Friday Crop Report on A Thursday.

[fjlip]

It costs money to learn

Just as long as we make more $$ when we win. That's why most of us still doing this career, you won a few.

[Happytrails]

The cattle are usually right side up but the golf game goes sideways a lot lol.

[woodland]

Quote button still missing...........

I heard of a bad situation one town over. A woman let a cow out of the barn for water, had calved the day before. Cow came charging back in when she realized her calf wasn't with her and smashed the woman up pretty bad. Stars flew her to saskatoon with a cracked skull among other things. Heard she is back to a local hospital, so I guess she must be improving. Aparently it was a quiet cow that just snapped.

End quote.......

We pack a baseball bat as backup and never turn your back on a cow. I know too many people messed up by cows.


Built this last year as a safer way to tag. Best part is it takes half the time and less stress on man and beast. Paid for the new quad and catcher in one year with time savings.

First thing the kids learned about cows is the bad ones become meatballs. Life’s too short for **** like that. Costs more to keep wild ones around anyway.

Hope your neighbour recovers well. 🍀

[WiltonRanch]

The meatheads get culled but a few always get through. The ones that make noise aren’t near as dangerous as the silent ones. They’re out to hurt rather than protect their babies. Seen a wild charolais bull come into the yards once. So bloody strong and miserable he was popping every gate we could shut. We all took turns running in front to lure him into the sale ring. Had charolais all my life and thought they weren’t that bad.

[burnt]

Don't think any breed is exempt from the occasional nutcase. Had a line of Simmies some years ago that came from a maternal line that produced terrific calves. All the rest were docile.

We were breeding quite a few to Antonius at the time, but not sure if it was calves from him that turned very grouchy at calving, or if it was the maternal side. I remember one time in the calving pen when a young cow came at me right over the calf. I remember panicking a bit when suddenly my back was against a post...

Thankfully, she decided at that point to turn back to her calf. I'd say she was more protective than crazy, but that family line got shipped over time.

Had an absolutely insane x-bred yellow heifer one time that just mashed her newborn calf into the ground, screaming so loudly I could hear her from the house. When I went to intervene, she chased me over the electric fence. I eventually got the calf yanked under the fence, which worked for about 15 seconds before the snot-slinging momma cleared the fence to continue our close company. She had me going in very tight circles around an 8" poplar tree.

I got kinda tired of that game and let her go back to beating on the calf while I headed to the house to get something sugary. I had read that a bucket of warm sugar water will help get them back in balance, so I found a jug of fairly old maple syrup and dumped a couple of liters of it it into the warm water.

Took it out to the field and set it down a short piece from her; she stopped her crazy act long enough to come over and explore. Took a lick and then scarfed the whole thing down.

The change was immediate - in about 15 - 20 minutes she stopped trying to kill the world and became almost normally protective, but at least not insane. It turned out okay, but she had a short stay on this place. Cuz, you know, maple syrup ain't cheap.

[burnt]

Here's a piece I wrote a few years back when BSE was still strangling us -

Changing Perspective
As calving season creeps upon us again, I am reminded of how aging changes things. No more races with hormone-charged momma cows, since I’ve become clumsier, slower and it seems I’m out of shape. Although my wife reassured me that I’m not, since round is a shape. But an incident in the calving pasture the other spring showed just how far this regression has progressed.

The new-born calf lay right next to the woodlot. I pulled it under the fence, away from its momma, and trussed it up with a piggin’ string to make the tagging job easier. But a sloppy tying job allowed it to kick free and it headed back to Bossie. I hauled it back and tied it up right this time, before retrieving the doctor bucket from the four-wheeler in the pasture. However, by now momma was getting upset with the commotion. She was my biggest cow, and although a gentle giant, the protective side was beginning to show. I'm backing away toward the four-wheeler to grab the bucket with her following me with quiet intensity.

That year we started out really dry but 3" of rain in the first week of May plus heat makes for really tall, thick, grass.

Back to the cow. Not to worry, I thought, she won't hurt me. That's when my feet tangled in a grassy tussock, tipping me over onto my back with the cow’s face completely blocking my view of the sky. I suddenly understood author James Herriot's phrase about an involuntary evacuation of the bowels. From 12" away her breath is hot in my face when I start to roll toward the fence a few yards away. My wife’s words now made sense since my shape was suddenly to my advantage - something round rolls easier than something flat! I made it under the wire and the cow didn’t.

But when I stood up I realized that my glasses were gone. I'm lost without my specs. So, all the long grass and dandelions made it plain to see that I was still in trouble. Guessing at where I lost them, I slowly started feeling hand over hand through the grass for glasses. Never before knew that every dandelion stem resembles the arm of my glasses. The puzzled momma just watched, not really sure of what she was seeing either.

Hey, here they are! So with shaking hands I pull them out of the grass and try them on. Man, the world looks blurry. There’s cow poop on them. They don't fit anymore. They have a strange, cow-hoof shape to them. Could start a new fad, I thought - weird shaped glasses for that perfect, twisted outlook on life!

I bend them back into a wearable shape, try them on again and it's still blurry. So another look shows that one lens is missing. That would half explain the blurry. Oh man, that's bad news! These specs cost me more than a calf was worth when I bought them a couple of years ago. But the lens was lost in the long grass. One could clearly see that looking for it was a tough job for someone who had good vision let alone someone half-blind.

The calf got processed, returned to momma and I watched them amble out of sight. Resembling Colonel Klink from Hogan’s Heroes, I headed for the house at half throttle and found an old, usable pair of glasses. And until my new ones came in, I learned to take another look at things - like how at my age, tangling with a cross momma cow is a bigger challenge than I need. Have you seen any younger guys out there who want this job?

[GALAXIE500]

I have been tagging our calves the day they have been born , every year since 2004. I always have a chasing stick of some sort along with the tagging pliers. I know my cows , and the cows know me. I also know when to not tag a calf when the mother is too protective. It does help when you are around them all the time. Culling the bad ones out of the herd with bad disposition is something we never feel guilty about in our operation.

That's what replacement heifers are for.

Happy Easter to all!

[SASKFARMER]

Happy Easter Everyone.