• If you are having problems logging in please use the Contact Us in the lower right hand corner of the forum page for assistance.

Ready for branding if the calves survive the blizzard

Soapweed

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 11, 2005
Messages
16,264
Location
northern Nebraska Sandhills
Brandinggizmos.jpg

Branding calf trap gizmos mounted on Hydrabed arms
Thiswillsavehavingtodigpostholes.jpg

This will save having to dig post holes
Calftrapgizmosupclose.jpg

Calf trap gizmos up close
Thecowboycrewgettingcattleintobette.jpg

The cowboy crew getting cattle into better protection, to ride out the storm
 
good looking crew ya got there...sure could use them at our branding around the end of april/first of may!!! :wink: :wink: HINT..HINT!! :lol:
 
Looks as if your "gizmos" might work mounted that way Soapweed.

I also got some 2yr. old pairs into some better shelter today. Nothing is set up for these ##%# east winds around here. Fortunately I was able to drift the cattle with the wind, but it resembled chasing decapitated chickens. :wink:

Bringing them back in my corrals makes me nervous about scours. I may wish we had followed your shot protocal before this is all over Soapweed. Right now the ground is so icy that I don't think they will pick up any bugs till it melts off some. Mis-mating the calves might be as big of a worry. Those 2's are lacking a few brain cells about keeping their own calves straight.
 
How does that gizmos work? I never seen anything like it.

Your crew looks like they are hard workers & ready to get-er-done.
 
Paul said:
How does that gizmos work? I never seen anything like it.

Your crew looks like they are hard workers & ready to get-er-done.

Paul, hit "calf trap" on the "search" at the top of the page. It will direct you to a post "Branding with calf traps on the Soapweed Outfit". That will tell you all about it.

Hope this helps. You are right, I have a real good "get-er-done" crew. They include my wife (Peach Blossom), son (Kosmo Kid), top hand (Saddletramp), and a hard working night calver, Kenneth.

Looks like a busy day in store for us. There is about eight inches of new snow and a steady east wind which is drifting the snow. Several new calves came during the night (which are all in individual box stalls with their mothers), and right now there are three cows in stalls that are calving. We are past the 2/3 mark in calving, so hopefully the cows will slow up a bit during this storm which will last at least another day and a half.
 
Soapweed,


Do you ever notice when a low pressure system rolls into the area that you have more cows calving? We notice this up here. If a storm rolls in there will be lots of calves hitting the ground. Anyone else notice this?

We re just dealing with cool temps up here.Its sunny but cool!
 
Soapweed: A couple more questions................is Saddletramp just plain tough or just too stubborn & proud to wear anything but that hat regardless of the weather? Another question..............does he have any ears left (could be awkward trying to wear reading glasses :? )? It don't take much weather here to get everyone wearing their Elmer Fudd caps and some guys seem to wear 'em most of the year! :lol: :lol: :wink:
 
cowsense said:
Soapweed: A couple more questions................is Saddletramp just plain tough or just too stubborn & proud to wear anything but that hat regardless of the weather? Another question..............does he have any ears left (could be awkward trying to wear reading glasses :? )? It don't take much weather here to get everyone wearing their Elmer Fudd caps and some guys seem to wear 'em most of the year! :lol: :lol: :wink:

I ain't Soapweed, but I do know why Saddle Tramp wears his hat all year around.

He has earflaps for it, that are removeable. I have the same and love them. Caps make my head itch and I think felt is warmer than wool, and thats why they wear felt liners in pacs. :wink:

The ear flaps I have hook under your chin and help hold your hat on also. :wink:

But I do think ol' Saddle Tramp is about as tuff as they come.

One time when he was out riding a colt, the colt blew up and finally bucked Saddle Tramp off, right onto a barb wire fence. He slid down that fence, astraddle of it, for quite a ways.

When he finally got stopped, he walked back over to his colt and let his stirrups out to the last notch and rode him on home. He was just a short legged feller before all this happened. :wink:
 
JB- I agree with you on the hats..., I'll wear a hat with earflappers most the winter, unless its 40 below with the wind howling and I need to protect my cheeks from freezing- then its my furry mad bomber cap...The caps get too wet on my head and get too itching- especially when you're getting in and out of an outfit feeding or something....And the hat flappers actually fit tighter than those on most caps......
 
Soapweed Looks like a busy day in store for us. There is about eight inches of new snow and a steady east wind which is drifting the snow. Several new calves came during the night (which are all in individual box stalls with their mothers) said:
We have around 10 inches large drifts and a very strong east wind. When I went to the barn at 1 and feed a bottle baby by the time I came back out my foot tracks had already blown shut.

We are getting several calves today and all have went in the barn due to the wind and the nasty weather. I heard it's supposed to be here until Tuesday. The cows here are just getting really going so no wonder this blew in. :wink:

We lost power last night and finally just an hour ago got it back! :)
 
I'll post this here, too.


Got about 4", snow is still falling, heavy snow warning until 5 am tomorrow. I remember a bad snowstorm in April of 1996, snowed for several days, then came back and smacked us again. Neighbors up north a couple of miles as the crow flies only got a few inches, we got several feet, some calves we didn't find until the snow melted. Night calving (my job at the time) was really bad, couldn't get around in a pickup because the snow was so deep and I'd get stuck. Cows crowded in a pile, would find a newborn calf wandering around outside of the pile, had no idea who it's mother could be, snow blowing horizontally so hard visibility was very poor. THAT was a bad storm, when we finally dug our way out after 2 weeks the neighbors wanted to know where in the heck we came from, since they only had a few inches. Sheesh. Glad we haven't had a bad one since then, and that was the last time we calved in the spring.

Sure am glad we don't calve this time of year anymore....
 
Hanta Yo said:
Sure am glad we don't calve this time of year anymore....

Yes, but we didn't have to hurry home from Deadwood in September because we were calving. :wink: :-)

You are lucky you are not calving right now. We have about a foot of new snow, a pretty powerful east wind, and considerable drifting taking place. As of this morning we were still getting about one calf per hour, but things have slowed down a little bit now. Glad the ol' Kosmo Kid doesn't have school tomorrow. We sure got a lot of work out of him over the weekend. This is the third year we've had the luxury of a night man to watch the cows. That makes life a whole lot easier for Peach Blossom, Saddletramp and me. We had one cow lay on her calf during the night, and it ended up dying, but for the most part things have gone fairly well. Glad we don't have a bunch of Herefords to get sunburned teats when the sun comes out on all this snow. Our baldy cows are bad enough.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top