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We officially started feeding...5 1/2 months left to go

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Wyoming Wind

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Merna, WY
Well, the wind decided to blow (surprise, surprise) and made it hard for our cows to eat the grass left out in the meadows; and it turned 20 below zero too. They started to drop off fast and they all stood at the west gate ready to come home to hay.

As normal it was a pleasant ground blizzard but the old girls made the 4 miles home at a trot!

The girls were very happy by afternoon, laying in the sun on the hay!
At this point we were feeding with our old pickup but had to bounce over frozen turds otherwise we would get stuck in the snow. Our dogs looked forward to feeding our heifer calves twice a day!

We went and wrangled our belgians in on snowmobile so we could put them on hay; they knew it was getting to be that time of the year to be put back to work hauling hay.


We kept one team in to get them in shape; slapped our wheel team in the hitch yesterday and took the 4 up to our furthest haystack which is a 5 mile roundtrip.

I know i posted this picture before but I'll post it again. We technically have 5 1/2 months left of feeding hay; we will work 8 head pretty soon and come springtime/calving time we will put our slow but steady mares on a wagon. They deal with calves dumming around them really well, and bounce over the half froze turds nice and slow! Happy feeding everyone!
 
Nice pics!

Nothing likw bouncing around a 4 or 5 acre trap totally covered with frozen turds in an empty Ford F550 to shake your fillings loose, though!
 
It looks nice and chilly alright! Hasn't hit 0 yet here, our cows are still out and the river is running at a decent flow for once. Water is always our biggest issue on staying out.

Love the horse pictures, keep em coming :) Oh, happy feeding.
 
Yikes that is cold !
You sure live in beautiful country WW ,the view is absolutely gorgeous .

Great pics, thanks for sharing them. :D

Girls will be coming in this week too, the last melt made the hills like ski slopes . Sure was grateful for them to be out there this long after that long, cold, snowy winter ;really needed a feed break.

Best of luck with winter, hopefully Mother Nature will be kind to you this year . :tiphat:
 
Thanks for the wonderful pictures! Looks like you have a good bit of winter set in already. Feeding cows that way sure keeps you in touch with nature!
 
I really enjoyed looking at your pictures. What part of Wyoming are you in?
And the horses, well, the outside of a horse is good for the inside of a man
(or woman) :D . Sure liked seeing those big fellas running through the snow. Thanks for sharing.
 
Faster horses said:
I really enjoyed looking at your pictures. What part of Wyoming are you in?
And the horses, well, the outside of a horse is good for the inside of a man
(or woman) :D . Sure liked seeing those big fellas running through the snow. Thanks for sharing.
Click to expand...
We live in western Wyoming, about 70 miles south/southeast of Jackson Hole as a crow flies...we love our Belgians; best work horses we have ever had! Trying to find a nice stud to breed our 3 blondes to and raise a few more. Had my sis in law fall in front of the haysled this morning and land on the double trees. Our team of Dolly and George never even wiggled, or kicked, or jumped. They just stopped! And my sis in law was totally fine. Her head was inches from the front runner. These horses are WAY worth their weight in gold!!!!
 
Wyoming Wind said:
Faster horses said:
I really enjoyed looking at your pictures. What part of Wyoming are you in?
And the horses, well, the outside of a horse is good for the inside of a man
(or woman) :D . Sure liked seeing those big fellas running through the snow. Thanks for sharing.
Click to expand...
We live in western Wyoming, about 70 miles south/southeast of Jackson Hole as a crow flies...we love our Belgians; best work horses we have ever had! Trying to find a nice stud to breed our 3 blondes to and raise a few more. Had my sis in law fall in front of the haysled this morning and land on the double trees. Our team of Dolly and George never even wiggled, or kicked, or jumped. They just stopped! And my sis in law was totally fine. Her head was inches from the front runner. These horses are WAY worth their weight in gold!!!!
Click to expand...


:clap: :clap: :clap: :nod:

I would agree, totally.

When I was a small child my parents lived at Moran Junction.
I've always wanted to go to Jackson in the winter to ride the sled
when they feed the elk. Maybe this year!! (Do they still do that?)
 
Belgians will start every morning; then they get through. If we could figure out something on the heater??? I mean besides another coat........
 
love the pictures and the horses. We have been lucky to not have winter here yet. It has been cold like -10 F and the mornings but no snow. In fact I when down to our winter permit last Monday and there was more snow down there than at the home.
 
When I was a small child my parents lived at Moran Junction.
I've always wanted to go to Jackson in the winter to ride the sled
when they feed the elk. Maybe this year!! (Do they still do that?)[/quote

Faster Horses, yes they still do the sleigh rides up at the Natl' Elk Refuge. We have several elk feedgrounds around my area too; my cousin in law fed them for the past 5 years and we have usually gotten out to help him a few times a winter (and to look at all the elk we couldn't find during hunting season)! They are amazing to watch interact with one another! My husbands' family helped to settle the Moran area a long long time ago--if you remember the Moran cemetery, those are all his relatives! Did your family work for the park service or did you ranch up there? Beautiful area!
 
Wyoming Wind said:
When I was a small child my parents lived at Moran Junction.
I've always wanted to go to Jackson in the winter to ride the sled
when they feed the elk. Maybe this year!! (Do they still do that?)[/quote

Faster Horses, yes they still do the sleigh rides up at the Natl' Elk Refuge. We have several elk feedgrounds around my area too; my cousin in law fed them for the past 5 years and we have usually gotten out to help him a few times a winter (and to look at all the elk we couldn't find during hunting season)! They are amazing to watch interact with one another! My husbands' family helped to settle the Moran area a long long time ago--if you remember the Moran cemetery, those are all his relatives! Did your family work for the park service or did you ranch up there? Beautiful area!
Click to expand...

My father was always a heavy equipment operator, so I suspect he was
doing that at the time. My parents have both passed away now. I do
have some old pictures they bought years ago, 8x11 black and whites
of elk on the haystacks. I always was so intrigued with those old pictures.
I was too young when we lived there to remember much, but they always
talked about how beautiful it was!

We'll plan on a winter outing over there to ride the sleigh to feed the elk.
Would you have a contact number? And thanks!
 
absolutely beautiful pics. makes me feel like a wimp , we think it is miserable when we get down in the teens an twenties this time of year!!!!
 
Me and my cattle are all wimps in comparison.

I have enought barn space ( open to the south for good winter sun ) that all cattle can stay indoors if they chose, and if they do go out it is into a woods so very little wind. They have their choice of the creek for water ( about 100 yards ) or they can stay at the barn and drink +42F water from ritchie fountains. On the +40F days with rain most of the cattle stay dry all day and only go out when the rain stops.

When I feed I'm in a nice warm heated cab.

Sorry guys but I love it here!

Keep sending pictures of your life as I love seeing them but would only want to visit!
 
So how long do you normally feed til? Seems like we used to be able to turn out early april. Last few years it's been late April. My cousin in Mt. feeds way into May if not June.
 
Nicky said:
So how long do you normally feed til? Seems like we used to be able to turn out early april. Last few years it's been late April. My cousin in Mt. feeds way into May if not June.
Click to expand...
Nicky, we feed usually until the first of June; we live at an elevation of 7700 feet so the snow is here pretty late. And on the rare years that we don't have snow when we are calving in April and May it takes so long for the grass to grow. But when it grows, it grows! We finally get sick of pitching hay by the end of May; we kick the pairs out on spring pasture and it takes a week or two before they finally get a belly full of grass as it's pretty scarce! We are lucky though to run them on our forest allotment starting early July. 19,000 acres of great grass for about 400 pair! I wish we could be done feeding by April...!
 
Yeah, my cousin lives at about 6000 feet. Makes a big difference. Wish we had forest grass to go to!
 
I know i posted this picture before but I'll post it again. We technically have 5 1/2 months left of feeding hay; we will work 8 head pretty soon and come springtime/calving time we will put our slow but steady mares on a wagon. They deal with calves dumming around them really well, and bounce over the half froze turds nice and slow! Happy feeding everyone!
[/quote]

wyoming wind , just how long does it take to harness up and feed the 550 cow's you talk about. do you load the squares by hand? how do you handle or load the round's

was thinking about this on Christmas when i was trying to elude some of the hustle bustle :lol: :wink:
 
wyoming wind , just how long does it take to harness up and feed the 550 cow's you talk about. do you load the squares by hand? how do you handle or load the round's

was thinking about this on Christmas when i was trying to elude some of the hustle bustle :lol: :wink:[/quote]

Hayguy...we usually have 4 of us to catch, harness, and hook up 8 head, 2 a piece. We can usually be out of the barn in 20 minutes unless we get stuck bullsh**ing! All 8 head eat 4 bales of grass hay and a scoop of oats, pretty cheap considering how long it takes to plug a tractor in and then let it warm up and then use them all day. We head to the barn at 8am and are usually back by 11am---hauling out of our furthest haystack 3 miles down the flats. We load the squares (about 80 pounds) by hand with hay hooks; we love watching our teams start the loads! They really get into it! This will be our second year feeding round bales as well. You'll have to look at my pics on here, we have a piece of equipment locally called a Drewby (a modified gas "tractor" with a forklift) we leave at the haystack. Unless it gets real cold it usually fires easily---stop the team, load 3 bales per sled, and head to the herd. And do it several more times! Occasionally we have to haul hay across bare roads and it's pretty fun getting after the teams to start loping to make the hard pull. Before we got our wonderful Belgians we had some pretty crappy draft horses and our wheel horses would get in the lead bars all the time and off we would go having run away with us yelling WHOA! And usually it would take us pulling the team off the trail and getting them stuck to make them stop. Our Belgians are much less "exciting" and we like them that way!
 

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