Wyoming Wind
Well-known member
Ok, so after running cows thru the chute to preg check while it was 20 degrees out and the pens were too cold to write with, I got to wondering if an IPad would work in the field under the conditions we work in: cold, wind, cow crap flying after running 500 cows thru the chute, etc. Anyone have any experience or thoughts? It would be pretty handy to input info on each cow right away or be able to look a cow up instantly. Hmmmm...
On a different note, we got our calves shipped and the steers went 507 pounds after our 2 percent shrink; we sold them at 500 pounds, so that went pretty well! Our heifers we sold at 465 and they averaged 450 after the shrink; not so good but we knew we lost quite a few on the forest and after choosing our replacements we didn't have many for the buyer to sort from. But they are gone to new homes and out of sight, out of mind!
Preg testing went really really well for us. 90-95% were bred (depending on which herd...we lease 2 herds, and have 2 raised commercial herds) so we actually were able to cull quite a few of the older cows we probably needed to get rid of while they are bringing quite a bit of money. We were very pleased with it all, and our vet we had preg check was incredibly fast. We ran 445 cows thru in 5 hours and we had him preg check for us last year and he did a great job. We only have him check for bred, late (late for us is June), or open, so pretty straight forward. We got our replacement pairs and bred yearlings out on good fall pasture. All open/culled cattle get loaded on trucks this Sunday and go to the auction Mon and Tues. Then we just have to wait for the snow to fly before we start feeding cows with our Belgian horse teams! That could be tomorrow or hopefully not until mid-Dec! Hope you all are getting our fall work done and are able to take a few days off!
On a different note, we got our calves shipped and the steers went 507 pounds after our 2 percent shrink; we sold them at 500 pounds, so that went pretty well! Our heifers we sold at 465 and they averaged 450 after the shrink; not so good but we knew we lost quite a few on the forest and after choosing our replacements we didn't have many for the buyer to sort from. But they are gone to new homes and out of sight, out of mind!
Preg testing went really really well for us. 90-95% were bred (depending on which herd...we lease 2 herds, and have 2 raised commercial herds) so we actually were able to cull quite a few of the older cows we probably needed to get rid of while they are bringing quite a bit of money. We were very pleased with it all, and our vet we had preg check was incredibly fast. We ran 445 cows thru in 5 hours and we had him preg check for us last year and he did a great job. We only have him check for bred, late (late for us is June), or open, so pretty straight forward. We got our replacement pairs and bred yearlings out on good fall pasture. All open/culled cattle get loaded on trucks this Sunday and go to the auction Mon and Tues. Then we just have to wait for the snow to fly before we start feeding cows with our Belgian horse teams! That could be tomorrow or hopefully not until mid-Dec! Hope you all are getting our fall work done and are able to take a few days off!
