The view from the ground

[grassfarmer]

SADIE commented on it looking white from the air in my part of the country. Here is what it looks like from the ground on my place - yikes it's April 24th!! When will there be grass growing, frost out of the ground, crops seeded? New territory for me - how many other areas are in the same boat?
<a href="http://s481.photobucket.com/albums/rr175/ieaitken/?action=view&current=Dirt.jpg" target="_blank"></a>
It must be melting somewhere cos this banked grass is under water instead of under snow.

[per]

GF you have it bad. Half of my place is down to deep drifts in the draws, the other half is still white but I don't think it is as deep as yours. Water everywhere.

[SADIE]

GF and those with this type of snow cover. I send out a concern now on what to watch for with your cow-calf cattle operation.

We have dry groung, and the cattle our out of the corrals. The fields --had water but is already dry. We are very very fortunate ----I will take some pictures today but again my thoughts and concerns go our to you people.

From years of veterinary practice. Keep watching your calves. I hope you vaccinated your cows last winter for the scour vaccine to set up immunity in a calving season like this.

Calf Pneumonia and scours go hand in hand. Often you see just 2 week old calves ---Dead---with no real scour problem yet.

My old standby in a spring like this is antibiotic like Trivetrin(borgal) and 2 calf span. From experience make sure you use (lube) on those big pills and take care when you give them orally to those calves---don't ram them over the back of the tongue because of potential rupture of the esophageus ---Dead Calf.

Calf span gives you 5 days protection.

Newer medicine is the Nuflor injectable but again from experience do not overdose this product. Too much Nuflor will shut down the intestinal flora and again dead calf.

Chalice might step in and comment on what he likes to use.

Just a heads up to those producers when the weather and grounds look like your pictures Grassy.

[ALLFARMER]

Well here in the great white north 85% of our snow is gone. The creek has slowed down, my yard and corrals are 75% dry. Township 104

Nearly finished building 500 feet of new steel bunk fence. Just need the ground to unthaw to install. Found 2 7/8 drill stem for $30 2 3/8 $25 great deal

Trying to find 50 more Black or bwf heifers for $950

Cheers!

[T.N.T.]

Allfarmer here's a start,i seen them on kijiji this morning.
http://saskatoon.kijiji.ca/c-pets-livestock-for-sale-25-Black-Angus-Cross-Heifers-For-Sale-W0QQAdIdZ276587528

[grassfarmer]

Thanks for the advice SADIE but I'm not too concerned about the animal health impact more the growing season ones. I'd be more concerned if I had to pump all that s@#% into my cattle. We have a few hilltops sc****d off and the cows are high and dry there for calving and feeding. We don't have many, if any, problems with calves as long as we can minimize stress and they really aren't stressed at the moment. It's not cold or snowing, the sun is shining and the mothers are in good shape with adequate milk.

[kato]

Two weeks ago the snow here was two feet deep on the level. Now we're down to snowbanks in the bush, and water water everywhere.

GF, that snow will be gone before you know it. The biggest part of our snow took only a couple of days to disappear.

[grassfarmer]

You could be right Kato - checking cows tonight and water was running everywhere. We probably melted more snow today than we have in the last two weeks. It looks like we are going to have water in places we don't usually get it and some grass is going to be under water instead of under snow. Oh well I suppose that's progress!

[gaucho]

Looking at your fields GF it reminds me of our 2007 spring up here in the Peace. We had that kind of snow mid April and so we spent a little money clearing snow off the top of the hills to get the spring calving started.....I thought what a waste of money & diesel fuel, we rectified the issue by holding the bulls back another 2 weeks. What scares me the most about reading this thread is having one guy come out and recommend half his vet chest and reading about another guy supporting steal town with 500 feet of bunks. Allfarmer you make me laugh, on one hand you had to sell your cows so you could buy land that is all trees and now you are buying steel and heifers... one will rust and the other requires you waiting another 20 months before you see an inkling of a return. Keep that up and you will never see a return in ranching. Running cows is not rocket science, however keeping it simple is just to complicated for many.

[SADIE]

gaucho & grassfarmer.

Running a veterinary practice for 20 years in a large ranching country you have to have supplies when the clientelle need it. We are dealing with spring calves here and things happen very rapidly and in a herd situation. We learnt to order supplies related to weather in the area.

When one has calves on the ground and running around and see lots of snow-fall we just made sure we had "Calf span" on hand. The problem is not when tthere is snow on the ground but as it melts and the dries up---there is a lag time.

year of 93-94 there was a huge shortage fof Calf-span across North America. Those that looked ahead picked up on the product because it stores well and long dating. When the spring hit they were flying into Consort, driving for 2 -3 hours to pick up the product.

Your "scraping off the hilltops" very good management move and you are very right--that is the way to do it.

Special areas has been noted to get mid-to late May snow storms. That is when those ranchers calve. When those spring snowstorms hit and the sun dries things up that is when you see "herd-problems" and if they are not treated quickly I have see some tearfull experiences to some of those ranchers.

I hope it never happens to others.

[jensend]

strange, strange year. we had carrots fresh out of the garden yesterday. some that didn't get dug last fall got snowed on so early that the ground didn't freeze and the ones my wife brought in hadn't been frozen in the ground.

[Kathy]

Strange weather is partly due to the AHoles who are "modifying" our weather patterns. Chem trails do exist, and when I get a bit more organized I will put some of my pictures on this site.

I keep a journal and mark down each day that we see the planes spraying. We take alot of pictures! For example, today (Monday April 25) they are spraying chemicals over us, yesterday they didn't. The day before, Saturday, April 23/11, the sky was full of them - right into the evening.

Prof. David Keith (in Calgary) is working on this "geo-engineering" because they (our aka Gods on earth) need to save us from the boogey-man called Global Warming - or so THEY say.

David Keith UofC - http://people.ucalgary.ca/~keith/Geoengineering.html

Bill Gates Funding Geoengineering Research READ THIS:
http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/01/bill-gates-fund.html
(and if you are naive enough to believe that no field research has been or IS BEING conducted, go back to sleep).

[kato]

When I worked at the vet clinic, a local "expert", who goes around making money giving lectures on low cost cattle raising came in and gave us a good stern lecture on how his cows are taking care of themselves, and costing less to care for, and all the stuff that goes with it.

A week later, in the middle of May, he was the subject of a newspaper story about how a late snowstorm had caused him to lose about fifteen or twenty calves. This was pre-BSE, so it was a good big loss.

I also remember a very large herd of pasture calving cows that managed to have an outbreak of coccidiosis in their calves. These people had a hired man who literally lived on the quad, and treated calves from morning to night. It was his full time job for three weeks. It was all he did. I don't know how many calves they ended up losing, but it was significant. They also used a truckload of those Calfspans, Sadie. ;-)

Which goes to prove "never say never", and it never hurts to be prepared to stop a wreck. Wrecks do happen, and they are expensive.

We've found that pasture calving does have less problems, but when they do happen, they are usually bigger problems. Everyone has to design a system that works for them. We'd love to go the less labour intensive route, but in our situation, it just doesn't work. So we take the bits and pieces of it, and apply them where we can.

[SADIE]

Thankyou Kato.

Gaucho---I put in 20 great years in beef cow calf practice where the clientelle were all great knowledgeable cattlemen. Herds averaging about 300 head up to 2400 head. I remember that I had about 1000 items in my "CHEST" to offer, sell my clientelle. I am now a cow-calf operator and do not sell any piece of medicine at all. I often are in conversations on what about this therapy and what about that. The best and most consistent piece of advice in spring time to the cow-calf operator is to have 1 bottle of 100 ml Trivetrin (borgal) and 1 box of calfspan (50s) on hand at all times. The calfspan doesn't outdate, keep it dry and the pills last forever. Damp or drop the box you got a mess.

Do not give this to newborn calves other than the 5 mls of Trivetrin. Trivetrin and 2 calf span is often given when we kick the pairs out to bigger areas.

Branding time, calves on the cradle if there is "loose" , black tarry or blood have a box close at hand also.

PFRA pasture managers like this combo also for 2-3 month calves on pasture.

All calves use "lub" on the pills so that you don't wreck the throats.
Often see a couple dead---3 -4 weeks old --big bull calves--pasturella pnuemonia but look at the rest---loose manure treat with protocal mentioned and you are out of the wreck.

These two drugs are very mild on these animals. The nuflor, resflor are also very good, more expensive but I say with caution do not overdose at all these products because they kill the "gut" flora. I have done that by mistake--trying to treat aggressively in a bit of a wreck.

Agriville is about sharing knowledge---I hope this helps someone somewhere sometime.

[SADIE]

we are 60 miles south of Saskatoon west of Gardiner Dam. Very happy to see spring this year. Thinking of all of you that are facing wet and snow melt to come <a href="http://s1138.photobucket.com/albums/n523/kphaber/?action=view&current=008-2.jpg" target="_blank"></a>yet.