Orange "Earrings" and Vision Tests

I had one of those peripheral vision tests at the eye doctor a week ago. As a firstborn with test anxiety, I absolutely hate those blinking lights and the pressure to click my little signaling button at the correct times. 

"Did I miss one?" "Why is there so much time between blinks?" "Am I going BLIND?"

I have horrible eyesight: It's -6 in the right eye and -7.5 in the left - whatever that means. In real life, it means that my glasses are the first thing I put on in the morning and the last thing that hit the bedside table at night.

I had a vision test of another kind last week, too. It was just as difficult. It involved trying to pick out little orange "earrings" on feeder calves while they were moving. I didn't take any photos of the sorting process that day. As Randy says, I was a little busy at the time. But I found a photo I took from the feed truck which demonstrates what a challenge this eye test can be. 

Here' a better look at the tag from a different sorting event several years ago. 

Last week, we gathered the feeder calves so we could sort the heifers (girls) from the steers.

 

We've been feeding them silage and hay since we weaned them from their mothers last fall.

Once we had the 95 calves up in the sorting pen, our mission was to sort the heifers with the calfhood vaccination tags from the steers and the unbanded heifers.

Easier said than done. It's not easy for people with good vision to see the orange tag on the right ear. It definitely raises the level of difficulty for someone with poor vision like me!

We retain 25 heifers which were calfhood vaccinated last fall as replacement heifers for our herd. The heifers will have their first babies next January/February 2022. The heifers without the calfhood vaccinations and the steers made a trip to the Pratt Livestock sale barn last week.

To sort, we keep running the calves into smaller corrals. Randy and I were the sorters. Our neighbor, Todd, ran the gate in case one - or more - got past us. Besides the fact that the orange tags are pretty tiny on a 650-pound animal, it seems they further complicate the task by turning their rear ends toward us instead of facing forward. They also have their winter hair, which sometimes makes it hard to see their orange vaccination band on hairy ears, especially at a glance.

Last November, Dr. Bruce Figger came to the County Line to help us work calves that had been born last winter. As heifers came through the chute, Randy would decide whether or not it was one he would potentially want to add to our herd. If she was in good body condition and had good confirmation. Dr. Bruce would give her a calfhood vaccination.

The vaccination  prevents brucellosis, also known as "bangs." This disease causes abortion or premature calving. The vaccination must be performed by an accredited veterinarian, in compliance with state and national regulations.
Dr. Bruce uses a device to "tattoo" the animal to show it had received the brucellosis vaccination. Then he used green ink to mark the tattoo.

The orange "bands" help identify the calves who've been calfhood vaccinated. Most of these heifers become part of our cow-calf herd and will have their first calves in 2022 as 2 year olds. 

After sorting, the 25 heifers were sent into a separate lot, and the remainder went back to the pasture until Wednesday morning, when the semi truck arrived to take them to the sale barn. 

Selling cattle always puts a smile on the farmer's face.

 

 (I was smiling for a different reason. We didn't have to complete this task the previous week - when it was -14F. And I wasn't the one having to back the semi up!)

Though we have two farm-sized cattle trailers, it would take several trips to get all the cattle to the sale barn. So we hired Darrel Harner Trucking to do our hauling to market.

The semi is divided into different compartments, which can hold anywhere from two head to 25 head of cattle. Darrel told us how many calves he wanted at a time to load the semi, and we sent them on their way.

We met Darrel and the cattle at the Pratt Livestock sale barn for the unloading.

With semis and small trailers coming into the sale barn yards, it was like a traffic jam - country style.

 

The sale barn personnel count the cattle as they come off the truck.

After they're unloaded, the cattle are put into different lots to await sale day.

Last Thursday, the Pratt sale barn had some 4,200 cattle go through the auction ring. Ours were among them.

The price on feeder calves is down some. But it's still a good feeling to get a paycheck for all the work.

We sold 27 heifers (average weight of 614 pounds each) and 43 steers (average weight 734 pounds each.) 

January 2020 - 2nd calf born in 2020.

It's an end to a year-long journey, which began with their birth last winter. There were plenty of chapters to the story between then and now ...

... from working calves on our 39th wedding anniversary (note the ear tag number) ...

 ... to sorting, loading and transporting the calves and their moms to summer pasture ...

 ... to gathering and bringing them back home again in the fall ....

... working them again ... (missed photos of that this year) ...

 

... and feeding them every day since then - rain, snow or shine.

 

Au revoir to much of the Class of 2020! (We're still feeding and watering the replacement heifers and all the other cows until we move them to summer pasture in May.)

Sold! (On a Very Cold Day)

My husband is a glass-half-full kind of guy. It's a good quality in a farmer ... and a husband.

Last Thursday morning, with the temperature around 0-degrees F and a wind chill dipping even lower, we were on our way to the Pratt Livestock sale barn to sell feeder calves. We drove past trees and fences draped with the sleet that had fallen the night before amidst crashes of thunder and flashes of lightning that sounded more like spring than winter. The thin layer of ice on the county roads had us slipping and sliding a few times. I kept worrying about whether cattle buyers would even show up. It was the coldest sale day Randy can remember, and he's been doing this since high school.

And in the midst of my concerned musings, Randy said, "Well, at least they have buyers on the internet these days!" Yep, like I said, he's an eternal optimist. For the record, some buyers showed up in person, too. Maybe they preferred the warmth of the sale barn arena to being out scouting for cattle in a feedlot somewhere.

 

Compared to 2018, the price was down about 10 cents per pound. Our calves were a little lighter in weight than last year, too. With the colder and wetter weather, they didn't gain quite as well.

But the 70 feeder calves we sold averaged $1.45 a pound.

It takes only minutes for our cattle to go through the ring and have the auctioneer declare, "Sold!" But the journey with this crop of feeder calves didn't start and end on one day in February. The calves were born on the County Line more than a year ago, and we have been caring for them ever since.

First calf of the Class of 2018

Last March, we ran the babies through the working chute, making the bull calves into steers and getting them ready to go to pasture.

 

Calves born to heifers already had ear tags, but the ones born to older cows got their ear tags and their first round of vaccinations as they went through the chute.

 

In May, we moved the Class of 2018 and their mamas to summer pastures ...

Some went to the Rattlesnake pasture, where our family has had cattle for more than 100 years.

Others went to the Ninnescah pasture.

 

 They stayed at their appointed pastures all summer with their moms.

Then, in November, we brought them back closer to the farm. We were two weeks behind schedule because of muddy conditions.

After they arrived home from the pastures, they were weaned from their moms.

Like wellness checks for humans, the calves had a doctor's appointment, too. Dr. Figger gave them another round of vaccinations.

 

We fed them silage, grain and hay until we shipped them to the sale barn.

Back in November, Dr. Figger calfhood vaccinated the females that would potentially be kept for breeding. (More on calfhood vaccinations at the County Line can be found in this previous blog post.)

Then, last week, we sorted the steers from the heifers. Once we had the females in one place, Randy chose the 25 heifers he wanted to keep. Another 26 went to the sale barn, along with 44 steers.

He treated the heifers we retained with a lice control pour-on before sending them back out to the pasture to keep eating silage, hay and grain. They'll be there until it's time to go to summer pasture once again in May. They'll be first-time mothers in 2020.

The remaining females and the steers went through the sale barn on February 7. They were among some 2,500 head of cattle sold at Pratt Livestock that day.

The sale ends one chapter. (And we've since paid off an operating loan with the proceeds, so the bank is happy, too.)

First calf of 2019

The next chapter has already begun with a new crop of 2019 calves. 

And the journey continues. It may only take a few minutes for cattle to go through the sale ring. But it represents a lifetime of work.

 

Brrrr! It Was a Cold Day for a Cattle Round-Up

I needed a "defrost" mode for my glasses yesterday morning.
A defrost for my legs wouldn't have hurt either.

The cattle defrosted on their own during their semi ride to Pratt Livestock. Today, we'll sell 70 feeder calves, along with a baby calf whose mother has a cancer eye. 

All of us - humans and animals alike - were seeing our breath during the cold morning roundup before the semi arrived to transport the calves.

After several attempts, the cattle finally decided to go down the lane toward the corrals. Of course, on a cold morning with freezing drizzle sticking to my glasses, they couldn't do it the first time. It was a brisk 4-wheeler ride ... with no time to shoot photos.

In the photo above, you can see a straggling calf struggling through the mud. I looked up last year's post as we prepared to ship cattle. There's quite a contrast.

Last year, we'd had no moisture at all beginning in the fall and continuing until early spring. We were choking on the dust down the lane and in the cattle lots. This year, we are still waterlogged from the 14+ inches of rain that fell in October. There's no way a 4-wheeler could go down the lane.

And it was a whole lot chillier this year, as evidenced by the freezing drizzle that stuck to the cattle's hides.

I guarantee I was colder than they were.

Ours was the second load of the day for Darrel Harner Trucking out of Sylvia.

Once Darrel got the trailer backed up to the loading chute, it was time to send the feeders on their way. These were calves that were born in January and February of last year - 2018. After we weaned them in November, we've been feeding them silage and hay.

On Monday, we sorted off 25 heifers that will become first-time mothers in the County Line herd in 2020. The steers and the remaining heifers went to Pratt Livestock. Cattle buyers will purchase them for feedlots, where they will go until they are big enough to be harvested for meat. Let's hope the sub-zero wind chills and slick roads don't keep the cattle buyers away today!

Loading the truck is kind of like a jigsaw puzzle. The trucker tells us how many head of cattle he wants in each group, somewhere between 7 and 12, depending on where they'll go in the cattle trailer. And we send them up the chute and into the truck.

It was a foggy trip to the sale barn.

When it was time our turn to unload, Darrel backed up the semi to the sale barn's chute.

 

An employee there counted the calves as they came off the truck.

Since Darrel started his day in Fredonia and the roads were a little slick, we had a little time between the cattle round-up and the semi's arrival.

I may have needed a defroster on my glasses, but the scenery was undeniably pretty.

 Stark ... but beautiful.

 The CRP grasses caught the icy frost as aptly as the cattle's hide.

 So did a dried flower at Peace Creek Cemetery.

A chain on the working chute provided another canvas for the clinging ice.

Today is even colder, with wind chills below zero. I'm glad the round-up was yesterday and we can spend the day in the relative warmth of the sale barn arena. It's never toasty warm, but it's better than a 4-wheeler ride!