting the jod done is what counts.If it can be easy.Even better.Didn't learn that from father,rather gettin' older and lazier?

 

[theHiredMansWife]

We do it "backwards" like this every evening.

Now that has to work really well.
We're kind of limited in the way we can set things up, though, since we have to work with how the farm has their cornfields set up (which happen to surround our corral on three sides... :roll: ) But I wonder if this could be made even easier with a process like yours...

 

[Northern Rancher]

Isn't that how drift lambing works also-that is the best way to move young pairs on a rotational grazing deal if you are calving on grass-we leave the bacxk gates open and the cows pick up their young calves and catch up to the herd at their own pace. The worst move we make is only a hundred yards or so but we have to cross a grid road with steep ditches and then they hit a big ridge. It's real hard not to strip calves off the cows when we do it-we usually end up holding the cows on horseback for an hour or two till were sure everything stays mothered up.

 

[theHiredMansWife]

I had to Google "drift lambing" (All I know about sheep is that they're wooly and stupid. lol).

But yeah, that's basically what he's doing. to a lesser degree since he doesn't have enough space to drop pairs behind daily... We keep them apart though, since that's half the reason for pairing out is to make it easier to keep track of who should have calves and who doesn't yet.

I'm so tickled.
I can tell him it has a name.

"Drift Lambing" :wink:

 

[Brush Popper]

Were going to try something like that called the sandhill calving system. We start are cows in about a 200 acre pasture and do what they call heavy out. Leave the pairs and move the heavy cows to the next pasture. We have about 7 pastures in a horseshoe shape. Guess we'll see how good this works course we don't calve till April the 20TH.