|
Little change in weather. Tested 506 cows. Tested at 82% probably lowest the ranch has ever recorded. Why? Many potential causes to discuss: 1) last 3 months below average moisture, 2) June and July hopper impact, 3) More second cycle calves (35%) than last year, 4) the bred 2’s came out of Wyoming light, 5) More older cows that probably needed to be culled in 2019, 6) More intensive moves may have limited good feed intake for older and younger cows. More later on all of this, as well as, the need to explore how best to manage/market calves.
0 Comments
Mild drying conditions prevail. Trailed cows into corrals and locked in them in for the night in preparation for pregnancy testing tomorrow.
What is with this weather?? I will take it. Planned to truck bred 2’s to Todd Andersons to graze many acres of pasture cocktail, old grass, and stubble. Just too wet to load, and we all agreed to just trail them the 12 miles. Took about 7 hours. Much thank to Wade and Judy our horse wise neighbors for their key help. Great re-plan by everyone.
Melting continues through the night-October chinook. Ranch meeting focuses on response to water issue. By 9:30 both water issues were resolved quite unexpectedly and happily. Cell phone is found. Cows allowed to drift into SBW9-the long corridor to corrals. Nothing has unchanging self.
Warming and melting trend continues with strong SW winds. Fed out 8 bales to the pairs. Turning pretty sloppy by mid-day. We lose all water pressure in pipeline from West lackey well, as well as, storage pit to the south-likely our above surface line freezing-by late afternoon. I spend much of evening trying to detect the cause without success-drop cell phone somewhere in the process. Ryan continues work on developing water tank on Todd Andersons, where our 122 heifers will soon be shipped.
Cold drifting SW winds bringing predicted warmer weather. Clear skies and some melting begins. Cows remain in WL very dispersed.
Bitter cold follows with light snow lingering. Stir gathering cows into WL paddocks.
Storm arrives with a fury with bitter NNE winds and 6 to 8” of drifting snow. Cows were pushed from EL 7 through temporary fence at cell center up into timber. With the strong winds it was all we could do, with some trucked in hay from Ryan to lead cows out of the pine trees. We got animals located in WL5 and stable by the end of the day. Tough day. Hopefully we can straighten things out tomorrow. Will got his deer. He and Ryan saw some sage grouse up in the Timber in NNG-not a usual place to find them.
Cooling with more snow on the way. Moved all cows back into EL7 and a also fed 6 bales. On hay days water is not keeping up with demand, as cows have to wait to drink, which means calves are not getting enough. Hitting the ceiling on stocking rate. Also, due to complications with break outs and weather, there was no paddock splitting for EL6 and 7. Things are a little unstable for the moment.
A cold north wind and some snow blew in last night. A feed day but too wet to get to the cows. Also two morning and afternoon out zoom calls with Quivera’s New Agrarian Project.
|
Bill Milton
|
| Milton Ranch LLC | Daily Ranch Journal |
RSS Feed
Proudly powered by Weebly