Sowing Oats - But Not the Wild Kind!

We sowed oats around here last week. But don't you get the wrong idea. There were no wild oats being sown.

 

Instead, Randy planted oats in an old alfalfa field. He used the disc to lightly break up the soil and to kill volunteer cheat and other weeds. Then, he planted the oats, using the same drill we use to plant wheat. Disking up the alfalfa wouldn't be a "normal" thing to do. But it's an old field, and this is its last "hurrah." It will be disked up after we harvest the oats/alfalfa combination.

It should provide a mixture of alfalfa and oats that we can bale up for cattle feed this summer.

We planted 2 bushels of oats per acre. A bushel of oats only weighs 32 pounds, compared to 60 pounds per bushel of wheat.

We hadn't planted any oats for quite some time. There's not a big market for oats in our area. We can't haul them to the grain elevator. But they will provide good feed for our cattle.

These are "haying" oats vs. "grain" oats. These will get taller than other varieties.

It will take a rain to get the oats started. (Of course, we need a rain on everything!)

Randy didn't apply any fertilizer as he drilled the oats. He wasn't concerned with grain yield, and it would have been an added expense.

A couple of cattle got a "head start" on the feed value of the oats. When the guys cleaned out the planter after planting, the cattle we plan to harvest for meat for our freezer got the "leftovers."

As much as we'd like a rain now, you don't want a rain after the oats are swathed. The oats are even more temperamental than alfalfa or sudan for spoilage.

Just like with every other crop, it seems, time will tell. (I like that tired cliche better than the wild oats one - ha!)

Noisy Neighbors

When Jill & Eric lived in Omaha, their downstairs neighbors complained that they were loud. At the time, they were at work during the day. They didn't have a  5 year old or 2 year old running or jumping or dancing. I guess they walked too loudly. (I think that downstairs neighbor had an unrealistic view of apartment living, but it's not like I'm an expert on that particular subject.)

We, on the other hand, have had some really noisy neighbors this winter. The shrieking and racket were enough to give anyone a headache. (Watching the video may give you motion sickness, too. I've never claimed to be a videographer.)

Several weeks ago, we got multiple phone calls a day from hunters who wanted to invite themselves to the geese's party. Our land is leased to hunters already. And, at that time, the snow geese were feeding on a neighbor's milo stalks, so they weren't on our ground anyway. On the day I recorded the video, an out-of-state pickup was also watching the ballet of the swirling, twirling cloud of geese.

For the past week, we've again had geese on some wheat ground, both morning and night.

 

Every time I go by, I honk and shout to send them on their way. Hungry geese can decimate a wheat field fairly quickly. No Kansas wheat farmer wants to provide a never-ending buffet for tens of thousands of geese.

Some of the trespassers weren't phased by my attempts to shoo them away.

Last evening, Randy started running toward them, clapping his hands to try to get them to move.

They listened just about like stubborn 2-year-old toddlers, but they finally took off with a little encouragement from the farmer.

Every time I run them off, I figure they are laughing at me. They probably circle back the minute I drive on down the road, but I still do my farm wife duty in the moment.

 

This past week, the geese have been joined by bigger "cousins," sandhill cranes. They have been using our neighbor's milo stalks as a feeding ground. 

These itinerant neighbors are even noisier than the geese!

(I don't have a fancy camera, so the photos aren't great, but I still thought the story was worth sharing.)

Sale Day 2017: Years 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.

No. 601 would have been the 2nd baby born to the Class of 2016.

For us, the road to the sale of our feeder cattle started more than a year ago, when the 2016 calf crop was being born on the County Line in January,  February and March. We have been caring for them ever since.

But, in reality, the story started long before that. The feeder calves' mothers are part of our County Line cow-calf herd. Randy began building the herd back in 1970, when he was a freshmen in high school.

Randy and his first 4-H heifer.

So, in many ways, the story stretches back to a young boy who grew up on a farm and knew he wanted to continue the family business. 

Last week, we sold 75 feeder calves at Pratt Livestock. Ours were among the more than 6,000 head sold last Thursday (March 2).

As I watched the video from the sale, I tried to pick out eartags I could identify. Then, I looked in my photo files from last winter to see if I could see some of them as babies. I saw both 605 and 606 in the March 2016 photos, as well as the sale barn video.

They looked a whole lot smaller when we let them back with their mothers after we worked them last March.

Then, this past summer, they were in our pastures - along with their mamas.

With winter about to arrive, we pulled them off the pastures in November. Dr. David Harder came and helped us work the calves.

Here was No. 601 when it went through the chute in November. After their doctor's appointments, we weaned them from their mamas, and they became our feeder calves.

 The guys fed them silage and hay this winter. Last Tuesday, we sorted off 25 heifers to join our cow-calf herd. They will become County Line mothers for the first time in 2018.

On Thursday, Randy and I joined the crowd at the sale barn. 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.

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."

The commentary rarely changes from year to year. Neither does a rather archaic tradition in which only the farmer/rancher is identified as the owner. Randy made it a point this year to show me the notes he was turning into the sale barn. It included both our names, along with vaccinations and paternal heritage of the calves. It probably bothers me more than it should!

Our heifers averaged 693 pounds and sold for an average of $1.22 per pound. The steers, which averaged 808 pounds, sold for an average of $1.29 a pound. (A little price comparison: In 2016, our steers averaged exactly the same - 808 pounds, but sold for an average of $1.58 per pound. Our 2016 heifers, which weighed an average of 678, sold for an average of $1.54 a pound. So, the price went down. In 2015, cattle prices were above the $2 per pound mark. Can you think of anything besides farm commodity prices that go down rather than up? Yeah, me neither.)

Randy was pleased with the 2-pound-plus-a-day rate of gain since they were weaned from their mothers last November. 

 

It was a long enough day that I almost finished my library book. (I did on the way home.) We got to the sale barn just after 10 AM. It was around 4:30 before our last group of steers were sold, and there was a lot of sale still to come as we drove away. 

 

The sale ends one chapter on the County Line,  but the next one has already begun with a new crop of 2017 calves. Some of the girls will become our 2019 mothers. And so it continues ...

While at the sale barn for hours, you find your amusements where you can. Both Randy and I laughed at this flier:

Regardless of your political leanings, that is creative marketing, don't you think?

2017: To Market, To Market

Who's the guy with the big smile? It's the guy who has cattle going to the sale, that's who!

On Wednesday morning, Darrel Harner Trucking came to the County Line to load our feeder calves for their trip to the Pratt Livestock sale barn. On Tuesday, we had sorted the calves we planned to sell from the 25 heifers we will keep at home to add to our cow-calf herd.

Though we have two farm-sized cattle trailers, it would take several trips to get all the cattle to the sale barn, so we hire Darrel Harner Trucking to haul them in one semi.

The semi is divided into different compartments, which can hold anywhere from six head to 25 head of cattle. Darrel would tell us how many he wanted at a time, and the guys would send that many into the truck.

The cattle go single file up a loading chute and into the semi.

Once they were all loaded, the semi pulled out for the trip to Pratt Livestock.   

Some years, they haven't all fit on the semi, so we've had to haul one farm trailer load to Pratt.

 

But this year, with all the cattle on the truck, I requested a few extra photo opportunities. (Big surprise, right?!)

I wanted to get a photo of the truck going down Main Street of Stafford.  

Randy wanted me to get one of the semi going by the bank. (You can see the bank sign on the right in the photo above.) Once we get the sale barn check, it goes directly to the bank to help pay down our operating loan.This picture is the very definition of irony!

We still beat the semi to the sale barn with a little cross-country driving!

 

Once the semi arrived, the sale barn workers helped Darrel back it up to the unloading chute.

 

The cattle came off the truck into a pen. 

 

Once they were all unloaded, the sale barn workers sorted our cattle by sex and size and put them into different pens where they had water and feed until sale time. There are lots of pens throughout the sale barn facility. Each sellers' cattle are kept separate.

Next up on the blog: Sale day!

Out of Sorts

 

Sock sorting is probably no one's favorite job. When there are several people in the family, there always seems to be a sock (or 3) without a mate - whether the dust bunnies under the bed "ate" them or the dryer devoured them. But at least the socks stay in one spot while you sort them. Sorting 700-plus-pound moving objects makes sock sorting seem like a vacation. Socks don't try to run you over!

Tuesday afternoon, we gathered the feeder calves so that we could sort the heifers from the steers. We've been feeding them silage and hay since we weaned them from their mothers last fall.

On Thursday, we will sell our feeder calves at the Pratt Livestock sale barn. We'll sell 75 calves and retain 25 heifers. As we began our sorting adventure, some of the calves were up in the lot lazing around, and others were out in a nearby pasture where we feed the silage and hay. But that was OK. It was a nice afternoon for a 4-wheeler ride.

Well, it was nice until we had to eat their dust.

We could use a rain. (But, then again, we sometimes can't go through the lane on the 4-wheeler, so I guess it saved a step. Always try to find the positive!)

We keep running them into smaller corrals to make it easier to sort them.

Randy and I were the sorters. And since they are not stationary socks, Ricky ran the gate, in case one - or more - got past us. Yes, that happened.

I always want to know the "plan" or the goal. This time, we wanted to find the calves that had been calfhood vaccinated. Last November, Dr. David Harder came to the County Line to help us work calves that had been born last winter. As heifers (girl calves) 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. Harder 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. Harder 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 will become part of our cow-calf herd and will have their first calves in 2018 as 2 year olds.

After we got the feeder calves corralled on Tuesday afternoon, Randy and I looked for those bands. It's not always easy to see when the calves are milling around. (And it seems they like to turn 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 their hairy ears, especially at a glance.

We sent steers out into another lot, since they will head to the sale barn later this morning. We kept 25 heifers to join the County Line herd. Their sisters will also make the trip to Pratt on a semi this morning.

As long as these 25 ladies keep breeding and having quality calves, they'll likely be County Line residents for 8 to 10 years.

More on the semi loading and the day at the sale barn to come!