Yesterday was a five hour adrenaline rush! After a week of fencing containment paddocks and wiring new electric lines on those fences, as well as setting up gates and panels---we were ready for pushing the entire herd through the squeeze shoot and dispersing them into the winter paddocks. It was a grueling process.
Dear Farmer's job is to look over every bovine that comes in the shoot. Are they healthy? Do they need a tag in the ear? Male or female? Castrate if needed. Dear Farmer shouts out the number of the animal and color tag to the Wife, who writes down everything Dear Farmer observed on that animal and the tag. The tags are color organized. Yellow tags mean: organic female, Blue tags mean: organic male, and White tags mean: non-organic breeding stock.
The Wife's other job is to pray for safety for Dear Farmer as he stands behind a bull and castrates. It can get hairy(no pun intended). Here we don't use knives for castration, so there's no shots, no knock-out drugs, and no second chances. We use a Calbrate Bander, the most amazing device known to farmers and well worth the money spent!!! It's a thousand times more humane as well!
And we castrate while the animals are on green grass, so there's no fear of infection because there's no messes!
The Farmer's Daughter runs the herd through the containment in into the shoot. She had quite a time getting those little calves to do what she wanted. But she was patient and used her knowledge of "energy" well. "Energy" isn't a new-age concept. It's the force of your emotions and the positioning of your body that drives and animal to do what you want. Sheep herders use "energy" when training their dogs.
Along with the Housefrau Farmer's Daughter keeping all the little people out of the way, and the Whiz Bang!Farmer's Daughter running back and forth from the Wife to the house for miscellaneous supplies-we had four other farmhands helping out. Including the VeggieMan, the ChickenGuys, our Model Friend and the HerbGuru. They aren't usually working the cattle with us, but they did a great job filling the gaps.
In the past we have had Dear Farmer run over and stepped on, Dear Farmer kicked, Dear Farmer's Daughter kicked, people thrown, panels and gates beaten by angry cows, people fleeing over fences, and paperwork pooped on. This year we had none of it! God heard the prayers of the Wife!!!
There's quite an adrenaline rush when working with cattle. It's such a big animal, and we are such little people! There's people "whooping" and "whistling"! The occasional yelling to a body to move one direction or another. It's easy to see why cowboys do what they do, it's fun! But at the end of the day...when the count was in...112 head of cattle...there's the largest sense of accomplishment. It's like, no matter how bad Dear Farmer's body hurt, it was all worth it. Everyone was safe, no one got hurt. 112 Head of cattle grazing contently in a field is a beautiful sight.
Showing posts with label cowboys. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cowboys. Show all posts
Friday, October 9, 2015
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
When you separate the bulls from the steers...Observation from The Wife
Dear Farmer and the Farm-boy Trio love to talk "manly". You know, "man"-things? The Wife doesn't know all the specifics of "manly" conversations, but there's a lot of grunting and elbow jabbing. Usually someone has to spit...very "manly".
Dear Farmer has a friend, Don-Cowboy, who is very manly. He was an active US Army Ranger, no longer active duty, but always a Ranger. He and Dear Farmer have "manly" conversations. There is no place for the "faint-of-heart" in their farm-talk. We have had Don-Cowboy and other Cowboys here to help us move cattle, but this time it was just Don-Cowboy who was helping us cut the bulls from the steers for breeding season. Don-Cowboy is very sure of himself as he rides his horse around these thousand-plus pound bulls, and smaller steers. The steers run around, and are skittish. The bulls just walk. Don-Cowboy's not messing around, he's on a mission, he's focused. The Farm-boy Trio all looks up at Don-Cowboy as a man they respect.
Dear Farmer put it very well to them, "Boys", he said, "This isn't a big deal for Don-Cowboy, 'cause he's just "bull" telling those bulls what they're all gonna go do. Because Don-Cowboy doesn't yell and scream at them, they have no problem following him. He isn't afraid of them, he respects them and the danger in this job. Don-Cowboy's showing them this job is going to be done his way. Your actions speak louder than your words."
The Wife concludes: in the end of all "manly" conversations, that must be what separates the bulls from the steers...when your actions line up with the words you would speak. Your actions will be heard louder than your words.
Dear Farmer has a friend, Don-Cowboy, who is very manly. He was an active US Army Ranger, no longer active duty, but always a Ranger. He and Dear Farmer have "manly" conversations. There is no place for the "faint-of-heart" in their farm-talk. We have had Don-Cowboy and other Cowboys here to help us move cattle, but this time it was just Don-Cowboy who was helping us cut the bulls from the steers for breeding season. Don-Cowboy is very sure of himself as he rides his horse around these thousand-plus pound bulls, and smaller steers. The steers run around, and are skittish. The bulls just walk. Don-Cowboy's not messing around, he's on a mission, he's focused. The Farm-boy Trio all looks up at Don-Cowboy as a man they respect.
Dear Farmer put it very well to them, "Boys", he said, "This isn't a big deal for Don-Cowboy, 'cause he's just "bull" telling those bulls what they're all gonna go do. Because Don-Cowboy doesn't yell and scream at them, they have no problem following him. He isn't afraid of them, he respects them and the danger in this job. Don-Cowboy's showing them this job is going to be done his way. Your actions speak louder than your words."
The Wife concludes: in the end of all "manly" conversations, that must be what separates the bulls from the steers...when your actions line up with the words you would speak. Your actions will be heard louder than your words.
Wednesday, June 10, 2015
The Cowboys are coming!
The farm here is divided by a road. Not just any road, a commuter road. It makes life interesting.
Especially interesting when you need to move 80+ head of cattle from the east fields to the west fields for grazing. Guess what's between the east fields and west fields? If you said, the road, you got it!
Usually Dear Farmer lets down the electric line and claps his hands and says,"Come on, ladies! Let's go!", and all the cows follow him. But it's a little more hairy when you have an open road that you need the cows to cross before they get to the next field. Who knows what one cow could decide to do?!
The eldest Farmer's Daughter works at a stable where cowboys board their horses. When the cowboys found that Dear Farmer had cows, they were all excited. They were thrilled when Dear Farmer said they could ride their horses among the herd, but their faces really lit up when Dear Farmer started talking about moving the herd across the road. All the possibilities of anything going wrong, all parties thought, could be solved if there were cowboys on horseback. Aside from the great picture it makes(the Farmer's Daughter takes magnificent ones) it's actually very practical. When a cow and a horse are together, the cow naturally will move away from the horse. The horse is usually taller and more "in charge" than the cow. (We are not talking about rodeos.) When a person ON a horse is among the cows, they will pretty much walk wherever they are told. We move the cattle nice and slow (you don't want your meat running all day, makes for a tough steak) especially across the road, that's perfect. Two cowboys flank the cows and stop traffic...and wow! You should see traffic stop for a cowboy on a horse in the middle of the road! Those cars don't even question or try to move around. One cowboy moves the cattle across from behind and Dear Farmer stands in the front of the cows(on the other side of the road) clapping his hands and saying, "Come on, ladies! Let's go!" It's definitely a team effort! So far, everyone's doing the job great. The Cowboys are happy. Dear Farmer is happy. And everything has gone fine.
Now when we prepare to move the herd across the road, we hear a little person excitedly shout, "The Cowboys are coming!" And they do.
Especially interesting when you need to move 80+ head of cattle from the east fields to the west fields for grazing. Guess what's between the east fields and west fields? If you said, the road, you got it!
Usually Dear Farmer lets down the electric line and claps his hands and says,"Come on, ladies! Let's go!", and all the cows follow him. But it's a little more hairy when you have an open road that you need the cows to cross before they get to the next field. Who knows what one cow could decide to do?!
The eldest Farmer's Daughter works at a stable where cowboys board their horses. When the cowboys found that Dear Farmer had cows, they were all excited. They were thrilled when Dear Farmer said they could ride their horses among the herd, but their faces really lit up when Dear Farmer started talking about moving the herd across the road. All the possibilities of anything going wrong, all parties thought, could be solved if there were cowboys on horseback. Aside from the great picture it makes(the Farmer's Daughter takes magnificent ones) it's actually very practical. When a cow and a horse are together, the cow naturally will move away from the horse. The horse is usually taller and more "in charge" than the cow. (We are not talking about rodeos.) When a person ON a horse is among the cows, they will pretty much walk wherever they are told. We move the cattle nice and slow (you don't want your meat running all day, makes for a tough steak) especially across the road, that's perfect. Two cowboys flank the cows and stop traffic...and wow! You should see traffic stop for a cowboy on a horse in the middle of the road! Those cars don't even question or try to move around. One cowboy moves the cattle across from behind and Dear Farmer stands in the front of the cows(on the other side of the road) clapping his hands and saying, "Come on, ladies! Let's go!" It's definitely a team effort! So far, everyone's doing the job great. The Cowboys are happy. Dear Farmer is happy. And everything has gone fine.
Now when we prepare to move the herd across the road, we hear a little person excitedly shout, "The Cowboys are coming!" And they do.
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