Feeding the Heifers-Part II

Feeding the heifers is an important ranch chore from late January to mid March. Yesterday we saw the cousins getting the hay ready, and today we're going to take the hay out to the circle field, where the heifers are. Desert Boy was very excited to have another opportunity to drive the tractor. He still doesn't steer very well, despite my husband trying to show him. I've told him I think we should wait a few years, but I get outvoted.

We have two different kinds of hay on the trailer, oat hay on the left and alfalfa hay on the right. This mixture gives the heifers a more balanced diet. (At least I think it does--my husband isn't around to check with, but if it sounds reasonable it must be right, right?)

One of my jobs was to take the fence down so the tractor could go through. Because the cousins usually do this job, the fence is closed with a ratchet strap. It's so much easier than the usual loop of barbed wire that you have to wrestle with while trying not to get your clothing torn.
As soon as we get into the field, the heifers come quickly. They like to eat. After all, they're pregnant, and pregnant females everywhere like to eat. My husband is taking the twine off the bales of hay, and although cows are usually a little hesitant around humans, these heifers are totally ignoring him in their quest to chow down.

Number 138 is staring at me, just daring me to get between her and her hay. I wouldn't even think of it. She is, after all, a lot heavier than me. She's also pregnant and who knows what those hormones are doing to augment her strength. Supercow. It's the new hero comic, just wait.

Some of the heifers already have calves. Most of them were sired by semen from a black angus bull that was artificially inseminated. Therefore nearly all the calves are black.

But here's a brown one. Its dad is probably one of the "cleanup" bulls. For the number of calves being born, there are usually two bell curves. One peak is nine months after the artificial insemination, and another is nine months after the cleanup bulls were allowed in the pen with the heifers. The peak around the artificial insemination is usually more pronounced because the AI took place over just a few days, whereas the cleanup bulls did their business over a longer time period. (Did I need to put a disclaimer at the beginning of this paragraph? Sorry if I did and you are now totally disgusted learning about the intimate lives of cows.)

Back to the food. The hay bales are set on chains that rotate as the tractor drives, so the hay slowly falls off the trailer. The heifers don't want to wait for the hay to reach the ground, though, they want to eat now.

I love the expression of the cow in the back corner, the one that says "Hey, don't leave me out! I want some hay too!"

The heifers are chowing down as fast as they can, grabbing clumps of hay and chewing away. The arrival of the hay trailer is definitely a high point in their day.

As the trailer moves, some of the cows stop at the first piles of hay falling off, but many keep following the trailer. There must be something to the old adage the grass is greener on the other side...

Standing on the trailer and watching the cows, I kind of feel like we're in a long parade, with the tractor as a lead. I wonder how long the heifers will follow the trailer.

They keep coming and coming...

The little calves watch their mamas and decide they should come check out the hay too.

But then a couple get distracted and chase each other. Little calves are just the cutest! This is the biggest reason I like to go along to feed the heifers--to see the little calves.

Feeding Heifers-Part I

The heifers, or cows giving birth for the first time, are kept in a separate area close to my brother-in-law's house so he can keep an eye on them and help them out if they run into any problems. Every afternoon they are fed at about the same time with the idea that the late feeding will encourage more of them to give birth during the day. (It's easier to see if they're having trouble during the day than night.) This late afternoon feeding often allows the cousins to do this chore.

Here three of them are waiting in the blue tractor for their older sister to load a third bale of oat hay on to the trailer. Their dog, Jan, is sitting on a bale of alfalfa hay, patiently waiting.

Henry got excited seeing her and ran over to say hi. The only problem is he has a fear of jumping and wouldn't get on the trailer. And Jan thought it was pretty funny to be queen of the hay trailer and have it all to herself, so she didn't want to get down. Henry moved all around the trailer, trying to find an easy way to get on, but with no success.

Henry eventually convinced Jan to get off the hay trailer and they had a great time chasing each other around in the mud. Sometimes it looks like being a dog is a fun life!

Meanwhile, up in the tractor the kids take a break from fighting to smile for the camera. Their mom takes lots of pictures of them so they know how to pose. They also know how to fight quite well, too, especially when they're a little tired and want to get moving. 

Their big sister is using the squeeze to pinch a bale of hay between two big metal arms. On this day it was extra hard because it was so muddy, and the wheels kept spinning, so it took longer than usual.

Finally, though, she got the hay and was on her way over to the trailer. Tomorrow we'll follow the trailer and go see the heifers and some of the new calves.

Herding Sheep

As I was driving down the highway, I noticed something out of the ordinary--hundreds of white objects moving on the hillside. As I got closer, I saw it was a herd of sheep. This is sheep country out here, and every winter sheepherders bring thousands of sheep. The sheep are good at using the snow for moisture (unlike cattle, which need water). Thus  the sheep can survive in remote places in the desert, far from water as long as there is some snow. 

This big white dog is a sheep dog (sometimes referred to as a livestock guardian dog). The most common types of sheep dog in this area are the Pyrenees or Akbash. They are strong and loyal, and they always stay with the sheep, protecting them from predators like coyotes. They also protect them from strange humans, so it's never a good idea to get out of your car near a big sheep dog--you're liable to get bitten because you're seen as a threat.

Here's the sheepherder on his horse at the back of the herd. With him are several border collies. They are extremely helpful moving the sheep, with their herding instinct kicking in. The border collies stay with the sheepherder, returning to his camp at night. They are loyal to him, doing what he says.

If you look closely at the sheep, you'll notice they aren't all white. A brown sheep is put in for every 25 or 50 sheep (depending on the herd). The brown sheep allow for the sheepherder to quickly count the herd by counting them and then multiplying by 25 or 50.

The sheep are moved every couple of days so they don't overgraze any one area. Often the sheep are ready to move on, making it a bit easier to move them. 

They graze on the way, their thick winter coats protecting them from the elements. They will be sheared in April by sheep shearers that come all the way from New Zealand and Australia. (I will try to have a post about that when they come.)

Being a sheepherder is a lonely, but relatively peaceful life. It definitely involves lots of fresh air and sunshine. Most of the sheepherding is done far from roads, requiring the old-style skills of managing a horse and dogs. I admire the sheepherders--I don't think I could do that job for even one day.

Windmills in the Desert

Out on the desert floor I see a windmill, looking lonely out in the desolate brush. The windmill is a sign of early technological progress--a way to harness the wind to pump water from the ground and provide for livestock, irrigation, or other water needs. The windmill is an indication of a rural area, a place without electrical lines.

Over the last 120 years, the basic design of a windmill hasn't changed much. The fan (or wheel) at the top of the tower is turned by the wind. This rotary motion turns a set of mechanical gears that raises and lowers the "sucker rod," the rod that extends below the fan and down into the ground. The up and down movement of the rod (reciprocating motion) powers the cylinder pump located underground.

This cylinder pump is near the bottom of the well, which is dug or drilled into an aquifer. Perforations in the well casing allow water to percolate into the well, and then the pump keeps adding water to the bottom of the pipe, creating enough pressure that the water is forced upwards and out of the pipe. 

For this windmill, once the water reached the surface, it was put into this livestock tank. Today it's full of tumbleweeds, and none of the similar windmills in the valley are working. It's been quite a few years, even decades, since the last one pumped water to the surface. My husband says he can remember one working windmill as a child. 

So why aren't more of these windmills, with their simple technology, in use? With the arrival of electricity, brought by the Rural Electrification Association from the 1930s to 1950s, windmills all over rural areas went into decline because it became easier to pump water with a motor that had a steady power supply. Nowadays, with increased energy prices, more people are repairing, restoring, and installing windmills, and learning how to maintain them. 

This windmill is an Aermotor, made in Chicago. Aermotor windmills were first sold in 1888, and were made in Chicago until 1958. Today they are still sold, made in San Angelo, Texas. 

I had a little fun with lighting effects. The windmill is a fun subject to photograph.

The old timers were on to something, harnessing the free power of the wind to make life easier for them. Nowadays, more and more people are turning to the wind again, not so much to lift water from the ground, but to create electricity. The windmills that are used for electricity are called wind turbines, and we are starting to see more and more of those out in the desert.

Manure

With many of the calves out of the feed yard, it's time to clean it up. How do you clean a feed yard? I admit this is a subject I never even considered until I moved out here. It's a fairly simple process to clean. A loader is used to scoop up the manure into big piles. When the manure spreader truck is ready, the loader fills it, and then the truck takes the manure out to the fields for fertilizer.

Here's a pile in another corral. Although it might look like a lot, it's not very concentrated in nutrients, so it can take several corrals' worth to fertilize one pivot.

This is the manure spreader truck. It has extra tall sides so it can hold more.

Along the bottom is a conveyor-belt type of contraption that slowly moves the manure out of the truck and onto the field.
The manure spreader is not a new concept by any means. Hidden in the sagebrush is an old manure spreader. This one was pulled by a horse.

The concept was still the same, though, and on the right hand side of the wagon you can see the old chain used to slide the manure out of the wagon at a steady speed.

I always try to get some of the manure for my garden--the older stuff doesn't have quite the potent odor but still helps things grow.

Desert Destination: A Visit to the New Calf

As I mentioned a couple days ago, the first calf of the year was born last week. I just had to see it, so yesterday my husband, Desert Boy, Henry, and I loaded up in the truck and went out to take a visit. This calf was born premature by a couple weeks, but it looks like it's doing okay. Not great, but okay. The mother is a heifer, a first-time mother, so she doesn't really know what to do, and because she had her calf early, just as the other heifers were moved to the birthing field, she and the calf are on their own for a few days and seem a bit confused.

Here's the mom, a black baldy. The calf looks mostly black because the semen was from a black angus bull. The mama cow is watching us suspiciously, which is a good sign. Our plan was to take a quick peek at the calf and see how it's doing, and then get out of there. 

Except sometimes plans don't always go as you expect. In this case, we finally got a bunch of rain. That extra moisture, coupled with a ditch that's running to make sure the cow gets plenty of water, made the normally drivable road into a muddy mess. And we started spinning. So my husband put the truck into four wheel-drive. And we continued spinning. The mud flew on to the hood, onto the windows--it was now raining mud. And the tires kept digging deeper and deeper in the mud. 

Finally, I looked at my husband. "I don't think we're going anywhere."

He grinned. "I don't either."

Usually we're in a hurry to get somewhere, but this was a Sunday afternoon and we had had a relaxing day, so we stayed calm. We got out to take a look and saw that the tires were half-buried in mud. We didn't have a shovel, so we got a bunch of sticks and put them under the  tires. But we were in too deep. We needed to go for help.

Fortunately we had on our coats and boots, so we were prepared to go for a little walk. We headed off down the muddy road, along the edge of the field, towards the misty mountains. 

And we kept walking...

We needed to go across the field and towards the white specks on the right side of the photo, past Henry, who was having a grand old time. Our house is near the trees in the middle of the photo. What, you can't see the trees? They're a long way off. 

Desert Boy walked for a while, and then he wanted to be carried. When it was my turn, I put him up on my shoulders and he used my ears like reins. I told him he really wasn't supposed to pull on my ears.

The field we walked through was good walking. It had been planted with barley last spring. After it was harvested, it was planted with alfalfa. The short stalks are from the barley, and the mat-looking stuff is the baby alfalfa.

The Canada geese really like the field and their scat was everywhere. They sure can clean up any leftovers. Soon we crossed the field and came upon a treasure--an old junkyard. The main equipment yard is huge, but not everything is in it. This particular junkyard housed lots of older vehicles. I took quite a few pictures, but in this post will just show the station wagons to complement the post earlier this week.
This is a Chevrolet Nomad. Don't you just love the trim on the side? Because it's a four-door station wagon, we can surmise it was made between 1958 and 1961, and this was the top-of-the-line station wagon for Chevrolet. The original Nomad came out in 1955 as a two-door station wagon and was produced for three years. I am still scratching my head about two-door station wagons.

This station wagon with the cool fin taillights is a Studebaker. It was kind of hard to get a good look at it because of all the brush growing up around it, but it's probably from the 1950s and might be a Commander model. 

We spent quite a bit of time looking around the old junkyard. I must say, if you have to get stuck, it's quite an enjoyable experience if you have good weather, comfortable clothes and shoes, an interesting junkyard to meander through, and a camera to document the whole trip.

By the time we got the backhoe and took it back to the truck, it was getting pretty dark. But it only took a minute to pull the truck out, and then we were on our way.

The little calf was up and exploring her surroundings. Probably tomorrow she and her mom will be moved with the other heifers and hopefully they'll get more accustomed to being together and figure out what they're supposed to do.