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Weather: Slow warming trend follows the steady and uncomfortable SW winds.
(BW-1 for cows and LS-5 for calves): No moves. Calves still getting straw along with daily hay consumption. Cutting back to 4 straw bales for cows. Beef Pro consumption has gone up for the calves and down for the calves. Ending month Livestock Inventory: Bred cows: 300 Bulls: 15 (I lame bull will likely be butchered) Open (grass finishing cows for Mannix): 40 (3 butcher cows for February). Heifer yearlings: 159 Steer Yearlings: 173 Death loss: 3 calves
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Weather: SW winds pick up in the night bringing ‘sort of’ warmer weather.
(BW-1 for cows and LS-5 for calves): No moves. Keeping waters open and feeding daily straw and hay to calves, and up substitute straw feeding to cows with 8 bales. I had an important and productive meeting with Roland and Ryan White to begin Milton Ranch succession strategy from Crossroads to Snaplands for contracting service for monitoring and landscape management. Tentative dates are set for ‘monitoring workshop’ to orchestrate the transition between Ryan and Roland on July 31st and August 1. Weather: Wake to sub-zero again. Bitter NW winds pick up in the morning, then calming by late afternoon.
(BW-1 for cows and LS-5 for calves): Surprisingly, despite all the cover in LS-5, the general northwest facing slope of the entire paddock made the calves susceptible to the bitter winds from the same direction and pushed them clear back to the east fence toward the corrals. I had to draw them back to water with their daily hay and straw. Even with the adjusted light continuous flows into the stock tanks from a valve separate from the float itself, breaking ice to open tanks was tough with some ice over 4” thick. Cows stayed put on grass in BW-1. Weather: Sub-zero returns and brings with it about 3 to 4 inches of snow-thankfully mostly calm winds.
(BW-1 for cows and LS-5 for calves): Everybody stays put. Calves need reminding with hay location where the new water tank is. Offer 9 bales of straw to cows thought they seemed happy grazing and never came to water. Weather: Winds leave, calm returns, and a wet light snow falls all day.
(BW-5-1 for cows and LS-7-5 for calves): We drop cows into BW-1 along the creek by mid-morning. A little rush to get all the border fence tight, yet by evening all located and contained. Calves didn’t float into LS-5 as I had thought they would but veered back to a previous paddock. I led them into hay paddock with the hay truck after I moved cows. Good place to be for the snow and the cold soon to join us. Weather: Warmer wind out of the NW moved up a notch to ‘are you kidding level’. Knocked out power but back again again by morning.
(BW- 5 for cows and LS-7 for calves): One last split in 5 with cows. Fed calves in lot to minimize wind loss. I opened LS-5 (169 ac) end of afternoon letting calves into the trees in preparation for the cold snap coming. We will see how it works tomorrow. Plan to drop cows down on to the creek in BW-1 (438 acres) which takes in the county road-many splits ahead. Good protection and easy to feed straw off the road if necessary. Weather: Clouds and a raw wind persist all day.
(BW- 5 for cows and LS-7 for calves): Calves make their own split and break out to the west and trees-I was a little loose with the heat. All back in and fence is hot. When yearlings break out Katy bar the door. Cows move to next split midday. Cows are chill and calves are something else. Opening new grass. Watching the cows cross over. Is this harmony? Weather: Cool, cloudy, and blustery with light flurry to close the day.
(BW-6 to 5 for cows and LS-7 for calves): Calves move to next split, and cows move 2 times in BW-5. Subtracting the days on straw in BW-6, the cow mob took 3264 Ads/204 acres = 16 Ads with 9 splits. Cows are at 19 days on full feed straw- We planned for about 30. Weather: Just cold enough to be uncomfortable.
(BW-6 for cows and LS-7 for calves): Cows stay put and calves move to next split. Weather: Colder and more wind with a light skiff of snow near bedtime.
(BW-6 for cows and LS-7 for calves): One move for the calves in LS-7 and two splits for cows. Almost done with BW-6. The stockpiled feed in BW is a disappointment. Length of recovery time-even over a year-does not guarantee a robust response if that recovery period has limited growing opportunity. |
Bill Milton
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