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Windbreak Question, need your help

Thanks, Tap. Mr. FH agrees with you.
However, we are in a tough situation with the NW corner being the
low spot in the lot. We can't do much about it without a lot of work
somewhere because the people before us built the barn on the side
of a hill. "For drainage." Hah!! The upside of the hill drains water
right INTO the barn. It was a poor choice of where to put a barn.
The barn is located on the east side of the lot, on the highest part
of that area. The hill goes on to the east tho, and that is why
water drains right into the barn.

I think we might build on to a different barn and put our windbreak
there after reading all your suggestions. I think he will use the super
steel and place it a foot off the ground, making it 10' high in the air.
Tap, it looks like yours are put right close to the ground. What is
your reasoning for that, if you don't mind telling us.

Thank you all for your help. I knew we would have a lot to think about
after your replies. You've all been great!! THANK YOU~

Oops Lazy Ace, didn't see your post/pictures til I had this typed (got
interrupted in the middle of it). That looks very interesting.And the wind
just blows straight through the opening?

We are in pretty good shape for winter protection on the creek. It is just
around the lots where we have a problem. We've gotten by, but Mr. FH
tore out the flax bales/windbreak to try to find something better in this
particular place. He does have a dirt mountain in that lot that helps a
bunch. He could make it higher, but the cows get up on it and tromp it
down some. They sure do use it though~both cows and calves.
 
FH the wind and snow goes over the top. the openings face south west and north east. Even if the wind blows from that direction very little snow blows in unless it is a big storm. It is basically a shed with dirt walls and a hay roof.

have a cold one

lazy ace
 
Faster horses said:
I think he will use the super
steel and place it a foot off the ground, making it 10' high in the air.
Tap, it looks like yours are put right close to the ground. What is
your reasoning for that, if you don't mind telling us.
Click to expand...

I never liked an opening at the bottom,because it sure does let wind thru to keep it free of snow, but the wind is what I wanted to stop in the first place.

If the wind is blowing thru there, what good is it doing a calf who is trying to get out of the wind? :???:

I'd rather split the wind and keep an area free of snow and wind.

Can you change your lot in some way or you stuck to it? Doesn't sound like the best deal, and might be worth the cost and time to just eliminate the problem now and not have to fight it for the next bunch of years.
 
That is what we figured too, Jinglebob. We were thinking of building
a barn in a little different area, would be adding on to our horse
barn actually and it sure would be in a better spot. We could use
the big barn for machinery as we don't have a machinery shed.

Old as we are, we'd most likely be building it for someone else... :wink:
 
If you spot some big round bales out behind a solid windbreak they will stop a lot of the snow from landing in front of it. We've put old round straw bales north of pens to trap snow in the field instead of the corral, and they work pretty well, much the way a double row of trees works.
 
Faster horses said:
That is what we figured too, Jinglebob. We were thinking of building
a barn in a little different area, would be adding on to our horse
barn actually and it sure would be in a better spot. We could use
the big barn for machinery as we don't have a machinery shed.

Old as we are, we'd most likely be building it for someone else... :wink:
Click to expand...

Bet they will be glad you did it. :D
 
Some really nice ideas. You mentioned later calving. Hmmmm ,not such a bad idea. Why can't a cow -calf operator calf later and do all the finishing himself? Income would be the same and would average out for the price cycles. Shouldn't a cow be calving when the grass is at peak protien? I often thought about this when I would watch Does having their fawns.
If you finish cattle yourself it doesn't matter when they finish as the price will average out anyway. JMHO
 
It could be a wonderful idea, only thing is we don't have a big enough
ranch to carry the calves over.

And Mr. FH says when the calves come off the cows that's when
they start costing you money. So we sell them right off the cow.
Probably too old and set in our ways to change, even if we could.

I'm sure interested in others that are going to this way.
Know some that are in fact. May/June calving, AI'd to Red
Devons, whatever they are. Some cattle from New Zeland...
 
FH......Why not pick up some portable steel frame windbreaks; Set em wherever you need them throughout the winter and move them as your cattle move. You can change the layout whenever you need to with just a bit of front end loader work! Lot's of the winter swathgrazers up here are using them........our area just doesn't have much in the way of natural shelter.
 
I kno we are pushing calving back this year from Feb1st all the way to April 15th... Although we had two bull break outs for 2-3 hours each that might make that April 1st instead for a couple critters... I just got tired of the Feb. Snowstorms and windstorms.. -12, windblowing at 30 mph and dark from 5pm till 7 am or so is just not condusive to me having a good time. I noticed how much nicer it was towards the end of March for calving.. The only thing to worry about now is 1) mud but most of where I will calve is sand and as soon as the frost breaks we don't have serious mud problems for the most part 2) What the calves will weigh in the fall, maybe feeding them out is an idea and 3) Finding newborn calves in grass that is 3 feet tall...
 
You get a welder some oil fields pipe and some lumber and make them for yourself lol. Il Rancher when your newborns are in three feet of grass you don't have to 'find' them-just let your cows be cows it's amazing what problems a little benevolant neglect will cure. It's not what your calves weigh that makes you money it's how much income you have over expenses at least that's how they work it in Canada.
 
FH: A lot of portable windbreaks are either homebuilt or made in small welding shops, couldn't find a manufacturers website but you can use a google search under portable steel windbreaks. The Alberta gov. website has an excellent resource page on windbreaks showing different designs and efficiencies. Anyone that can weld and that has access to oilfield pipe can build these! Seems to me that they were asking $ 3-400 for 30 foot sections without the windboards. Hope this helps!
 
Oh... I don't need to find them for any other reason to tag them up.. We don't just run our own cows you see, there are 79 here that are my grand fathers and he wants them tagged with his own color tag so it is best I get them tagged. 45 days of calving next year compared to 100 days this year (Bought heifers that started 45 days before I was going to start calving... Yeah.. Fun spring/late winter).. I'm pretty laisez faire when it comes to my cow herd compared to some folks around this neck of the woods. Where corn is king folks think you should be feeding 5 pounds of shell corn 30 pounds of silage, 20 pounds oof ditillers and all the alfalfa hay a cow can eat.. Okay.. MAybe not those combos but I have heard some interesting ones... Illinois, land of the 1700 pound cows.



OT-> Three feet is nothing.. You should try running them in a sudex field.. 7 foot tall crap.. We did that one summer.. You could climb up onto a barn next to th field and see the paths they had carved.. IF you walked through the field it was like walking trough a jungle.. Never knew when you would turn a corner and than Boom, they are the cows.
 
FH:

You didn't AI those Red Devons to heifers did you?

FWIW, if you want the same type of beef cattle as the Red Devons, just go up to Myran Herefords in ND.

They will do you just as good.

Badlands
 
Better yet breed your black cows Hereford then breed those Baldies to South Devon bulls and come get some grid premiums. Our old Black South Devon bull we bought at Midland Test has done us real good. The funny thing about that bull was he was quiet as all get out but some of his daughters are a bit flighty.
 
Badlands, WE didn't breed anything to Red Devons. One of our
customers is going into the Grasslands Beef deal and HE AI'd all
of his cows to Red Devons.

What are they? How do they differ from South Devons?

He said the semen came out of New Zeland and was a pain because
it was all in metric.

This was promoted to him by the Grasslands Beef guy.
Now what the heck was his name...can't remember right at
the moment. I know some of you guys know who he is...
 
Aw, it's mostly hype, faster horses.

Sorry your customer got stung.

They are pretty decent to look at, but not unlike the old style Herefords.

I've seen some of these imports here in NY. They are OK, but nothing that sets the world on fire.

Basically, the South Devon is susposed to have some dairy influence about 100 years ago, not that it really matters too much.

These Red Devons are "pure" so they are better :wink: .

Seriously, though this Red Devon deal is about 98% hype. Just another English breed, but these NZ ones are really about the best representatives there are of the breed.

I've seen some steers here in NY by the NZ bulls, some nice, some crappy, just like every other breed. They were generally thick, generally solid cattle. Same goofy hip structure as South Devons. Not bad, just different. Choice on grass? Hardly. They had to run most of them over until after the 2nd Winter and they still didn't do it.


The bulls were still 2400-2800 pounds, so you tell me, are they really going to make choice on grass?

It's more about the sales pitch, than anything. Just like most purebred things.

The people most impressed by them are the ones with the least livestock experience, or with the most experience with the wrong kind of cattle, in my opinion.

Useful tools? Yes, they are. The only tools, or the best tools? No, they are not.

Badlands
 
Faster Horses what your saying is the semen was in 1/4 cc straws-we've run south devon bulls for years here-if you buy bulls that were developed out in the west side of the U'S' or Canada they are pretty well adapted-I doubt Badlands could sort our halfblood South Devon cows off our purebred Angus cows at any stage of their production cycle. The two bulls we use were raised in Kansas and in LodgeGrass Montana by the right honourablr Jim Brown-a fun guy for sure-The Red Devon grassfed deal is a bunch of hype I'm afraid. But as far as South Devons the right type-ranch raised work very well in a crossbreeding situation with angus or Hereford cattle. We run our cows as tough as anybody and they work well up here-well for last 14-15 years they have anyways. We breed our best black cows Angus or Hereford-our best baldie cows back Angus and the rest get A'I'ed to South Devon. Our Black Devon bull is by far the best footed bull of any breed I've seen -he was a cat in the breeding field.
 

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