This past breeding season instead of AI’ing anything I turned out two bulls and let them go to work in hopes that they would get the cows that had been AI’d in the past and not stuck caught back up. And that leads me to yesterday when I finally got time to have the vet come and preg checking cows. I never saw either bull breed a cow all summer long but they sure did the job and they did it well. They got the cows settled ahead of last years schedule just as I had hoped. Now maybe we can try to AI some again next year without the fear of having them calve too late.
The other thing that I did yesterday for the first time was got a weight on all of the cows in the herd. Which wasn’t really that hard considering there are only 12 cows in my herd and 7 in Max’s. What was really surprising was how much bigger these cows were then I had thought. It’s not really a big deal as they maintain themselves on grass extremely well but where it kicks you in the ass is when treating them if they get sick. The vet said that what I was doing before didn’t hurt them at all but from now on the treatments will work much better. Hopefully I will be able to save some money and not have to give as many treatments as before.
The last thing that was a big surprise yesterday was how much a rubber mat really will effect the accuracy of a scale. In the show barn when I had gotten a weight on Max’s bull Grind and he had weighed in at 943 lbs. That wasn’t bad and I could sure live with it but then once I got him on the scale with it on the concrete I couldn’t have been much more pleased… ol’ Grind pushed the scales down at 1010 lbs. I can’t wait to get some new pictures of this rascal to let y’all see him! Joe Rickabaugh with the AHA came to the farm to screen cattle for the Iowa Beef Expo Sale and he sure took a liking to Grind and Serena, he is going to take my July Horned Bull as well… we always need more big bulls in the sale!
