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Spring Trail Drive March 12, 2010

G

gcreekrch

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Joined
Feb 22, 2008
Messages
11,768
Location
west chilcotin bc
As the facilities are pretty tired at the Morrison Meadow place we opted to calve everything at home this year. We moved the cattle that wintered there home yesterday. It was cold and windy.

Ready to leave the corrals. One of the old skinny cows just had to be photogenic.
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Out the driveway.
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Stringing out.
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Lower end of Mud Creek Flat, not quite half way home. Our friend Roy's youngest son just got his learner's permit so he drove and I had a nap after this was taken. :D
If I had been a real cowboy I could have froze my butt in the saddle for 3.5 hours. The heater was quite nice thank you. :wink:
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The last two miles climb about 450 ft in elevation.
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It's downhill when we get to the timber.
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Dog's Day Afternoon. They were bored because the cows never made a wrong move.
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Trail Boss keeping sharp vigilence.
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Home stretch.
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Supper was ready when they got there.
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Soapweed said:
Nice pictures, Gcreek. I don't blame you for doing it the "comfortable" way. Glamour only goes about so far. :wink: How many miles did the cows travel in the three and a half hours?
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It is 9 miles by road. The main road and Morrison Meadow driveway meet at the bottom of a two mile "V". A little trail cutting and marking a crossing with good bottom in Mud Creek in case the tractor were to break through will shorten the distance considerably.
 
Still looks like winter. We will likely see some more but for now it is nice here. When is your due date?
 
per said:
Still looks like winter. We will likely see some more but for now it is nice here. When is your due date?
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For a package of cows that came from Brooks last summer, due date was yesterday. :? There are about a dozen of them we are night checking now.

The cattle that were bred here are due April 3rd expect we will have a short gestation calves before then. Scour vaccinated a bunch today and will finish tommorow.

Miocene, that white stuff will look pleasing to the eye when converted to irrigation water in the ditches. :wink:
 
Good pictures gc, worth the wait :wink: You still have snow and it's deep :shock: ours has sunk down considerably although it is still a complete cover unless it's been disturbed by the cows.
 
Your cows look to have wintered well gcreek. Your trail drive at this time of year reminds me of the one we used to do when I worked at the neighbouring ranch out of high school. We would trail the pregnant cows from the winter feeding grounds to a couple of different fields for calving starting in april. As the cows got strung out over a mile or so, we would take the first 800 cows past the first calving grounds to one a couple of miles further on. The last 800 or so would end up getting the shorter trip, about 9 miles. It was interesting to see how the two groups progressed through calving season. The cows at the back of the pack tended to be the first to calve, the cows that walked the farther distance seemed to have a better success rate. I always thought that was interesting.
 
That's definitely the warmest way to trail cows, and I bet the dogs didn't mind riding in the pickup next to the heater either :D.

Welcome to the calving party, I'm finally getting to the 3/4 mark. Keep posting those pics :D .
 
I absolutely LOVE seeing the pictures on this site......they are the BEST!!!! It just makes me smile seeing all the cows and how they are in such good shape. Keep the pictures coming folks and thanks!!!!
 
Hey gcreek, I see on the dash of your pickup you have the handy dandy weed identifier key chain the ministry likes to hand out. Do you have all your local noxious weeds identified and dealt with? :D
 
Silver said:
Hey gcreek, I see on the dash of your pickup you have the handy dandy weed identifier key chain the ministry likes to hand out. Do you have all your local noxious weeds identified and dealt with? :D
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Sharp eye Silver. :wink:

We do have a few weeds here that came in with feed we have bought. Some Canadian Thistle that arrived in a load of barley 10 years ago has nearly been eradicated. There is also a bit of Rattlebox weed that came with some hay we got in Vanderhoof. We fed it on the ground we grow our oats on, a couple of years of making silage out of it and it disappears too. The worst weed we have is Jackpines.
 
Grassfarmer said:
Another question for you gcreek, with all that snow you get what is your average annual precipitation?
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If I remember right it is about 18 inches of less. Lester Dorsey, one of the original settlers, used to say this country would be a desert if it wasn't for the trees. A 10 to 12 inch pine can be up to 400 years old. (not that the beetles left many of the real old trees alive)
There are literally thousands of springs bleeding out of the ground here which is why our meadows are so wet. Thre is basically nothing for a cow to eat in the timber.
 

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