When Cows are too good at their job....

[Blaithin]

#5 would make a nice replacement............. only if she wasn’t so “horny” 😉

Quite a nice bunch for sharing their mommas.

Woodland I hope you peak in to read this.

I sold 1, 2, 4, & 5 to the same guy that buys calves from me every year. He picked them up in June so they’d have been 15 months at that point in time.

He’s now saying #5 is a bull.

Now obviously we didn’t band it, since we thought it was a heifer 😂

I can’t find any photos to confirm she’s really a dangly he. I can’t think I’d miss danglers for 15 months, even if there was confusion at birth. Since you said you think she’d make a nice replacement I figured I’d pick on you for obviously misjudging it as a heifer as well! Haha

Here’s the photo again.


I’m highly skeptical. The photos of the bull he’s sending aren’t clearly the same animal.

[woodland]

Woodland I hope you peak in to read this.

I sold 1, 2, 4, & 5 to the same guy that buys calves from me every year. He picked them up in June so they’d have been 15 months at that point in time.

He’s now saying #5 is a bull.

Now obviously we didn’t band it, since we thought it was a heifer 😂

I can’t find any photos to confirm she’s really a dangly he. I can’t think I’d miss danglers for 15 months, even if there was confusion at birth. Since you said you think she’d make a nice replacement I figured I’d pick on you for obviously misjudging it as a heifer as well! Haha

Here’s the photo again.


I’m highly skeptical. The photos of the bull he’s sending aren’t clearly the same animal.

A flip of the tail would tell for sure😉
I’ve been wrong on this count twice before. My cousin who used to be a vet was preg testing heifers for us stuck his arm in a critter and promptly looked up and asked us who the wise azz was. We never noticed there was a steer in the bunch but he did.

A different time we had a vet out ultrasounding and there was a steer in the bunch but we left him in as a test. He got called open but never got noticed otherwise. 😉

We tag heifers in the left ear and steers in the right to make sorting easier now. Shouldn’t the buyer have noticed earlier and be happy to have a male instead of a female? Last I checked the male accessory package adds at least a crisp brown hundy bill to the value………….

I told our cattle broker last year that our heifers now identify as steers since they’re tired of being discriminated against………….. He laughed and the inequality still continues 😎

Good luck with your “warranty claim”🍀

[Blaithin]

He doesn’t seem mad about it. But I did mention he should get the heifers aborted and the balls taken care of or they're going to be having a calving season next spring. (He said he was jumping everyone all summer but has been quiet for a couple months 😂)

These are the photos he’s sent me. I really can’t say I’m convinced that’s the same animal but he says he has none there that aren’t mine. I don’t tag and in no other pictures does it look like he’s dehorned or tagged anybody else so I don’t know how my horned, tagless heifer has turned into a tagged, polled, bull, who suspiciously looks like he has a rib brand in a photo. Plus that calf sure gained a lot in 4 months! What growth.





If he were to start putting up a stink I’d just go down and physically look at it and see instead of rely on photos. I was more curious because I felt bad that we missed a nut banding or something. Now it seems such a stretch I’m not feeling so guilty haha

[shtferbrains]

Might be a neighbor's bull.

[Blaithin]

Might be a neighbor's bull.

Could be. He says there’s only been the 8 animals he bought from me though so timing would have to be for the heifer to run away and the bull to show up. Which probably isn’t that impossible 😂

Guess if a neighbour shows up sometime soon looking for a bull with a mystery horny heifer… lol You’d think someone would miss a bull before 3.5 months passed.

[woodland]

Funny…….. your picture has a white mark on the top of the head but his is solid red……………

I think he’s confuzzled or musical yearlings played a switcharoo……….

[Blaithin]

Drew blood for preg checks on Tuesday. Got results back Wednesday. Nothing surprising although wish we’d been wrong about Gwen 😂 She was getting some action on the weekend so I’ll test her again in the next run.

[GDR]

I didnt realize anybody preg checks with blood tests. How pricey is that? Will the vets sell you the tubes or do they have to draw it? Must be easier than getting them to pee on a stick!

Always seems to be the favorite ones that end up open. The wild crazy cows never seem to earn their trip to town.

[Blaithin]

I didnt realize anybody preg checks with blood tests. How pricey is that? Will the vets sell you the tubes or do they have to draw it? Must be easier than getting them to pee on a stick!

Always seems to be the favorite ones that end up open. The wild crazy cows never seem to earn their trip to town.

$4.50 a sample plus shipping. This round was $28 and $18 for express. Think the vet charges $20 a head plus mileage so it works out for me. Even she didn’t fault it 😂

They sell me the tubes and needles, or sometimes just give them to me if I don’t need much and the right person is working. I draw the blood myself. Not the quickest but it works. Have never asked the lab but lots of times they’ll send out the supplies as well.

[Blaithin]

So this year I decided to try something new. A couple of factors came into play, one being I was burnt out at work and had no more interest coming in on days off so needed a reason not too 😂 and two, the Brits I follow always talk about their contractors. Contractors for harvest, for shearing, for lambing, for scanning, for everything! Well if they hire contractors, maybe some farms here will too.

So I made up a flyer in the fall saying I’d help with processing, weaning, shipping, etc.

No bites.

Then a friend said he’d hire me during calving.

So I tweaked the flyer to offer calving respite in January. Since then I’ve been on multiple farms, in good weather and that horrid cold shit, and now just perpetual fog. I’ve covered for holidays, birthdays, bull sales and just been an extra hand along with the family.

It’s been a lot of fun and interesting seeing how different farms do things. Never seen anyone give a cow rompun before! Had some pulls, had some no sucks, got compliments on my “eye” for calvers and illness, washed some tractors haha All around good experience.

I’ve decided to use the money to take an ultrasound course and fund an ultrasound machine so I can add that to my repertoire. As such I was checking out grants under the new sustainable CAP. Apparently you need to make at least 25,000 a year to qualify for any of those so they aren’t nearly as helpful for true small farms as they think 😂😂 The fella says I just need to get one of the farms to apply for me hah

Here’s a collection of some of the photos. The black farms have been having the fun black cow adventures. Hence the rompun.

[Blaithin]

[shtferbrains]

Healthy looking calves in well bedded pens.
Is that corn stalks in the first pic?

[Blaithin]

Healthy looking calves in well bedded pens.
Is that corn stalks in the first pic?

Wood chips. They swapped their entire barn to them this year. The bigger ones in the photo are for the calving pens and then smaller ones like bagged shavings for the holding pen. They found they didn’t like how calves got caught up in the small ones being born.

The barn smelled wonderful and they were very easy to clean. General wet spot cleaning, poop, and afterbirth hauled out, top dressed with new as needed.

I really liked it. Definitely avoided the slimey straw you start to get.

[woodland]

Blaithin too bad you weren’t closer as you’d be welcome to come play with the cows and ultrasound here anytime. Not many folks want to deal with critters let alone when the weather is far from perfect.

Very cool. Hopefully you’ll let us tag along on any other journeys you take. 🍀

Today is our start date according to the calendar and just hit 15% done. Had a set of twins today and I don’t have an empty cow to put one on which is a good problem to have.

Couldn’t ask for nicer weather for these little guys except if the wind could just disappear. 😎

[Blaithin]

I don’t think you’re THAT far away from me, but maybe. I’ve gave myself an hour range because if someone is mean and says they want me there at 7 am I don’t want to be leaving the house before 6 😂😂 It’s not that I’m unwilling to drive a bit farther though, I don’t mind a nice day trip and time spent working cows.

This weather is definitely much better than the February stuff. People don’t even need my help now, cows are on their own here Lol

One of my nurse cows calved last week. Her foster calf came from the last farm I was working at. Her own calf surprised us by being grey (and super cute!)