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.)

Sale Time: A Year in the Making

The road to the cattle sale isn't covered just in the distance the semi travels as it leaves the farmstead and arrives at the sale barn.

For us, the road to the sale of our feeder cattle started more than a year ago, when the 2015 calf crop was being born on the County Line in February and March. We have been caring for them ever since.

Photo taken in late January 2015

Last week, we sold 72 feeder calves at Pratt Livestock. Ours were among the more than 6,600 head sold last Thursday (March 3).

From cowboy hats to ballcaps, buyers and sellers mingle in seats reminiscent of an old school gym. Cattle buyers are identified by their cell phones pressed close to their ears, as they talked with clients who needed cattle. They were on their phones as much as teenage girls ... really!

Buyers nervously watched the board to see how much each particular pen of cattle brought, as the auctioneer sang his tune about "fussy and fancy heifers" and "green steers."

"You like 'em now," the auctioneer warbled.

 

"Look at the length on them, and their bigger sisters are coming right behind them."

Our steers averaged 808 pounds apiece and sold for an average of $1.58 per pound. Our heifers, which weighed an average of 678, sold for an average of $1.54 a pound. That was way down from last year, when cattle prices were above the $2 per pound mark. Can you think of anything besides farm prices that go down rather than up? Yeah, me neither.

Though they didn't weigh as much as last year, Randy was pleased with the 2-pound-a-day rate of gain since they were weaned from their mothers last November. 

 

We sold 72 head and kept 25 of our 2015 calf crop at home to become our next new mamas. These heifers will give us the first glimpse of our 2017 calf crop next January and February.

It was a long day at the sale. We got to the sale barn just after 10:30 AM. It was 8:30 before our last group of steers were sold.  I had brought a library book, but I finished it mid-afternoon. I ended up buying a paperback in Pratt to pass the time for the rest of the day.

There was one big bonus to leaving after dark. The semis played ring-around-the-rosey in the sale barn parking lot, creating a colorful light show.

The sale ends one chapter on the County Line,  but the next one has already begun with a new crop of 2016 calves.

Shopping for Steers

Some people like shopping in malls. Others prefer the online world of commerce.

And a couple of 4-Hers liked the merchandise at the County Line.

Even though our own kids have "graduated" from the 4-H program, we still help out our local 4-H program. Randy is the beef project leader for the Corn Valley 4-H Club, the club we spent a dozen years serving as community leaders.

The Dealy family has gotten several bucket calves from us. The last one was a twin that Aubrey took home in February, and then showed at the Stafford County Fair. But the boys have also purchased bucket calves when they were younger.

In other years, they've taken the calves back home and used them for market steers or breeding beef the following year.

But this year, they wanted a couple of feeder calves for John and Jesse. Randy had written down possible contenders when we worked cattle in November.

They flipped for the first chance to choose. (There were more than the ones in the photo above. The photographer was late to the "party.")

John got first choice. We'll see if his pick pays off at fair time.

They ran the cattle through the chute so Randy could get a halter on them. The calves had been given their shots in November when the veterinarian was here.

Before the Dealys took the calves home, Randy went by the Zenith Co-op to get a weight on the scales.


By averaging the load, he estimated that each calf weighed about 650 pounds. They'll have to weigh a minimum of 1,000 pounds to go through the auction ring at the Stafford County Fair in mid-July.

The reason for the halters became apparent once the calves were at their new home at the Dealys. John and Jesse have been used to working with cattle they'd raised from the time they were bucket calves.

They discovered that these new inhabitants of their corral were not as accustomed to life around humans.

But, with a lot of work before fair time, they'll get them convinced otherwise.

The whole cattle selection process brought back a lot of memories for this old 4-H mom and dad. I pulled a couple of pages from Jill and Brent's 4-H books. It looks like I just interchanged kids with the one shot.

The Dad stayed put and we shuffled a different 4-Her in! In the record book, Jill wrote:

"During Thanksgiving break, I chose my market steer from about 50 my dad, brother and I had sorted from my dad's herd. We put a halter and an ear tag in before taking the steers down to their new home, where we could work with them."

Those photos were from 1999.

The photos below were from the year before. Jill wrote:

"This was the first year I didn't use my bucket calf from the previous year. We sorted twice because one went over the fence. That wasn't the one we chose."

She appears to be laying down the law to Midnight while they had him in the chute.

And I guess it worked. The photo at the bottom of the page was taken in December, and he was perfectly content to let Jill lead him around only a month later or so.

Let's hope the Dealys have the same results.