Cold weather

[grassfarmer]

My European body is feeling the chill these last few days. It was -42C here this morning which was a degree warmer than yesterday - damn cold! I was musing to myself yesterday how happy my Luing cattle were - not so many derogatory comments about hairy cattle when it's like this. I'm sure my bull doesn't wish he was wearing one of those fashionable, black, sleek coats that are all the rage!
A young neighbour has been calving for two weeks now - in the corrals but with no heated barn ......bbrrrrr!
Keep warm everyone.

[cakadu]

I am so thankful we decided not to lamb in Jan/Feb anymore (or at least until things improve a whole lot). Even though the ewes do not lamb during the night, daytime lambing at these temperatures can be brutal as 5 lbs of soaking wet lamb doesn't take long to freeze when it is like this.

Even though our hair sheep come from the Caribbean, they are remarkably well suited to this climate and have adapted since their first ancestors were brought over here many years ago. Can't say the same for the shepherd, even though she has lived here all of her life.

Contending with frozen water pipes at the moment which should perhaps be thawed when it warms up sometime over the weekend. Biggest challenge is finding water for that morning heart-starter aka coffee.

Still, it could be worse, so will be grateful that there haven't been bits that have frozen off.

Still, there is no saying what I might do for a cup of hot chocolate right about now. Cheers all and here's looking forward to the chinook.

[whiteface]

Sorry to hear about your pipes, Linda. I had two stock waterers frozen in this weather this morning. Will also be thankful for warmer weather.
I've got calves too, grassfarmer. I have a barn (not heated but a dozen cows warms it nicely) and a calving camera to save myself a few trips out at night. I feel for your neighbor and his poor calves in this cold, but really, we have no way of predicting cold weather in Alberta. For at least the last few years, I've been real lucky with January calving and some of my neighbors have been caught in some horrid March and April weather. We just never know. Got up to -22 here today!! Yippee! Felt like a heat wave in comparison to the previous two days. Hope for no frozen waterers (or anything else!) tommorrow. Have a good night all!

[whiteface]

Last year I had frozen waterers, frozen valves in the well during the cold snap the end of January. I replaced two of the waterers and put a heat lamp down the well this week, so knock on wood everything is working as it should !!!
I have calved in -45 before, and without a heated barn too, but it sure meant living out with the cows and making sure the ones that looked close were in the barn and then getting anything that was born under a heat lamp and dried off. Won't start calving until around March 1 this year, so hopefully it isn't like this.
The forecast for the early part of next week sounds a lot better, so I guess we can live with the cold for another day or so.

[gopher]

grassfarmer - it was -43 here in the sunny south with a wind chill of -54. We chatted awhile back about your waterers and insulating them. After this cold spell I wondered how you made out - no freeze ups I hope. Touch wood mine are still working. This morning the ole john deere did'nt start so the cows did'nt get fed until after lunch. It was plugged in but being so cold the fuel jelled. I thought I had winter fuel but I must of ordered fuel to early in the fall and did'nt get the real stuff! The forcast is for a chinook on monday. Four years ago we moved our calving to late april & may
and never looked back since. I feel sorry for the outfits that are calving now with out the proper facilities - been there done that !!!

[grassfarmer]

gopher,
I've used my wooden covers on top of the waterers for these very cold nights. It means the water is pretty hot in the morning when you take them off but I'm guessing that it uses less power to heat one trough full of water than it does to keep an open one from freezing all night long with the winchills we've had. Next summer i'll maybe re-design them or try to modify them the way you suggested with the light bulbs. Only problem we have had with the cold is oil pipes on the bale processor - they are solid in the morning and take a while to warm up. Sprung a leak in one yesterday too but it's a cheap "made in Sask." bale processor and has had crappy pipes since the outset.
Whiteface, I'm a newcomer but can predict that the weather here won't permit for grass showing and positive temperatures between November and April. That's good enough reason for me not to calf in between.

[WoolyBear]

Question for Cakadu........How were you able to get you ewes to lamb during the day? Enquiring minds need to prepare before we start in a few weeks time! We will likely sleep with our parkas on if we have to lamb when its this cold next month.

We have had some luck getting our cows to calve during daylight hours by feeding later on in the afternoon, but thats in April and the days are longer and generally warmer.

[cowman]

In my opinion one of the most frustrating things is a frozen waterer! On top of that the cost of electricity to run them can be costly? If they ran full bore at 1500 watts it would cost you around 9 cents/hour? Or $2.16/day? Of course they don't run full bore but I expect they still average around a dollar/day?
I now have only one cattle waterer on the place and it is shut off and drained in October. I have two large corrals with one large tank(well insulated) with an old cast iron wood heater. The cows all drink out of flowing springs, the corrals are just for the yearlings. Takes about ten minutes every morning to start a good fire in the tank heater and keeps most of the tank ice free. The water source for this tank is a hydrant hooked up to a super well with a submersible pump that drains back down the well when it isn't pumping...thus no heat is required for a pressure system. I really hate paying the power companies any more than I have to!

[cswilson]

I calve in may and june but when cows were selling for a dime last spring we pregged our cull pen-the bulls were in with them all winter. I had 4 cows going to calve in Jan.-on Thursday nite my boy and I decided to sort them off when home from school Saturday. Went out yesterday and two had calved in -50-the yotes had one eaten but we saved one-to think i calved in the cold on purpose at one time-glad I got ver that foolishness lol.

[cswilson]

Cowman if your cows water by a spring do you have any way of keeping any manure buildup around the spring from getting into a creek ? I have several springs that run all winter but have never used them for winter watering due to the fact that they area adjacent to a creek. If there was a way to keep manure from getting into the spring or creek it would sure save money if I could shut two of the three waterers off.

[whiteface]

It actually amazes me that these waterers would work at all in these temperatures. Having come from the "warm" Fraser Valley where a temperature of -5 with 2 cm of snow completely shuts the place down, I'm still marvelled by the creations that people have come up with to keep their houses warm, their waterers working and calves alive in what seems to me to be just ghastly temperatures.
I agree with you totally, grassfarmer, while we sure can't predict a chinook or -40 on any regular basis, what we do know for sure in Alberta is not to count on having grass or above freezing temperatures for something like 11 months out of the year.
There are definatly some advantages to calving in warmer weather, just none of which really work for me with this purebred operation, so I tough it out. The two waterers that aren't working are on one of those "continous flow" systems (bear with me, remember, being from B.C. originally, I may not have all the lingo down pat) but the kind where the water flows into the one and then goes back down on it's way to the next one. What irritates me is if the first waterer in the line has any kind of mechanical mishap as mine does, the perfectly good and well behaved waterer(s) down the line have no prayer of working because the flow is stopped at the first one. That bugs me to no end. And the waterers problems may not be able to be corrected until it gets warm again. So I may go the rest of the winter with four less pens to use. Huge problem for me. Haven't checked 'em yet this morning (afriad to!) but keeping fingers crossed. Hope the rest of you are all free-flowing this morning. You too Linda! Have a good day all!

[greybeard]

We calve in mid February. We have a cold barn with 7 pens which is about right for a 2 bull herd. It’s hell if the weather goes against you and I feel for anyone calving these days. Two years ago in a strech of bad weather we had over 20 calves in there an brought the mothers thru in shifts like a dairy barn. We use a 250,000 BTU construction heater to blow dry the calves. I like it better than a hot box as the calf and cow aren’t separated. The calf can get up to suck when it’s ready. Sometimes it seems if you miss that one chance, it seems to take a lot of work. They only suck when they want to. The blow dryer really warms those cold calves up quick. Make sure you don’t set it to close or I expect you could cook them.
I expect lots of us are going to be running on a year-round calving schedule. It’s probably cheaper to take those to a bred cow sale and take our lumps. Those calves make the group look poor.
My old uncle says the best time to calve is after the mud ,but before the flys. Im working toward that.