Calendar Girl

 

This trio of calves was my March "centerfold" on this year's family birthday calendar.

It was one of my favorite baby calf photos of last year. And when family members were thumbing through the calendars at Christmastime, they invariably commented on these cute little faces. These portraits also ended up on notecards.

I'd been looking for "my little calendar girl" on the right this winter. With her unusual markings, I wanted to see how she looked now that she's all grown up. 

 

Here she is in the heifer lot earlier this winter, awaiting my daily delivery of silage to the bunks. 

And here she was in the working chute. On Tuesday, No. 87 - along with 24 of her "friends" - began the next step toward motherhood.  It had me singing Neil Sedaka's "Calendar Girl" in my head.

 

Calendar Girl 

by Neil Sedaka

I love, I love, I love my calendar girl

Yeah, sweet calendar girl

I love, I love, I love my calendar girl

Each and every day of the year

Babies are always special. My "baby" will turn 33 this year. (Not sure how that happened so fast.) And it's now been a decade since we first learned we'd be grandparents. 

(This was Kinley's first "photo" on Kim's County Line.)

So why is No. 87 the one who caught my eye? Her buddies were equally cute as babies. But her distinctive facial markings had me looking for her this winter - just to see if I could find her among the crowd at the bunks when I fed every day. (She didn't have the eartag when I took the photo, so I was trying to match facial features while running the auger on the feed truck, getting it positioned, etc.)

 

It's "birds and bees" time on our Kansas farm. On Tuesday, No. 87 and her fellow heifers went through the working chute in preparation for this season of "love," or, more accurately, lust.

As I wrote earlier this week, the bulls had their doctor's appointments with Veterinarian Bruce Figger to make sure they were ready to fulfill their job description here on the County Line. But the bulls aren't the only factor in the "birds and bees" of a Kansas cattleman. The heifers who will become first-time mothers next winter also have been getting some extra care.

Because they require some additional attention for calving, we want to get the first-time mothers to come into estrus (or heat) at the same time. It gets the heifers' reproductive cycles "in sync" to shorten the calving season for the heifers, which saves labor at calving time. (Well, it saves some labor for the humans - not the mama cows.) We check them frequently in case they are having trouble calving.

This year's OB/GYN candidates were born in early 2020. In 2022, they will become mothers for the first time. 

Beginning March 11, our 25 yearling heifers had their silage topped with MGA. MGA is melengestrol acetate, which suppresses the ovulation cycle for the heifers.

 

 For 14 days, Randy added the MGA to the silage and fed the equivalent of 1/2 a pound per head per day.

Then, on April 13, we ran the heifers through the working chute to give them a shot of of Lutalyse, which makes them come into heat.

Here's No. 87 as she's arriving for her "appointment."

They also get a vaccine to prevent respiratory issues and diarrhea when in the chute, but the Lutalyse is part of the "birds and bees" equation.

We also used a pour-on insecticide to guard against lice and other critters.

When I opened Facebook Wednesday morning, guess whose face was staring at me as a Facebook memory? Yep, it was my March calendar girl and friends. It was a year ago that I first published No. 87's photo on Kim's County Line with this blog post, Social Distancing in the Cattle Lot.

Out of curiosity, I looked to see if I recognized any other of the babies from that year-old blog post.

No. 80 (who looks like she was playing hide and seek on Tuesday) was also part of the 2020 blog post. Here she was a year ago:

March 2020

 And lo and behold, there was another one. No. 75 now ...

... and then.

March 2020

And here's No. 54 in March of last year, waiting her turn in the lane before entering the calf cradle working chute.

No. 50 - who was in the photo with No. 87 near the top of the post as they were waiting for breakfast - was also in the March 2020 "social distancing" post. (Look at those eye lashes!)

 

I knew I had a photo of No. 01, since she would have been the second calf born last year.

February 2020

It was a trip down memory lane. And it's one of the rewarding things about operating a cow-calf operation. The girl babies sometimes become part of our herd after they are all grown up. And we get to watch them have babies and continue the cycle as the years pass.

After their shots, we turned them out into the lot with the bulls where we let nature take its course, so to speak.  

"Hey, ladies! Welcome to the neighborhood!" a couple of the bulls appear to say.

Maybe they are finding their "calendar girl" right about now, too!

A New Hire at The County Line

Every day across corporate America, business people in pressed suits gather around conference tables for meetings. They gather to make decisions designed to advance their companies, to increase profits, perhaps, even to make a difference in the world.

Some may arrive after a subway ride. Others hopped on a train from a suburb to a towering skyscraper in a sea of tall buildings. Others may have grabbed a taxi or a Lyft or an Uber for their trip from Point A to Point B.

 

The meetings may look a little different in the middle of a Kansas farmstead. While those city commuters may be dodging people and traffic, the country meeting attendee may need to strategically avoid a cow pie or two after stepping out of their transportation for the day - a pickup hooked to a mud-splashed cattle trailer.

But the decisions made in those dirt lots also impact the future of businesses. Choosing a new "employee" requires research and making informed choices - whether in a boardroom or a straw-covered cattle lot.

Randy and I attended the Carcass Plus Bull Sale last Wednesday at Poland Angus Ranch near Isabel. Angus bulls from the Polands as well as CB Farms at Preston were offered for sale. 

Before we arrived, Randy had gone through the sales catalog, circling bulls that fit his criteria. He was looking for an Angus bull he could use for breeding to our heifers, who will be first-time mamas in 2020. So he was looking for a bull who would produce lower birth weight calves and calving ease characteristics.

As we walked through the lots, Randy referred to his sale catalog for the particulars and made notes on some of the animals he was interested in.

Ironically, the first bull I photographed that day was the one who eventually went home with us - Lot 12, aka PAR 613 Product 867.

It was one of those Randy had circled at home, but he wanted to look them over before the sale started. And we had to arrive in time for our dinner date. It was free if you don't count the price of the bull. That counts as free to a farmer - just like "free" caps when you buy a tractor (wink, wink).

Along with my barbecue beef sandwich, I chose a shamrock sugar cookie. A little luck is never a bad thing when it comes to bidding at an auction. 

Neither is bringing a book to pass the time between the lunch and the bidding. Randy read the catalog. I read my book.

This sale was a little different from the last two I've attended. Instead of bringing the bull into a sale ring, each appeared on television screens for bidding.

Here's Lot 12 during his time on the auction block. Here's what it said about him in the catalog:

This deep-sided 613 son has really good Wn (weaning) and Yr (yearling) ratios. Couple that with his top 15% for marbling, it makes him a really good prospect for siring high-marbling calves that will bring you a premium on the rail.

Though the bulls are getting the once over from interested buyers, it's not just a beauty contest, though correct conformation for each breed is one factor in the decision-making process. While Randy looks for bulls that produce smaller birth weight calves, he's also looking for those whose progeny have higher 205-day weaning weights and yearling weights.

Genetics should provide a progressive weaning weight and yearling weight. For Lot 12, the EPD - or expected progeny difference - at weaning is 57 pounds above the average Angus weight. The yearling weight EPD is 103 pounds above the average. Its numbers also ranked above average for meat marbling and ribeye area. He had good milk EPDs, which should make the females he sires good replacement mamas who will make plenty of milk for their calves.

This bull was born on Veteran's Day of 2017, so he's a little more a year old. He now weighs around 1,200 pounds.

For the past several years, we've used a Hereford bull with our heifers. But to add genetic diversity to our cattle herd, Randy opted for an Angus bull for the heifers for this upcoming breeding season. If you want to get all technical, it's a matter of heterosis, "the marked vigor or capacity for growth exhibited by crossbred animals," (according to the dictionary).

We paid $3,500 for him, minus a $50 discount for picking him up and hauling him ourselves on the day of the sale. 

Once we got him home, he strolled the entire perimeter of the lot to check out his new "digs."

Initially, he was by himself in the lot, but after he got out, Randy put another calf in the pen with him to keep him company. We hope that cures his loneliness and keeps him "home" and content until he begins his job this spring.